Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: dhosek@euler.claremont.edu (Don Hosek) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Faith in secret (was Re: Use of God's money) Message-ID: Date: 21 Apr 91 05:47:14 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Harvey Mudd College Lines: 62 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article , johnw@stew.ssl.berkeley.edu (John Warren) writes: > In article jjk18642@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (James J Kristofer) writes: >>I don't think I should not pray at a restaurant just because I think it >>will make someone else feel less right about themselves. > What better 'streetcorner' is there than a restaurant? I suppose the > answer is TV. > I admire your attitude of not worrying what other people think (I'm not > being flip), but Jesus didn't say: "Don't pray on the streetcorner, > unless you feel that you're not doing it with the motive of showing people > how spiritual you are." He said: "Don't pray on the streetcorner." > I don't mean to sound fundamentalist about this issue, but I think Jesus knew > human nature pretty well and knew how our motives could get corrupted, our > attention diverted, etc. So he said to do it in a closet. (My apparent > 'fundamentalism' ends here: I don't actually pray in a closet.) It's interesting to contrast Matthew Chapter 6 (prayer, almsgiving, and fasting should be secret) to Matthew Chapter 5 ("You are the light of the world... your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly father.") Back the Monday before Ash Wednesday, it fell to my lot to do the opening prayer for the parish's young adult community and since Mt 6 is the reading for Ash Wednesday, I read that and the Simile of light from 5 closing with the question, "And you--how do *you* live both teachings?" Christianity is a wonderful religion (wonderful in both the common sense of "rather nice" and also in the sense of "full of wonder"). There are so many apparent contradictions in teachings etcetera. We are called to walk a rather narrow line. For example, anyone who tells you that salvation is solely through works is missing the point just as much as someone who tells you it's solely through faith. The two are too interdependent to be separated like that. We're called in the case of the sermon on the mount to a very difficult position: we must glorify God the Father, but we must be careful not to do things in a manner that causes the glory to go to ourselves instead. And it's very difficult, but Jesus never said following Him would be easy. I don't have a fish on the back of my car for two reasons. One is that I personally tend to get a very negative impression of those people who do have their aluminum fish on the hood partly because of reasons related to the second reason: what does advertising that one is a Christian on the back of one's car do for God? Am I to imagine that someone noting that I let them ahead of me in L.A. traffic will also notice the fish and decide that they should look into all this Jesus stuff? It seems to me more likely that someone seeing that will get the impression that the driver of the car is some self-righteous pompous ___ regardless of what I do. It seems to me that this sort of advertising of one's faith is more a self-promotion than a God promotion. Sadly, getting back the first reason, my experience tends to bear this out. -dh Don Hosek dhosek@ymir.claremont.edu Quixote Digital Typography 714-625-0147