Offense is taken, never given [in response to yet another church press release]

Practicing real world spirituality is almost always counter intuitive to our first instincts as humans.

Understanding our spiritual selves means being comfortable with the upside-down, inside-out world, as so beautifully articulated by Jesus in the Gospels.

We are to be citizens in a kingdom where the first will be last, where you have to give away in order to receive, and where you have to die if you want to live.

One wrong way round value we often misinterpret, is the one that says we've got to stand up for our rights. Being a follower of Jesus identifies you with the Man who had no rights, and who gave up all his rights for the sake of others.

Our biggest consideration is not for ourselves, or even those in our tribes - its supposed to be for the outsider - the one who has no rights to begin with.

Yes, we are allowed to fight for rights, just not for our own rights. When we get done in, fighting for our rights is not the most appropriate spiritual response. Especially if that fighting creates an awkward relationship between us and the rest of the world.

Here's some language that identifies us as imperialist religionistas, desperately fighting to keep our rights alive [myself included]:

• We must stand up for what we believe.
• We must defend God's honour.
• We must convince them of our convictions.
• We are offended at their statements.
• We will no longer tolerate disrespect towards our organisation/beliefs/rituals.

These are all the utterances of those who still believe they need to fight for their own rights at the cost of the rights of others.

We are called to a different battle altogether.

One where we don't fight for ourselves, let alone have to defend God.

We are called to fight on the behalf of those who can't fight for themselves, and leave the being offended and being disrespected to those who have the time to waste their spiritual energies on burocratic silliness.

In this world you will be offended, disrespected, and your rights will be trampled on.

Its a given. Now lets move on.

Lets fight the good fight.

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