The Evolution of Christianity?

This is a conundrum.

I've been exposed to a whole range of Christian belief over the years, and as a confirmed atheist (I've confirmed this myself), I've always looked on it with condescending eyes.

I went to the "Alpha Course" a few years ago, and had to quit because I found it assumed you believed the dogma before you even arrived.

There are several devout (Evangelical?) Christians in my social circle now, and I'm noticing something unnerving with their behaviour.

But let me step back for a moment.

Laura and I visited Lytton this summer to catch up with an old HP colleague and his family. We've known Steve and Yolanda (and their three daughters) since we moved back to Vancouver - so for twenty years now. The girls were babies (or unborn!) when we met them as a couple. Everybody is all grown up now, and their oldest girl has followed her mom into Counselling and Social Work.

Here's where the rubber meets the road. The entire family are Seventh Day Adventists.

This led me to a kitchen conversation with Yolanda and Stephanie about how they can set aside their personal belief system to counsel people who (very likely) share almost none of it? I also wondered why Steve and I worked so well together, and remained good friends, over our careers.

Yolanda said something very profound (I'm going to have to paraphrase).

"There are several levels to being a good Christian. Most people get stuck half way through this journey, where it's all about judgement and fear and anger and rules. They never get to unconditional acceptance and love ... that's where we try to live".

She does so well in her career (and Stephanie will too) because she accepts who you are at the outset. Never judgemental, and never putting her beliefs ahead of yours. Unconditional acceptance.

This is in sharp contrast to most other "Christians" I've met. Judge first, tell you the way the world should be, tell you how you're wrong, and tell you that they're right. We need more guns, and being gay is an abomination.

It seems to me that my Atheistic belief system is closer to Steve and Yolanda's than (fill in the blank with your favourite religion).

PS: This isn't to say that I share their belief system at all. I find it really outrageous. But we don't go there. I accept Steve and his family for who they are, and they accept me for who I am. Never prosthetizing. Never recruiting.

PPS: Very early in my days at HP, my local manager was a Mormon. Same thing. Different beliefs, but total acceptance of who I was.

Friendship...

I was thinking about the friends that Laura and I have. Most we share because we've been together so long, and there are some peculiarities. Since I'm writing this I can only speak for me, but it's similar for Laura too...

My first best friend would have been David Sandison - back in Regina. I lived down the street from David from 1967 to 1972, and saw him a couple of times when Laura and I lived in Saskatoon (1982-1988).

Another friend in the same neighbourhood - and the same time period - was Rod Anderson. So lets call this 5 years for David and Roddy (I called him Roddy). Funny enough, Rod's parent's remain good friends of my folks (they lived next door in Regina).

We moved from Regina to Prince Rupert in 1972 and I formed a whole different set of relationships. A few of those friends have stayed in touch. But we only see each other once a year - if we're lucky. I would say Doug Lenuik and Pat Roper were my best friends in high school, and I've seen Doug a couple of times in the last 30 years (I haven't seen Pat since 1979). Let's call the Rupert years 1972-1979.

The only friend that's held up from childhood through today isn't even mine. Laura and Sherri met in high school, and I met THEM BOTH at BCIT in 1979. We see Sherri and her husband Dave a couple of times a year, but we do keep our fingers on the pulse of each other's lives.

We've retained one relationship through most of the moves - the Devall's in Calgary (Mike died in 2010, but we still see Kelly often). We met Mike and Kelly when I started with HP in 1984, and have remained good friends since (so, 31 years so far). 

The point of all this is that Laura and I have friends now that we never really knew until we moved to Vancouver as adults and parents in 1995. And we've had that same set for 20 years now. We see them all the time. 

Our closest friends, the ones who would do anything for us (and we'd do anything for them) are people we've met later in life.

Is this an artifact of people that have moved a lot? 

PS: I know I'm simplifying this a bit, as there are a few friends we met at BCIT (Al, John, Mo) that we still see pretty frequently.