The Emergent Prophet and Casual Christianity

Emergent Prophet here…I am writing in my diary this evening and may post to my web-blog later. So if you are reading this online, I guess I decided to vent in public. After all, isn’t that what it’s all about…if you got a beef (no pun intended as you will see later) about something or someone, the best thing to do is to post it online, or put it on my Facebook page so that when people disagree with my opinions and ideas, then I can denigrate them and have my peeples beat them up online with scathing critiques and well thought out editorials. I think that this is best. Well, anyway, what has me up late tonight (besides not wanting to miss another episode of Letterman and How I Met Your Mother) is that I am steamed about getting thrown out of the Vegan Rally and Fruitfest earlier today.

 Here’s how it went down… I had my booth set up at the Fair, I had paid my fees, had my license in hand and was all set up to try to make some much-needed funds to help pay for my botox injection, when some crazed, fanatical, apparently right-wing crazies from the Vegan Party came all unglued and went postal on me. They said that I had no right to be selling hot dogs, hamburgers and bratwursts (real meat mind you…nothing but) at their Fair. I said that I had paid my dues, had my license, it was all LEGAL mind you, and so I didn’t see the problem. They said that this was a VEGETARIAN outing and so selling of meat was offensive and would not be tolerated. I disagreed. They threw me out. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me give you a bit of background…

 I am a vegetarian. My parents were vegetarians. My grandparents were vegetarians. In fact, my great-grandfather was vegetarian prophet of sorts – he had an organic garden, he was always preaching to people about the benefits of the vegan diet and all. So, I was born a vegetarian. My parents took me to vegetarian meetings, they made me learn stuff about vegetarians, had me memorize vegetarian mantras, and would read to me from the Big Book of Vegetarian Teachings each night. I am a vegetarian.

 But, one day I left home and went away to college. It was there that I had my in-bred, farm-boy, narrow-minded vegetarian world blown away. It started off slowly at first. I met some guys at the dorm on the first day and they jokingly told me that they would have me eating meat by the end of the year. I was convinced that they were wrong, that I was born a vegetarian and couldn’t change, but they were persistent, and they were nice to me. I went to the cafeteria with these meat-eaters and there would be hamburgers, pork chops, meatloaf or whatever and they would always try to get me to just try a bite of meat, but I stuck to my guns (though I find real guns offensive and think that they should be banned by the government, who needs guns today anyway and who cares about what some fascists thought about 200 years ago?) and would only eat fruit and veggies, with the occasional triscuit. I wasn’t trying to offend anyone, I just thought that it was wrong to eat meat, and that meat-eaters were nice enough people – but misguided. My thinking was so quaint. After all, they were my friends and they seemed like such nice people who were sincere in their belief that they were born as meat eaters. And they were offended that I thought that it was wrong to eat meat. They said that if I loved them then I had to love their meat.

 Well, one day, after much pleading and begging from my friends, I tried a bite of corn dog. Wow, that was good. I began to see the error of my ways. Then the next day, I had a Quarter Pounder, then a spare rib, until eventually I went all out and ate a T-Bone Steak for dinner! This was an epiphany! I could not believe that I had lived my whole life in this little vegetarian cocoon and had not experienced something as wonderful as this T-Bone! I was converted. They were right – “eating meat is sweet” and I was a Carnivore by Carnivaal (another neat little saying that they had). But I was also a bit torn – after all, I was a vegetarian. I struggled with this apparent dichotomy, until one day I talked with one of my professors who said that he was a Carnivorous Vegetarian. I thought that this was a paradox and didn’t make much sense but when he explained that the roots of the vegetarian lifestyle went back thousands of years and that in the original manuscripts of the veggie doctrine, the real meaning in the ancient Sumerian language of the concept of vegetarianism was rooted in the idea that it was ok to eat meat, it was just forbidden to eat meat from animals that might become extinct (like Dodo bird, for example) then it suddenly became clear to me: I could be a vegetarian and still eat meat! Of course, I couldn’t eat Bald Eagle, or Siberian Tiger or something, but other than that I was free! This changed my life – I could literally “have my cake and eat it too!” What freedom! I was like Michael Moore at the Golden Corral – I just couldn’t stop eating meat, I reveled in my new found beliefs!

The problem came when I wrote home to tell my folks about what I had done. They couldn’t see it like I did and they were heartbroken and disillusioned. They thought that I had lost my religion, but I assured them that, “No, I am still a vegetarian! I can just eat meat, too!” I thought that we could all get along, but they are stuck in their traditional ways and think that in order to be a vegetarian that you should actually do what vegetarians do and believe what vegetarians believe (aren’t they sort of cute in their antiquated ways?) and that it was wrong and a conflict of principle to eat meat. They just don’t get it. And neither did those Pharisees at the Fair (I should call them Fair-isees, get it?) –they told me get out and take my meat with me.

Well, I am still recovering from that slap in the face, but I have found solace online by joining a support group for Carnivorous Vegetarians, and through my friends – who are so glad that I am a meat-eater now. It also helps to talk with my professors and other students (they are so wise in the things of the world…I was so sheltered before) who have had to shed their past upbringing as fundamental vegetarians and have moved on to the new and emerging vegetarian movement, where you can eat whatever you want and still call yourself a vegetarian/Vegan.

To be honest, I still have some guilt, but I think that is because of those vegetarians preachers on TV or sometimes there are vegetarians who meet (not “meat”, get it?) on campus and try to bring me back to true vegetarianism (but I remind myself that they are just hypocrites who probably help themselves to a can of Spam when no one is looking). I think that the school should ban these kinds of people from sharing their beliefs as it makes me uncomfortable. In fact, I think that the government should ban all fundamental vegetarians from discussing their radical beliefs with others in a public forum, you know maybe they should not allow them to even think their radical thoughts and they should put them in jail to get their minds right – after all, it has been really freeing for me to shed my past convictions and embrace the totality of who I am – a Carnivorous Vegetarian! Yeah, for me! I’m gonna make a quick run to Jimmy Johns!

  Titus 1:16 “They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient, and worthless for any good deed.”

The Emergent Prophet and John the Baptist

Emergent Prophet here. I’m feeling a bit surly today because I am a little upset about my friend John. He has been taken and put in prison and I am pretty sure that it ain’t gonna work out too well for him. He’s somewhere across the Jordan River in Herod’s summer palace and I’ve heard that he may have been beheaded already. Not sure, but that is the word on the street. Something about some exotic dancer chick getting Herod all worked up about something and he gave her whatever she wanted and she wanted John dead and his head on a platter (she really needs to stop playing those zombie video games) or something like that.

Anyhoo, I am a bit miffed because it didn’t have to work out this way, and I just need to vent. So here goes… I had talked with John just a few months ago, maybe it was more than that, I don’t remember. But I had told him that he was pushing his personal limit and that he needed to change his method of ministry or it wasn’t going to end well. But he wouldn’t listen to me, no sir, he just kept talking something about being on a mission from God, announcing the Messiah and all. I wish he would have taken my advice, and then he could be here right now. Safe and sound. I had been following John around for a while, and we’d become friends, after all, we are both prophets, right? We had some of the same friends, read some of the same blogs, and shared a passion for ministry. Hanging out with John was a trip. Everybody knew who he was, “come out and see the wild man of Judea, watch him eat grasshoppers” and all that. He was a powerful speaker, man, that guy could turn on the heat.

The problem was, and I told him so, was that he was gonna offend some people, some powerful people if he kept on preaching about sin and so forth. I told him to tone it down. As a matter of fact, I told him a bit more than that, I said that if he would clean up his act, I mean, cut your hair, trim your beard (look a little bit more metrosexual, GQ, you know), get some proper clothes then people would be more likely to listen to what he had to say. I think that this was some good advice. I mentioned that he should change his diet a bit, too. The bug thing had to stop. The folks at PETA were getting upset, as were the good people from Animal Planet and it just didn’t look good. It wasn’t like people would give you your own reality show or something if you bit the heads off of defenseless animals. I said that he should consider going Vegan, at least give it some thought. And the honey sometimes would be stuck in his beard and it just gave an impression of someone that was, you know, not normal. Like a Jeus Freak or something.

Besides that most excellent advice, I suggested that he tone down his message. I mean, this was the main thing – people don’t want to hear about their sin and be told that they need to repent. This is the first century after all, I told him he needed to stop sounding so BC (I mean, BCE, I forget about the PC terminology, it’s hard to keep up), we don’t talk about sin anymore. I suggested that he share with people about the God of Love and that this God wouldn’t let anyone go to Hell and that if they would just give Him a shot, then He could truly help them to have their best life NOW, not later, but NOW. That’s Love Winning, right? That’s what people want to hear. Not about giving up sin (I mean who can really define ‘sin’ anyway, right? – that’s just opinions, I mean some would say that sin is just not being true to your own values…how can you argue with that logic?).

So I said, why don’t you talk about God having a wonderful plan for your life and just try Jesus, if He doesn’t work…take Him back. You know whatever it takes to get a disciple, right? Well anyway, John wouldn’t go for it, he kept on preaching about repentance and the kingdom of God and the Messiah. Which probably wouldn’t have been too bad except for then he made the cardinal sin (there’s that word again) of breaking the separation between state and religion. He started preaching about Herod’s tendency to have lots of women, in particular the wife of his brother. John told him that this was wrong and he needed to stop it, and repent (of course). I warned him that preaching and politics didn’t mix and that it was the job the evangelist to just tell people about Jesus -- not getting mixed up in politics and moral issues. I mean, you can’t legislate morality right? And didn’t John even listen to Jesus tell us not to judge people? And not to talk to them about the speck in their eyes when we all have these monstrous logs in our own eyes? I guess John missed that sermon series, I don’t know, but whatever got into him, John thought that it was important to stand up for God’s values even in an immoral culture and to stand up to an ungodly administration. Besides, Herod isn’t even a Jew, how could anyone expect him to live up to God’s laws that were written thousands of years ago and really just applied to the Hebrews, back in the day. I knew he was asking for trouble. Why don’t people listen to me?

Luke 13:3  No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. 

Acts 17:30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent