I'm not bad...I'm just drawn that way.

Okay, so back to the fact that I go to Bible Study once a week. This Bible study, as I mentioned before, is really hard-core and very conservative. It's only for women and there are about 250 women in it. We all gather in the sanctuary of our host church (it is non-denominational) and sing some hymns and the leader prays a group prayer and then we splinter off to our discussion groups. My group has about a dozen women in it. Then we get back together in the sanctuary for a "lecture" which basically goes over the material we discussed and fills in any blanks we may have had in our discussion.

Now, don't get me wrong, I enjoy Bible study in general. This one though, well, it's really something else. The first time I walked in I thought maybe I had been sucked into a vortex that took me somewhere down South because all the women were dressed up and some even had on hats! This is at 9:00 on a Thursday morning. I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. A lesser women might have felt self-conscious and under dressed, but I suffer from an overly healthy dose of self-esteem so I didn't. Then the "lecturer" starts getting into the rules...if you're more than 10 minutes late don't come in, don't read the notes in your Bible to help with the discussion questions, no perfume, no drinks, etc. Rebellion was already stirring up inside me as I vowed to always use the notes in my Bible.

Anyway, we are studying the book of Romans. In this book Paul is writing to the early Christian churches...bucking them up and reiterating the rules of being a Christian. Read with the right mind-set, it can be a very uplifting book. Well...not with this group of over-dressed zealots.
For the most part I leave every Thursday feeling doomed. But, then I put it in perspective and I am better. One week the lecture went on and on about how our culture is bringing down Christianity in general. According to her the downfall of Christians is People magazine (which I subscribe to) secular music (which I adore, especially Justin Timberlake. On his new CD he has a song which repeats the phrase "Damn Girl" over and over. You know, not like he's cursing the girl, but like "Damn girl, you're so fine." Love it!) and television (which I don't really watch, but I do make it a point to always see Gray's Anatomy in which everybody is sleeping with someone and they make dubious and capricious medical choices based on how hung over they are...I could only hope to have doctors that hot and interesting if I ever get really sick. Of course, they'd probably kill me in the process of healing me, but...Oh! And did you ever notice that on these shows the men don't shave? It's like, the more pronounced your five o'clock shadow is, the hotter you are considered. Weird. If only that held true for women and leg hair. I could save a lot of time in the mornings.)
So, where was I? Oh...the downfall of modern Christians. The answer, according to the "lecturer" was to be "in the world but not of the world". As all the other 249 women were nodding their heads and going "Ummm hummm, oh yes" I was thinking, "You have GOT to be kidding me!"
I mean, let's face it, the problem with modern Christians is not that they read People magazine or know all the words to "Sexy Back"! If all it took to be a good Christian was listening to Amy Grant and reading "The Left Behind" series of books (which is a Christian series about the rapture. There's a reason why Christian literature isn't on the best seller list...it sucks.) then anybody could be a Christian. The problem is that all these women were in there agreeing that they were going to shun television, with the exception of "The 700 Club" and re-runs of "Touched by an Angel" and stop reading gossip mags and only listen to KLOVE the Christian radio station and then going home and watching Jerry Springer. My point is that hypocrisy is the downfall of Christianity. If people were more real and accepting of our culture instead of walking around with their eyes closed and their fingers in their ears singing, "I'm not listening, I'm not listening," then Christians wouldn't have such a bad reputation. How many more pastors have to get caught in a huge scandal before we realize that it is really hard to be perfect? Now, I am not condoning preachers using drugs and having gay sex with a paid pretty boy...but I don't think I am a bad Christian because I watch T.V. or read In Style magazine. If these women are so worried about the effect modern culture is having on Christians then why do they get all dressed up for Bible study? Shouldn't they be wearing sackcloth and repenting?

Now, bottom line is that I am learning a lot about the book of Romans in this study. I am also learning a lot about how easy it is to become filled with despair in the name of Christianity. I should feel bad about writing a blog because I am not writing all about the Glory of God (and I admit that I do feel somewhat bad about not liking that woman from school so much. Yikes!) but I am not going to! I guess I just don't think that this group has any right to judge me and tell me that what I do is wrong. If I were some kind of pedophile porn abuser, well that would be a different story, but I try pretty hard to do the right thing and be a good person (which may be hard to see from the stuff I've written. Oh well. As my husband would say...My bad). I'll keep going to the study because I like what I am learning.

I will also keep going because it amuses me.