Viral Faith

"Contamination-based reasoning, being governed by a unique set of rules, is often immune to reason and rationality"~Richard Beck in Unclean: Meditations of Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality Matthew 9:10-11 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" came and ate with him and his disciples.  When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" Researchers have shown that the revulsion or disgust we feel towards things is a deeply embedded, psychological and sociological reality.  In a particular study, people were offered juice and just prior to receiving it, watched as a roach was dipped into the juice and removed immediately.  Most people kindly refused the juice.  The juice was then placed in filtering process, boiled, filtered again to so to prove by scientific method, it was free of any bug-related contaminants.  Most people

Forget about deciding what's right for each other. Here's what you need to be concerned about: that you don't get in the way of someone else, making life more difficult than it already is. 14 I'm convinced — Jesus convinced me! — that everything as it is in itself is holy. We, of course, by the way we treat it or talk about it, can contaminate it.  Romans 14:13 from the Message Bible Why are so many Christians angry?   Why is it that when we are given the opportunity to demonstrate the love of Jesus in public forums, we exchange the privilege with regretful injections of poisonous barbs?   On Youtube this past week, a video of a worship service where a small boy, probably 5-6 years old, was singing a song " Ain't no homo gonna make it into heaven ".  The interesting thing is not whether I can find Biblical support for homosexuality as a sin (Romans 1 for example) but why the focus of a worship service is not God, but the denouncing of others.  Ac