faith and friendship

Can a Christian and an atheist truly be friends?

Before you label me as a wacko Fundamentalist that wants to lock herself in a Christian-only bubble, let me clarify my question. To me, friendship is based on mutual respect, shared convictions, similar interests, and a deep concern for all aspects of the other's life. Of course a Christian can be friends with an atheist and vice versa. There's plenty of non-religious topics to talk about, movies to watch, hobbies to share. You can (and ought to) respect other's beliefs, regardless of whether they line up with yours 100%. And you can even share convictions with non-religious individuals (I know plenty of non-religious people who are monogamists).

So on the surface, sure, a Christian and an atheist can be really good friends as a matter of fact.

But can you be friends with the atheist who isn't just content with not believing in God, but who views religion as a whole as dangerous and believes that the world would be better off without any religion? Can someone demand that I respect their beliefs that are contrary to my own, but then disregard everything I hold dear? Can you really degrade a whole class of people (ie Christians), but then also truly care for the one Christian that happens to be your friend? If you think that the whole lot of Christians are morons, can you still honestly believe that one Christian is bright, intelligent and has anything worthwhile to say?

I think the real heart of the matter is the atheist doesn't realize what he is saying. He doesn't realize that when he tears down a religion as a whole, he's also tearing down that one Christian friend. And vice versa. The fact of the matter is that there is no "general" Christian or atheist. We're not all fundamentalists or militant atheists. But when we attack one anther, we only see black and white. We try to protect our friends by putting them in some gray area that falls outside of all of our generalizations, and then we become blind to that fact that we're really hating on them too.

So it's really not a matter of can a Christian and an atheist be friends. It's more can you profess to hate a generalized class of people and really be able to love anyone at all.

getting skinny for Jesus

I finally broke down and bought the First Place 4 Health book. Immediately after buying the book, my husband and I went out for lunch where I bought a fried chicken basket from Rush's (a local fast food chain). That was a month ago. I just started reading the book this week.

So can you tell how serious I am about this? It's taken me one month to read the introduction. I haven't even started chapter one yet. I drag my feet enough when it comes to those pesky little words "diet" and "exercise", but start throwing in Scripture references and I down-right get sulky. And skeptical. I already feel unworthy looking at the cover of Self magazine, now your going to show me another skinny cover-model and imply that not only is she skinnier than me, she's more spiritual? Egads.

And why do we have to take a diet and exercise program and make it biblical in the first place? Just so we can sell it in Christian book stores? Just because we know eating healthy and exercise is good for us, does not mean we have to find this truth in Scripture. The Bible is an anthology of spiritual teachings, not a workout plan or a biology text book. The focus of Scripture is God and how man can relate to Him. Yet, we tend to take Scripture that has spiritual applications and try to bend it to meet a certain topic. People take the story of Daniel and how he refused to eat the king's food because it violated purity laws. He asked to eat only certain foods not because they were intrinsically better for him, but because he wanted to fulfill the law. And God blessed this by making him fitter than those eating the king's food. Yet, people take this Scripture which focuses on obeying God's word and run away with it, formulating some perfect diet plan that somehow obliges God to help you lose weight.

Yet, here I am reading a Bible-study/healthy living plan. The fact remains that just because the Bible does not explicitly tell me that eating right and exercise are good for me doesn't negate the fact that these are good things. And I like the holistic approach that the First Place 4 Health program seems to endorse. The emphasis is growing in all four areas of life: physical, spiritual, intellectual and emotional. So, I'm still a little skeptical, but I'm going to give it a try. We'll just have to see.