• "Hail to the Chief" - no one should sing this. The word "hail" should be restricted to the Lord. The Lord is the only true Chief, and indeed, the heart that hails two chiefs is like the house divided that can't stand up for itself. Even the instrumental version should be avoided, since it will only tempt us within our hearts to sing silently along, within our minds ("Hail to the Chief, he's the Chief and so we Hail him..."). I suppose it would be technically okay to use "Hail to the Chief" specifically as a hymn - with "Chief" referring to the Lord - but this seems a faintly ludicrous stretch. And besides, the secular associations will be hard to shake. Like when a "Christian Rock" artist tells us that the "You" in their blatant love song is really Jesus. Whom shall we fool with such sophistries? Not the Lord!
• Capitalizing pronouns and nouns that refer to the Lord is well and good, but it is disrespectful to God to capitalize the proper names of other people, places, and institutions. Capitalization should be reserved unto the Lord only. Except for the beginning letter of a sentence! Which is only capitalized in due tribute to God, who was at the beginning of all things.
• Kissing one's spouse with your eyes open is an abomination.
• As an outward sign of our respect for God, we should refrain from giving each other sidelong looks and saying things like, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Only the Lord can read minds!
• Superhero comics and movies should be voluntarily revised so as to make it clear that all of the superheroes' amazing powers come from God. This has not been sufficiently stressed in many of our popular entertainments. As long as this oversight is redressed (within a reasonable period of time), no boycott should be necessary. NOTE: the fact that superheroes' amazing powers come from God does not absolve the heroes of their great responsibility for the decisions they make, nor does it implicate God for the uses to which they put their great power. Such a view would negate free will!
• It should not be considered permissible to joke or jape at things religious. Whether God has a sense of humor is beside the point. Of course God has a sense of humor! God is endowed with every sense that humanity enjoys, and many, many more besides. So of course God has a sense of humor! And it is infinite. But there are limits, and joking about religious matters would seem to be out-of-bounds any way you slice it. For any number of good reasons. So basically, don't.
• Use of the word "brethren" for sarcastic purposes is not an abomination, but it comes pretty perilously close.
• Eating for pleasure is a sin. The purpose of eating is nutrition only; any other use is a misuse and an abuse, like masturbating with your mouth.
VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: As of this writing, none of the above are (as yet) in any way improper or objectionable. These hangups are merely at the "proposal" stage. However, I feel that they are easily on par with many of the persnickety little details, taboos and legalisms that people bandy about to make each other feel bad, or damn each other to hell with. My proposed New Rules for Christian Etiquette could easily be adopted and stand proudly alongside many similar, well-established traditional restrictions with equal justification. Pretty much.
Also, at least a couple of those ideas up there have probably already been kicked around in other forms, by other thinkers in other times, maybe partially embraced in some quarters, but still haven't quite "caught on" in the mainstream yet. So I'm including them here to "give boost to it", as it were. To throw my support behind what should be an unjustly-overlooked signpost for the soul, a guideline to help our wayward feet find the narrow path that we can ease on down.
Brethren, never let us forget that more rules = more attention paid to God. You can't follow it if there's no rule, right?
3 comments:
That was enlightening. I particularly liked how you drew attention to the sin of enjoying food and gave it an equal status with enjoying sexual pleasure. Brilliant! If I were still a legalist, I might start implementing your proposals personally immediately, but since I'm not, I think you should forward your proposals to some different well-respected leaders in the church world. Or maybe just write a book!
LOL, just had another thought, you could be rich! Just write your book on weight loss using the same principles the church has used in order to get married people to stop having sex ( at least with each other). It's a bit of reverse psychology mixed with brain washing..you know, lay down the law "YOU MUST EAT MORE, YOU MUST EAT ALL MANNER OF COOKIES, CAKES, FAST FOOD..." you get the point. As soon as this law is in effect, people with lose their appetites and rebel by eating less and less.
Sin is a sin. I believe that sin itself is a sin. I think that we can substantiate this through biblical and extrabiblical means if we try hard enough.
On the face of it, I admit it seems like a little bit of a stretch.
Post a Comment