Real Wine at Communion--real spiritual, too.

I'm still a Christian for good reasons. If you want to know why, keep reading. Though this may at times be a story about me, it's supposed to be something you can relate to. Just bear with the early biographical posts. "Dimensions" is my safe place to express what I can't say elsewhere and what you maybe couldn't say elsewhere, if you do care to comment.

Dad makes a handy negative example with whom I will illustrate many points, but he's a good guy. So if you know me personally, please keep it to yourself in cyberspace. I want this to stay semi-private. Dad is the type of fundamentalist Christian who can turn you off because he's black/white. Sermons must be "expository" which, in his definition, means verse by verse, chapter by chapter, book by book, and not topical because you might be tempted to editorialize or miss something; you might not go "in-depth" enough. Dad is the type of fundy fundamentalist who can't see the forest for the trees, including himself as one tree in God's vast forest. He likes James Sire's Worldview book, "The Universe Next Door" being acquinted with Mr. Sire. I had the luxury of asking Sire some questions over dinner once. Sire was refreshingly honest. But although Dad thought The Universe Next Door was a worthy book, Dad wouldn't look at another worldview to try to really understand it if it was the only reading material and he was stranded on a desert island. I mean that Sire has a reading list in his books and I imagine Dad would only use the fiction for kindling on that deserted island. I told Sire over dinner once (emboldened by being an enlightened college student) that I thought his associate Schaeffer wasn't such a great writer. Mr. Sire said, "Yep. And you should have read him BEFORE I edited him!" I believe it. Thanks, Sire that it wasn't worse.

Read the book, Growing up Born Again for details on how I was raised. Don't envy all the church potlucks. I never want to see pound cake or macaroni delight again. Maybe it was a Baptist thing that I have switched denominations. Not because of the generic food but because of the social club the last Baptist church I really tried, turned out to be.

To be fair, I know that just because I hit a few not-so-great Baptist churches in the potluck surprise of church noshing, it doesn't mean good Baptist churches don't exist. I like the leader of the Southern Baptist Convention, Mohler, anyway. He is culturally relevant, to use a cliche. Anyhow, now I'm supposedly LCMS (Lutheran Church Missouri Synod) but I'm not really one cut and dried, even though I joined an LCMS church. I disagree with three major LCMS doctrines, which I'll get to later, maybe. But nonetheless, they believe the Bible for all it's worth and it doesn't feel like a social club. They're not that friendly but at least it's not a social club. And I can drink whatever I want without being a Baptist heathen. I can even drink real wine at communion just like Jesus did (think What would Jesus do...He wouldn't have worn the bracelet, for one, and he would and did drink wine, using that as a prop for his first miracle) And, no, you are not more spiritual than I am because you don't drink alcohol except in cough syrup. You may be more spiritual for a different reason but not for that. So can't we just agree to forget the spiritual pride bit even though it's a comfortable place to hide?