Western Christians are not being persecuted...

[Aaron]

Something I saw on facebook today and thought I'd share with the group.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/aug/15/rowan-williams-persecuted-christians-grow-up.

 

Tell me what you think.

 

Aaron

 

 

[Seeker of Wisdom]

Christians in Britain and the US who claim that they are persecuted should "grow up" and not exaggerate what amounts to feeling "mildly uncomfortable", according to Rowan Williams, who last year stepped down as archbishop of Canterbury after an often turbulent decade.

 

"When you've had any contact with real persecuted minorities you learn to use the word very chastely," he said. "Persecution is not being made to feel mildly uncomfortable. 'For goodness sake, grow up,' I want to say."

 

True persecution was "systematic brutality and often murderous hostility that means that every morning you wonder if you and your children are going to live through the day". He cited the experience of a woman he met in India "who had seen her husband butchered by a mob".

I absolutely agree. I've seen people treat Christianity as stupid, but Christians themselves at most get the light ribbing you'd expect to happen sometimes in a society with free speech.

 

My dad has joked about me 'floating over Tibet' and there's no malice there. Christians should be able to take some lulz too.

 

Sharing a platform at the Edinburgh international book festival with Julia Neuberger, senior rabbi at the West London Synagogue, Williams launched a withering critique of popular ideas about spirituality. "The last thing it is about is the placid hum of a well-conducted meditation," he said.

 

He said the word "spiritual" in today's society was frequently misused in two ways: either to mean "unworldly and useless, which is probably the sense in which it has been used about me", or "meaning 'I'm serious about my inner life, I want to cultivate my sensibility'".

 

He added: "Speaking from the Christian tradition, the idea that being spiritual is just about having nice experiences is rather laughable. Most people who have written seriously about the life of the spirit in Christianity and Judaism spend a lot of their time telling you how absolutely bloody awful it is." Neuberger said she found some uses of the word self-indulgent and offensive. Williams argued that true spirituality was not simply about fostering the inner life but was about the individual's interaction with others.

 

"I'd like to think, at the very least, that spiritual care meant tending to every possible dimension of sense of the self and each other, that it was about filling out as fully as possible human experience," he said.

 

Asked by Neuberger whether he felt organised religion encouraged the life of the spirit, he replied: "The answer is of course a good Anglican yes and no". While it can pass on the shared values of tradition, it can also operate as simply "the most satisfying leisure activity possible. It can also be something that you use to bolster your individual corporate ego."

Wonderful! Very wise, in line with the big picture of cultivation here. Some of this wouldn't look out of place in the Platform Sutra.

[thelerner]

You'd understand, if you watched more Fox