i hate legalism.

This is a rant about part 1 of my bad day. It just blew me away…

So, i guess the Furman job is offically out. I didn’t turn it down but NAMB turned me down b/c i drank alcohol before. Actually, they turned me down because i wasn’t willing to lie on my application and say i had the conviction the alcohol was wrong. If i had been willing to do that, i would be ok. but i just couldn’t lie. not to get a job and not to the students that i would be working with. I thought about it. i did. but i just cant.

It really disappoints me that they would not even listen to anything i had to say. It makes me want to cry because they didn’t care that my passion for those students lies where it does. Didn’t care. They just wanted someone to take a stand for something that they didn’t agree with so the Co-op SBC program wouldn’t feel like they were wasting their money on someone who doesn’t agree with them.

I said something in the 20 minutes about Jesus drinking with prostitutes–which she ignored (true to legalistic form). I tried to explain the differences in being drunk and drinking but she said they had the same basis. She argued something about people not knowing their limits and getting drunk from a “Fun” drink. I told her that was wrong because when most people get drunk, they do so with purpose. That went around in circles for a bit and ended nowhere. I asked her if she’d like me to lie and say I agreed with her. She said no, lying was wrong.

I think that someone having a passion to serve should be a qualifier in service. but no, apparently there IS a checklist. I missed that memo somehow. She told me that i just didn’t understand SBC views and convictions but “i understand that those can be confusing for people who aren’t southern baptist.” I told her that i understood; i’d been at a sb school for 4 years and a member of an sb church for 3 so i understood. THen she said they needed someone who shared in all the sbc convictions and i obviously, wasn’t that person.

The thing that gets me the most?

At the end of conversation she discounts everything that i said by telling me she’d give me another day on my application and if i felt like i could join them in their conviction, i could sign it. I could change my mind and defend these completely unjustfied and unscriptural stances against alcohol. If not, on Thursday they are denying my application. Me signing that paper meant looking at every student i encountered and lying to them. even worse, judging them by saying it was wrong–when it’s not. That makes me want to vomit.

Since when did being a Christian and serving the Lord come with these underlying principles? Apparently, for as long as the SBC has been around but really! God calls us to go and to serve. If my having consumed alcohol before overshadows my passion,  dedication, surrender, commitment and desire to serve the Lord then there is something missing.

I think, I think that Jesus called out the Pharisees for their legalistic views. Didn’t he? *thinks* Yes. Yes, he did–multiple times. Perhaps, we overlook that verse as well. Maybe it’s in the section with Jesus drinking with Prostitutes…