{"id":8111,"date":"2005-05-18T10:00:23","date_gmt":"2005-05-18T17:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2005\/05\/18\/mission-statement-2.html"},"modified":"2005-05-18T10:00:23","modified_gmt":"2005-05-18T17:00:23","slug":"mission_stateme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/05\/18\/mission_stateme.html","title":{"rendered":"Mission Statement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night was the first Vestry meeting with the new rector, and it all went well (if a bit longer than usual, which was to be expected). One of the things he asked each of us around the table, as an “ice breaker,” was what we considered our “mission,” from a religious perspective (the Gospel we looked at was the Great Commission<\/a>, so it wasn’t completely out of the blue).<\/p>\n

After a few moments thought, and realizing that I have a lot more than a single mission (even if I look at it from “just” a religious viewpoint), I came up with this:<\/p>\n

To demonstrate, through my life (i.e., not intentionally, but just as I live), to those around me that you can be observantly religious — and Christian — and not be a bigoted, arrogant, hypocritical, narrow-minded, judgmental, anti-intellectual, right-wing, busy-body, puritanical jerk.<\/p>\n

Hopefully I’m hitting most of those marks. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Note that, if this is in fact my mission, that I’m not doing it to <\/em>demonstrate it (i.e., to be persuasive or, gads, proselytize), but because I want to be the opposite of all those things. And if I succeed in that, and <\/em>if it results in some folks not <\/em>automatically assuming that “Christian = List of Jerky Behaviors Above,” then spiffy-boo, and our work here is done, Tonto. ‘Cause God knows there are plenty <\/em>of counter-examples to enforce that assumption.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night was the first Vestry meeting with the new rector, and it all went well (if a bit longer than usual, which was to be expected). One of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":131800,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/10\/15\/on-the-religious-right-and-trump.html","url_meta":{"origin":8111,"position":0},"title":"On the Religious Right and Trump","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 15-Oct-16 4:22pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I don't agree with most of Ross Douthat's points here -- that older social conservatives were more enthusiastic about Ted Cruz than Donald Trump doesn't make me think better of them; quite the opposite. But it's worth noting that he makes a few good observations. Not all religious conservatives are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6041,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/06\/02\/sealed_and_deli.html","url_meta":{"origin":8111,"position":1},"title":"Sealed and delivered","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 2-Jun-04 11:45am","format":false,"excerpt":"LA County has caved on the ACLU complaint about their seal (as earlier reported here). Los Angeles County supervisors on Tuesday ended an emotional debate over the symbolism of the...","rel":"","context":"In "ZT & PC"","block_context":{"text":"ZT & PC","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/zt-pc"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49494,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/02\/04\/pay-us-tax-money-so-we-can-discriminate-or-well-sue.html","url_meta":{"origin":8111,"position":2},"title":""Pay us tax money so we can discriminate, or we'll sue."","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 4-Feb-15 9:58pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, given how awful their grasp of science is, it would make sense their grasp of constitutional law would be equally dodgy. In this case, it's Ken Ham's organization \"Answers in Genesis, which is a biblical-literalist, Young Earth religious organization.A few years back, they convinced the Kentucky state government to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":40259,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/01\/01\/httpwww-latimes-comlocallanowla-me-ln-la-county-supervisors-cross-county-s.html","url_meta":{"origin":8111,"position":3},"title":"County Seals and Crosses to Bear","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 1-Jan-14 12:03pm","format":false,"excerpt":"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/local\/lanow\/la-me-ln-la-county-supervisors-cross-county-seal-20131231,0,1242704.story#axzz2pArh1A4VI was, mercifully, out of LA County when this kerfuffle last went on, but ... interesting.The seal shown in the story below was the \u00a0+previous_ seal, which included a free-floating cross (along with two stars) floating over the Hollywood Bowl. \u00a0The new seal is here:\u00a0http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/File:Seal_of_Los_Angeles_County,_California.png -- that cross is gone,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Church & State"","block_context":{"text":"Church & State","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/church-state"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9908,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/10\/11\/symbolic_lawsuit.html","url_meta":{"origin":8111,"position":4},"title":"Symbolic lawsuit","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 11-Oct-06 1:02pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I've blogged on this before (and before and before), and so has BD, And he managed to spot this article from the beginning of the month -- the NYT has...","rel":"","context":"In "Religion"","block_context":{"text":"Religion","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":134716,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/16\/chaplains-gone-wild.html","url_meta":{"origin":8111,"position":5},"title":"Chaplains! gone! wild!","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 16-Sep-17 10:57am","format":false,"excerpt":"The military is a microcosm of society as a whole, even with the added layer of discipline and mission. So it shouldn't be surprising that questions of religious intolerance and excessive zeal -- and just plain bigotry -- would find their way into the armed services. It's troubling amongst the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/unnamed-9.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}