what would jesus do, for real?

so today i watched this episode of 'wife swap' ..yes i know, a little embarrassing, let's blame one rebecca ANN osborne for doing this to me.

anyways, it was pretty appealing to me because the two families were christians, i think one was lutheran and the other may of been methodist (not completely important either way).. but neither family found shame in the fact that they chose to live according to the word of God and apply it to every aspect of their lives.

sounds wonderful up to this point, right? there probably wont be much fighting or disagreeing between the husbands and their new wives, like there would be between say.. a strict and conservative mormon family and some ultra liberal hippies with openly gay children.

but no, no, hell no. there was conflict galore!

the catch was.. one family consisted of the typical, conservative and traditional roles of a christian family living in the bible belt. the husband went to work every day and used the phrases "gatekeeper" and "watchman on the wall" several thousand times throughout the course of the episode (though, clearly, he had no idea the historical context and/or what those phrases really mean). and the wife stayed home with her kids, homeschooled them, had the dinner on the table for when the gatekeeper got home from work, and referred to herself as her husbands "helpmate" while wholeheartedly believing that a womans only calling in life is to wait on the husband and raise the children (god forbid a free thinking woman who has a career!)

the husband from the other family assumed the role of the other side of this all too familiar battle. he held three masters degrees and a phd, all in theological studies and biblical history of some sort. he was usually seen making a mockery of "bible thumpers" as he called them, praying over dinner in a theatrical and sarcastic fashion, and talking about how many times he had been burned by the conservative christians in the world who stuck way too closely to the infalliable and literal interpretation of the scriptures. his wife was a strong working woman, who read her bible daily but believed it should not be taken too literally and that women were clearly just as strong as men in today's society.

all this to say.. it once again got me thinking about the different sides in this war we call christianity and i was left wondering.. what's the point, really?

after the liberal husband got a little hysterical about how he could never trust a fundamentalist ever again, he said this (or something close to it): "why can't you just look past my sin and see me as a human being? just accept me for what i am, and love my heart despite what you think might be sinful or not"

that really is the end all to be all in this issue, i think. why can't we just accept each other? why can't both sides of this battle put up their white flags and try to come to understand the basics of christianity? it was meant to be counter-cultural, it was meant to be revolutionary, it was meant to teach love and acceptance and justice to all men, all women, all ages, all races.

what started as such a life-changing way to look at the world has turned into judgment and rules and manipulation. to the point that we have two families who read the same book and attend the same types of churches.. but are completely different and just cannot see eye to eye.

why does it have to be a battle of who's right, and who's not.. why can't we just accept one another and live in harmony with each other? i mean, i hate to sound unitarian (since that would be seen as sinful where i come from), but can't we all just coexist? is that so much to ask?

that's what i'm going to do. i just want to love and accept. no matter how much book knowledge you might have or how out of context you take the scriptures. i'm just going to love, regardless. isn't that what jesus would do, anyway?