A (new) friend is returning from a tour of the Holy Land. She has been posting regular updates to her blog about the adventure.

Her posts got me thinking back on some of the thoughts I've had over the years. There are a couple of people and a couple of books that have really affected me.

First, the books

• Three Cups of Tea - The true story of a Western mountain climber who decides to build a school for a remote village in Pakistan. He ends up creating a foundation to build schools for remote villages. Muslim villages.
• Early Christian Writings - We did a book study at my church a few years ago, and this was the book. It goes through some of the major writings of the first century Christians. These were the people who actually knew the apostles. Deep dive stuff, but interesting to see where our modern traditions come from.
• Is The Bible True - This was written by an editor at Newsweek. It challenges some of the conventions you've thought were true but probably aren't. It has a happy ending, though.
• The Return of the Prodigal Son - Like Whoa.

Now The People

A little disclosure: I grew up Methodist. You don't get much more laid back than that. This was before the Methodist church got all modern with the Contemporary Services. I married my wife in the Episcopal church she grew up in. I decided to become an Episcopalian, and it was one of the best decisions I made. I was a little concerned about the pomp and circumstance of all the ritual, but our church doesn't get really hung up on those details. You can do it or not - whatever. The rector (head priest) at our church at the time was a wonderful man, and he touched our lives immensely. He retired a few years ago, and I still miss him dearly.

We also had a husband-wife combination in the church who would give classes regularly. He is an Old Testament scholar at a local Methodist university, and she is now an ordained priest. They gave great classes, and taught us all kinds of great stuff.

This is the thing with us Episcopalians - we like to look at the historical context to figure out what's going on in a given passage. They were always really good about drawing from related scriptures as well as historical knowledge of the time.

Some Thoughts

So with that backdrop, I have a few thoughts to challenge you.

The Three Cups Of Tea book was a good launching point for this conversation because there is a lot that happens with the machine of Islam. There are lots of things done in the name of Islam that don't have anything to do with Islam at all. The same holds true for Christianity. We get wrapped up in the trappings and ritual of Christianity and lose site of the meaning of Christianity itself.

Let's take music as an example. The Disciples of Christ do not have instrumental music in their services because there is no mention of it in the New Testament. You have the great cathedrals with the magnificent organs on the other end of the spectrum. You also have the Contemporary services with their obligatory bands let by the 20-something Music Minister.

Alcohol. Fundamentalists are typically completely against the stuff. We take communion every week with real wine. We have a kid's service at our church, and when we celebrate The Eucharist (communion) even the kids take the blood. They usually dip the cracker into the wine, but it's still real wine.

Women. Some of the more conservative factions don't believe women should be ordained. Some of the most influential people in my life have been female priests.

So I say be careful to get lost in the trappings and rituals of Christianity and lose sight of the meaning. Asking questions is healthy. Explore your faith and challenge it. Are you doing what you do because it means something to you or because it looks good to the people around you?

The priest whom I miss dearly always pushed us to challenge ourselves. If you weren't a little bit uncomfortable then you weren't trying hard enough. He would remind us that this is hard stuff, and you have to work at it.

I also want to apologize for running roughshod over the core premises of the Episcopal church, and in fact the greater church in general.