Danny ChaiI was talking to Ted about this, but I don’t think I explained myself well. So my dad dislikes people who have been Christians all their lives. He’s written about this publicly, so it’s not a secret or anything, and I think it’s OK to repeat here. His problem is, they’re wholly unteachable. They think they know everything already, so they can’t be taught, when the truth is, they are frequently spiritually immature. Also, they have really strong opinions about the “right” way to do things, and are critical and uncooperative of anything else.
My problems is that I am a lifelong church-goer; worse, a pastor’s son. So I’m supersensitive about not being one of those people, who think they know the right way to do everything, need to meddle in all church affairs, and are critical when the church doesn’t do things their way.
So I’m always torn at meetings about how much to say. I just really really don’t want to be one of those people. If I am to err, I would much rather err on not saying enough and being supportive of whatever happens. The reason it’s a struggle is, truth be told, I actually do have strong opinions of how things should be done. Like everyone else, I think my opinions are right. But it might not be right, it might just be what I’m used to or what I’ve been taught. And I can never distinguish that of my opinions; what’s really “right” and what’s just acculturation (is that a word?). So I generally dislike talking in meetings.
Interesting to no one.