"Elitism has always been a problem. Our brotherhood is suffering tremendously from it today. Those on the radical right seem to think they are the only ones who are sound. Many of them have become professional faultfinders and file-keepers. They seem to promote themselves by discrediting others. They fuel the passions of their followers by spreading seeds of doubt, suspicion and paranoia. Those on the liberal left seem to think they are the only ones who are spiritual. Many of them have assumed the position of the "truly and newly enlightened." Their vocabulary often portrays conservative brethren as having petrified minds, peanut hearts and a borrowed religion. They lead their followers with a promise of deliverance from "all that old stuff."
Both groups attempts to forward their cause by using the most extreme examples from the opposing side, leaving the impression that they are the only ones who can deliver the brotherhood from such a misguided direction. The messiah complex" is running rampant. Some call it "pharisaism; I call it elitism.
Unfortunately, the extremists on both sides are shooting through the heart of our brotherhood as they criticize the other. Where are you in all of this? You probably are where many of us are; trying to balance both spirituality and soundness - realizing the enemy is Satan, not our own people." Dennis Jones…President of International Bible College.
DIFFERENT DRUMS AND DIFFERENT DRUMMERS
"If I do not want what you want, please try not to tell me that my want is wrong. Or if I believe other than you, at least pause before you correct my point of view. Or if my emotion is less than yours, or more, given the same circumstances, try not to ask me to feel more strongly or weakly. Or yet if I act, or fail to act, in the manner of your design for my action, let me be.
I do not, for the moment at least ask you to understand me. That will come only when you are willing to give up changing me into a copy of you.
I may be your spouse, your parent, your offspring, your friend, or your colleague. If you will allow me any of my wants, or emotions, or beliefs, or actions, then you open yourself, so that some day these ways of mine might not seem so wrong, and might finally appear to you as right…for me. To put up with me is the first step to understanding me. Not that you embrace my ways as right for you, but that you are no longer irritated or disappointed with me for my seeming waywardness. And in understanding me you might come to prize my differences from you, and, far from seeking to change me, preserve and even nurture those differences." Please Understand Me (Character & Temperament Types: David Kearney and Marilyn Bates, (Promeheus Nemesis Book Company) P.O. Box 2748, Del Mar, CA 92014
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