Churches have all sorts of ways of ring-fencing ourselves, locking people out, comfortably defining evil as Not-us, Them Over There; but at the heart of Christianity is inclusiveness. Jesus says “Go out and make disciples of all nations” which is impossible if you will not talk to them. All nations are the mission field. As the Jesuits recognised, they listen to you more if you make an effort to listen to them, to see what they value, to speak their language.
Then, there is salvation by grace. Between the saddle and the ground, the man realises that he has done wrong, and he accepts the offer of Christ. He calls on Christ as his saviour. He is in, immediately. However we might disapprove of him, he is one of us now, part of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Muslims have the same idea. The Shahada (testimony) pronounced sincerely to a Muslim is sufficient to make you a Muslim. Say “La ilah illa Allah, Muhammad rasoolu Allah”, meaning “There is no true god (deity) but God (Allah), and Muhammad is the Messenger (Prophet) of God.” Anyone may be included.
Some Christians talk of The Fundamentals- originally the verbal inerrancy of the Bible, the divinity of Jesus, the Virgin Birth, salvation by Penal Substitution (Jesus bears the punishment for our sin) and the physical resurrection of Jesus- but these are inessential. How could it be otherwise? One Christian might see that another’s belief is insufficient, and attempt to educate him, but Jesus admonishes her to first take the log out of her own eye.
A Christian is anyone who follows Jesus, in however idiosyncratic a way.
Christians cannot merely associate with Christians, or with people of whom we approve. Again we have Jesus’ example, associating with foreigners, colonial oppressors, prostitutes, pharisees- anyone willing to talk to him.
Let the one without sin cast the first stone. Inspired by Linuxgal.
Clare Flourish 
joyful post and light!
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Hello Mihran.
I went to your blog, and read Mihran Kalaydjian On a personal note, I love the outdoors, comedy, bbq, reading and traveling. I worked in the beer industry in college so I love talking about good beer. I used to be a competitive runner so (like all runners) if you make the mistake of asking me, I’ll tell you about my entire career and PRs. I also spent my youth working in restaurants, so if you’ve done the same, we can swap stories.
Mihran Kalaydjian, A proven ability to articulate a company’s brand culture as well as key strategic initiatives and delivery of desired results. Outstanding leadership, communications and project management skills. A committed individual with strong organizational skills that believes leading by example is key to building a strong team to achieve high guest satisfaction results and cost control measures.
Mihran Kalaydjian provides visionary leadership and management oversight of the sales, marketing and revenue strategies for Classic Hotels and Resorts.
I saw that it consisted of apparently random reblogs, and wondered if it was some search engine optimisation strategy to get your name out there. But what is the point, if people search for your name and find a theft-blog, reposting with no evidence of respect or consideration for the people you reblog. What will they think of you?
I reconsidered your comment, which is almost meaningless.
Go on, Mihran, say something which you think or feel, beyond “I am good at my job”. Say anything!
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I appreciate your comments. I am humbled. Thank you for your note.
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Welcome, and thank you for commenting.
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My pleasure Clare, excellent comment!
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I had a similar comment from Mr Rank. Akismet had placed it in spam. So there it stayed.
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Yes. He just reblogs. He does not comment meaningfully. You are probably right. He needs to increase his participation if he wants links preserved- and anyone finding his blog looking for a hotel worker would surely be unimpressed.
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