The Christian Vanguard

Today, I had a friend casually refer to me as her best friend. It was the first time in our relatively short time having known each other (a little under a year) that she had called me that, and I didn't think she realized she did it. I grinned, and waited for her to complete her thought, and I said, "Awwww, I'm your best friend?" After a pause, she got defensive, and tried to play it down with, "Well, it's not like I have a lot of friends anyways, and my other best friend is my little cousin, who is like nine years old, so..." Sure.  It's a great honor really. But it can also be somewhat awkward if it isn't reciprocated. Say Devin is Adrian's best friend. This statement says something about the position of Devin in Adrian's life. It does not follow, however, that Adrian has the same status in Devin's life. Perhaps Lucas is Devin's best friend. Lucas is such that Lucas is the best friend in the set of friends Devin has. I th...

It is pretty standard to say that love is unitive. Unity seems to require consent. It wouldn't sound right to say that you and I are united in this goal when I will the goal while you will we don't meet our goal. If we happen to reach that goal through force or by accident, our unity doesn't seem genuine.  So, what happens if you love a person but that person does not love you? Can it be said that real love is happening? You will not be united, so, what gives?  The issue came up recently when my I was expressing my, oh I don't know what to call it, my inner conflict on attending a friends wedding. Because things had been tense and our last few conversations (with the bride to be) were pretty much us arguing, I was kind of in doubt about the status of our friendship. Things weren't resolved and were up in the air. So, I was expressing all the anger and confusion to my friend, and I said to her, 'You know, if I don't go to the wedding, I don't think we (...

There is a sense in which we wanted to share experiences with friends. It isn't so much that we want conformity, but unity. Conformity may be something like watching a TV show while you are at your house and he is at his, and then you text about it. You two are conforming to the same habits and same tasks. However, when there is unity, you are sharing a screen, you are sitting next to each other, and perhaps even sharing a meal. Unity is a perfected form of conformity. How strange would it be if I invited you over to watch a program and I told you to watch in the living room while I watched in my bedroom? You would think there was a serious disconnect there, and you would question why I invited you over in the first place.  So it is with friends in general. Friends do not desire just conformity, but unity. It makes me wonder about the quality of my friendships, or I guess the quality of friend that I am to them. While I do have this general desire to do things with friends, I ...

In my previous post, I mentioned I lost my friend as a friend. We are no longer friends.  Friends seek the good for one another, and goods and truth are the same things. You cannot have something based on an untruth as a good. The most perfect friendship is united in all the Truth. My friendship with the character we are calling Uriah ended for precisely that reason. I can pinpoint that moment. I remember it well. 

I’ve received multiple lists of requests for more of my slogan takedowns. Some of them I haven’t heard before, so I honestly can’t say anything about them. But I did find some gems. Here they are.