Are We?

Hi David. Overall, this is an interesting piece that raises some good questions. However, I'm not a fan of just listing a bunch of rhetorical questions. It helps to offer some answers, to give some imagery the reader can connect with. I think a way to improve this would be to contrast the Christian ideals with how some Christians behave in reality. For example "Jesus said 'Love thy neighbor'/but we prefer to judge ours". Or "Love the sinner, hate the sin/But their sins are worse than ours". Or "Jesus said sell everything/but I'll just give 10%". I think these sorts of contrasts would send a more powerful message, showing how deep this hypocrisy runs.

I understand if you don't plan to work on this anymore since it's older, but I think using stronger imagery would help improve your writing in the future as well. Keep writing!

Hey David! Hopefully I can give a bit of advice here!

Interesting piece you have I personally like to read tough questions like this, it definitely gets me thinking!

First off, a quick correction:

"Are we the one's who stand up and say NO?

Are we the one's who care not for ourselves but for others?"

one's should be ones You wrote it correctly in other places, but you got tripped up here.

The last line, "are we Christians" really changed the tone of the whole piece for me x) It feels like what you are trying to say is that on one side we have people that like to teach the truth, stop fighting, care for others, stand up for themselves. And on the other hand we have people who call themselves Christians that you say are hypocritical, "normal", crowd followers.

I wasn't sure where you were going with this until that last line, but it made an impact and made me think. This was a good way to express your opinions and beliefs and I think it worked well!

For a small piece of writing, this was a good job.

If you were looking to make this on a bit larger scale, I would just try and expand on some of your questions and points with some interesting examples.

Hope this was helpful!

Hi there. 567ajt here, about to review your poem. This is fairly short, but I will try and review it my best.

First off, let me tell you something. I am an atheist. I don't believe in God. However, that didn't stop me from liking this poem. It had an important message- that being, true identity. So, in your case, there are some religious people- not necessarily Christian- who aren't actually practicing the teachings of the religion. This is something I kind of agree on.

So, let's take a look at your poem step by step.

"Are we prepared to teach others the truth?
Are we prepared to show them what we stand FOR rather than what we stand AGAINST?
Are we the one's who stand up and say NO?
Are we the one's who care not for ourselves but for others?
Are we the ones who try and stop the fight?"

You raise a lot of interesting points in this stanza. This idea of being prepared to tell people, is a really true and strong idea. I liked the second line. This is because a lot of people are exposed to the "don'ts" rather than the "dos" in every day, i.e. protests, demonstrations etc. I don't have a problem with this, except the first line. About the truth. It all goes down to opinion. And, by "truth", do you mean in terms of discipline or how we were created? Perhaps you could specify. Also, by trying to "stop the fight", what does this entail? What fight are you talking about?

"OR..."

This part is really affective. It shows transition, as well as suggesting the first stanza has an element of sarcasm attached to it. Therefore, the narrator is having a crisis of faith. He realizes what is going on. He decides to change it around. He is changing his way.

"Are we the ones that just go along with what people say?
Are we the ones who are normal?
Are we teaching others what the world would teach you?
Are we showing the world how hypocritical we can be?
Are we Christians?"

The first line is relevant to today's society. I know a lot of people who were raised as Christian, but they don't actually practice the religion's teachings. This applies to a lot of other religions. This is not to say there are no more "true" religious people, but the ones I am exposed to fit your description. I loved the fourth line, for the simple reason that it is sort of true. There are times where hypocrisy is exposed, either when learning about a particular religion, or by the actions of religious people in every day life. The last line is incredibly affective, for the simple reason that it suggest that there is a "true" christian and a "false" christian. The narrator acknowledges this.

So overall, this is an interesting poem. It made me think about belief, and to what extent one can believe in something.