With all due respect to Sarah Palin, I think truly going rogue is an art form and as a pastor I’ve seen people do it over and over again through the years so I’d like to offer these pointers to those of you that want to go off the deep end in any area of life.
1. Find New Friends: When wanting to increase one’s rogueness, it’s always important to ditch your longstanding friendships. You know, the people that have been with you for years and years. Yeah, those folks. It’s time to drop them like a bad transmission and find some new friends. You’re going to want to find people that support you by telling you exactly what you want to hear. It would be best to pull from a group of people that are rogues themselves. Remember, your old, loyal friends are only holding you back.
2. Totally Ignore Common Conventions: Don’t listen to anyone with any wisdom or experience. Those folks don’t understand your totally new, never-seen-before-in-all-of-history, totally unique situation. You need to chart a new path and to do so you’re going to need to go against all the advice of every expert. Don’t just break one or two common conventions. Break them all! Nobody, and I mean nobody, is as smart as you and you don’t need to let wise, Godly experts slow you down with their years of experience.
3. Discover Whole New Ways of Understanding Scripture: It’s important to toss aside 2000 years of Christianity and be sure to formulate your own, new, bold path through scripture. Don’t let the clear admonitions of the Bible slow you down. Break it down into Greek and Hebrew root words and get at their real, obscure meanings that change the whole idea of the verses to something that lines up more with what you’re now thinking. Let’s face it, the Bible needs to be more rogue and you’re the guy to do it. You may not know Hebrew or Greek but don’t let that stop you. Go buy a Strong’s Concordance and go for it.
4. Realize You’re Special: You’ve got to accept the fact that you’re completely unique and the “rules” that apply to everyone else don’t apply to you. Go ahead, have that affair, it’s not going to impact your marriage, ministry, or career because you’re different. It’s the same thing with porn. Maybe the average joe might have a hard time handling it but you’re above average. It’s not going to impact your values or mess with your mind or slowly and methodically destroy every relationship in your life. Go ahead. Remember, you’re different. (It would be helpful to have other above average friends that are into the same “sins” helping you here. See point #1.)
Above all else remember that truly going rogue requires a lot of hard work and persistence. If you’re not careful you could easily find yourself returning to your old friends, listening to the wisdom of others, letting the Bible change you instead of you changing it and, worst yet, thinking that you actions might have consequences beyond your control. You must not let this happen. Remember, persistence is the key to being truly rogue.