Archive for the Category ◊ Things that will get me excommunicated ◊

05 Jul 2008 On Consistency

I am finding that the various streams of my life seem to run in some similar directions. I don’t go to church. I don’t like doctors, I don’t like public education, and I don’t like government entitlement programs (or think very highly of governments in general). I work in an industry (Strategic Communications) where most of the jobs are government ones, yet I am employed as a private consultant.

I don’t identify with either of this country’s major political parties (or any of its minor ones, for that matter). I received both my Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees from very small, private schools, neither of which could truly be called “institutions” in the truest sense of the word, given that both were less than ten years old at the time.

In short, I don’t really fit. Those of you who know me or are accustomed to reading this blog will hardly be surprised by that, but it is still jarring to admit sometimes, given how much of my life I used to spend trying to do just that.

I think that all of this comes down to the fact that I value consistency far too much to be as inconsistent as is required to truly “belong” to any of these institutions. I live a fairly consistent life – and I strive to be more consistent than I am.

I think the problem with much of our world today is that people don’t value consistency nearly enough. Our most prominent government leaders certainly do not. The two major Presidential candidates’ reactions to the recent Supreme Court decision in the case of D.C. vs. Heller are very instructive in this regard. Readers of this blog may have very strong feelings about politics in general, and about the issue of gun control in particular, but the simple fact is that however you feel, you can learn a great deal about both candidates by how they reacted to this touchstone decision. John McCain’s statement praises the decision as “recogniz[ing] that gun ownership is a fundamental right — sacred, just as the right to free speech and assembly.”

McCain calls these rights – speech and assembly – sacred . . . despite the fact that he spearheaded the campaign finance reform effort that severely curtails these same two rights . . . the freedom to use one’s money to promote the speech one agrees with, and the freedom of political parties – private organizations – to use their money to convince others to “assemble” with them.

Obama, on the other hand, begins his reaction to Heller by saying, “I have always believed that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to bear arms . . .” The same Obama with a history of opposition to such an individual right.

Of course, the fact that our nation’s – or any nation’s – politicians are prone to inconsistency should come as no great surprise to anyone who is paying attention.

One might expect better of our nation’s spiritual leaders. But if one did, one would be mistaken.

Take, for example, Josh Harris, the senior pastor of Covenant Life Church, and a leader in Sovereign Grace Ministries. In a post on his blog, Harris quotes my old pastor, Mark Dever, who takes issue with the assertion that the church is responsible for social justice – claiming that while individuals can and should practice social justice, the church has no business doing so, and should instead focus on evangelism.

I happen to disagree with this premise, and I personally think he is creating a false dichotomy or two – but that’s not my point in bringing it up. A commenter on Harris’ blog says it perfectly,

If we say we will only do good to those immediately around us or in the church, then we relegate the role of all social welfare to the government, which most of us do not want to do. If we get involved in “civilian affairs” then we can easily compromise our faith. Added to this, many churches say they are against para-church ministries, but they also don’t want their own churches to have ministries (as you state above). So what happens when I have someone who needs somewhere to stay?

Whatever the answer, we as the church can’t have it both ways. We can’t say neither the government, the church, nor parachurch organizations are allowed to do social justice.

The position Dever and Harris (and most ultra-conservative spiritual leaders, in fact) advocate is untenable. It is religious NIMBYism. “Someone should be doing social justice, just not MY organization.”

But the leaders of the evangelical left are no better. Take Jim Wallis, the leader of Sojourner Ministries, who commented on a recent dust-up between Barack Obama and Dr. James Dobson by accusing Dobson of engaging in “attacking discourse,” saying that such language should have no place in politics.

Again, you may agree or disagree with Wallis, but it seems that he himself does not fully agree with his own statement, having used the same sort of “attacking discourse” himself.

I was asked once, recently, what I would say to those who find certain beliefs and positions “too extreme.” What I would say is that extremism is nothing more than a product of consistency in a belief system.

There are, of course, good and bad belief systems – Osama Bin Laden has a fairly consistent one, for example – so a philosophy’s consistency cannot be used as the sole judge of its merit. But I think its inconsistency can.

No human being can live 100% consistently – it’s part of what makes us human . . . but the inconsistencies should be acknowledged as either human failures or conscious concessions to practicality, rather than core tenets of our beliefs, as they appear to be in the cases of Barack Obama, John McCain, Josh Harris and Jim Wallis.

As Ayn Rand would say, if you come upon two concepts that seem to be equally valid and are yet contradictory, you’d better check your premises.

Author:  |  Category: Ideas I came up with totally on my own, Things most people would agree with if they really thought about it, Things that will convince you I'm a Democrat, Things that will convince you I'm a godless heathen, Things that will convince you I'm a Republican, Things that will forever ruin my hopes of running for office, Things that will get me excommunicated, Things that will piss somebody off  | One Comment
17 Mar 2008 A Crisis of Fact

Five months.

It has been five months since I last posted anything here. Last fall, the last few times I posted, I apologized for the scarcity of posts. This time I won’t, because I’m not sorry at all. I quite simply had nothing to say.

You see, for most of the last five months I’ve been going through what I’ve referred to in conversations with my wife as a bout of “low grade depression.” What exactly that means, I’m not sure, but I had to give it a name in order to talk about it. Mostly it has manifested itself in an inability, much of the time, to access the deep places of my heart in any expressible way.

Much of this feeling I’ve been talking about relates to what God has been doing in my heart over the last few years – moving me away from convention and “normalcy,” out into the fringes of His body. Some would say I have left it all together, but that is not the case.

This is not, however, going to be another post where I talk of the disappointment and hurt I have felt at the hands of the “normal” church. This crisis has been of a related, but different nature.

In figuring out where I stand in my relationship with Christ, one thing that has come to consume my thoughts of late is the question of where I stand in relationship with Scripture.

I named this post long before I wrote it – long before, in fact, I had any idea what exactly it would say. You see, we often refer to these moments where we are questioning much of what we believe . . . much of what we have believed all our lives . . . as a “Crisis of Faith.”

My faith, though, is not something that is in crisis. This is a crisis of a different sort. It is a crisis of fact.

. . . as in, I am constantly wanting more of them. More facts, more knowledge, more information.

In this case, I want more information about this thing, this book – or collection of books, to be more accurate – that we call “The Bible.”

You see, there are some things about it that just have not made sense to me. I grew up believing something very close to the story that God planted the exact words in the heads of those who penned the original Scriptures, that they wrote them down infallibly, and that those words have been passed on to us completely untarnished.

I do not believe that anymore. My first step away from that belief came with the realization that Scripture itself may claim to be inspired, but its myriad of scribes, copyists and translators do not. Thus I came to believe that Scripture is infallible in its original form, but that minor errors have been introduced in its copying and translation.

Then I began to wonder about that word “inspired.” Scripture claims to be “inspired,” but what does that really mean? Does that truly mean that every word – even in its original form – was absolutely infallible? The word, in Greek, literally means, “God-breathed.” The meaning of that term, in turn, is somewhat of a mystery.

Then I began to study more about what has become one of my passions – one that I have written about here before, as well as on my wife’s blog – the historical context of Scripture. I began to realize that there are little things that just don’t seem to fit. One minor example is found in the story surrounding the birth of Christ. Luke relates that the census that brought Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem was undertaken when Cyreneus was governor of the Roman province of Syria. Then, Luke says, after Jesus was born, King Herod – fearing for his throne – killed all children in Bethlehem below the age of two.

The only problem with this is that other contemporary historical sources reveal that Cyreneus did not become governor of Syria until after Herod’s death. Furthermore, the entire purpose of a census such as the one recorded here (and mentioned in those same historical writings) was to survey the population of a province like Judea as it transitioned from a semi-autonomous kingship to direct Roman rule . . . something that happened not only after, but because of Herod’s death. Furthermore, there is no chance that the mistake was in the other historical sources, for history has carried down to us exactly when Cyreneus was governor, as well as the names and dates of his predecessors and successors in that position.

In other words, Luke – writing roughly eighty years after the death of Christ, got some of his facts wrong.

In any other historical book, this would be no big deal . . . but discovering this about Scripture left me in somewhat of a quandry. After all, if mistakes exist in little things, why not in bigger ones? And if they exist in bigger ones, then how can we be sure that we have a true picture of what God wanted for us when He gave us the Scripture in the first place?

It makes perfect sense to me that Scripture might not mean everything we think it means. After all, my whole life I have had scriptures spouted at me to justify things like male headship, the duty of tithing, the primacy of the local church fellowship, even the biblical basis of the Republican party . . . all positions I no longer believe.

It is a big step, though, to realize that Scripture might not even necessarily mean everything it was meant to mean.

There has always, in my moving away from the various positions mentioned above, been a small kernel of doubt in my mind about certain things. After all, it says “Wives, submit to your husbands.” Taken completely separate from the surrounding historical context, and even the surrounding verses, that seems to be a pretty straight-forward command. However, it never sat well with what I know to be true of my Savior – the fact that He looks on all of His chosen equally . . . and that He promises, among other things, to be the sole mediator and spiritual authority in their lives.

Whenever I raised these issues to those who still believed as I once did, the question was always the same: “Don’t you think that God is capable of preserving in Scripture an accurate record of what He wants from us?”

This question has always presented a challenge to me. I felt trapped by it. On the one hand I could answer “yes,” and admit that my admittedly more “nuanced” reading of Scripture – together with the belief that God doesn’t necessarily have the same message for all people at all times – is wrong. On the other hand, I could say “no,” and deny the sovereignty of God to manipulate the laws of science and nature to miraculously preserve his written will.

I am willing to do neither. To do the latter would be to deny that God is who He is. To do the former would be to call Him a living contradiction.

This morning, I realized that there is a third option to this struggle I have been waging in my mind for the last several months.

You see, the question itself: “Don’t you think that God is capable of preserving in Scripture an accurate record of what He wants from us?” makes an incredibly deep-seated assumption . . . it assumes that’s what He intended for Scripture in the first place.

I have struggled for so long wondering how I can believe God incapable of miraculously preserving some sort of guideline for his people . . . I’ve never considered that the flawed, incomplete, sometimes incomprehensible story we have of God’s interaction with mankind may be exactly what He intended us to have.

After all, God’s language has been that of riddles for as long as He has interacted with humanity. From his claims on the life of Isaac to his curse of a fruitless fig tree, the simple fact is that God sometimes just does not do what is expected of him. We expect Him to give us a rulebook to live by, so when He gives us something else, we see it as a rulebook anyway. We expect Him to tell us what He wants us to do . . . so when He tells us how He wants us to love, we try to turn THAT into something we’re supposed to “do” as well . . .

He spoke in riddles, even to his closest friends and followers. They rarely made sense of what he meant – and he usually did his best to keep it that way.

What if that’s exactly what He continues to do, to this day?

What if the book we call “Bible” is another grand riddle? What if He’s being deliberately vague, and throwing in a couple seeming contradictions just to make us engage in some introspective head-scratching? Isn’t that just like him? Isn’t it just like a loving Father, when his child asks a question to which he might very easily give a straightforward answer, to instead say, “Why don’t you go do some reading, thinking, or research on that and figure that one out on your own?”

I know my own father did that many times – and I know that I’m better off for having learned how to think for myself.

Maybe Scripture is intended not to tell us what to do or think, but to teach us to think for ourselves, and to live in the shadow of our God as best we can. Maybe we are all suffering from a crisis of fact . . . and are trying to compensate by creating new “facts” – new religious commandments, traditions and “to-do lists” where none existed before.

But aren’t the folks who perverted the Jewish faith in the same way the very ones that He whipped out of the temple courtyard? Aren’t they the same ones he called “beautiful tombs, full of dead men’s bones?” Didn’t he roundly criticize and condemn the people who tried to turn the Scriptures into more than they were intended to be?

. . . and didn’t they kill Him for it?

I don’t want to follow in their footsteps. I don’t want to try to invent some new set of commandments because I can’t accept that the words He left us just aren’t enough to tell me what to do with myself at each and every fork in the road.

I want to think for myself . . . to take what He’s given me and use it to continue onward as I believe He would have me do.

And honestly, I don’t think He ever intended otherwise.

Author:  |  Category: Ideas I came up with totally on my own, Things most people won't understand at all, Things that will convince you I'm a godless heathen, Things that will get me excommunicated, Things that will piss somebody off  | 6 Comments
19 Oct 2007 Ecclesiastical Orphism

Last night, my wife and I had a delightful evening out at an orchestra concert, but the object of our evening outage was no ordinary orchestra.

The fare for the evening was the world-renowned Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, which happened to be visiting the Strathmore Music Center in Bethesda, MD, where Heidi often freelances with the National Philharmonic Orchestra.

Orpheus Chamber Orchestra

This was a very special night, shared with a very special group of people. Orpheus is, quite simply, a joy to watch. Their philosophy of music and of life is evident with every note.

You see, unlike the vast majority of “normal orchestras” – even world-famous ones – Orpheus has no conductor. There is no “leader” standing up at the front of the stage waving a stick, giving orders to the performers on stage, and taking responsibility if something goes wrong.

Rather, this group operates by what it calls “The Orpheus Process,” described on their website thus:

“Instead of one person taking on the orchestra’s artistic responsibility and leadership, we share leadership throughout the membership of the orchestra. Each piece sees a different concertmaster, rotating principle musician chairs, and a sharing of ideas and inspirations. This empowering formula creates a dynamic setting where each musician takes artistic ownership of the performance, not just his or her own part. When we feel personally connected to the music, we know you will too.”

Indeed, that connection was obvious – inescapable, even. Each musician was personally invested in every note, every movement, every breath that escaped the stage.

As an amateur musician myself, I’ve performed in a number of low-level orchestras. As a professional violinist, my wife has performed in more advanced settings. I’ve never experienced anything close to what I saw on that stage, and according to her, neither has she.

Normally, the conductor chooses the music, interprets it, and then coaches the orchestra into performing his interpretation. Normally the orchestra members have a responsibility to follow him, and to pay attention to their section leader and their stand partner. Normally the section leaders have the responsiblity for coordinating and leading the other members of their sections.

That framework means nothing in Orpheus. Yes, there are section leaders, but they rotate for each piece. Yes, there is even a concertmaster (The section leader of the First Violin section in a traditional orchestra, arguably the “lead musician” on the stage, underneath the conductor.) But when it comes time to prepare for a performance, each musician is fully invested in the art the group is crafting. The section leaders are rotated for each piece. A violinist might be the concertmaster for one piece, sit near the back of the section for another, and watch a third from off-stage if it calls for a smaller number of violins. The music is interpreted, not by one person, but by the whole ensemble, through a collaborative rehearsal process that gives each musician a chance to examine the piece from both inside and out, and to provide input to the group.

Similarly, where a normal orchestra receives its cues from the conductor – starting and stopping based on the movement of his baton – Orpheus might take its cues from the concertmaster, or the oboe, or the section leader of the string bass section . . . all in the same piece of music, depending on where the melody is at any given point in time. The music is almost organic – cues come from the people responsible for the particular phrase of music being played at that point in time, and each musician is keenly aware of the other 40 or so musicians on stage at every point in the piece. They have to be, or the whole enterprise would collapse.

I found myself musing, as I watched them play, “This is what the church should look like . . . “

The traditional, institutional church has followed a very similar path as the traditional, institutional orchestra. In the beginning, neither had a “conductor” in the true sense. The early church was led by learned men who agonized over the interpretations of what they perceived to be the words of God. Similarly, early orchestras were led – if not by the composer of a given work himself – by the concertmaster . . . the most learned and experienced musician among them.

Over time, both institutions began to travel a different path. Rather than a musician being both a part of the orchestra, in addition to being its leader, the role of “conductor” became a “special” function – set apart from the rest of the people on stage. It became the conductor who solely interpreted the music, who solely took responsibility for its successes and failures, and who solely accepted the applause of appreciative crowds.

Similarly, in the church, the “vicar class” was born. Bishops, Priests, Pastors, and other roles were invested with meaning well beyond that found in scripture, or invented from whole cloth – meaning that set them apart from “normal” members of the flock – the “laymen.”

Where the conductor was responsible for interpreting the intent of the composer, these “pastors” became responsible for the interpretation of God’s intent. Where the conductor’s shoulders bore the weight of the orchestra’s success or failure, the pastor’s shoulders bore the responsibility for the eternal souls of his parishoners. Where the conductor was glorified when “his” orchestra performed well, the pastor became the object of special status – including promotion in the new ecclesiastical hierarchy – depending on the “performance” of “his” church.

Orpheus, to me, is a symbol of where the church is going. I cannot speak for all believers, but I can speak for a small but growing portion of us. We are steadily wearying of the so-called “experts” who impress upon us their interpretations of God’s will with less and less justification. Instead, we are turning to relationships – the same sort of relationships that I saw on that stage last night.

Think of the incredible amount of trust those musicians must have in one another. If a single person falters, the whole performance suffers. If a single person even fails to communicate – fails to cue the others when beginning a new phrase, fails to hear or see what another part of the ensemble is doing, fails in any way to either understand the other musicians, or to make him or herself understood in turn – what was a glorious piece of music a moment before is suddenly a cacophany of mere noise.

In the same way, believers should be able to trust one another. If we all have the same goal in common – the joy of a life lived with Christ – I should trust that my fellow travellers on this journey are living that life as best they know how, and I should expect them to trust me the same way. None of us should be due any individual credit for any “kingdom” successes – the reward belongs to the body of Christ. The tapestry that is created when the body of Christ lives and works as an organic entity – all parts in relationship with one another and working in their unique and separate ways toward the common goal of seeking to know God – is truly a work of art . . . one even more stunning than that created when 40 musicians trust each other enough to get out on stage and create something beautiful together.

Just like the Orpheus process, participation in the body of Christ should be, and is, an empowering process. It does require an incredible amount of investment. In a traditional church setting, I could sit back and let some pastor tell me what to think. Outside of the traditional church framework, I cannot do that. I am responsible, any and every day, to truly “give a reason for the hope that is within me.”

I can’t just regurgitate some talking points or a list of scripture verses. In the same way each member of Orpheus has to know what they think of the piece being played, I have to know what I believe about the God I walk with.

It is a big responsibility – and one I don’t always live up to. There are too many questions I continue to ask myself, and to which I don’t know the answer. There are too many times when I still find myself reciting a party line, rather than giving coherent thought to a question.

I want more for myself – demand more from myself.

I want a life – a faith – that looks like Orpheus.

Author:  |  Category: Ideas I stole from somebody else, but improved on, Things most people will disagree with, Things that will convince you I'm a godless heathen, Things that will get me excommunicated, Things that will piss somebody off  | 6 Comments
31 Jul 2007 An Anti-Christian Christianity

My friends, it has again been a long time. I think I find that some posts just flow from my fingers, while others take time to germinate and grow in my mind. With this latter type of post, I feel – as I have always felt, with many projects and pursuits throughout my life, to allow it to gain a level of maturity before I share it with the world.

This is such a post.

Many of you who read this might consider yourself representatives of the “emergent” or “missional” community as it is sometimes known. I need to preface this post by the fact that I consider myself neither, for reasons that have nothing to do with the reasons those who take these names have for choosing them.

I simply do not like the terms. The first – when taken to its logical conclusion – seems to me to imply that believers can somehow “emerge” to different levels of spiritual enlightenment. In one sense, I have “emerged” from the institutional religious setting known in the 21st century as “the church.” But in truth, the sense in which I have “emerged” is the same sense in which all those of us who follow Christ are free from the bondage of our own sin and the weight of our humanity.

The second, it seems to me, misses the point. Even those who consider themselves “missional” define it as a different way of “doing church,” a different focus.

All of that said, I have a tremendous amount of respect for many of the ideas espoused by missional and emergent thinkers, and for those who espouse them, particularly their focus on how much of Christian tradition is precisely that – mere tradition.

It is for this reason that I was incredibly disturbed by something I read on the popular conservative political site formerly operated by the Heritage Foundation, Townhall.com.

I was disturbed because it was one more reminder of who I used to be . . .

The item in question was a column by Townhall columnist Frank Pastore, referred to in his bio as “a former professional baseball player with graduate degrees in both theology and political science,” who is also a radio talk-show host for KKLA 99.5 FM in Los Angeles. His original column has now become two. They can be found here and here.

The first column is entitled “Why Al Qaeda Supports the Emergent Church.” It is a lengthy diatribe against members of the emergent movement, the logic of which seems to run “Emergents are generally not politically conservative. Political conservatives are the only people interested in fighting al Qaeda.” Therefore, Emergents are allies of al Qaeda.

His second column is a defense of his first, in which he responds to challenges for his “sources” by citing several emergent writers and a number of critics of Emergent, none of which, according to his citations, at least, says anything about al Qaeda at all.

The most ironic thing, for me, is that as someone who is generally pretty politically conservative, I probably line up with Pastore’s political views a fair percentage of the time. Nevertheless, despite the fact that I do not consider myself “emergent” or “missional,” I feel the sting of Pastore’s accusations myself, simply because I seem to fit his overarching definition of an “al Qaeda ally” – by which he seems to mean anybody who disagrees with his personal, political and spiritual agenda. I have written a lengthy response to his first column that addresses several issues he raises point by point. That response continues below the fold . . .

more…

Author:  |  Category: Things most people will disagree with, Things most people would agree with if they really thought about it, Things that will convince you I'm a Democrat, Things that will convince you I'm a godless heathen, Things that will get me excommunicated, Things that will piss somebody off  | 3 Comments
13 Jul 2007 With “Friends” like these . . . (UPDATED with Video)

One of the last few remaining institutions of government that reminds us the First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion, rather than freedom from religion, is the morning prayer held in the U.S. Senate. Over the two centuries of our country’s history, this prayer has predominantly been offered by Christians of some stripe or other, though in the past Jewish and Muslim leaders have also offered morning prayers.

This morning was a historic first. For the first time in history, a Hindu spiritual leader offered the opening prayer of the U.S. Senate.

The invocation given by Rajan Zed, a Hindu priest from Nevada, was taken from the Rig Veda and Bhagavad Gita, and I find its words quite inspiring, despite the fact that they come from a culture that does not acknowledge the God I worship:

“We meditate on the transcendental glory of the deity supreme, who is inside the heart of the earth, inside the life of the sky and inside the soul of heaven. May he stimulate and illuminate our minds.

“Lead us from the unreal to real, from darkness to light, and from death to immortality. May we be protected together. May we be nourished together. May we work together with great vigor. May our study be enlightening.”

I can certainly agree with particularly the second half of of this stirring invocation.

Unfortunately, this morning’s Senate prayer was an historic first for another reason.

. . . three reasons, actually, named Ante and Kathy Pvkovic and Kristen Sugar.

For the first time in U.S. history the morning prayer of the U.S. Senate was disrupted by the shouting of protestors who interrupted Zed by “loudly asking for God’s forgiveness for allowing the ‘false prayer’ of a Hindu in the Senate chamber.”

UPDATE: Here’s a video of the travesty, courtesy of Talking Points Memo

[youtube EZ9To30Hz7A]

One of my favorite political blogs, Captain’s Quarters, the author of which is a devout Catholic, excoriates the trio:

Thank the Lord that this trio doesn’t represent real Christians. They’re great ambassadors for the numbnut contingent, however.

Unfortunately, I think this is a shortsighted view of the incident. While most “mainstream” believers might not try to disrupt the U.S. Senate, it is clear that they have the sympathy of a large contingent of the so-called Christian mainstream. A Newer World points out this statement from Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council. The statement closes with:

There is no historic connection between America and the polytheistic creed of the Hindu faith. I seriously doubt that Americans want to change the motto, “In God we Trust, which Congress adopted in 1955, to, “In gods we Trust.” That is essentially what the United States Senate did today.

Hogwash.

On many fronts.

The U.S. Senate is not a religious body, and while many of those who came up with the concept of the Senate may have been believers in the God of the Bible, even Christian tradition is fractured and diverse – and our nation is hardly exclusively a “Christian” nation.

According to the Hindu American Foundation, the nation contains 2 million Hindus, and it is one of the fastest growing belief systems in the country. To say that we are a “Christian nation” is to live in the past. To say that Hindus have no impact on our history and culture is to ignore the impact words like “karma,” “yoga,” and “avatar” have on 21st Century American culture.

Certainly, a practicing Hindu could tell us that these words are hardly used in their original context . . . but then, even the U.S. Senate doesn’t operate like it did at its founding. The point is that American culture is no longer exclusively influenced by that of Western Europe.
The simple fact is that Hindus, like Christians, Jews, Muslims, Athiests, Wiccans and many, many more adherents of all manner of belief systems make up this country. Members of each are represented by the U.S. Senate, and each has its right to be heard. That is, after all, what freedom of religion is all about.

I may not agree with most of what some – or any – of these religious traditions has to say, but the least any of us can do is respect their right to say it.

It’s people like Kristen Sugar and the Pvkovic’s who make me ashamed, at times, to call myself a Christian. If statements like Tony Perkins’ are representative of the “Christian” response to this morning’s events, I’m not sure I am one.

With Rajan Zed, I pray to the deity supreme, who resides in my heart, and ask Him to stimulate and illuminate my heart and mind, and those of all who read this.

I ask Him to lead us from the unreal to real, from darkness to light, and from death to immortality. May we be protected together. May we be nourished together. May we work together with great vigor. May our study be enlightening.

Author:  |  Category: Things that will convince you I'm a godless heathen, Things that will get me excommunicated, Things that will piss somebody off  | 5 Comments
12 Jul 2007 Formerly Known as Ex-Gay?

We’ve written a lot here about Bill Kinnon’s “Formerly Known” meme that has become increasingly popular across the internet, and to which Heidi and I have both contributed. Yesterday, I read a post from a blogger who has captured my attention on a few occasions, which is not a part of that meme . . . but which perhaps should be. It’s called “My Ex-Gay Survivor Story” and was written by Eric over at the Two World Collision Blog.

His post presents some very interesting food for thought. Please read it before continuing on with this post.

more…

Author:  |  Category: Things that will convince you I'm a godless heathen, Things that will get me excommunicated, Things that will piss somebody off  | 2 Comments
21 Jun 2007 Technology, Trust and Transformation

I discovered a new blog yesterday – one that focuses on a topic near and dear to my heart. It’s called “When Religion Meets New Media.”

The author, Heidi Campbell, is involved with the Wikiklesia project I mentioned here about a month ago, and her blog concentrates on the religious response to, and use of, the ongoing communications revolution in which we find ourselves.

As a Public Affairs professional who has tried, with relatively little success, to move a decidedly “old media” Defense agency public affairs office towards an appreciation of new media tools and tactics over the last two years, this topic intrigues me.

As a blogger and writer on things philosophical and theological, the intersection of this phenomenon with religion – any religion – fascinates me.

If you are here, reading this blog, you probably don’t need me to tell you what constitutes “new media.” It used to shock me how little appreciation institutions of any sort had for powerful tools like blogs or social networking sites like YouTube and MySpace. The deeper I get into this issue, though, the more I am coming to think that this is precisely because they are institutions. New media, it seems to me, is innately anti-institutional. Already it is driving down the readership of virtually every major newspaper in the United States, changing the face of politics, bringing down corrupt governments, chipping away at attendance in local institutional churches, and threatening national security.

It is these last two applications that intrigue me the most, for it is in these areas that we see the intersection of new media with religion.

Those of you who have read much of my writing here are already aware what I think of the institutions and traditions that make up modern-day “Churchianity.” This being the case, I believe the online revolution and the advent of “Web 2.0” – the sprouting of social networking, wikis and other collaborative sites – to be perhaps the most exciting thing that has happened to the church since Martin Luther picked up a hammer in Wittenburg.

What you might not realize is that Christianity is not alone in this. I’ve talked before about the tremendous propaganda successes radical Islamists have achieved using websites, cell phones, and video cameras. Just last week, ABC News was handed a tape that was all over the Internet within hours, showing a Taliban “graduation ceremony” of suicide bombers preparing to enter and attack Western targets such as Germany, Canada, Britain and the U.S.

However, Islam is also suffering its own identity crisis in strikingly similar ways to that being endured by Christianity – and for largely the same reasons. Due almost entirely to the ease with which materials can now be published, ordinary Muslims all over the world are beginning to question the previously unassailable credibility of both the Ulama (Islamic scholars) and the Hadith (Islamic traditions).

I find all of this very exciting, because it forces each of us – no matter what we believe – to reexamine what, and who, we trust.

Going back to Islam, the importance of the Hadith has always stemmed from the assertion that it relates back to the practices and words of the prophet Muhammed and helps to explain the words of the Quran. Similarly, the Ulama are those most studied in Islam, and thus have been the arbiters of Islamic Law.

Similarly, the importance of Christian tradition has always been said to be its relation to scripture, and the importance of the “vicar class” has always been its members’ study and training in scripture and doctrine.

Prior to this time, those assumptions have been virtually unassailable – and those who make waves have found themselves cast out by the very arbiters whose authority they doubt, using the very traditions whose legitimacy they question. I’ve felt this myself, having been threatened with excommunication due to my decision to leave the Southern Baptist Church of which I was a member for two years. It’s not exactly as bad as a fatwa calling for one’s death, but it’s unpleasant enough.

Increasingly, though, technology is loosening the desperate hold of the so-called “religious experts.” No longer does a Muslim seeking to better understand his religion need an Alim to explain it. No longer do I need a pastor to tell me what He believes God wants from me.

So again, Who (or what) do we trust?

As Christians, who do we trust? Ask yourself this question. Do you trust Scripture?

Why?

And what do you mean by your answer?

Think about it for a moment. Do you believe Scripture to be infallible? Authoritative? Inspired?

What do each of these words mean to you?

If Scripture is truly infallible, then which version (or versions) are flawless? If your answer is “the original texts” then how do you feel about the fact that no person now living has ever seen one of these texts? If your answer is “copies of the originals in their initial languages” then does it disturb you at all to place your trust in human translators to “get it right”? Does it bother you that many well-meaning people have come up with different answers? Does it give you pause to realize that some of the most trusted versions were blatantly politically motivated at the time of their translation?

If Scripture is “merely” authoritative, what does that mean to you? Does it mean that every word must be followed? How then do you feel about the Old Testament demands to abstain from eating rabbits, stone rebellious children and engage in blood feuds with rival families? How do you feel about the fact that Christ himself advocated routinely breaking some of the ten commandments? How do you feel about the myriad interpretations of various New Testament issues like drinking alcohol, wearing headcoverings and speaking in tongues?

Who do you trust to tell you what to think?

If Scripture is “inspired” – the only one of these three terms it actually claims to be – what does that mean? What does “profitable” mean? How about “teaching” (doctrine in the KJV), “reproof,” “correction” or “training in righteousness”? How do you feel about the fact that the single passage in which scripture does claim to be inspired is a very specific reference . . . to the Old Testament?

How do you feel about the fact that the Old Testament canon was compiled based on material from books that didn’t make the cut? How do you feel about the fact that the New Testament canon originated as a sort of “pastor’s recommended reading list“?

Who do you trust? Historical church leaders like Martin Luther – who called the book of James “an epistle of straw,” yet quoted from it anyway? Even more distant church fathers like Athanasius, Origen and Augustine, who disagreed with one another?

Who do you trust?

My point is not to belittle Scripture. My point is that human authorities, no matter how respected or credible, are not perfect. It seems to me that the more conservative, “fundamental” sects of Christianity have ceased to be “Christians,” and have become “Biblists.” We (I include myself in this group because it is in this tradition that I grew up) have forgotten that Christ said that He, not the writings of His followers, was the way, the truth and the life. We have forgotten that a relationship with the living God is a personal relationship . . . not a matter of academics.

Who then do you trust? Your pastor? your church leaders? your Bible? . . . or your Father?

This is the glory found where technology intersects with religion – the glory of a personal relationship with our Creator, free of intermediaries, interventions and interpretations. Of course we are never free of our own interpretations, but as Samuel once had to be reminded, the Lord knows our hearts. Of course we . . . I . . . struggle daily with my own presuppositions and interpretations, but I trust God. I trust Him to draw me to Himself. My own filters are difficult enough to navigate. I am grateful that technology has negated the need for any others. It has transformed relationships of many kinds – only one of which is my relationship with Father.

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24 Apr 2007 My Journey out of Church and into the Body of Christ (5)

So where do I find myself at present . . . ?

Recently, my wife and I have both been challenged by dear friends who are concerned about our decision not to remain within the framework of an institutional, organized church. Given how much these friends mean to us, these conversations have touched off a great deal of study, prayer, discovery and contemplation . . . as well as prompting the creation of this blog.

We have become involved with a network of wonderful people in this area, who are facing a similar journey to ours. These people were introduced to us through the writings and podcasts of Wayne Jacobsen, and we had the opportunity to meet with Mr. Jacobsen and several new friends in March of this year at the home of some local friends of his who have now become good friends of ours as well. What impressed both of us was how little Wayne seemed interested in leading and controlling the conversation we were having. Each person in the room had a story to tell, and all of us learned and grew from the experience . . . but nobody was responsible for leading or directing the discussion. It was completely organic, completely real . . . and completely independent of any “local church.” Jacobsen lives in California, far away from us here in Virginia, but the other people in that room have, in the last two months, become a very large and important part of our lives.

My wife and I came away more refreshed than either of us have been by an ordinary church service for a long, long time. We felt like we had seen God working in the minds and hearts of the people in that room, and that He had worked in our minds and hearts as well . . . showing us more of Himself. We have gotten together with some of the people in that room, as well as some of their friends who are in similar situations, a total of four times. We hope for many more such gatherings, as each one brings a renewed sense of joy, fellowship, and gratitude for our Father’s working in our lives.

I have had well-meaning friends tell me that this experience runs completely contrary to Scripture. I disagree. While I am certainly glad that many people are able to find spiritual nourishment and fellowship inside conventional churches, I find nothing in scripture that indicates that this is the only way God will ever use to build up the people He has redeemed.

I will address some of the most common objections I have received in regards to this statement in future posts. I considered putting them here, but I don’t think this series is the place for them. This is a story, not an apologetic. All I will say about them for now is that, after a lot of soul-searching, prayer, study and agonizing, I have come to a place where I don’t think I can, in good conscience, attend a conventional church at this point in my life. If I did so, it would be because I was once again bowing to external pressure from others, conforming to the person they want me to be. It would not be because I believe that’s where I need to be to engage in a meaningful relationship with God, or with other members of His Body.

Where, then, do I go from here?

I don’t know . . . and oddly enough for someone with as many “control-freak” characteristics as I have, I like it that way. God has made life an adventure – a mystery with new surprises and unforseen twists. One exciting thing I have been discovering even in the past few weeks is that, when one is living outside the boundaries of a conventional church, the opportunities to speak truth into the lives of others, and have them speak truth into my life, are vastly increased.

There are, it seems, a lot of us asking these questions. When I first began examining my beliefs about church, I thought I was alone – or at the very least, that Heidi had been through these questions before. At the time, though, I wasn’t sure I wanted to end up in the same place she had. She had seen and been through a lot more than I had, at the time, and I thought perhaps it was because of this that she had ended up where she had. Time and experience, though, led me on a very different path, to the same place she had reached – a place outside the walls of any church building.

What I discovered, though, is that far from finding ourselves defenseless outside these walls, and open to spiritual attack in ways that “normal Christians” aren’t (something each of us heard from our skeptical pastors, church leaders and friends) we are finding other people with similar questions and similar experiences, who have arrived at similar answers.
We are also finding that we can experience all of the same benefits that a conventional church offers – the study of scripture, the fellowship, the opportunities to serve and bless each other, the joy of participating in “Body Life” – without the shame, fear, and debasement that is popular in many local assemblies.

For some of us, this is our first experience with the easy yoke, the light burden, and the rest for our souls that Christ offers in Matthew 11.

Where do I go from here? I don’t know . . . but for the first time, I do not fear to find out what comes next.

. . . I am excited by it.

Back to Part 4

Author:  |  Category: Ideas I came up with totally on my own, Things most people will disagree with, Things that will convince you I'm a godless heathen, Things that will get me excommunicated, Things that will piss somebody off  | 5 Comments
23 Apr 2007 My Journey out of Church and into the Body of Christ (4)

The threat of church discipline brought back the fear, in spades. I had watched the church of my childhood go through a heartrending split over church discipline issues, and the last thing I wanted to do was cause anything of the sort among another local assembly, particularly one where many of the close friends I had made during my college years attended.

I have lived so much of my life afraid – afraid of my father, of my friends, of my pastor, of my peers, of my God, of myself.

I was not going to take it anymore. I was told that if I resigned my membership without expressly giving them the name of another “local body” to which I would go, the church leadership might refuse it (depending on how I did so), keep my name on the rolls, and place me under church discipline nonetheless. I spent hours in conversation with my Bible study leader, some of the church elders, and the assistant pastor agonizing over what course I should take.

I faced the fear. I resigned. I wrote a 24-page letter to the church leadership detailing my doctrinal and theological differences with their statement of faith not as written, but as practiced. I had footnotes and an executive summary. I told them that I could very easily give them the name of some church that cared much less about membership, go there for a short time, and then leave all together – but I was tired of the hypocrisy. I was tired of hiding. I was tired of nearly everybody in my life thinking I was something and someone I’m not.

So I told them the truth. I told them I didn’t know where I would go.

They let me go, “with concern.” I think they didn’t know what to do with me. I had become a strong person. I’d started to stand up to people who thought that if I didn’t agree with them, I must not be listening. I started being OK with not feeling the same about every issue as those whose opinions I valued.

I had started to become a real person, in place of the shadow person I had once been.

That was a year and a half ago. I still don’t know where I’m headed, but at this point the likelihood that it is back into organized, institutional church seems dim. If that’s where God takes me, so be it – but the ensuing events after that point seem to make that unlikely.

I began to realize that I had been voluntarily subjecting myself to a longstanding pattern of what David Johnson and Jeff VanVonderen call “Spiritual Abuse.” I’d been allowing others to determine the course of my life for me by telling me what to think, without conducting my own due diligence and searching out for myself whether or not I actually did think such things. Instead of being who God made me to be – instead of letting Him define me as his treasured child and heir, I had been letting other people define me: My father, my friends, my school administrators, my pastors, my former love interests . . . each had a role in telling me who I was – some because I allowed it out of fear, and others because they believed their position and authority gave them that right.

Nobody has that right. Nobody has the right to strip away another person’s identity and replace it with another. Only God has the right to do that – and He finally began to do it for me. I may have asked Christ to be my personal Lord and Savior twenty-three years ago . . . but the simple fact is that most of the time I didn’t rely on Him or actively engage in relationship with Him. There were times that I sought Him . . . times that I caught glimpses of who He is, and what He had for me, but it was always from that place of fear . . . I was afraid of life without the security of knowing I was eternally saved. I was afraid of what He would do to me if I didn’t conform to His whims. I was afraid of what would happen if I allowed myself to question the teachings of my youth . . .

If I had to date the time when I first began the tentative steps toward a true, personal relationship with Christ, it would be in the summer of 2004. It was then, as I was clawing my way back from the brink of despair and questioning everything I ever thought I knew, that I shouted at God that if He was truly there, and truly cared about me, he’d have to prove it.

He did, and continues to do so to this day.

In drawing me through the dark times of my life, God brought people to me who helped me see past the fear. He proved to me that I don’t have to dread Him and His place in my life . . . that the whole point of Christ’s life and death was to take away the need for the rightful dread that His chosen felt for Him – the all-seeing, all-knowing God of the Old Testament who demanded obedience at any price – and prove to them . . . to us . . . that He was a loving, generous father who wants nothing more than to give the whole world, and more, to His beloved.

I had been relating to God much of my life as the Old Testament Hebrews did – worshipping him genuinely, but out of terror, ever fearful that each misstep I took was bringing me closer and closer to a lighting-bolt from the sky. I was never taught that one could lose his or her salvation. What I was taught was more insidious . . . that after a point when one has sinned badly enough or strayed far enough, God simply can’t use them anymore. For someone with my self-esteem issues, damnation was not my worst fear . . . my worst fear was worthlessness.

It is no coincidence that my journey out of the institutional church paralleled my journey from that place of believing myself worthless, to a place of understanding just how valued I am of God.

It seems as though we, the jumbled mass of humanity, is running aimlessly around this globe we call home, living day to day in utter terror. We fear many things . . . some rational, and some irrational.

But what we fear most is ourselves.

I grew up hearing how lowly and wretched I was. I was told time and time again that any hint of self-worth smacked of pride – that I was nothing . . . and that God condescended to love me anyway.

No wonder I hated myself.

Have you ever sat through sermons solely designed to impress upon you how vile and miserable you are? How we humans are pigs rooting around in the mud, and for some strange reason God chose to offer us a way out of that miserable place.

A pig, once pulled out of the mud and washed off, is nothing but a very clean pig.

God tells us, however, that we are so very much more. In Genesis 1, He tells us that we are created in His image. We are created as a very reflection of our creator.

God does not look on us as scum, and condescend to love us anyway . . . Hosea 2 tells us that God looks on us with the eyes of a lover, and attempts to woo us to Himself. Any picture of God that leaves this out is a picture of a false god.

This was why I had to get out of the institutional church. I could not find God there. All I could find were other people’s expectations, and my own fears.

Where, then, do I find myself today . . . ?

(to be continued . . .)

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Author:  |  Category: Ideas I came up with totally on my own, Things most people will disagree with, Things that will convince you I'm a godless heathen, Things that will get me excommunicated, Things that will piss somebody off  | 3 Comments
22 Apr 2007 My Journey out of Church and into the Body of Christ (3)

I’d been depressed before. My mom had died the previous year and I remember sitting in my room while she lay down the hall suffering from the second bout of cancer, which would eventually kill her, thinking to myself, “I’m glad I know there’s a God, and that he actually cares about me, because if I didn’t, I might as well shoot myself in the head right here and now.”

This time, I didn’t have that luxury. From April to July of 2004 were the darkest days of my life. I no longer knew who I was, or who I wanted to be. I no longer knew what I believed, or why I had ever believed any of it. I hated myself, and realized that I had hated myself for a long time. I dove back into the pornography as a coping mechanism, and I engaged in long-running and heated debates and arguments with God.

My accountability partner thought I needed to spend more time in church. My Bible study mates seemed mystified by all of it, and promised each week to pray for me.

I, on the other hand, remember very vividly one of the few church services I attended during that time. Through most of the sermon, I sat in the third row contemplating different ways of killing myself. Eventually, I talked myself out of it because I figured it would hurt those I cared about too much if I died.

That was one of the last times I went to that church. As I began talking through all of this with the few people from that church who had demonstrated any real care for me – particularly my Bible study leader and a couple of the church elders – I realized that they didn’t have any answers. The answers they gave me seemed rehearsed, superficial, and singularly unhelpful.

Through the long, dark process, I began to come to the heart of the problem, and it was this: The self-doubt, and fear of being rejected by anyone and everyone had overwhelmed me completely. I had given away the ability to define myself. I had been freely allowing anybody and everybody around me to tell me who I was, and I had, to the best of my ability, become exactly the person they wanted to see: Pastors, parents, teachers, friends, each and every girl I’d ever attempted to have a relationship with . . . all had a hand in who I was at that point . . . everybody but me. To be sure, it wasn’t always malignant. In most cases, they simply defined me because I refused to define myself.

I had become a nobody, in the most literal sense . . . a shadow person. I had allowed everybody to define me as they wished, to the point where I had no idea who or what I was even supposed to be, much less who or what I had become.

There were a handful of people who tried to be there for me during this time, but two people in particular were able to see through all the facades and walls to speak to who I really was . . . two close friends of mine who knew about my struggles with pornography and self-esteem issues, and who had each been through the wringer themselves.

I shared everything with them – something which I’m sure the people at my church would have discouraged had they known. You see, both of these friends were girls, and this church, like ATI and the church in which I grew up, were of the belief that deep heart-to-heart conversations with members of the opposite gender lead to “unhealthy emotional bonds.”

In my case, the bonds started slipping away. I started seeing that there were people who actually cared about me, liked me for who I was, and enjoyed spending time in conversation with me. I realized that the pornography was rooted in a complete lack of self-respect and self-definition, and I started discovering the person I truly had been all along . . . the person God created me to be, but who had become so obscured by my desire to be all things to all people, that he got completely lost in it all.

I’d had confidants before . . . people I trusted with my story, but during this period, for the first time, I was able to share with someone who neither judged me and rejected me, nor tried to turn me into a project and fix me. This person, a longtime friend who was (though I had no inkling, as yet) to become my girlfriend, and later my wife, trusted God with me, and God came through. She had been through this whole mess of depression and rediscovery herself, and she kept telling me, “I know you hate hearing it, but I’m actually glad you’re going through all of this. I’ve been there, and I know what’s waiting on the other side.”

What was waiting on the other side was reality – a deeper reality than anything I have ever known. I had let other people define me for so long that I had stopped listening to God telling me who I was meant to be.

When I started listening again, I didn’t find anything remotely resembling what I expected.

Soon, the people from my church began getting concerned because I wasn’t showing up regularly at all. I didn’t want to leave, because I still loved the Bible study and getting together to talk over life’s issues with the other guys. Eventually, I started dating the girl who had been there for me through my depression . . . the one who had herself been through it all before. She was the one person who truly understood me, knew what I had been through, and knew me for who I truly was, and was meant to be, rather than the person I tried and pretended to be for so long.

The church, of course, did not approve. This girl, after all, was not going to church. She’d been hurt more than once, and had seen close friends torn to shreds by the church, in the name of “pastoral counseling.” And she wanted none of it.

Still, as I said before, she was fine with my journey being where it was . . . even if neither of us quite knew what that location might be.

I toyed with the idea of leaving the church, but wasn’t at all sure that’s what I wanted . . . or what God wanted for me. I didn’t know where else to go.

Soon, it all became much clearer. My Bible study leader informed me that the church leadership was concerned about my irregular attendance, and was considering placing me under church discipline if I did not show up more regularly. They didn’t inquire as to why I wasn’t more active or offer to help. They condemned me for failing to conform to their set of desired behaviors. When I tried to explain, they couldn’t see past my actions to engage with the deep internal struggle I was going through.

So I struggled alone. I studied and read a great deal about the church, its beliefs, and the scriptural justification for those beliefs. My study led me to an inexhorable conclusion – one I’d been fighting for a while by that point, despite my girlfriend (now my wife) having already reached that conclusion some time before.

I do not believe that Scripture mandates church attendance as a part of life in Christ’s body. I do not see any differentiation in scripture between what has become known as “the local church” and “the universal church.” I believe that distinction to be an entirely man-made construct.

To me, it seemed in my studies, and still seems now, as though scripture lays out a picture of the whole body of Christ as a single organism with Him as its head. While gathering in local synagogues and homes and hearing scripture read and taught may have been the most efficient and effective mechanism to engage in body life during the first century after Christ, it certainly isn’t anymore. I will write much more about this later. For now, let us continue on our journey . . .

(to be continued . . . )

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Author:  |  Category: Ideas I came up with totally on my own, Things most people will disagree with, Things that will convince you I'm a godless heathen, Things that will get me excommunicated, Things that will piss somebody off  | 12 Comments
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