Thoughts and Ruminations

I got this link from Bob Hyatt’s blog by way of Mark Driscoll’s Resurgence blog; so here it is, in all its glory…Hank and fam from King of the Hill, fresh from a conflict situation over pews at their church, look around for a new one. Sometimes the best commentaries on Christianity come from those “outside.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtI2pa2m5cg

Most ridiculously true quote of most of our individualistic culture?

Lucky says, “Me, I don’t go to church. Church goes with me, I’m worshipin’ when I’m drinkin’ a beer, diggin’ a hole, or fishin’ for trout.”

Ok, so I’ve been reading Anne Lamott’s book Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith here recently, which I’m assuming is supposed to be the rousing, critically acclaimed Traveling Mercies Jr that everyones raves about and gives their kid when they go off to college. I’m not impressed. Well, let me qualify that a little; Anne has some very insightful things to say about the reality of life. However, in terms of her thoughts on spirituality (in which her voice is considered “prophetic” by many), Anne strikes me as a relativist in search of meaning. Nothing more, nothing less.

To commence with the discussion going on inside my head (don’t be taken aback, I have these kinds of discussions with myself often. I hope that doesn’t mean I’m narcissistic; though open to suggestions I am)…

Anne has an uncanny ability to nail down the “blah” times that happen in all our lives and deal with them in an incredibly straightforward fashion. The glimpse she gives us into her interactions with her son are hilarious, and her willingness to be candid that she quite honestly can’t stand him sometimes are refreshing (They should be to her son, too…he’s now free to say, “Mom, I really don’t want to be around you right now because I want to be alone…plus, I feel like I really want to deck you right now, but I won’t because I love you too much…and Mom, give me a little leash here; it’s getting suffocating around here.”) If in every parent/child relationship, more freedom existed in conversation to unload emotions each carries in more of their initial stages(with limits, of course), I’d imagine you’d have a lot less roiling, messy stuff going on under the surface which ultimately explodes in nasty episodes and deep wounds. My father and I struggled deeply with this in my adolescence. As a result, I pushed him away for the duration of my college years (at least emotionally). Thankfully today I wouldn’t trade my relationship with my father for anything as we’re learning to be much more open with one another and trust one another more, which is leading to the willingness to be more vulnerable and share each other’s burdens.

Back to the original line of thought; you know what really bothers me? How everyone around me loooooooves writers that can be “spiritual” while swearing like a Navy sailor; and on top of that, hold them up as examples of an “authentic spirituality” we should all strive to be like. Honestly, I think that’s a load of horse pitooty. It bothers me greatly when folks like Tony Campolo and Stanley Hauerwas (two writers and followers of Christ whose writings have impacted me greatly) pop off and swear just to mix an audience up a little bit, be irreverant, and have those who always wanted to be irreverent swoon on their every word.

The classic one, if you’ll allow me to be a hypocrite for the sake of an example, was when Campolo was speaking, and this is what he said (paraphrasing).

“You know, the reality is that millions of people in Africa are starving and dying right now, and you don’t give a shit about it. And the worst thing is, you’re more upset about me saying shit than the people dying in Africa.”

Sooooooooo many people at seminary swoon over this phrase, and I hear it come out every two months or so. What’s the point? Why? Does it give us street cred? Do we feel like this is the pinnacle of spirituality; that we can spit out of our mouths anything we want, as long as we love Jesus? Lamott’s writing is chock full of f-bombs, s-bombs, and whatever other bombs you can think of, and the masses are applauding her to virtual popedom. I’m sorry, I don’t want to hold up traits like this as something to aspire towards. I don’t deny that Campolo, Hauerwas, and Lamott are trying to be provocative, but I have a newsflash for them. You don’t have to spit out certain words to make following Christ provocative…the gospel is inherently provocative. No, I’m not talking about the “Roman Road,” “Will you accept Jesus Christ as your PERSONAL Lord and Savior,” gospel that our culture says, “Meh” to. Not the domesticated Christianity that has dominated for 1,500 yrs now that has a prevailing message of love, yet adherents that are willing to kill you if the country labels you as “evil” or the “enemy.” Not the domesticated Christianity that enjoys an unholy marriage to the state; where instead of holding leaders accountable to Christ, we lower the goalposts enough that we can call leaders “Christians.”
No, the last time I checked, the gospel for the early church consisted of one core proclamation; “Trust and believe in Jesus Christ, whom God has made Lord and Messiah.”

Early Christians knew two key things regarding this proclamation:

1) There is no Lord but Jesus…if I am asked by the government of the state of which I am a part to carry out any action that runs counter to my commitment to Christ, that government can expect me to disobey that order. Whether they’ll kill me for it or not.

2) In order to believe in Jesus, you need to know what the life of Christ represented as an example here on earth in order to follow that example. So they relied on first-hand accounts, and collections of teachings and example of Jesus that circulated through the church and eventually turned into the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. More than anything else, the prevailing pictures of Jesus’ life were humility, servanthood, and a willingness to go to any lengths so that others would know their lives were valued and important to God, even to die for the sake of them knowing it (sacrificial love). The early church understood this. The church today (at least in the West); doesn’t.

Sometimes I am sickened, pessimistic, and cynical that the church here in America has any hope of being faithful. But then, if I open my eyes and focus beyond my cynicism at the prevailing message, I see more and more wonderful people around me who aren’t toeing the line of the status quo of what “Christianity” has become to live exemplary lives of radical love. Tom Fox is one of those, along with a few I could tick off that I see day-in, day-out who carry this same ideal. The Bible is ultimately a revolutionary document of a dream of God that his people would live without artificial barriers, share their lives with one another, and serve as an example of humility, servanthood, and boundless love to those around them. Now THAT’S love.

This is why I say openly to Lamott, Campolo, Hauerwas, and whoever else thinks it’s trendy to swear openly and without remorse for the sake of being provocative;
I’m disappointed that you couldn’t devote yourself to thinking deeper than you did for the sake of what you consider an ‘authentic’ spirituality. Hold yourself to a higher standard, because Christ does. And (more specifically for Campolo and Hauerwas), keep publishing your books like Adventures in Missing the Point and Resident Aliens that are deeply faithful and deeply provocative in all the right ways.

Resident Aliens called me out of the lackadaisical approach to following Christ I had to ask myself and others hard questions about faithfulness.

And to Lamott;
It’s time to leave the 60′s, where you and I could carry a surface spirituality, live and speak the way we wanted (often a contradicition to our stated spirituality), and have people laud us for it. The Hare Krishna movement is a joke, following Christ isn’t…you can go deeper than dropping the f-bomb. And please, please, work on the distrust of authority.

I guess I’m more disappointed than upset with the three aforementioned writers because I think they have such great potential, an audience that appreciates their perspective on life, and a commitment to boundless love for others. I just have the feeling that their words get in the way of their message; harming its impact. We need more folks like them, and someone to hold these folks accountable ultimately to Christ.

Now THAT’s off my chest. Feel free to shred me for taking this stance…I like a good, rousing conversation!

Why does it take the pits to remind you of how incredible your life is? And why is it I know I’m headed for the pits so often of my own volition and take every small step knowing what I’m doing? A tremendous man by the name of Francis de Sales wrote something that hit me like a brick between the eyes, because it’s so true. Writing about devotion to God, he says, “Since little faults committed in the beginning of a project grow infinitely greater in its course and finally are almost irreparable, above all else you must know what the virtue of devotion is…” The funny thing about his quote is that I already knew it, and I say the same thing nearly every week when I meet with a lady from my church struggling to gain a sense that she is loved. We talk often about the small steps we can take each day to remind ourselves of who we are in Christ and seek a deeper relationship with him…which she struggles with because of the darkness she lives with on a daily basis. Walking with her is at once deeply painful and beautiful as I’ve seen her inner healing take place one conversation and prayer at a time. And the funny thing is, she thinks I never could go through this, even though I remind her every time that the reality of my life is no fun cakewalk all the time, (nor that of any Christian anywhere, for that matter).

On top of de Sales, I’m reading a book by an amazing fellow named Erwin Raphael McManus, who leads an innovative, really wonderful community of followers of Christ in LA called Mosaic. In one of his books, he writes about atrophy…the deadly disease afflicting many churches and Christians today; the one where we settle into maintenance mode and protect what we have while forsaking our mission to change the world with the message of freedom; all the while not realizing that we’re rotting from the inside out. Atrophy. A nasty word, with a nasty meaning.

You know, the funny thing is, it takes a convergence of four to five different influences to show me the obvious thing I already know…for the past few months I’ve been in maintenance mode while showing a good front to others I know…my spiritual life is in full atrophy. The most important and lifechanging influence came tonight, when I signed on to try to write out the numbness I live with right now, randomly searched the name of one of my friends, and happened upon a blog that reduced me immediately to tears. Now, given, I know this woman…but I also went to college with her, and even though we weren’t much more than light acquaintances, she reminded me again of what life means…of the significance of what the world considers to be one small personal decision…heck, why should I tell you about it? Read it for yourself…http://www.livejournal.com/users/rmille68/4800.html

New life is beautiful…it seems the routine that often follows this massive shift in one’s life ends up denying what that new life represents. Very deadly. I hate the front Christians (including me) put up that everything is perfect and “sin-free” because they’re afraid to let others in on deep wounds they carry…rebecca was real about her struggles, and I’m sure she’ll have more. Her honesty cut through the wall I’ve set up to separate myself from God here recently. In reality, I carry significant issues that I struggle with on a daily basis; some that are parts of me that don’t want to die from earlier in my life, and others have arisen over the course of the past couple years. And those issues are important enough that they wound me deeply…and I’m so afraid to share them with others because a)I’m a guy, and we struggle with that, b)I’m the de facto pastor at my church, and c)this is a recurring, habitual issue. There’s guys in my life who know what I’m going through, but I’m afraid to share with them because it shows my glaring, refuses-to-die weakness I carry. So I’ve ignored it, ran from it, as a result ran from God, refused to share deeply recently with anyone, and have found myself bitterly cynical over the past two weeks. Spiritual platitudes and false fronts work out in the public arena, but my self-respect and inner life are (I should say “were”) dying on the vine. Rebecca’s story woke me up again…immediately placed me back in the reality of my actions (which hurt bad…the purity and intensity of this feeling was ironically a tremendous step for me), and reminded me of my calling.

I had a conversation with a guy at seminary the other day, and he said, “Most Christians don’t recognize the reality of what their life means and how their actions ripple in eternity…but we’re called to be shepherds of our congregations, and we are held to an even higher accountability because we are leading others: how important our life, our decisions, and our leadership is!” I agreed, was blown away by this truth, and immediately after this moment of epiphany, I jumped on my computer and destroyed my heightened awareness of the impact of my decisions. After all this (if you read this far), you may have thought I was skirting around the issue…like any self-respecting Christian would, right? I struggle deeply with maintaining a healthy approach to women. Women were created by God beautiful, complementary to men, tremendous examples of the diversity of God’s creation, and wonderful partners to walk through life with; especially in marriage, the ultimate and most amazing creation of God…that a man and a woman could make a covenant to share life together and walk together through the ups and downs of life, could become one sexually in God incredible design that merges not only the spouses’ physical bodies, but carries emotional and spiritual union as well. This is God’s creation. Women are created by God as amazing examples of his intimate meticulous care in his creation. But the world has twisted the way we view women, and the nature of sexuality. We have substituted the beauty of sexuality expressed through marriage for impulsive one-night stands or a long line of relationships…we have taken the beauty of women and turned it into a commodity, into an industry in pornography that destroys a wholistic understanding of who women are and reduces them to flesh; in short, a vagina and a pair of breasts. I am at once sickened by this and still deeply caught in the cycle that started for me in the tenth grade…given, the time that passes between my falling into viewing women in this fashion is much fewer and far between, but still deeply hurts the same nonetheless. I am a king of rationalizing my decisions away, somehow proving to myself that what I am doing is ok, while knowing that what I’m doing is perpetuating the cycle all along. In the words of Paul, “What I want to do I do not do, and what I do not want to do, I do…what a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”

I continue to be confounded with what seems to be the slow and painful death of the priorities and aspects of my life before Christ…at times I continue to be so caught up in my struggle that it seems to be futile. “Little faults committed in the beginning of a project grow infinitely greater in its course and finally are almost irreparable.” I’m on the slow, arduous, painful journey away from a life consumed with my selfishness and twisted desires to the truth of what it means to be a disciple of Christ…I’d be fooling myself if I thought this would ever change. I know we are called to live with joy and freedom in this journey, but I’m also aware that there is a season for everything, and this dark night is the reality I exist in right now. It’s funny how no one really knows this…but yet some random person from the web will happen upon what I can’t tell to those closest to me because I’m paralyzed by my fear that I will be judged. How screwed up is that?

Thank you, Rebecca, for showing me how beautiful the light is. You know, it’s weird…I feel like the light’s just around the next turn, and I know that the only thing that will make that light a reality is my willingness to fall down at the feet of my Creator and truly repent…maybe I should stay there for awhile, instead of mumbling my apology and turning around and doing the exact same thing again.