propaganda

Trent got me listening to the Nick & Josh Podcast. If you haven't heard these guys, do check them out. You can subscribe to their podcast for free on itunes. They interview people like Marcus Borg, Brian McLaren, Doug Pagitt and that guy who wrote A Year of Living Biblically. Good stuff.

I like their podcast, but I've become rather addicted to their blogs (is it odd to be addicted to a stranger's blog? I suspect it kind of is ... but what what can you do?). Last night I came upon this post. Here's a quote:

"When we use terms like unbeliever, we are making a deliberate choice to define and label someone so that it makes it easier for us to categorize them and consequently draw the line that proves they are OUT. We are not defining ourselves in relationship to people as friends and as humans, but are defining ourselves in relationship to US being IN and THEM being OUT.

And maybe it’s only me but I’m just crazy enough to believe in a God who is comprehensive enough to not expect everyone to be at the same point as me in order for them to be IN. Even defining myself as being at on a point is extremely limiting. God is not ponticular and linear. And even when I say “as me“, I’m still defining people in relationship to me."

Okay, he totally lost me on ponticular. But how great is that?

quotable

These are three Anne Lamott quotes that I like a lot.

“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.”

"When hope is not pinned wriggling onto a shiny image or expectation, it sometimes floats forth and opens.”

“I do not at all understand the mystery of grace - only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.”

If you haven't read anything by her (especially Traveling Mercies) check her out. She's great.

circle

I think sometimes when you question, and struggle with faith, there's this expectation that after all of it, that you will come back to where you started. Almost every Christian apologist I've read calls himself a former atheist. There is almost an unspoken understanding that the logical end to a faith crisis is back to the beginning. Back to the basics. Back to believing everything you once used to, but with even more fervor and devotion now.

I don't think that's in the cards for me. I'm not going to come full circle. I'm okay with that. I'm starting to understand the fact that my faith will never be a clearly laid out, unchanging and unchallenged list of absolutes ... and that I don't desire that kind of faith.

But I do desire a faith that is real. Active. Purposeful. And life-changing. I have a new appreciation for that verse in Micah that says to Live Justly, Love Mercy and Walk Humbly with your God. (I still think the Old Testament is filled to the brim with craziness, but it doesn't mean that I can't see the wisdom and beauty that the writers managed to impart into certain passages ... that I can't take them on their face as truth.) It's a reminder to just keep walking.

praying

Praying is a strange thing for me these days. What I never realized, is that prayer is, in so many ways, an extension of our theology. In the way one believes God interacts with us ... or doesn't. Probably that's obvious to anyone else. But for me, it was a wholly unexpected consequence of wrestling with faith.

I often find myself praying, using familiar words that suggest overall understandings about God. Then, I'll stop and think wait ... do I even really believe that anymore? Or even more difficult ... am I just talking to myself here?

The other day I was talking with friend on the phone. She was going through some intense struggles and as I listened to her and cried with her, I felt moved to pray out loud. That is so totally out of character for me (and usually outside my comfort zone), but I felt helpless and was at such a loss. And in that moment, it was all I could do, I didn't even really think about it. But even as I prayed for her ... and did so earnestly, some part of me was thinking "do I believe in a God? And that God works in that way?" But even in my doubt, I could still feel peace just from praying.

I think it's tempting to believe that moments like that should fully confirm our worldviews, or our specific theologies. Very simply they do not. But I do think they at least suggest the idea that there is something More.

I had a conversation with a pastor once (have I shared this thought already?), and he talked about the importance of separating our doctrine from our experiences. Meaning, I can believe in my God moments ... my More moments. They can be true and real. But those moments don't necessitate or prove any doctrine. The moments can be true whether or not Jesus actually turned water into wine (or grape juice depending on who you ask) at a wedding. Or whatever.

I think it is very possible that we all have God moments. More moments. Regardless of our specific theologies. If we believe someone's theology is wrong (they believe Allah rode a winged horse to heaven or that our lives are based on karma from a previous life or that communion is the physical body and blood of Christ ...) does that invalidate their moments?

I don't think so. I think these days though, my prayers -- even my wordless ones -- are prayers of hope. Not prayers of belief or acknowledgment of certainties.

I like this quote from Gandhi:

"Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart."

b-i-b-l-e

The bible is just kind of disturbing. It really just is. (Yeah, I know. THIS from me, yet again. Feel free to roll your eyes).

Now, I admit, I'm not one of those people who can just rattle off a random passage at a moment's notice. You know, those people? Who seem to hold an arsenal of verses in an imaginary holster or something ... And with one quick draw, recite two books of Galatians at the precise moment it is needed to punctuate their point? Yeah. I've never been that girl.

But I've read it. I've studied it. And like any female who has ever spent any time in church, I've even done my share of Beth Moore lessons.

But in general, I always read the bible more cafeteria-style ... instead of digging into it like a much-anticipated five-course meal. I know that's not how you're supposed to do it. So every once in awhile I'd start to feel quite bad. And I'd try a more holistic approach to bible reading for a bit.

But then I'd hit a story where Lot (who is called a righteous man!) offers up his virgin daughters to a mob of rapists (lucky for those daughters, the mob politely declines). Or I'd come upon the instructions for people to stone their children for disobedience. Something like that. And in a flash, I'd flee from all that insanity to the familiar comforts of the Prodigal Son. Or the Good Samaritan. Or the Sermon on the Mount. Now granted, the beatitudes didn't exactly make me feel like I was on top of my game (like they are easy and I can check them off my list!) .... but at least they made sense as an ideal.

How can love your neighbor as yourself, turn the other cheek or live justly, love mercy and walk humbly all be all bundled up with the ethnic cleansing in the Joshua story? Or the mass murder of all those firstborns of unwitting Egyptian bystanders? Or those proclamations of eternal damnation for unbelievers? And how come all those stories are supposed to convince us of the beauty and wonder and power of God?

I no longer believe I have to learn to love every single story in the bible. That they all have to make some divine, cosmic sense because they are the unfettered words of God in black and white.

Here's the thing. I don't believe they are the unfettered words of God in black and white. And if I could convince myself (or be convinced) they were, I don't think I could put any faith in that God.

I think the words are the product of men. Of ancient people and communities. Well-meaning ones perhaps. Metaphors. Not history. Or science. Meant to tell a story. Or even attempts to capture God. Meant to to be read, dug through, struggled with ... thought about. But not meant to be taken literally as a modern-day manual of how to raise my children (stone them for disobedience), treat my friends who are struggling with issues (cast out those involved in certain kinds of sin ... don't even eat with them), be a good wife to my husband (submit in all things) or participate in worship (cover my head and be silent).

I don't have to try find the pearl of wisdom in the senseless, sweeping murder of innocents. Or silence my intellect or conscience with the the idea that I should be content to believe that "God's ways are higher" when things look utterly ugly.

It's kinda freeing. It's very freeing.

But it opens up a whole can of worms. What now? It's all moral relativism and slippery slopes for me now, right? If I don't take the entire bible as God's holy and literal orders to me, can I really continue to seek God?

A pastor I talked to the other day said something that struck me as so lovely and profound. He said something like "people lived for thousands of years communing with and relating to God before there were ever written scriptures. They didn't need a book to tell them He was real or what was true."

I know lots of people who might think that highly problematic. A "false teacher tickling my ear" even. But I keep the reality ... the truth of that thought marinating in my brain. Probing it. Wrestling with it. It's a lot to think about.

Book suggestion of the day: Divine Nobodies: Shedding Religion to Find God and the Unlikely People Who Help You (Jim Palmer)

story

This is a great story. Check it out.

certainties

My darling husband is a fan of Sam Harris. As I've said before, I like him (Sam Harris, that is) in small doses. He is brilliant and a bit less caustic than his atheist peers. I think he makes a lot of interesting observations on faith.

I heard him say something the other day though, that stuck to me. He was talking about the still yet unknown implications of science, in the realm of human behavior. And he said something like (this is my paraphrase, but you get the idea):

We know that love is better than hate. But there will be a time where we will be able to prove biochemically why it is better.

Oooh baby. He is one smooth talker, isn't he?

I realize the man is a neuroscientist. And what do I know? He might be a hopeless romantic ... wooing his true love with poetry and roses. But really ... why the hell do we need biochemistry to tell us that love is better than hate?

Besides my belief that the great scientific minds of our time could be better occupied than trying to prove something my four year old could easily verify based on her short life experience, the idea seems so fundamentally flawed. I reject the very notion that we can, or should, take the beauty and wonder of human emotion and define it as a scientific formula.

There are a lot of things I find I have jettisoned on my faith walk. It is scary, in a lot of ways. But it feels truer, freer, more authentic. Like I am no longer struggling to convince myself or be convinced about things that never made sense to me.

Still, I find myself continually drawn to the sense that there is More. More than the quantifiable formulas that either science or religion offer us.

Scientists and theologians both admit there are limits to what can be known. But somehow they both believe to be the authority on what we do know. And to be able to best guess on the things we don't. That being said, I DO think it might be helpful if religion didn't fight for equal footing with science in the realm of things that are tangible and measurable. Science does seem to have a much better track record (the world being round and the earth rotating around the sun and all that ...), and it just makes us look kind of silly in the end.

I think there is truth and beauty to be found in Christianity. That I have been blessed enough to find those things within it. But I do not believe that Christianity is the sole, or even the highest source of truth.

We say that's it's not so much about dogma right? I've heard that before. Our paths to God look different and there's room for that, right? But what I'm finding is that there are always things that are not on the table. Our paths to God are valid ones ... IF we believe in the inspiration of the bible. Or that Jesus was born of a virgin, or that Jesus is the one way to salvation. Or we accept the fallenness of man ... or whatever. So it's not about our theology. Except, when it comes right down to it, it really is.

More formulas, I think. Quantifying things we maybe have no business quantifying.

Probably that sounds arrogant. Like I think I can suddenly reinvent the things of God according to my whims. I think I would have said that about these words myself a year ago.

But I don't think it is arrogant. I truly think it might be more humble to admit that there are some things we can't know for certain. Maybe hope and faith are more real and more beautiful than certainties anyway. I am allowing myself to lose faith in the formulas ... in the dogma. Without losing my faith that there is More.

Perhaps it is the day to day that matters. Perhaps relentless seeking, not absolute truths, is what allows us to glimpse what is sacred. And what can inspire us to live more fully in the now.

Just perhaps. I guess I can't be certain.

politics

Did anyone watch the Democratic debates last night? I was addicted, glued to CNN. I got nothing done last night.

And while I'm on the topic of politicos .... We've been talking a lot at our house about Huckabee's comments the other week regarding amending the constitution per the bible. I continue to hold that, even if you are horrified by that statement (as we are), you really have to credit Huckabee with points for guts and sincerity.

I really like the comments that a local pastor made about this topic. Check them out if you want.

PS: It may amuse you to know that our six-year old has (for whatever reason) decided to be a huge Huckabee fan. He is a big supporter. He even chants. The irony has not escaped us.

gambling

Part three. Check out my previous posts for a bit of background.

Thought Three: “We're both betting. He's betting his life that he's right. I'm betting my life that Jesus was not a liar. When we die, if he's right, I've lost nothing. If I'm right, he's lost everything. I'm not willing to make that gamble.” Implication: This life is not what matters, only the next. The ultimate motivation to have a faith in God is to avoid inevitable eternal damnation.

I cannot even believe he used Pascal's Gambit as his final thought. Seriously. There has to be about a jillion better things to say in the last-thoughts part of a debate. Though I guess to be fair, I really don't know, I'm not debater. But it certainly seems like there should be.

Here's the thing. The very suggestion that we could spend our entire life chasing something, only to find that it wasn't really there, and NOT feel like we have lost something quite profound is preposterous. By the same token, the implication that it is at all worthy or honorable to follow God for the mere purpose of avoiding hellfire and damnation is equally detestable.

I think Richard Carrier makes some interesting comments on this line of thinking:

"Suppose there is a God who is watching us and choosing which souls of the deceased to bring to heaven, and this god really does want only the morally good to populate heaven. He will probably select from only those who made a significant and responsible effort to discover the truth. For all others are untrustworthy, being cognitively or morally inferior, or both. They will also be less likely ever to discover and commit to true beliefs about right and wrong. That is, if they have a significant and trustworthy concern for doing right and avoiding wrong, it follows necessarily that they must have a significant and trustworthy concern for knowing right and wrong. Since this knowledge requires knowledge about many fundamental facts of the universe (such as whether there is a god), it follows necessarily that such people must have a significant and trustworthy concern for always seeking out, testing, and confirming that their beliefs about such things are probably correct. Therefore, only such people can be sufficiently moral and trustworthy to deserve a place in heaven — unless god wishes to fill heaven with the morally lazy, irresponsible, or untrustworthy."

It's a bit harsh. And I'm not saying I agree with everything Carrier has to say. But it certainly offers some good things to think about.

And with that, my rant (at least this particular one) is now officially over.

works

This is part two of my three-part rant. Check out my previous posts for a bit of background.

I do want to say first that my intention is not to pick apart one man’s thoughts (although it does seem to be shaking down that way, doesn’t it?). Rick Warren did not originate any of these ideas. They are part of a larger (and very prevalent) scope of Christian thought. And they encapsulate much of what I think is broken, lacking and illogical in Christianity. They are some of the very things that have weighed on my heart and mind … causing much of my faith to come loose at the seams.

With that said ...

Thought Two: “Altruism comes out of knowing there is more than this life, that there is a sovereign God” Implication: Only people of faith are truly capable of kindness and good works.

This argument speaks to a larger idea that is foundational to Christianity. We hear, as Christians, that man is fallen. Broken. Sinful. Depraved. There are countless verses that would support this, right? These are the ABCs of Sunday school. Only through faith in Christ can we be reconciled to God. Everything we do outside of Christ is ultimately self-serving.

But the obvious implication of this is that all who do not profess a faith in Christ are still in their utterly depraved states. And that everything they do is ultimately self-serving. A bit uglier on the flip side, don’t you think? But it seems to me, the logical conclusion from the first statement.

Now, as an aside, I think it’s often wholly without pride that Christians hold this line of thinking. I’ve heard the analogy often that we are all beggars. Christians are just beggars that have found a place for bread, and are humbly offering it to their fellow beggars. I will say that this analogy has always really resonated with me. The problem comes though, when our fellow “beggars” are not at all hungry. They feel quite well-fed, thank you very much. And are not looking an alternative source of sustenance. And they’re frankly, a little annoyed that we would imply otherwise.

But I digress. Statistically, there is zero evidence that Christians are more zealous about humanitarian efforts than non-Christians. And while there are indeed many Christian organizations and people lovingly and faithfully serving the poor and doing good works, there are many in the secular world doing the very same. In fact (and I will not claim I know this to be true) I read recently that when you remove the volunteering that Christians do in their own local church body (committees, teaching etc), Christians actually do much less than non-believers, in the scheme of serving the larger world.

I heard a (Christian) writer I like talk the other day about finding a Christian Office Supply Store. And he marveled that the Christians can isolate themselves so completely from the outside world (Christian radio, television, schools, books, music, friends) cocooning ourselves in the comfort of a world where everybody thinks just like us. And I would suggest that when we do this, it’s even easier to believe the implication (however subtle and probably subconscious in many ways) that all non-Christians are (without the light of Christ) at their cores, self serving.

But once a person’s circle is a little bigger, and they meet countless kind, self-sacrificing non-Christians with lives that genuinely model the idea of “love your neighbor” (in some case better than Christians), that line of thinking loses its traction rather quickly.

Beyond all this, even if I do believe that Christ did indeed instruct me to “love my neighbor as myself,” I certainly hope that would not be my sole motivation for caring about my fellow human beings. When we see suffering in the world, we are moved to compassion. Not simply because God told us to be compassionate. But because anyone who lives in reality can see that, in the long run, it is a much more fufilling way to live. Because we can see that we are all connected ...part of the shared fabric of humanity. We know this not because someone wrote it in a book thousands of years ago, but from experience. Empathy and altruism are possible, not because we are godly, but because we are human.

suspicion

Here's the first of my three promised rants. If you have no idea what on earth I'm talking about, please check out my previous post.

Here we go ...

Thought One: “You're more spiritual than you think. You just don't want a boss. You don't want a God who tells you what to do.” Implication: The truth of Christianity is crystal clear, so I implicitly distrust your motivations for questioning.

This train of thought, to me, suggests an innate suspicion of any skeptic's (within Christianity or outside of it) motives. In my experience, it's a fairly common Christian reaction to disbelief or skepticism. It's not that there are things to truly question, the argument goes. It's simply that the questioner doesn't want to have to deal with the idea of "submitting themselves to the truth." There must be an underlying (and most likely internal) reason for the doubts.

I once read a book by a very widely known Christian apologist. One of The Big Names in apoligetics. I read the book with with honest intentions, hoping it might assuage some of my skepticism. That was one of the first moments when I thought, this is all there is? As Christians, this is the best we can do? I felt like crying.

There are multiple issues I had with the book. I'll refrain from cataloging them here in the interest of time and space. But what is most relevant to this topic, was the author's tone. His arrogance. The (very impressively sized) book was chock full of personal examples supposedly from the author's own life. In every one of these examples he would detail encounters he had with so-called professed atheists. In every story, the atheist would talk about the intellectual or theological reasons they couldn't embrace Christianity. And after about five minutes of conversation, the author would magically debunk all their reasons. He would then retrieve a speedy confession from the atheist that their hesitations were really about the fact that they wanted to live however they wanted, and not submit to Christ.

I am not exaggerating. Story after story like this. Page after page interspersed throughout the book. The author even went so far to say that MOST people he encountered couldn't really make any "intellectual objections" to Christianity stick. It was almost always an issue of control over their lives. Amazing! Hallelujah! A lifetime of disbelief, and after a mere twenty minutes with this author THESE NON BELIEVERS HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT! It's really that simple! This is the message he is sending to his readers on how to understand non-believers.

I'm sorry, but what a load of freaking crap. Pure crazy-making.

Obviously there are are a huge myriad of reasons why people do not choose Christianity, some more valid than others. But I would say that if you think Christianity, both in historicity and in modern practice, is clear and completely above reproach, you have some serious cognitive dissonance happening. There is obviously much to question.

I'll put in another way. Do Christians not bother with the Book of Mormon because they are unwilling to give up their morning coffee? Do they not follow the laws of the Koran because they just really like pork chops? Maybe it's just a heart issue? Or a will issue? Or an obedience issue?

Of course not. We know there are of course there about a million reasons ... be it intellectual, cultural, theological, experiential or whatever ... that we choose to either accept or reject those belief systems. It's simply insulting and antagonistic that one would suggest otherwise.

Ugh. Maddening.

End rant (at least until the next one).

three

The other day I read a transcript of a debate between Rick Warren (of The Purpose Driven Life mega-fame) and Sam Harris (author of The End of Faith and one of the so-called “new atheists”). I’ve never been a huge Warren fan (although I think the work he and his wife do in Africa with the AIDS crisis is amazing and commendable). I like Harris in small doses, but he starts to grate on me after too long. Trent is a big fan of his.

You can read the entire transcript of the debate here. But here’s the part that makes me want to jump out of my skin:

WARREN: You're more spiritual than you think. You just don't want a boss. You don't want a God who tells you what to do.

HARRIS: I don't want to pretend to be certain about anything I'm not certain about.

Rick, last thoughts?

WARREN: I believe in both faith and reason. The more we learn about God, the more we understand how magnificent this universe is. There is no contradiction to it. When I look at history, I would disagree with Sam: Christianity has done far more good than bad. Altruism comes out of knowing there is more than this life, that there is a sovereign God, that I am not God. We're both betting. He's betting his life that he's right. I'm betting my life that Jesus was not a liar. When we die, if he's right, I've lost nothing. If I'm right, he's lost everything. I'm not willing to make that gamble.

[Picture me here, banging my head against the wall.] Let's review some of those thoughts, along with what in my opinion, are the clear implications of them:

Thought One: “You're more spiritual than you think. You just don't want a boss. You don't want a God who tells you what to do.” Implication: The truth of Christianity is crystal clear, so I implicitly distrust your motivations for questioning.

Thought Two: “Altruism comes out of knowing there is more than this life, that there is a sovereign God” Implication: Implication: Only people of faith are capable of kindness and good works.

Thought Three: “We're both betting. He's betting his life that he's right. I'm betting my life that Jesus was not a liar. When we die, if he's right, I've lost nothing. If I'm right, he's lost everything. I'm not willing to make that gamble.” Implication: This life is not what matters, only the next. The ultimate motivation to have a faith in God is to avoid inevitable eternal damnation.

I'm having a hard time with this entry. I keep writing stuff and then deleting it because it sounds so caustic. So I am scrambling to find some balance here. I will say that those three arguments epitomize so much of what frustrates me about Christianity. I think those are sentiments (stated in both subtle ways and more overtly) are very prevalent within Christianity ....

So much to say about those three comments … so I need to break it down into separate posts. My next entry will start from thought one.

parents

I’ve read my share of Christian parenting books. Some were pretty good. I’ve also been known to throw my share across the room (okay, just one actually made me that angry) in utter frustration and disbelief.

Right now I’m reading a book called Parenting Beyond Belief, a collection of essays written by secular parents. I don’t agree with all of the pieces, but for the most part, I like it a lot. Not because I have any intention of raising my children without a faith in God. But because it offers a lot of good insights to parenting in general. And because answering kids’ important questions (does God exist? seems like a biggie), in a house where the parents don’t necessarily agree, is dicey (and until now, for us, unchartered) territory at best.

What I find so striking is this. Much of Christian parenting books talk quite a bit about how difficult it is to raise “godly children” in a secular world. Parenting Beyond Belief addresses the struggles that secular parents face when raising “free-thinking children” (as the book would call them) in an overtly religious world.

Funny, huh?

light

The following is from Mother Teresa's book Come Be My Light. Some people think her darkness -- her struggles through much of her life --should bring hope to those with questions of faith. Some think it evidence that her own hope and faith were grossly misplaced.

I don't know what I think about it. It is what it is, I guess. Either way, it's thought-provoking.

I call, I cling, I want. And there is no one to answer.

No one on whom I can cling , no, one. Alone ... Where is my Faith?

Even deep down right in there is nothing, but emptiness and darkness .

My God — how painful is this unknown pain I have no Faith.

I dare not utter the words and thoughts that crowd in my heart

and make me suffer untold agony. So many unanswered questions live within me

afraid to uncover them because of the blasphemy.

If there be God — please forgive me . When I try to raise my thoughts

to Heaven , there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return

like sharp knives & hurt my very soul.

I am told God loves me. And yet the reality of darkness and coldness

and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul.

community

We got married in 1996. And for the first few years, it was all about weddings. So many of our friends were getting married. It was all new beginnings and showers and parties. Not too long ago it was babies. More new beginnings, more showers, more parties. That was fun.

Now, almost twelve years down the road, our friends get divorced. Really, not nearly so much fun as the first stuff.

I heard someone say once that getting divorced is kind of a double whammy. First you lose your life as you know it ... your partner as you know it. But then there's this other weird element. When a lot of your married friends -- the people you did married-people stuff with -- get a bit skiddish around you.

They still love you. But suddenly there's a bit of hesitation. The moments together might be a little awkward ... and after awhile, the conversations more guarded. Until you realize you might need to find at least a few more non-married friends.

I think maybe losing your faith, in Christian circles, is a bit like that. Just maybe.

So what do you do when you give up your community? Your place at the table?

And what do you do when you start your life with someone? You start your family with someone? And all the things you both believed so strongly when you began together, don't make sense anymore. To either of you. And so, suddenly you find yourselves. Still bound firmly to one another by love and committment and history. But on different paths on the way to truth? What on earth do you do?

Well, I'll tell you, at least one thing you do ... you visit Unitarian Church.

Okay, let me just say that if you have baggage about Unitarian Church, believe me, so did I. I still do a little. I think I envisioned free love and people in sheets and feathers ... all worshipping trees and golden calves or something. Okay, maybe not quite all that. But I did think it was this kind of loopy we're-all-our-own-god-pantheistic-pluralism kind of crap. And I really wanted to hate it. The thought of telling anyone that I went to a Unitarian Church seemed on par with owning up to bringing burnt offerings to the rain deities or something.

I figured we would check it out, confirm it's very obvious flaws and wash our hands of the whole nutty thing. Then go have brunch at Pizza Luce. Instead they had to totally screw me over and be great.

Here's the thing. It's not really church. The one we visited calls itself a humanist congregation. So instead of trying to incorporate every belief system (which is obviously troublesome on any number of levels), they stay away from religion all together. Emphasizing instead the connectedness of humanity. How the knowledge of that commonality can move us toward good, whole and moral lives. (And if you believe morals are inherently derived only from God, that good lives cannot possible be attained without religion, that's a WHOLE separate post). And the kids program rocked. Lessons on tolerance, empathy, social justice, environmentalism and being critical thinkers (among other things). All things I hope to instill in my children.

The primary tenant (to quote their propaganda) of Unitarian Universalists is "Respecting the inherent dignity and worth of all people."

Grrrr!! Darn them!

No sheets. No feathers. Just a kind, open, intelligent community working towards being better people, and bettering the world around them.

Now if only they didn't sing hymns ....

risks

I have to say, I really am quite taken with blogging. Though I still have this self-consciousness about it. Like blogging is the epitome of egocentricism. Or the personification of what Donald Miller calls the biggest lie he's ever had to contend with ("life is a movie about me").

Maybe it is all those things ... I don't know. Nevertheless, it is quite cathartic. So I can see why people do it. It's also a bit scary, really. Putting all my crap out there and staring it directly in the face. So starkly permanent in in black and white (and pink).

Even more scary, is the fear I might be grossly offending people in the process (and perhaps I'm giving myself too much credit .. perhaps no one is actually reading my blathering here ...?).

Here lies my conundrum. I struggle to be real ... to come to a faith that's real. And I can't do that without poking around in the things I used to believe. The things I am trying to figure out if I still believe. All this done in the company of people who may hold dear the very things I am dissecting. It means, in essence, that I'm not just poking around in my own faith --I take the risk of jabbing a giant, unwelcome stake in someone else's. That really kinda sucks.

So what to do? Do I lay it all on the line with people who hold the faith I've come to question? I risk alienating people I care about. Or do I commiserate with people who DON'T share that faith? Or have already rejected it? I risk fanning the flames of my own skepticism. Neither seem like ideal options. And if you're thinking I should lay it before God ... that I should pray .... trust me, I have. I do. But of all the things I've ever believed, I've never believed that my faith journey was solely between me and God. Relationships -- community has always played a part.

So I'm left on this trajectory ... fumbling, groping, risking. And I suppose, pleading for grace while I do it.

Part of me feels a longing to go back to a place before all the questions and uncertainty plagued me. But what I'm realizing is, I can't get back. That in truth, I wouldn't want to get back. There's a Sara Groves song that came to my mind the other day ...

the place i was wasn't perfect

but i had found a way to live

it wasn't milk and honey

but then neither is this

i've been painting pictures of egypt

leaving out what it lacked

the future feels so hard, and i want to go back.

but the places that used to fit me

will not hold the things i've learned.

those roads were closed off to me

when my back was turned.

So wherever this sojourn takes me, I guess it's forward. Not back. My desire -- my ultimate hope -- remains that it will take me closer to God.

right

Orthodoxy. Right thinking. How important is it? When it comes to being a follower of Jesus (or I suppose, any other religion), how much does dogma or doctrine really matter?

This is where it breaks down for me. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Bible tends to be frustrating for me. Not in an I-want-to-get-around-these-rules-and-do-whatever-I want kind of way. My struggles with the Bible are bigger than that. I’m not looking for a free pass to cheat on my husband, steal a car, or just be a generally selfish person. It's not about loopholes. Nor do I think loopholes are the motivation of most people who have a difficult time accepting Christianity, by the way.

It’s just that so much (many examples I already mentioned, but there are a few more) of it doesn’t make sense to me. When I try to reconcile it with my mind and general human experience, there’s a disconnect. I can't imagine ever returning to a belief in a literal interpretation of the Bible. For me, that would take far too many mental gymnastics.

Side note: Here’s where it gets tricky. I say these things to try to sort out all the remnants and challenges of my broken faith. I have NO desire to implicate anyone else’s belief system. I hope no one reading this takes it as such.

The only thing that keeps me from running into the arms of straight-up secular humanism is experience. Experience with God that is.

I’ve never heard God’s audible voice. I have no miraculous tales of God-orchestrated meetings at roadside cafes. Or gifts of checks written out in the precise amount that the recipient needed. These are stories I’ve heard all my life. I don’t doubt these stories. But they are not mine.

What I do have are these scattered moments where I think I felt God. It’s these moments … fleeting and surreal as they seem now … that cause me to keep trudging along on this walk. To keep hoping they were not imagined. Not a product of expectations, indoctrination or my own subconscious.

But if following God is about moments — about relationship — that leads to only more questions.

Christians tend to say that God is bigger than our minds can perceive. I absolutely would have said that. But if we say that, and if we really believe that … How can we possibly find our truth in Christianity alone? Don’t those two thoughts contradict one another? John’s gospel has Jesus saying that no one can come to God except through Him. That's some big talk.

Can we really say that God defies our boundaries, that he is beyond our comprehension and still say we know that Jesus (or even our specific way of following Jesus) is the only way?

There’s an allegory about religion that compares it to a finger pointing at the moon. Religion is (all religions are) the finger, and the moon is God. But we miss the point and make the mistake of thinking the finger IS the moon.

That makes a great deal of sense to me. But I don’t think I know many Christians that would agree. It certainly doesn’t support the only-one-way-to-God idea.

hopeful

Thanks to everyone for your posted comments and emails. Each one has encouraged me. I’m thankful to have company on this journey.

Here's my thought for today. I know that faith always requires some sort of leap … that is the very nature of faith. But I long for certainty. Or at the very least clarity.

I’ve heard people say that there is truth to be found in Christianity. God’s wisdom is higher than ours, the argument goes. The truth is there. But our human sinfulness is what blinds us from it. So we can question and doubt. But if we truly expect God to reveal Himself, we must first believe that He’s going to. If we don’t first submit, we won’t recognize the truth when it’s presented.

But to me, honest questioning requires us not to believe we know the answer before we even ask the question.

A pastor I respect a lot (I’ve never met him, but his preaching and writing just seem to resonate with me) wrote (and forgive my very poor paraphrasing here) something like this:

I respect people who can come to their faith simply. Without struggle or questioning. But it wasn’t like that for me. I had to wrestle with it. I had to fight and claw for my faith.

That’s where I am now. If I can piece my faith back together, it will be hard-earned. Fought for. Turned upside down. I cannot have a faith that only works if I squeeze my eyes shut. I need an eyes-wide-open kind of faith.

I have a friend who told me (paraphrasing again) that the way she experiences God most fully is when she is in deep pursuit of Him, and when she recognizes that He is in deep pursuit of her. She sees great beauty in the struggle. Something about that gives me such hope. Like all the questioning is chasing God. Not running away.

I came across a page today (I listen to this guy’s podcast from time to time). He calls himself a hopeful skeptic. A hopeful skeptic. I like that a lot.

bricks

In Rob Bell’s Velvet Elvis (I liked that book a lot) he talked about the idea that some Christians are more concerned with doctrine and theology than actually following God. He called this a religion of Brickianity …

“Each of the core doctrines for him is like an individual brick that stacks on top of the others. If you pull one out, the whole wall starts to crumble. It appears quite strong and rigid, but if you begin to rethink or discuss even one brick, the whole thing is in danger."

That chapter really resonated with me. And I smugly thought about all the people I knew who had a brick-wall kind of faith. But what I didn’t realize until just recently — was that I have my share of bricks stacked up.

There was always stuff about Christianity that drove me nutty … or that I found troubling. I’m an expert at pretty much steering clear of most of the Old Testament. Okay, I readily admit, that really is quite a pathetic solution. But have you read the Old Testament? All that genocide and blatant misogyny can really trip a girl’s faith up.

Even in the New Testament, I could never make sense of the exclusivity (only through Jesus can we be saved) and the whole hell thing (eternal damnation seems a bit over the top, doesn’t it?).

And mostly, I could never make heads or tails of the idea that the Bible is God’s Holy and Inspired Word. I never understood how we concluded that it was indeed God-breathed (as opposed to being the product of two communities that it came out of). How do we know that? Other than a couple random verses that seem to suggest that all scripture is from God (ones that I can only assume were not talking about itself, since at that point they were letters and not actually scripture)?

Either way, it really seems as though you would need a better source for proving the divinity of a book other than the book itself. The Qur'an and the Book of Mormon both claim to be Holy, revealed texts. And most Christians I know don't take those books simply at their word. What is the difference? I mean, I might claim in a book that I am a world-class ultimate fighting champion, and call the book truth, it certainly doesn’t make it true.

And anyway, shouldn't a book that was birthed from the very mind of God be at least a little clearer on life issues? Or at least not allow slavery for goodness sakes? What am I missing here?

I was ( I still am) utterly confounded by it all. But I confess that I never took the time to think it all through. At some point recently, I started to. I started to think it all through. And then … my bricks started falling.

Here’s the thing. I always just assumed I didn’t really have to think everything through. I mean, for crying out loud, there are about a kajillion people in the world that are smarter than I am about the Bible and theology. And while they all seem to have different versions of what is true (and are each convinced that their truth is the real truth), I just assumed that someone already thought it all through much better than I ever could have. And figured I would agree with someone when I got around to taking a look at their theories. That when I got off my butt and looked for the answers, they would be there. And they would suffice. I know. It’s appalling and terribly lazy. But there it is.

The problem is, when I started looking into things, instead of everything becoming clear, it all just got muddy. Crazy muddy. I went into this venture with the best of intentions …. looking for the glue to cement my Christianity together. And instead it was falling to pieces. I went looking for answers and found only more questions. It's all quite disconcerting.

shameless

Just so we’re clear, I have to admit something right off the bat. This blog starts with some shameless pilfering of other’s people’s ideas. That title Girl Meets God is stolen from Lauren Winner’s book of the same name. I liked it (the title, that is ... the book in my opinion was only so-so), so I’m shamelessly appropriating it.

And though blogging is hardly a new phenomenon (or his invention) I’m stealing the idea of actually starting one myself from my husband. I’m sure he’ll be glad to be free from my constant looking over his shoulder and attempt to insert my own (very witty) ideas into his thoughts.

Here's the skinny. You know those formulaic romantic comedies (please don’t mistake me here, I am SO not above formulaic romantic comedies) with the ever-comforting girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl gets boy back and lives happily ever after plots? I feel like I’m living that.

I’m having a bit of a faith crisis these days (I hate that phrase, but can’t think of a better one). In my own journey, I’m kind of in the Girl Loses God part. I am hanging on for the cinematic ending to my story. But right now, it’s not looking very cinema-worthy. Right now it’s frightening and messy. Also my hair is not nearly so cute as Reese Witherspoon’s.

I'm thinking this blog is about me sorting out all my faith crisis crap (still haven't thought of a better word), and trying to work through all the chaos twirling around in my brain. This could get ugly.