[+/-] Off to Camp

I'll be leaving for camp soon. I don't know how much I'll be home over the summer - for the most part just on weekends, if anything. It feels a little strange to be doing no counseling (basically I'll be on maintenance and dishes), a result of being deemed too unorthodox to talk to kids. The camp where I spent the majority of the last two summers doesn't even want me as a chore boy.

I'm not at all angry or resentful about this. It's not that I love counseling so much (in fact I usually find it quite challenging and discouraging) and it's not that I think I'm too good to wash dishes or pound nails, because I often enjoy that kind of work, but I can't shake this feeling that the church views me as some kind of spiritual invalid, with nothing to offer but my body. I don't mean that the Christians I know think of me that way. (Well, maybe they do - how could I know? But they're nice about it.) But I'm feeling more and more like the church has little use for me, or like I don't belong in the church.

At the risk of repeating myself, I have no complaints about my Christian friends, my church leadership, or the people at my camps. Believe me, if I had a problem with them I'd talk to them about it, not whine about them in my blog. My people are great people, but we're different. Our beliefs are different, our mindsets are different, our goals are different. It's not that they won't let me counsel, it's that I couldn't counsel. I couldn't do what would be expected of me. I couldn't say what they want me to say. We're just different.

My church has a communion service every Sunday morning in which anyone can stand up and talk about anything, so long as it's related somehow to Jesus and the whole atonement thing. Sometimes I love this service, because people can be real and share what they're thinking about stuff, but other times I don't understand what people are saying. I'm trying to articulate what kinds of things I don't get, and I think it's basically anything about Christianity having a practical impact on our lives. (Our lives, mind you. I have no problem with someone saying "Becoming a Christian changed my life in this or that way." But I have a hard time with "Isn't it wonderful how we [collectively, as Christians] are different in this or that way!") If there's one thing I've learned about Christianity, it's that it affects people differently.

I suppose the problem with Christianity is that you can only really be a Christian if your beliefs and experiences fall within certain parameters. I guess everything's like that, right? The difference is that Christianity thinks it's for everyone, or to put it another way, it thinks everyone's beliefs and experiences can be defined in it's own particular way. Depending on which Christian circles you move in, you may be able to get "in" to a certain point while still being a quite different, but you'll never totally fit.

It's like hanging around with a group of people who have all known each other for years. They may be great people, they may know how to have a good time, they may be deep and real, they may do a good job of including you and making you feel welcome, and yet they'll always have a deeper connection between each other that you don't have, and you'll always feel like a bit of an outsider with them.

I've gotten fairly good at fitting in. I don't try to hide my differences, but I try not to shove them in people's faces either. I'm used to checking up with whatever ministries I'm in to be sure they're aware of who I am and are ok with me doing what I do. I speak in communion service when I can and I try to keep my mouth shut when I deem my thoughts too radical. I do my best to encourage and help others in their Christian lives even when I can't relate to them. And it hurts me to express discontent with my little Christian world because I dearly love these people and I believe they love me too. My friends are good friends, and I always hate to see any of them go. I'm not sure what I'm saying here. Maybe I don't need to get out of the circles I'm in so much as I need to get into new ones. I want to connect with a broader range of people and find places to serve where my convictions and beliefs aren't a hindrance.

I don't know how I'll do this. I might go searching for a crazy-liberal church or a secular place to volunteer or something like that. Maybe I'll become really outgoing at school and make lots of philosopher friends. Or maybe I'll do nothing.

Anyhow, I think what I meant to say in this post is that I'll be going off to camp tomorrow. I'll be back now and then, mostly on weekends, but I don't know how much blogging and stuff I'll get in. Hopefully I'll be able to do weekly updates like I did last year.

A couple more things:

Now seems like a good time to plug bloglines.com. Sign up (It's easy! It's free!) and they'll notify you each time a blog you read has new content. This has the twofold benefit of saving you the need to check various blogs for new posts and boosting my ego when the subscribers number above my blog goes up.

In the middle of writing this post I came across an article on leavingfundamentalism.org which addresses precisely this topic. If you're interested, here she is.

[+/-] Moving Beyond the Bible

My Journal is now complete. The final two months of July and August are now up.

So in Buddhism there's this idea that not everything the Buddha taught was "true". Rather, he taught what was expedient, or useful and relevant to his audience. I really think they're on to something. Applying this to the Bible, it's easy to see why God didn't give the Israelites at Mt Sinai the same moral guidelines he gave through Jesus later on, or that he convicts various people of today. You can't just walk in to a culture and say, "Everything about the way you're thinking and acting is wrong. We need to tear this down and rebuild everything from scratch, and it's going to look like nothing you've ever seen." People just can't handle that. So it's baby steps: baby steps to treating women humanely, baby steps to seeing women as equals before God, baby steps to treating women as equals in society.

Most Christians are quite willing to admit that not all the laws given to ancient Israel are still applicable or sufficient. In fact, most of us would be appalled by the barbarism of a society like the one crafted by God himself (as some of us believe) all those years ago. And I'm not talking about the pagan, lawless society that Israel so quickly and repeatedly became - I mean a hypothetical Jewish society based entirely on the laws given to Moses. These laws simply wouldn't work in modern western society. They were beneficial for the time and place, but we've moved past that now.

I can see you all nodding in agreement. But now let me suggest that maybe we've also moved beyond the New Testament's teachings in some areas too. You don't like that? Why? It can't be that the laws given by Jesus are more authoritative - not if the Jewish laws were put in place by the Father. By all accounts, the transcendent God who created the Jewish laws is just as Holy and omniscient as the Son of Man who preaches in the Gospels. So why do we view the Father's laws as transient and the Son's as permanent? Because the Son was the final revelation of God? That makes sense. If there have only been two revelations of God (and his laws) to humanity, it makes sense that our religious and moral lives be defined and contained by the second. But what about that other person of God? You know... the Holy Spirit? (Can you see where I'm going with this?)

Ok, I admit I'm the first to downplay and discount the Holy Spirit and his supposed work in my life. I'm one of those who trusts my own experience and common sense over the Bible, and doing so in this case means that I have very little interest in the Spirit. But supposing I took every word of the Bible to be true, (though of course not your interpretation of every word) I think it still makes hella sense for the Bible not to be the be-all and end-all of Divine revelation. If the revelation of the Law from the Father is trumped by the later revelation of grace from the Son, shouldn't it follow that the present revelation from the Spirit through our consciences trumps the stuff in the Bible? Why should we feel bound to live entirely according to Biblical teachings, especially when the Bible gives little indication of being intended as a divine rule book? Why should we feel obligated to give chapter-and-verse support for every moral conviction we espouse? (Isn't this dishonest - pretending to be building all our morals on the foundation scripture when in reality we're forcing scripture to fit our inherent ethical convictions?) If you really believe that you are indwelt and empowered by God himself, why is your inner voice subservient to the written records of past revelations? Sure, there should be some kind of consistency, but we shouldn't be afraid to own up to the kind of divinely influenced yet culture-specific morality that was pioneered explicitly by God with the "New Covenant".

You want a precedent for the Spirit inspiring shifts in Christian moral thinking? How about the Epistles? Even within a generation of Jesus' death, even when Christians had access through the Apostles to all his teachings (not just the ones found in the canonical gospels), this revelation was insufficient to address all moral and spiritual questions. (No slight to Jesus, it's just that he didn't personally give orders for every possible scenario. How could he? Why would he?) The Apostles, guided by the spirit, took it upon themselves to both interpret the teachings of Christ and add to them, where necessary. They did this for their culture and their issues, so why should we hesitate to do it for ours?

I'm not suggesting that we throw out the Bible, any more than the early Church threw out the law of Moses. But let's see it for what it is: books written by men (guided by God) to address the issues of their day, just as we (guided by God) address ours. Let's see it as a reference point, as guidelines, but not as a holy rule-book that transcends all cultures and covers every issue, nor as the final word on any matter. I'm not suggesting we throw caution to the wind and chase after every hedonistic or idealistic whim, but lets stop seeing God as a stodgy old man who grumps about anything that's changed in the past 2000 years. I love the Bible. The Bible is good. But it shouldn't be the final word.

[+/-] My New Focus

I'm not that interested in God anymore. I remember when I used to think about him all the time. I haven't really done that in months. I no longer think of God as a person most of the time. Now he's kind of a concept. A hypothesis. I have no real interest in "relating to" God. There's nothing about the dynamic between God and myself that resembles a relationship. We don't talk. (Well, I talk sometimes, but we don't converse.) We don't really interact in any way. I've come to the point where I feel like I believe in God, but that it's not a belief that I attach a lot of significance to. (When I talk about whether God exists, I mean whether he exists as a being who influences our world and is involved in our lives. I have no interest in a transcendent "first cause" type being - only in a being that has some relevance to my world.) I am of the opinion that God exists, but I don't think it would affect my life in any huge way if I changed my mind.

I was thinking the other day about why I'm a Christian. I think it's probably mostly because the people around me are Christians. It is convenient for me to believe certain things because it allows me to relate more closely with those around me. I'm not saying I don't believe in Jesus and all that stuff - I do - but I believe out of conscious choice, and I choose to believe because it's expedient, and also to a certain extent out of inertia. (I've always been a Christian, there seems to be nothing better out there, so why change?) I'm also not saying that there are no good reasons to be a Christian, or that I suspect the whole thing is untrue. I'm just saying that I don't care so much whether it's true. Well, I suppose I still do care. But I don't expect to ever come to a firm conclusion, and it's no longer my greatest concern.

I guess what I'm thinking is that I don't want my life to be God-centric anymore. A God-centric life is dangerous because honestly (I mean HON-estly) there is no God with which we can interact. Or if there is, then it's next to impossible to distinguish this God from the things we mistake for him. I want to base my life on goodness. In some ways this is a fine distinction, because we assume that God is the embodiment or the source of goodness, and that goodness is like-ness to God. I'm not even sure how to describe this distinction to you. Maybe I'm putting God on the back-burner. Or maybe what I'm doing is taking my vague God-focus and refining it.

I don't know if I've ever said this explicitly, but I think I a lot of my life to date has been defined by the statement "I'm seeking God." There are two problems with this. The first, as I said above, is that God is such an enigma. How do I know if my beliefs/experiences/whatever are achieving my God-goal or not? The second is that "seeking God" is so broad. Does it mean seeking supernatural-feeling experiences? Honing spiritual disciplines? Striving for goodness? Building some kind of pseudo-relationship with an elusive deity? I suppose it means all of those things, usually. What I've decided is that this is all too broad - and more to the point, too difficult - for me. Not just too difficult, but too ambiguous. Too many things to juggle, too many ephemeral substances sliding through my fingers, too much uncertainty about whether I'm on the right path, whether I'm moving forward or back, or whether I'm simply stagnating. Why should I expend so much energy in a hopeless search for a God who gives no indication of wanting to be found by me (and little indication that he even exists)?

So I think what I'm saying is that I'm narrowing my focus. I'm going to concentrate on the stuff I can do. Not that I'm good at goodness, but at least I know what I'm seeking and how to seek it. And sure, goodness is still frightfully ambiguous. Sure, it's danged hard to pursue. But it's a lot clearer and easier than pursuing God, and I think that's as much as I can hope for.

One final clarification: this is not a recommendation. My goal in writing this (and my goal in most of my writing) is not to convince you to agree with me or be more like me. We're all different, and we're all on different paths. But I am interested in your thoughts.

(April is up. May is up.)

[+/-] Biblical Universalism

January through March are now up on my journal.

And here's an interesting story I read the other day:

When he finally arrives, blazing in beauty and all his angels with him, the Son of Man will take his place on his glorious throne. Then all the nations will be arranged before him and he will sort the people out, much as a shepherd sorts out sheep and goats, putting sheep to his right and goats to his left.

Then the King will say to those on his right, "Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what's coming to you in this kingdom. It's been ready for you since the world's foundation. And here's why:

I was hungry and you fed me,
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.'

Then those "sheep" are going to say, "Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?" Then the King will say, "I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me--you did it to me."

Then he will turn to the "goats," the ones on his left, and say, "Get out, worthless goats! You're good for nothing but the fires of hell. And why? Because-

I was hungry and you gave me no meal,
I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
I was homeless and you gave me no bed,
I was shivering and you gave me no clothes,
Sick and in prison, and you never visited.

Then those "goats" are going to say, "Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or homeless or shivering or sick or in prison and didn't help?" He will answer them, "I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you failed to do one of these things to someone who was being overlooked or ignored, that was me--you failed to do it to me." Then those "goats" will be herded to their eternal doom, but the "sheep" to their eternal reward.

This is a difficult passage to understand. For those so inclined, this could be seen as good grounds for a sermon on the necessity of living a godly life, lest you loose your salvation. In my experience this story has been grounds primarily for brow-knitting and head-scratching, and generally a rubber-stamp certification as a "problem passage". Most would interpret this either as a weeding out of the "sinners" from the "saints" (if you're willing to believe that only Christians are capable of compassion), or a weeding out of the false Christians (whose selfishness betrays their real allegiance) from the true. It is interesting to me that the commentaries I browsed seemed determined to miss the point of the first part of the passage. They're quite willing to accept the goat's damnation as resulting from their selfish lifestyle (as we know, all non-Christians are sinful and depraved) but seem inexplicably befuddled about the reason for the sheep's acceptance. I would be grateful if someone could explain to me how this parable is the least bit unclear about what distinguishes a sheep from a goat. Failing that, I will take it as self-evident that this parable teaches that the sheep (those bound for paradise) are those who are compassionate and selfless.

This parable fits well with 1 John's love-centric take on salvation, as well as the "faith without works is dead" message of James. It just recently occurred to me that it also has a universalist ring to it. I suppose I always thought this parable was about separating the false Christians from the true, but there's nothing in the parable its self to indicate that. In fact, is says explicitly at the beginning that this is the judgment of the whole earth. And on what is the whole earth being Judged? Love. Servanthood. And not a word about Church attendance, praying the Prayer, or sound doctrine.

I wouldn't ask you to build your whole concept of salvation on a single parable. Far be it from me to take a passage out of context. Aside from John and James, another passage that comes to mind is Matthew 7, which shows that works aren't everything. But intriguingly, the main point of this passage also seems to be that it's not your professions or beliefs, it's your attitudes and actions that are important to God.

It struck me the other night that most of what Jesus teaches is not theology per se, and when it is, it's always very practical. Jesus' teaching mostly focuses on how you ought to live, and more specifically on the attitude of your heart. Furthermore, the only times Jesus got really cheesed off was talking to the religious elite, who annoyed him to no end by obsessing over theological and religious perfection while forgetting to live with compassion and joy.

It seems very significant to me that all the creeds and doctrines about the trinity, the nature of Christ, salvation, etc. were created long after the Bible was written. Much like the Pharisees with the Hebrew Scriptures, the Religious powers of the day thought the teachings of Jesus and the apostles were to vague and open to various interpretations. They felt obliged to comb through scripture and distill it's enigmatic fragments of theology into a cohesive, consistent, incontestable whole. Taking a step back, it seems increasingly clear to me that the primary goal of the Biblical authors (and even of Jesus himself) was to provide a guide for living, rather than a standard for orthodoxy.

The Gospels are awash with narrative. I think the stories of Jesus interacting with the people - feeding them, healing them, living with them - are included for more than just plot advancement, proof of Jesus' divinity, or fodder for modern Sunday School classes. It strikes me that Jesus seldom seems to be on a mission to convert people, or even to correct their theological errors. Maybe Jesus' healings and miracles were done to lend credence to his teachings, or maybe his teachings were simply an extension of his ministry of healing. What if Jesus saw doctrine as more means than end? What if his ultimate goal was to bring hope and joy; to make givers and livers out of hoarders and rule-followers? Maybe we could even see Mark's Messianic secret as an indication of a Christ who would rather help people in practical ways than establish a new religion?

I don't know if I'd go as far as to say that the Bible doesn't value correct doctrine - several epistles were written primarily to combat destructive heresies - but it seems to me that doctrine consistently takes a back seat to godly action (and action takes a back seat to the attitude of our hearts). Suppose God really is more concerned with how we act (and why) than what our theological beliefs are. In that case what matters isn't whether you call yourself a Christian or whether you can sign your name at the bottom of any particular creed or statement of faith, but the way you live. Not what you find, but how you seek.

I think we could all agree that someone with accurate theology (whatever you believe that to be) who lives a self-serving, hypocritical life is missing the point. Can we not extrapolate that to say that someone who lives humbly and selflessly but who doesn't have the right answers is free from guilt? (Isn't that what the parable of the sheep and the goats indicates?) Where did we get this narrow, doctrine-focused view of Godliness?

I'll leave you with a few much-beloved words from the Apostle Clive:

But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, Son, thou art welcome. But I said, Alas, Lord, I am no son of thine but the servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me... For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath's sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. Dost thou understand, Child?

[+/-] Undisciplined

Two things:
1) December's up on my journal.
2) I've changed my email address. psalm13@hotmail.com got a buttload of junk mail, so I've switched to gmail. (Note that it's 13thpsalm this time, not psalm13, because some other punk has psalm13@gmail.)
And now for the main event:

"If you're not reading your Bible daily, you're not giving yourself much of a chance as a Christian"

That's an approximate quote from the speaker at the camp I attended last weekend. Statements like this always bother me. I don't read my Bible daily. I used to - I dutifully read 2 chapters a day, every day upon awaking, for maybe a year and a half once. Never really got anything out of it. Well, I'm sure I gained knowledge about what the Bible says, but I never enjoyed it and I never noticed any effect it had on my life. It was just something I made myself do because I was supposed to. It was pure religion.

These days I read my Bible in little spurts. I haul it out when I want to do a study of some doctrine or understand some difficult passage, but there are weeks when it never leaves my bedroom floor. When I do read it's far more often with an intellectual focus than out of some desire to "grow closer to God", whatever that means.

I have trouble thinking of good reasons to pray. Quick story: I once spent a day talking with a homeless guy in Vancouver. At the end of our talk I asked him if I could pray for him, and he said yes. I asked him what I should pray, and he said that it would rain money. ("Small denominations are ok - tens and twenties.") That wasn't what I was hoping for, but I told him I would pray that for him, and I have. Infrequently. Awkwardly. Briefly. But whenever I think of that guy I pray that God would make it rain money for him. If you ask me to pray for you I will, sporadically yet dutifully, but I have a suspicion that the encouragement brought by saying "I'll pray for you" does more practical good for a person than any amount of prayer.

I used to think that it was bad for me to stand in Church and sing worship songs if I wasn't thinking about the words. These days I often try not to think about the words I sing because I disagree with so many of them. I look at worship (meaning singing) as something I do for God to show my devotion to him. It's far more about the act of acknowledging God's existence and presence (or my belief therein) then about affirming any kind of doctrine in the songs. And it certainly has nothing to do with any emotions I might feel.

I've tried fasting maybe two or three times, and never for more than a couple days. The result of depriving myself from food is that I become really miserable and grouchy and all I can think about is food. Some people say fasting removes distractions and allows us to focus on prayer. Maybe for some of you, but not for me. For me there are few things more distracting than fasting. How am I supposed to focus on praying about stuff when all I can think about is food? Other people say depriving ourselves of food shows the ugliness of our true natures. Well ya, because my body needs food to survive. Try depriving me of oxygen and I'll become pretty miserable too. Would suffocation reveal my "true nature"? I honestly think that banging my head against the wall at regular intervals, cutting myself with knives like the prophets of Baal or any other method of self torture would accomplish just as much spiritual good as the "spiritual discipline" of fasting.

I have no idea what "listening to God" means. To me this is on par with Hindu ideas about reaching higher states of reality through meditation. I'm not going to go around telling other people they can't listen to God or transcend the physical world or whatever, but I have no idea how or even if I could achieve something like this myself.

My intuition and experience tells me that I'm naturally different from other people and I can't expect what works for others to work for me. I've found some things that do work for me and I should be happy with doing those things. Maybe it's just jealousy that makes me wish prayer worked for me the way it worked for Brother Lawrence or Jim Cymbala or that reading my Bible could become something that I'd cherish and that would bring me closer to God. But on the other hand maybe these things will work for me, and I just gave up too soon. Maybe if I could somehow force myself to pray more or if I just kept fasting long enough, then maybe there would be some kind of payoff. Ok, I don't actually believe that, but I do feel uneasy just shrugging off the tried-and-true methods of godly old preachers. I'm cautious of saying, "Ya, I'm not like you. I've got my own stuff that I do; yours doesn't work for me." I don't want to miss out on the obvious answers because I'm so busy being special, and I don't want to tell some guy three times my age that he doesn't know what he's talking about. What do I know anyway? Bah, I'm silly. A reed swayed by the wind.

[+/-] Happy Birthday Jacob

Hard to believe it's been a whole year since I started this blog. And at the same time it's hard to believe it's been just a year. One year, nigh 50 posts, and an unknown number of words. (Unknown because my profile's user stats froze at the beginning of November and has yet to unfreeze. Join me in a rousing chorus of boos for the people at Blogger, who have failed to fix my little stats-counter thing for going on seven months.)

It's been an interesting year. I just skimmed through a few of my old posts, and it feels like I wrote most of them yesterday. But I also feel so different now. Nothing has changed; everything has changed. I've always hoped that God would do something amazing to shake up my world and keep me from becoming what I've become. I've always hoped I could become a good conservative again and believe everything the Bible says and have a great story to tell about how I fell into the dark, slimy pit of cynicism-and-liberalism and God called me back. Actually my ultimate hope was always that God would open the heavens and reveal himself to me, and that I'd be able to become a good Charismatic and be emotional and passionate about everything and have a great story about how I called out to God from the dark, slimy pit of luke-warm intellectualism and He raised me up. (The band would play softly in the background as I gave my alter-call - eyes closed, one hand raised, cheeks streaked with tears - telling the thirsty and the broken about the abundant life available to them in Christ, and how all they have to do is pray right where they are to accept it.) But here I am, some kind of liberal intellectual, and I'm ok with that. (Not ok with the labels maybe, but ok with who I am. Labels are sucky, but you can't really communicate without them.)

I never thought I'd be happy again - not without being called back to Conservativism or into Carismaticism. I never knew people like me could be happy. And I certainly never imagined that becoming the way I am could take me from depression to contentment. I never thought this would be the testimony I'd have to tell.

One thing saddens me: where could I tell it? Not at any camp I know. Not at my church or in my youth group, or any of the places I've volunteered. And I don't want to make it sound like I've found The Way and everyone needs to start believing what I believe (may it never be!) but I'm ok with who I am. And those of you who have known me for a while will know how unusual it is for me to be at peace with what I believe.

Dear reader, smile for me today. Today is my birthday (ok fine, my blog's birthday), and I'm happy. Share in my happiness today, and tomorrow we can talk about theology and orthodoxy and inerrancy and whether I'm going to Hell. Love to all.