[+/-] The Limits of My Submission

Check out my new blog. Ok, it's not a new blog, it's my old journal. You may or may not find it interesting. (Great sales-pitch, eh?)

So I started reading this little book by Erwin McManus called the Barbarian Way. I'm not sure what I think of it yet, but it did get me thinking about something. He tells the story of John the Baptist questioning whether Jesus was the Christ while in prison. He says that John's problem here is he expects that the man who could make the blind see, the lame walk and the dead return to life could also get him out of prison. John was Jesus' earliest believer, his cousin, and apparently the greatest human being in history. If there was one person on earth that Jesus might go out of his way to help, you'd think it would be John. If there was one person that Jesus would have benefited from helping (considering everything he'd done for him so far), you'd think it would be John. John lived in the scorching desert for Jesus. He ate bugs and wore gross clothes for Jesus. He fearlessly stood up to the religious and political elite, and was in prison at that moment as a direct result of his uncompromising zeal for truth and morality. And yet at that moment it seemed that Jesus couldn't be bothered to help John out. Jesus didn't even contact him - John had to send his disciples to ask Jesus what was going on. John had reason to be miffed. McManus points out that it wasn't the absence of miracles that caused John to doubt, it was the fact that the one who performed so many other miracles seemed unwilling to provide a miracle for John. Jesus doesn't make it easy for John either, in fact he almost seems to be rubbing it in:

"Jesus replied, 'Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.'"

Jesus is effectively saying "Ya John, I'm doing a lot of miracles out here, and yet none are coming your way. But don't abandon me just because I've abandoned you." That's got to be tough to hear.

I've said before that I'm not comfortable making promises about what will happen to people who become Christians. I can tell you nothing about how God operates, except that he is unpredictable. I can tell you nothing about what your life as a Christian might be like, except that it won't be like anyone else's. I'm not convinced that any of the promises in the Bible translate into real, bankable guarantees for today. I'm not convinced that God wants to save you from a crappy life, monotony, or depression, or that he will to give you hope, strength or joy. But I've always clung to the belief that whatever God does to me, even if it seems unfair, unreasonable or counterproductive, is ultimately for my good. My good. Suddenly I'm wondering if I've been wrong.

I've always known it's not about me, but what if I'm not even important? What if God's got a plan, and I'm a part of that, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with me being blessed in any way? What if I'm collateral damage? What if God's plan involves dragging me through a whole lot of shit - not for my ultimate betterment, but as a means to a greater end? Paul went through shit for Jesus and found contentment. John went through shit for Jesus and died alone and confused.

I'm not saying that my life will suck, or even that my life sucks right now. But what if it's God's plan for my life to suck? I guess what I'm asking is what am I willing to let God do to me? I've told God countless times to do what he must to make me what he wants me to be. (Not that I'm always ok with what happens to me after I pray that.) But there's a big difference between praying "God, do to me what you need to to make me awesome" and praying "God, do to me what you need to to accomplish your will". I've always assumed (or hoped) that at the end of my life I'll be able to look back and say, "That was rough, but I'm glad God put me through what he did because it made me a better person." Now I'm just imagining saying, "That was rough. God's taken everything from me, and even now it's all I can do to not fall away."

One of my all-time favorite songs is Refiner's Fire. I love that imagery: Purify my heart. Refiner's fire, my heart's one desire is to be holy. Every time I sing that song I think about how I'm asking God to burn away my sin in a furnace, and how painful that would be, but how it would be so worth it to be holy. I imagine myself as one of those old men in the church who everyone's a little bit in awe of because of what they've done for God. I imagine myself being set apart for God, doing his will, maybe even feeling close to him. (Dreams die hard.) It's never occurred to me that doing God's will might mean unrelenting, undulled anguish, and that the ultimate result might not be me becoming an amazing man of God, but me dying a friendless failure - broken, bewildered and alone. Am I willing to give my life to God not for my own betterment or purification, but merely to play a brutal bit-part in plan I'll never know? Am I willing to have everything taken from me by a God I'll never see or hear, at his discretion, without understanding, without joy or hope, only pressing on, following my convictions and steadfastly refusing to fall away?

No. I'm not willing. God is my lord, my purpose, and my obsession, but there are limits to what I am willing to do for him. I can't pray that God take total and unqualified control over my life because I'd be praying a lie. But maybe I can pray that he take me to a place where I can pray that prayer.

[+/-] My Defense of My Process

This is a little mind game from my psyc textbook. Each of these 4 cards has a letter on one side and a number on the other. Which two cards could you turn over to test the rule "If the card has a vowel on one side, it has an odd number on the other side?"

Did you try it? 'Cuz you're not allowed to read on until you do. Ok, here's the interesting thing: over 95% of people will choose to turn over the A and 7 cards. But this will not necessarily prove whether the rule is true or false. The cards you need to turn over are the A and 4, because they're the ones that can prove the hypothesis false. It's irrelevant what's on the other side of the 7 card, because the rule is not disproved even if there's a consonant, but a vowel on the back of the 4 or a even number on the back of the A will prove the rule false. (And if neither is the case, the rule is obviously proved true.)

This illustrates the confirmation bias: the tendency to look for evidence that confirms our current beliefs. You can see that it applies even to points where we have no prejudices or vested interests, such as the four-card problem - how much more so in matters of ethics, politics and religion! But if we really want to know if our beliefs are right or wrong, we need to look for evidence that disproves them.

This is what I've been doing for the past couple years, even if I wasn't initially able to explain it. Some Christians tell me I'm too critical of Christianity. Well, I'm interested in knowing whether my beliefs about God and morality (which have potentially eternal implications) are true. Rather than simply appease my skepticism with reassuring apologetics, I look for possible flaws in my beliefs, and then try to determine whether the flaws are genuine. If I decide they are, I alter or replace my beliefs until they are no longer at odds with the available evidence. If I decide that a belief fits with the available evidence, I hold onto it until such a time as it comes back into question.

Some will complain that I'm biased one way or the other - either that I seem to be trying too hard to poke holes in my beliefs or that I ultimately cling to beliefs that don't fit with what I discover. I'm sure both complaints are valid in some instances. All I can say is that I'm just a man - prone to both error and sin, often falling victim to (and sometimes courting) various errors and logical fallacies. It might be a lie to say I'm doing my best, but I'm trying.

Some will say that I need to decide what I believe and then just have faith. I confess that I don't have a really firm grasp on what faith means or when it should be employed, but I can tell you that I'm not a great believer in "seeking an understanding within my faith". I understand this to mean taking what you believe for granted, and twisting everything else until it fits with your preconceptions. I have no interest in a faith that limits my ability to think honestly and objectively.

This is how I understand faith: I am not omniscient, therefore I frequently need to make decisions based on less than perfect knowledge. In these cases I try to make a decision that fits with the knowledge that I have, and let faith make up the difference. I have faith in many things, from the structural integrity of the chair on which I'm sitting to the trustworthiness of a friend to the existence of a benevolent God. My faith in my chair allows me to type much more comfortably than if I were standing, but if circumstances arose that cast doubt on my faith in my chair (say it makes cracking noises and begins to wobble) I wouldn't seek an understanding of these circumstances within my faith, I would get the hell off the chair! I'm sure most people would do the same. There is nothing noble about continuing to have faith in an untrustworthy chair. There's certainly nothing noble about pretending that there's nothing suspicious about creaks and wobbles. My father will not come by and explain to me that "We trust that chair", nor will anyone try to reassure me that "everyone has doubts about that chair from time to time". No one will suggest that I listen to a speaker give arguments for the strength of my chair or remember all the times when the chair has held me up. I think we can all agree that if the structural integrity of my chair comes into question I ought to examine it carefully and objectively. If I determine that the chair is in fact still strong, I will continue to sit on it. If not, I will look for a new chair.

If my chair falls apart while I'm sitting on it, I may hurt myself. If my religious beliefs turn out to be wrong, I there may be more serious consequences. I'm not saying your faith in your chair (or any of your religious beliefs) is misplaced. But doesn't it make sense to think critically about your beliefs? I guess I just don't understand why some people get antsy about questioning their faith, or even about me questioning mine. Do they really think God's going to object?

(Ok, I've just got to throw this in: a hilarious satire of the conservative paranoia with intellecualism can be found here.)

[+/-] At Least One Man's Battle

Dig my new template. Sorry, I know I just changed the thing, but I saw all my friends changing theirs, and I got the itch again. I promise I'll try to leave it like this for a little while. Anyway...

Classes ended for me on Tuesday. Having little to do and with studying out of the question, I've taken to praying. Trying to pray, anyway. I've noticed (or remembered) that prayer seems to be counter-productive for me. The same is true of fasting, and often of Bible-reading and worship.

I can't help thinking when I pray. Often my mind wanders, ending up in the strangest places, but sometimes I succeed in focusing it (however briefly) on the activity at hand. And then it'll hit me: Holy shit, I'm talking to God! It's as if I've been chatting with the clerk at 7-11 and suddenly realized he's... Orlando Bloom or someone. I start thinking about how I'm down here, just a dirty little human boy on his knees, and bending over me listening intently is God. And then I start thinking how odd it is that I don't feel like I'm talking to God, and how nice it would be if he'd make some listening noises or something.

I think about how I'd really like to have an amazing prayer life. And then I think about why. What does "amazing prayer life" even mean to me? Why is it desirable? I suppose I just want to feel close to God and to have "powerful and effective" prayers. I always kind of hope that God will be pleased with my prayers and that he'll respond somehow. Verbally. Tangibly. Circumstantially. Whatever. Maybe I just want to see cool stuff happen. Maybe I just want to feel loved.

I'm struggling with my motivations here, trying to decide whether they're "good". Maybe it's immature and selfish for me to be wanting to have some exciting feeling of God's presence. But we would never say that longing for interaction with other people is wrong. I was made to be in community with God, so I suppose I can't be criticized for desiring it. On the other hand I feel like there's something selfish about always seeking some kind of spiritual high. I feel like it would be better if I could just put that out of my mind when I pray and focus on aligning my will with God's or genuinely caring for others or something like that. I just can't get over this concept of God being so near to me, even indwelling me, knowing me and loving me and counting the hairs of my head, and yet refusing to give me the slightest taste of his presence. I recognize that at this point I should just accept that God has a better plan than I do and live with his apparent absence. I recognize that by dwelling on this I'm probably missing better things that God has for me. The best thing I could do (I believe this very strongly) would be to move on. But I can't.

This is why I gave up on real prayer some months ago. I stopped going to prayer meetings, singing most Christian songs, and even thinking about God as anything more than a distant, enigmatic force. I was loosing the struggle against my yearning for God and my frustration with his absence, and I had to essentially flee from anything that stirred those feelings. I've gotten better since then. I'm not depressed anymore, I'm able to earnestly worship God, and I've developed a belief that I hope will enable me to survive in spiritually charged atmospheres (previous post). Now I want to pray again, but I'm afraid that I'm too weak-willed to do so without lapsing back into longing.

Why do I want to pray again? I talked about the longing for God, but there's at least one other aspect - the desire to wield some kind of spiritual power in my world. Is this good or bad? There's a selfish aspect of course. I mean, it would be cool to have some kind of spiritual power. (Never mind that it would have nothing to do with my own will or glory. Just being an instrument of God would be very cool.) But there's also a simple desire to make the world a better place, to do whatever I can to advance the Kingdom, and to allow God to use me exactly how he wants to.

Unfortunately, I'm coming to the conclusion that the risks of prayer outweigh the rewards. I know from countless experiences that a prolonged and determined attempt to establish a prayer life will only make me depressed and useless. It kills me to say "I can't try to pray too much", but I think my motivations for praying are more selfish than otherwise.

I'm talking about long, deep prayer here. I pray a lot of "popcorn" prayers - "Lord help me" stuff - but I can't sit down and really talk to God, much less listen to him. At least, not without danger. I'll get the idea that it would be good to start my day by asking God to lead me, to give me strength, and to bring me opportunities to love people, and I'll end up with "Oh God, I miss you so much." What starts out as an attempt to focus on others and how I can live for them leads instead to gloom and self-pity.

I'm telling myself now that maybe this is ok. Maybe I can do the longing for God thing and not let it depress and paralyze me like it used to. Maybe I've got it more together now and I can deal with the longings. Maybe they'll even make me better somehow... I guess I don't really believe it.

At least the irony of this situation is amusing. Listen to me - "Prayer is destroying my spiritual life!" You'd think I was talking about lust or porn or something. This can't be right. What do you think - am I totally wrong here? I welcome your opinions.

Anyway, I don't think I'm strong enough to stop praying. I'm sure that within the hour I'll be lying on my face in my room trying to pray again. I can't help it - these desires are so strong. And I feel guilty no matter what I do. (Totally sounds like I'm talking about lust, doesn't it? Hence the title.)

[+/-] On Emotion and Experience

I met a couple Mormons the other day. They were missionaries from Arizona or somewhere - young men in ties who seemed just a little bit uncomfortable asking me what I thought about Jesus. I felt a sort of brotherhood with them somehow, or at least I felt like I could understand them. We chatted for a bit (or rather, they quoted their carefully rehearsed speeches in response to my questions) and they handed me a Book of Mormon, which I promised to read, at least in part. They in turn promised that if I earnestly asked God to show me the truth, he would reveal to me that this stuff was true through some indescribable yet unmistakable feeling - a "burning in my bosom", if you will. Both claimed to have personally experienced this assurance.

I confess I was a little disappointed when reading the suggested passages evoked no discernible stirring in my spirit. Not that I expected something - I know better than to expect anything from gods and religions - but there's always that possibility that if something worked for someone else, it just might work for me. Of course, 2 years ago I would have been eager to expose these men's faith as a sham. Today (for better or for worse) I've lost all such desires. I envy them. If there's anything behind their words, they've got more emotional/spiritual/warm fuzzy-type stuff out of their religion than I ever have or (it seems to me now) ever will out of mine.

I recently read Surprised By Joy, by C S Lewis, I think mostly in the hopes of being, you know, surprised by joy. Lewis talks about how he's had moments of what he calls joy (basically, some kind of beautiful, intense longing). Of course, because of the subjective nature of feelings I can't say for sure that I've never personally experience this "joy", but I don't think I have. I didn't get much out of the book.

Then the other day I dipped into a book of apologetics. The guy started off by explaining that the bottom-line reason that we Christians know that this is the truth is the prompting of the Spirit in our hearts, or some such thing. He also claims that the only way a non-Christians can ever convert is throught the Spirit convicting them, and the only way that someone can avoid becoming a Christian is by ignoring what God has revealed to them in their heart to be true. This stuff makes me so mad. If you've got a feeling that your religion (be it Christianity or anything else) is the truth, and somehow you just know that this feeling is from God, then good for you. I say that seriously. If your faith and life are built on what your heart tells you is right or on some wonderful or dramatic event that happened to you or anything like that, that's terrific. As long as you're reasonable and consistent and try to do what you feel is best, I have no quarrel with you. If your beliefs cause you to act cruelly towards others or to chase me around with your holy book because you think you've got to convert people, I may try to get you to change a few ideas. I'll probably share my own viewpoints with you and see how you react, but I won't get mad at you. If you tell me that I'm a terrible sinner and everything that's wrong with me is my own fault and all I have to do is "get right with the Lord" or some such thing, I'll hear you out and I'll give your opinions honest consideration. But if you start telling me what I feel, I will become frustrated. I am a 19 year old born-again, Sunday-school-raised, Bible-school-educated, water-baptized, (formerly) conservative/evangelical/literalist, study-Bible-toting, church-going, blood-bought Christian, and I feel nothing that might be confused with presence or the promptings of God. I don't care who you are or what your favorite religious book says - you have no right to tell me what I feel.

If you're one of those who bases your religious or moral beliefs on some kind of feeling, again, I don't disrespect you, look down on you, or think you're wrong or stupid. But consider this: there are countless people of countless different faiths who are convinced that their own beliefs are true because of some emotional, spiritual or apparently supernatural experience that bears a remarkable resemblance to your own. Suppose you're a Christian. Suppose you speak in tongues or you have a sense of God's presence or [insert the experience of your choice here], and on this basis you believe that Christianity is true. Suppose one day you run into someone like my Mormon missionaries - people who profess to have nearly identical experiences with God. The only difference is that they believe in some completely separate, incompatible faith. What do you do?

Your first option is to assume that they're lying. For reasons that a good and honest person like yourself cannot fathom, these people are deliberately trying to deceive you by claiming a spiritual experience they've never had. Your own experience with God assures you that A B and C are true, and anything that suggests otherwise - rational arguments, scientific evidence or the experiences of other people - is simply wrong. Not only that, but since God is a merciful and fair God, he has blessed everyone with identical (or at least compatible) spiritual experiences, feeling and intuitions. Therefore, anyone who suggests anything contrary to what you believe is a liar and deceiver who willfully rejects the clear truth that God has made known to them. You need not give their claims another thought.

Your second option is to assume that they're deceived. Through some fault in their character or some weakness in their will, these people have tricked themselves into believing that their feelings are assurance from God when they're really just self-constructed illusions or tricks of the devil. These people are to be pitied, reasoned with, and hopefully brought to understand the error of their ways. This second view often arises when the first becomes difficult to maintain. Maybe you've met someone who believes something contrary to you on the basis of their experiences, and yet is so loving and sincere that you cannot believe that they're depraved liars bent on deceiving you. If they are not liars, the next easiest thing is to assume that they're confused.

The obvious problem with the second belief is that it raises the question of whether you're to confused one. The first explanations for conflicting experiences is safer because you can be reasonably sure that you yourself are not a depraved liar. But if a good, honest person like your friend can be mistaken about which experiences are God-given assurance and which are illusions, why not you? Perhaps your friend is right and you are wrong, or perhaps neither of you are right. How can you know? At this point, you may turn to apologetics to reassure yourself of the truth of your position, or you may seek experiences of greater and greater spectacularity to reassure yourself of their authenticity.

But maybe you wake up one day and you just can't believe it anymore. Somehow it just doesn't seem reasonable that your own experiences are infallible while others are fraught with delusion. You're frightened by the implications of everyone's experience being just as valid as your own, but you've simply run out of other explanations. You come reluctantly to the conclusion that all such spiritual experiences are nothing more than psychological tricks. Or maybe it is the case that some experiences come from God while others arise for different sources, but it's impossible to know which are which. The only reasonable thing to do is mistrust all experiences.

That's the progression of my thinking on experience. I ended up being very skeptical of anything anyone tells me about their spiritual life. It's frustrating and crippling, because anything anyone says about religion (except from a purely intellectual view) is immediately labeled as bullshit, or at least as utterly unprovable and therefore of no value. Any Christian song that mentions feelings, particularly some kind of sensation of God, is scorned as a tool to perpetuate the self-deception.

Recently I've begun to think that there might be another approach. What would happen if I wasn't so critical of spiritual experiences - mine or anyone else's? What if I viewed experience not as something to be analyzed for validity and truth but simply as stimulation or energy which can be put to use? It's so difficult to determine whether some charismatic occurrence originates in God or in something else - what if it doesn't even matter? I recognize that the relationship between God's will, our wills, and other factors in determining events is complex in the extreme, so why have I been trying to label the source of all feelings and occurrences as either us or God? I know that spiritual experiences count for little if they do not don't change our day-to-day lives. Why then am I so concerned with whether someone speaking in tongues or singing a worship song is "genuinely moved by the Spirit"? What if I met Mormons who have feelings confirming their faith and instead of being either troubled with the implications or dismissing them as depraved or deceived, I praised God that their feelings have a positive effect on their lives? What if I found myself in a Charismatic event that reeks of manipulation and self-deception and instead of scorning the participants' simple-mindedness I let myself be inspired by their sincerity and joy?

Of course, there's a time for analyzing experiences. Since claims of super-natural feelings or occurrences are often such an integral part of people's justification for their beliefs, it only makes sense to think critically about their claims. But I think too often I let my skepticism get in the way of just appreciating the experience. In any case, I believe the effect that a spiritual experience has on a person's attitudes and actions is far more important than the experience itself.

I'm searching intellectually for truth, but I realize that I'm not smart enough to find it. I am flawed, as everyone else is. I believe that what matters most is not whether our beliefs are accurate, but what we do with them - how we let our beliefs affect our lives. If you think that what you believe is critical, and also that God is just, you must believe that God grants all people the ability to perceive truth and to know that it is true. If this is the case, then those who believe differently than you must be doing so with the knowledge that they are lying to themselves and turning their back on God. If you don't believe that all people who believe differently than you do are doing so dishonestly, you cannot also believe that the truth or falsehood of our believes is of ultimate importance. (That's my basic argument for universal, or at least not Christian-limited, salvation.) I've said that stuff before. The new part is that if it's neither necessary nor possible to determine the "legitimacy" of all spiritual feelings and experiences (that is, whether they are from God), then it's ok not to worry about it and just appreciate (or be critical of, as the case may be) the effect that they have on our lives.