A stream-of-conscious-mostly-unedited-paragraph-or-two-or-more of things that have been running through my brain this week:
Every time I try to buck the system I end up creating or joining another system. Each revolution starts another system, and inevitably someone will come along and start a revolution against the new system, which is probably an old system given new life. Et cetera.
The system which I at times detest, adore at others, and am very much a part of is Christianity. I believe in the premises. Love each other. Be kind. Be humble. Help. Speak truth. Be generous. Be patient. Grieve well. Eat and drink. Celebrate. Listen. Talk.
And if I may be an ass for a moment (I’m not really asking…more so forewarning), the culture drives me completely insane. The music. The books. The bookstores. The art (ish). The preachers. The self-promotion. The mega churches. The not-so-mega churches. The conferences. The patriarchy. The exclusion of women. The exclusion of everyone who doesn’t believe in the same God. The homophobia. The Thomas Kinkaid (and it’s not even his fault). The celebrity. The t-shirts & bumper stickers. The “either you’re in or you’re out”-ness. The constant guilt. The copying. The imitating. The lack of creativity. The lack of metaphor and the constant literal. The on and on and on. (Worth noting, I come from an evangelical background. I have not had the same experience in more high church/liturgical settings.)
And, as much as I hate it, I make it. I am in it all. Guilty. I am a white male studying to be a pastor. Standard. I’m an artist in the system. I worship celebrity and bow at the altar of look at me.
So. To be humble. To be loving. To remember what Plato said:
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
I am so quick to other those who call themselves Christians. I hate that which I am. I am longing to include those who are excluded, marginalized, those who are told that they are wrong and that they need to believe the right things.
So as I accept the marginalized, I marginalize others. I am who I hate.
I confess that I am a broken mess and I am full of goodness and beauty. Ashes on my forehead. I am out for my own gain and glory, and I strive to live for the glory of others and the glory of the God whom I know. Damn both/&. I love the few and despise the most. I hate the system, and I make the system. Plato said Be kind, and I take that to mean to be kind to both myself and to others.
May God have mercy, and yes, God has mercy.
Joshua,
Thank you for your incredible honesty and insight. I think you are not alone in your plight; others too are desperately attempting to tread the path that is Christianity with dignity, sincerity and compassionate love. Your introspection is encouraging and perhaps you and others like you will affect the ultimate change that is needed. Persevere.
Jack
I would agree with Jack,
You’re not alone, that’s for sure.
I too have found myself disgusted with Christian culture and at the same time captured by the beauty of our faith. I often wonder when/if I will ever find a healthy balance.
I was a music director at a mega church (well, mega by Canadian standards), and half a year after leaving my position there, left the church all together. Since, I’ve questioned my belief in God, and everything associated with Christianity and have come to the conclusion that I don’t believe in any of it any more.
This has been a very, very hard process to go through. I wasn’t just losing my religion, but the identity I had developed for the past 7 years. 9 months into this process, I still feel unsettled about it. But, I can’t force myself to believe any of it any more. It just isn’t logical.
Yet, I read you write:
Of anything, I miss being a part of something. I miss being a small piece of something large. I miss moving forward on a mission, with a purpose.
If there were a way for me to believe in what you’ve described as the premises of Christianity, of love and understanding and goodness, yet not have to believe in a deity that I can’t logically fathom, and be part of a group of people who would accept that, I would be there in an instant. Yet, no church would simply allow me to “be” without hoping that I’ll “make the commitment” or “pray the prayer.”
The problem with being an apostate is not the loss of a god, but the loss of the community that you feel a part of, both locally and globally.
Re: Pat. Kudos for letting it hang out in this post. I’m assuming that sicne you were so generous with your comments that you’re at least somewhat open to conversation. I’ve lurked on Josh’s blog for a while and never write stuff like this, but you said something that I wanted to reply to.
You said, ‘Yet, no church would simply allow me to “be” without hoping that I’ll “make the commitment” or “pray the prayer.”’ My (sincere) reply: Really? Do you literally mean that there is no church that exists anywhere that would welcome you without pressure or trying to close some kind of a deal? If you don’t mean this literally, i.e., you’re expressing your ache at the rarity of this kind of community, well, hey then, I’m with you. The kind of church you describe is rare. But I have to say that I’ve known more than a few churches who do, in my opinion, certainly let their people “be.” None of them are evangelical megachurches, but they do exist.
Thoughts?
Thanks for the reply, Jeremy. You are right, that was a hyperbolic statement. I have obviously not gone to every church in every city in every country. However, I have been exposed to many, many churches, probably more than most people through my experience working with a church and being part of an even larger church affiliation (not a denomination, and I do not wish to reveal the affiliation).
It isn’t that the church I left was bad. It was probably the closest to what I, as a new atheist, would want. However, their agenda is still to push Christian doctrine, and I cannot blame them for that.
I think that what’s interesting about my case from an objective standpoint is that, unlike most people who leave the church, I am not necessarily leaving because I dislike the church. As a musician, and as someone who enjoys spending time in community, I thrived in the church. I just can’t get past the religion of it. I can’t force myself, no matter how hard I’ve tried, to believe in a god, or that the bible is some divine scripture.
Amen.
I identify with so, so much if this.
Thanks for saying it.
I need to say it more.
Tell that to Rob Bell.
Oh and…thank you.
I’m a lesbian. I used to be a Christian, but now I don’t like them for a lot of the same reasons you stated earlier. However, I like you. You are above the way a lot of Christians act, but are very humble. I want you to know that you are a great person and have a great head on your shoulders. I admire you and your work and your kindness.
In short, thank you.
Yes.
And thank you, for here you are the extension of mercy you cry out for.
Read your post a year after graduating MHGS and blog about how your perspective has changed.
The way I see it, there is too much focus on the culture and the church and the people within the church and what they say and how they do it and how they paint God. Because we focus on those things, faith is becoming shallow and lacking authenticity. I think that the problem is that we don’t dig into God enough and worry about external things too much. I try to be cool and try to original but when I do it while looking around me, I start copying others. When I re-align my focus, I stop caring if I am cool, original, and what anyone thinks about what I do. When I look around, Christianity becomes the things that other people tell me about God when the truth is to be found individually and only then I own it. I’ve been on a journey lately to listen to God. And when I really listen, I start hearing him. One of the best things I’ve heard lately was something along the lines of ‘we were made stones by God, people try to shape us into bricks’.
Re: Pat
I, too, never comment on Josh’s blog. I read it occasionally with great interest. It is interesting to see how his perspective is ever changing and growing.
I think that Josh has a lot of good points to make on the church, but in the end, I think the world is composed of imitators. From the beginning of art, this has been the case. The problem does not lie solely in Christianity. He is right, however, when he stresses that the best art should be coming out of Christ followers—but it doesn’t. I, too, wonder if this is partly because the best art is often edgy; it pushes ahead of its time. To be a Christian and push ahead of your time is often a one way ticket towards being labeled a heretic—not always, but often.
One year ago, I stood where Pat is now. The only thing convincing me to hold on to my faith was my family. I couldn’t bring myself to tell my husband, my children, my parents that I no longer believed in this God of theirs. It was ridiculous. A God who has become a god to so many and who repeatedly failed to show up at all in my life. Worst of all, I couldn’t talk to any fellow Christians about this b/c I was scorned. How dare I doubt?
The Church certainly has failed in the area of apologetics. We are told to simply believe, but for many of us, that just isn’t enough. We need more, but we dare not seek more in the open light for fear of being labeled a heretic. Those who say doubting is wrong or is unholy are simply wrong—and I dare say very self-righteous.
I feel for you, Pat. I still ache from the internal struggle with belief, but I have found peace. I did a lot of reading from all over the spectrum. I came to understand much more than I even sought out to know. Dan Allender’s “The Cry of the Soul” and Colson’s “Now How Shall We Live” provided the emotional and logical explanations I needed.
For now, my darkness is over, but I know the questions will continue to come, but truthfully, I don’t think I could ever comprehend the answers even if I knew them.
As someones who’s doesn’t know you but has been following your blog for a while now (really like your photography, btw), may I ask a question?
What about Jesus? The cross? I’d call myself a Christian (though certainly not always a good one), and it might sound trite but without those things it’s all waste of time. It’s certainly possible to be a good person without being a Christian, and if Christ wasn’t a real, living, breathing, non-insane person it all doesn’t matter.
Not at all excusing or trying to explain away the problems of the Christian in-culture and the problems the church has (I can identify with the guilt you mention), but that should all be secondary under the fundamental truths of the faith.
Bryan:
I thought the same thing myself as I typed out those paragraphs. The trinity and the cross/burial/resurrection are the two most central concepts for me. If I don’t have Jesus then I don’t have any of it. Maybe think of it in this way, if I may be so bold:
When Jesus described the kingdom to all of the people around him, he spoke in abstract stories. He used metaphor to tell them of what reality was like. Rarely, if ever, did Jesus lay things out literally for people. In regards to his own death, he said that the temple would be destroyed and rebuilt in 3 days.
So, when I write of things such as patience, love, kindness, etc., I am truly speaking of the God I know. For me, abstract alludes to reality much more clearly than the literal.
Oddly, I am writing in literal words of abstraction. Irony.
Does that resonate at all?
Thanks Joshua!
Wow! This is truly exciting! I am making a supposition that the majority of folks who have commented on this blog post thus far are most probably shy of their 30th birthdays, or possibly just tumbling over them. That is what is so exciting…to see this kind of dialogue about faith matters, doubt, struggle, willingness to state conflicting ideas, finality of position (Pat you may be surprised later to find it not so), and yet willingness to be heard…because faith, or lack thereof…does matter. And to see it in young people is so encouraging to me, and so hopeful. It seems Christians stopped talking to each other about things that matter when there was that list nailing on the door some years back…freaked people out…haven’t been able to talk substance since.
But I digress. Since I am a smidgen and tumble twice over thirty something, I can tell you that life brings changes to the journey. When I was a late teen, I also left the church…in my heart at least… because no one would discuss the questions I had, and all I saw was hypocrisy. In my twenties, my husband and I left completely, because we could not tolerate religiosity for the sake of ritual; the ritual had replaced the Christianity. In my thirties, after missing God, and community too much, and returning, the search began again for relationship with both. That worked for a time. Our children were raised in the church.
And on through my forties and fifties, I thought I had it all together…until I realized that I had succumbed to a dying church; I had become a part of just the struggle that Joshua has so eloquently described (for one so young…really…you nailed it…pun intended). No, that is not quite correct. I had always had that struggle. The problem was that I had been unwilling to scream.
I had been unwilling to overturn tables in the church.
I had been unwilling to tell my fellow religious that the building they were using was not the “Sunday Social Club” simply moved from their weekday village to another place on Sunday morning. It was not the place to decide the details of the twice yearly fish fry held for no other reason than to reduce the mortgage on the very building under discussion…oh…”And maybe we should give 10% to some mission or other.” It was not the place to argue over whether we were going to give the preacher a raise, because after all, “He didn’t visit my Aunt Gertrude when she was in the hospital,” never mind that she’s not a member of the church. It was not the place to just sit…just sit…just sit…and do the same things over and over and over again until they had no meaning whatsoever to the people repeating them…or to the God hearing them.
No…the struggle with me had always been there. What the heck happened to Jesus? The one I met when I was six and gave my heart to? What happened to the one I found out died a disgusting, horrible, painful death…the worst possible known in history, as far as I was concerned…just so I could be forgiven and be righteous enough to stand before a Holy God? What about all those othere Christians that died so that I could worship the way that Christ said that I should? And BTW, what about the people who he said I should tell about him? Huh? What about that? Those lost people who don’t know him? What happened to worship…to being thankful for a creator, and his Son, and a Holy Spirit, that could possible want to live in me so that I would not have to be fearful, anxious, and could experience peace…even when everything human in me says I should be scared to death, and worried, with knees knocking every single moment of every single day?
I didn’t find this Jesus again until I stopped looking for him in religiosity, and started looking for him where he has always been…in the Bible…in the scripture…in the Gospel. And I didn’t stop being afraid and anxious and learn (oops, sorry, still learning), that loving means forgiving…really forgiving people, that giving back means just that…giving back to God what he has graciously allowed me to have for a time, to show him how humbly grateful I am that he allowed me to grace to have it in the first place, and what joy there is in seeing what he can do with my 10% that I couldn’t even dream of doing; and what blessing he has given in return for that obedience.
And oddly, or maybe not, it was in a church, one that preaches just that, the Gospel, and nothing more. And Pat, it does accept you just as you are…and it wants you in Heaven…NOT in Hell. That it also preaches…passionately.
And I have read…C.S. Lewis, Brennan Manning, John and Stasi Eldredge, primarily because they were wounded people, very wounded people…and they struggled too. I don’t think you can learn much from perfect people….and you certainly won’t find them in the Bible…except for Jesus…and he only used messed up people to start his church.
The struggle that human beings have has been there since creation. It comes because God did not create us as puppets. He created us to run on him and nothing else, as a car runs on gas (as C. S. Lewis says), but he wants us to come to him willingly. Therefore we have the choice. But make no mistake…the struggle is real…the choice is real. There is God…there is Satan. That’s it.
Sorry to be so long…Discuss if you like….
“… those of us who have the nerve to call ourselves Christians will do well to be extremely reticent on the subject. Indeed, it is almost the definition of a Christian that he is somebody who knows he isn’t one, either in faith or morals. Where faith is concerned, very few of us have the right to say more than—to vary a saying of Simone Weil’s—“I believe in a God who is like the True God in everything except that he does not exist, for I have not yet reached the point where God exists.” As for loving and forgiving our enemies, the less we say about that the better. Our lack of faith and love are facts we have to acknowledge, but we shall not improve either by a morbid and essentially narcissistic moaning over our deficiencies. Let us rather ask, with caution and humour—given our time and place and talents, what, if our faith and love were perfect, would we be glad to find it obvious to do?”
–W.H. Auden
I really appreciate it when I stumble across someone who has managed to put into words some things that i have been feeling and not understanding. thankyou.
@Joshua–
Actually, I think you lost me around the third layer of abstraction there. :)
I appreciate your commitment to those fundamental truths, though. It seems to me that it’s easy when discouraged with the Church (like a lot in the postmodern/emergent groups have) to throw the important stuff out with the cultural stuff. Again, actual events that actually happened are the reason we do all these things in the first place. I’m certainly not an expert and haven’t been around for all that long (only 20, yo), but from what I’ve learned I’m weary of any of those new “revolutions” in Christianity.
Anyway. Soapbox.
The comments on this post are an interesting mix of people. I’ll certainly keep your RSS feed around… curious to hear your thoughts in the future.
We’ve reached the third level of abstraction! The future! Holograms & fax machines!
Sorry I couldn’t resist.
Your soapbox is welcome here. Obviously I have my own. You know, this blog.
@Mom
Thank you. i very much agree with you! And i think that all too often people choose blindly, without realizing that they’ve chosen. And it makes me sad…
Joshua – thank you for writing this. I think you have to put it out there, to call your own self on it right where you are – because as an artist, and a pastor, working within a system that you hate and that you make – well, this will be a struggle that you face again and again.
From a fellow artist, working within the same system – thank you.
@sarabeth…
Oddly, Christians seem to be the only ones that shoot their own wounded, and are gleeful whilst doing it. This is one of the things that so alienates those looking IN at us, while we are “Looking through rose colored stain glass windows…daring the world to try to come in” (Petra). Conversely, the song from the opening of the old TV show “Cheers” says, “Wouldn’t it be nice to go where everyone knows your name…and they’re all so glad you came….” The Church Universal should be like THAT. Unfortunately, it is not; but we cannot change all the things that are wrong with it, and there are many, from the outside.
It is a struggle we continue to face…thanks for hanging in there…from the inside! It is one of the places God has directed wounded soldiers to be. Many of the lost souls of his universe are there, as well as in the world outside.
sounds like you see albert bandura’s point of view more than the rest of us would admit about ourselves.
I consider myself a “recovering Christian” as I was raised in that whole milieu. But it never made any sense to me, and I finally realized it was OK to just recognize bullshit and call it what it is, and I’m referring here to all the superfluous elements of organized religion — the churches and politics and hypocrisy and pretense. The Christian principles you mention — kindness, love, peace, etc — these are human virtues and do not belong to any doctrine.
We are not born “guilty” of ancestral sin, or anything else. We are human: wonderful, faulty, ignorant, wise, kind, cruel, generous, selfish, bold, scared. There is no judge out there somewhere keeping score. There is nothing to fear or regret. Since I have given up on religion I have never been happier nor more taken with the grand mystery of this life and the people dear to me. Life has become so much more fulfilling since I realized it’s OK to not feel guilty and unworthy. Those kinds of teachings insult the deepest integrity of every decent person.
Maybe there’s something else waiting after this life — I tend to think there is but I can’t articulate why I believe that.
Well articulated, SMC. I like your perspective. You’re so right. Guilt isn’t a very helpful concept, is it?
i really adore your posting taste, very helpful.
don’t give up and also keep creating since it simply just good worth to follow it.
impatient to look at even more of your current posts, cheers :)
One again, your article is very nice