Monday, June 10, 2013

A Skeptic's Psalm

Lord, I want to be as those who follow you blindly,
As he who has not seen, yet believes.
As Rahab, who paved the way for her city's destruction for the sake of your people
As James and John who left their father and livelihood at a wave of your hand.

Yet how can I be expected to trust in you,
To trust in an ancient book that preaches love and genocide,
To trust in a church without order,
That does as much harm as good,
That is subject to intractable differences and worldly leaders,
To trust in a Holy Spirit that is indecipherable from my whims and feelings,
To trust in a God that can move mountains but chooses to act through coincidence,
To forgo the simple, practical, falsifiable answer to trust in something without evidence?

Am I to ignore what I observe?
Am I to act on feelings without reason?
Is religion nothing more than indecipherable urges?
No. You gave me reason like you gave me whims.
You created me to ask these questions
You are big enough to answer them.
Prove me wrong, reveal yourself in power!

I am not he who has not seen, yet believes.
Let me be lesser, like the apostles, like Thomas.

Saturday, June 1, 2013

the hole in evangelicalism

The other night I watched a short video sermon from Tim Keller at my church. He presented two perspectives, which essentially were the perspectives of the two brothers in the Prodigal Son parable from Luke 15. He called the older son “religious” and the younger son “irreligious”. The younger son parties with hookers and comes crawling back to his father’s open arms; the older son is pissed that he worked his ass off instead of partying with hookers but ends up equal with his younger brother. Keller presents these perspectives as a continuum and points out why both brothers are wrong. Then Keller talks about a third way – the way of the cross... Something about humility… End video.

I like Tim Keller. He’s a good guy. His church does good things. But I hate a few different things about how he presents this message. I am probably being unfair, and my irritation mostly stems with some long running disputes I have with the evangelical church at large, but it inspired me to articulate exactly why it stirred me up.

First, why “religion”? Is not self-righteousness a considerably more precise term for the older brother? Licentiousness or hedonism would work fine for the younger brother. Bringing religion into the equation sounds like a potshot at Catholicism or something. As in, “organized religion is bad, you should act based on the Spirit or your gut.” Keller might not intend to come off this way, but he does. Webster defines religion as “a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices”. And guess what? Listening to someone tell you to act based on your gut fits that definition. So does singing songs together and just using the word “just” while praying.

Religious rituals are nothing; that is, they are amoral. Just like most anything else, the question is whether they are useful. Do they promote self-righteousness, have’s and have-not’s? Or do they help us to live at peace, listen better, put others higher than ourselves, enjoy people and things rightly? Sometimes it’s not the rituals themselves that are problematic, but rather how we think and talk about them. Fasting can produce self-righteousness or devotion. Music can unify or divide. When we make fasting a subtle contest, we end up where the Pharisees did. When we start thinking about music (specifically whatever type of music we like) as holy in and of itself rather than as a tool for affirming and fusing our collective beliefs and our emotions, we are much more likely to steamroll our brothers and sisters in the name of God.

It is highly probable that during the 2000 year history of the church, church leaders, laypeople, and monks found some useful tools for producing healthy, devout Christians. Creeds, the Book of Common Prayer, the church calendar, liturgies, written down prayers, festivals, ceremonies, and many more traditions may qualify as this sort of tool. The best of these traditions tend to rise to the top. It is worth considering what they have meant historically, what they could mean to us, and how they might be life-giving if done correctly.

Secondly, and this is my main point, by using words that essentially mean “religion and not religion”, he makes it sound like it’s an “either or” decision and they’re both wrong. If I remember correctly, he explicitly states that these are on a continuum, as if you have to pick what percentage of religion and irreligion you can tolerate. Of course, from there, he talks about a third way, the way of the cross. I’m not sure if he failed to make this third way even a tiny bit concrete or if I got bored and missed it, but the message I took away was “we should all feel really bad about ourselves and hope God does something, because we’re not going to live like Jesus any time soon.” Again, I am being unfair, but that was my first reaction.

I spent most of my youth and college days trying very hard to live the way God wanted me to. A big question that I often came back to was “what does God want me to do?” Another way to phrase it might be “what is the Christian life supposed to look like?” The answers that were easiest to find were usually phrased in the negative. “Well, you don’t have sex before marriage. Don’t get divorced either. Don’t look at pornography. Don’t listen to music with cuss words in it. Don’t be prideful, even though there’s nothing you can do about it. Don’t be gay.” Positive imperatives were few and far between and often were things like “make sure you spank your kids and don’t forget to tithe”. That, and to live like Jesus as a roving preacher who heals people, hangs out with prostitutes, and comes up with awesome burns for the people in charge. Only no one in the church really does that so it’s probably not a realistic goal. What I felt was missing was a good concrete, plausible example of what the Christian life should look like. People are quick to chuckle at the old prohibitions on movies, dancing, drinking, drums, etc., but the Christianity I grew up in just came up with new things not to do without telling me what I should do.

I think it is incorrect to interpret the Prodigal Son story as an illustration of two wrong ways to live. If I know anything about Jesus, it’s that just about all his rebukes were directed at the people with power and respect. This story is an illustration of the grand narrative of the Bible, namely “What does God do about evil? He forgives,” with a rebuke of self-righteousness tagged on the end. The reason it’s even necessary to rebuke self-righteousness at all is that it doesn’t really look all that bad and often gets confused with righteousness.

If we think about the story as speaking to the general populace about two wrong ways to live, we end up uncertain of our position and next move. We have two compelling illustrations of sin, and some part of us can relate pretty well to both characters, especially the older brother. The “third way” is strangely absent, though. We end up adrift, feeling guilty that we have self-righteous tendencies, and looking for places in our life that maybe we are just a little condemning or proud of ourselves.

I am going to stop here, leaving all my internet bot creepers viewing the blog with a better understanding of what not to do just to illustrate my point. Okay, just kidding. This entry was a roundabout way of introducing what to me is the big hole in evangelicalism*, and I plan to discuss what positive imperatives from other veins of Christianity I have found since.


*I’m using the term “evangelical” in a more colloquial sense to denote fairly conservative Baptist-ish type of churches. There are a broader set of churches that could be considered “evangelical” in a more technical sense.