begin with grey

Veganism as a World View

2010-03-16T02:47:00.004-04:00

Once upon a time in a previous life I was a right-wing-conservative-christian-meat-loving kid. I grew up learning everything I could about the bible and spent every weekend going to church and many weekinghts in bible studies of various kinds.

A common topic that came up from time to time was about understanding the christian worldview and how it differed and bested other worldviews. A worldview could be defined by answering four basic questions. 1) where did we come from? 2) what went wrong? 3) how do we correct it? 4) where do we go from here?

For christians the answers are, God created us, we sinned, believe in jesus, go to heaven / live a blessed life. Most of christianity fits neatly into those answers.

Those answers turn out to be a wonderfully appealing target for post-modern deconstructionists, of whom I got tangled up with. Long story short, I found the christian answers lacking and vowed to leave my life of devotion behind.

A few years went by and I became increasingly concerned about my health. My weight was steadily increasing and the excersize to maintain it became unreasonably brutal. I worried as I saw a 30-something colleague go in for heart surgery. I knew I wasn’t too far off from that.

I went vegan and as a result, I no longer have to worry about heart disease, diabetes, most cancers, stroke, and most of the other american diseases. My weight has been steadily decreasing, whether I work out or not. And my desire to be active is at an all time high. Something is just working right for my body that wasn’t before.

I explained all this to a friend, which lead to a lively debate. I went home thinking I had said too much. The weekend passed and he wrote to me saying “your claims check out. I’m going vegan”. I helped answer a few more questions and pointed him towards some great vegan products.

An odd feeling overcame me. One that I hadn’t felt for years. It took me most of the day to place it. Then it dawned on me, I was rejoicing. Just like I used to rejoice when someone I knew became a christian, I was experiencing the same kind of feeling, albeit in a non-religious way about my friend becoming a vegan.

I couldn’t help but draw parallels back to my old religion. But did this mean that veganism was my new religion? No, the health and societal benefits of veganism are based on fact and backed up by an impressive array of studies. Religion, on the other hand, requires an unavoidable ammount of faith, no matter how much circumstantial evidence one cites. What could it be then?

The lessons on world views came rushing back to my mind. How would I answer the four questions now? Let’s see:

1) Where did we come from?

We evolved from a nothingness that noone really understands. Our species evovled and adapted perfectly to its environment. The biological evidence is clear, humans are herbivores. Though it’s possible for us to eat meat, the vast eons we spent evolving geared us to eat plants and plants alone.

2) What went wrong?

Somewhere along the line we started eating meat, probably at first for survival and now as a mass-marketed right of red-blooded Americanism. Through some well intentioned but faulty studies our scentists and doctors became convinced our bodies required animal protien. Then through some crafty and devious “studies” designed to protect the animal production industry our society stopped asking the right questions.

Governments bought into the myths big time. Literally. The United States Government, for one, sunk billions into subsidies for animal products. That’s why a hamburger costs less than a salad. That’s why you can get beef for 4 dollars a pound. It’d cost you 90 without the subsidies.

We started eating the way only aristocrats could once afford. As a result, we started getting the diseases that only aristorcats got. Even worse, we got used to pain, suffering and grief caused by those diseases. Most people think it’s normal for loved ones to die of heart disease, cancer and diabetes. Just like we think it’s normal to alleviate our own diseases with advil, zantac, lipitor, paxil, viagra and anything else advertised during the nightly news.

I won’t even go into the environmental cost of all this. Suffice to say, you’re not an environmentalist if you’re not a vegan. Simple as that. I don’t care if you’ve lead your communities recycling efforts, drive a Prius or a bike, you don’t give a shit about the earth if you still eat meat.

3) How do we correct it?

Stop eating meat, dairy and eggs. Vegan food tastes better anyway.

4) Where do we go from here?

Into a world where disease is uncommon, people are vital, minds are fit and the environment slowly returns to stasis.

So there you have it. Veganism as a worldview, not a religion. So why did I have that pseudo-religious feeling of rejoicing? Well, I think it’s pretty simple. Rejoicing, like most emotions that religion co-opts, existed long before religion ever came around.

Life as a Liberal Atheist

2009-04-29T02:08:00.002-04:00

Every so often I run into someone from my past and slowly get around to explaining that I no longer go to church and and consider myself an atheist. For a moment, a stunned look appears as they briefly consider how I used to be a part of the worship band, deeply involved in bible studies, working at christian companies and generally doing everything In the Spirit. From there the conversation goes a bunch of different ways but the thing each conversation has is an attempt by them to find the thing that pushed me over the edge, the one thing that made me an anthiest and not a believer. I get the sense that 'one thing' is often the last thing they heard from a pastor about why atheists are not christian. What is that one thing? Is it anger towards God, a bad church experience, a misunderstanding of the scripture, what is it?

I try to explain that it isn't one thing, its was a thousand different reasons. It's that the Bible flat out doesn't make sense, has a poor history, contradicts itself everywhere. It's the people in churches, the control structures, the lies and deceit. It's the church I was in where the pastor raped the co-pastor, it's the close mindedness, it's the nature of God and the completely unreasonable notion of an extraterrestrial creature that loves and cares for me but will send me to eternal damnation if I blaspheme his Holy Ghost personality. It's all that and a thousand more reasons.

Towards the end of a particularly long conversation, a friend began describing how the world exists on two planes; a physical one and a spiritual one. We have to contend with the spiritual plane, live and breath on it, reach out to God on it. He explained how the Deceiver works to try to confuse us. So I asked him if he believed that Satan exists. Yes. Ok, then do you think that I might be influenced by Satan. Yes. Do you think that I am currently deceived by Satan. Yes. Ok. Well then, conversation over. I have nothing left to say to someone who tells me I'm possessed. And this was coming from a very very smart entrepreneur.

My friend had exceptionally rational opinions on most things in life. Yet when confronted with the myriad of reasons I would choose not to have a relationship with his extraterrestrial being he would rather admit that I was possessed by satan than to admit that my experience might somehow be valid.

In my conversations with Chrisitians, the most common argument I heard was this. "You just had a horrible rotten church experience. If you went to my church you would see a much better side to christianity". Whatever I say, that's the argument I'd get back. If I explained the history of Sun Gods and how they relate to Jesus, I get the same answer, "If you believe that then you should really come to church this sunday and talk to our pastor, he'll be able to help you with that". If I metioned theology, then I just hadn't been exposed to *their* theology, the right one, the one based on the Bible. And on and on it goes.

The problem with churches is that they're wonderful, loving, beautiful, kind places right up until the moment where they're not. The problem with theology is that it's deep, meaningful, profound, thought provoking, life changing, right up until it the moment that it isn't. For most Christians, this is when all those sermons on doubt kick in. All the sermons about "I believe, help my unbelief" and "you just have to trust, even when it's hard", and thousands of other cliches that you can't go a week without hearing. Those all kick in like little antibodies, attacking your most rational thoughts, dragging you back in. In my case I formed an early immunity to it when I convinced myself that guilt couldn't possibly be a christ-like feeling. I worked hard to clear myself of guilt. It had the unintended affect of disarming my doubt. Slowly my doubt faded. Slowly I found a way out, I could begin with grey, or in other words, begin with an open mind, a clean slate.

Options for the Atheist Christian

2008-05-02T16:53:00.004-04:00

So this blog is proving to be sort of an interesting journal of someone going from doubting christianity to leaving it altogether.
I eventually concluded that christianity is a horribly flawed mythology and found out that I was far from alone.

So how did I get from fervently singing to Jesus "My Jesus, My Savior, Lord there is none like you..." to believing I was caught up in an elaborate myth? I've thought about this so much and my best conclusion is Community.

My need for a close community was so great that I would sacrifice rational thought for a pat on the back. I would rather believe that everyone that doesn't subscribe to my beliefs would be eternally tortured by the Savior I praised than to jeopardize my close ties to my friends and family.

Choose rationality or choose your community. It's an outrageously difficult choice to make and the answers to the doubting christian are few:

Try to make it all make sense, claim that your faith is rational and fervently fight those who claim otherwise

Flame bait, I know. The problem with this is that it simply doesn't work. You can argue all you want and you can learn all the most obscure facts but you soon realize you're winning arguments by simply throwing the greatest number of red herrings. Your opponent eventually looses interest and walks away. You don't believe me? Argue with a UFOlogist for an hour and you'll see what I mean. They will claim obscure fact after obscure fact until you leave them alone.

Another approach is to pick an argument and claim it is universally true. "Man needs redemption from sin" is a good start, or pick any of Ravi Zacharais' arguments.

Quietly ignore the doctrines that don't make sense.

This is a safe bet for awhile. I got a good number of years out of this one. I stopped believing in seven-day creation, as I hope a good many christians have. Bit by bit, other doctrines and beliefs fell away. Demons were replaced by cognitive therapy, literal interpretation by allegory.

The problem is you can only ignore doctrines for so long. Eventually you run into problems with healing (God doesn't heal amputees), gays (generally treated worse than samaritans) and on. And when you get to the big questions on Hell, you'll have a hard time staying quiet. In conservative circles, thoughts against the Iraq war will get you in trouble. Try to stay quiet, but you'll be found out. Still, it works for a good long time.

Find a denomination that defines doctrines more like you do.

There is by some counts upwards of 33,000 to choose from. Certainly not that many in your local area, but you get the idea. Jump around long enough and you'll find people who quietly ignore the same kinds of things you quietly ignore. Literal interpretation of large portions of the bible will be replaced with fervent admonitions to "Trust in the Lord" and "Don't stray from Him". You'll be told it's the relationship with Jesus that counts more than anything. Eventually that gets old. You can only go so long with radio silence from the big guy upstairs before you start getting suspicious.

However, if you really like your new friends and they really like you, chances are it won't matter much anyway. You'll take their collective words as words from the Holy Spirit and go on about your life. This works until they give you some really bad advice. It'll happen.

Concentrate solely on the 'good parts' of the Bible.

I.e. the ones that match the generally accepted morality of our times. So out with the old testament genocide and new testament stonings. This seems to be the generally appropriate way for the Emerging Church and a number of liberal denominations as well. There is a ton of great advice in the Bible and good happy things to like in it. There's the kind and generous Jesus that does nice things for the world. The kind of guy you want to be like when you get a bit older. That works for a lot of people, for a long time. It's probably one of the few reasonably good things that christians can end up doing. Still no matter how much you concentrate on the good in the Bible, there's still some really nasty, racist, mean, violent and awful stuff in there. Why not just let go of it and just be good? If you're too the point that you are judging what is good in the Bible and what isn't, then you are already using the good common morality that humanity is increasingly evolving.

Become a pew sitting atheist.

I tried this for awhile. I know others that have been doing it for years. In the end I just couldn't get myself to worship a mythical god-man-ghost. I tried as hard as I could to just see the general spirituality in it all, but couldn't get there. I couldn't take another sermon that insisted I "just believe" or "pray more" or "serve more".

Look at your wise christian elders and say "if it's good enough for them, its good enough for me."

I propped my faith up with this one for a long time. I figured none of my pastors would stake their careers on a myth. What I learned was that this was exactly what they would do because they have the most to lose. It was a hard enough decision for me to make to leave my christian circles, but my entire livelihood isn't tied up in it. For many pastors expressing doubt in their faith would land them in the poor house.

Where's my Lightning Bolt?

2007-09-10T21:49:00.000-04:00

In the christian circles I was in, we were told in that God never promises a life free from hurt "just the opposite!" the preacher would exclaim, giving example after example from the bible as to why he believed that was true.

Then following that, the preacher would call up a few people to give their testimony about how bad their life was when they weren't a christian and how much better their lives had become now that they were walking with Christ. We'd hear from the former alcholic drug addict atheistic heritic and get more than a bit jealous we didn't have an awesome testimony like that. We'd hear from the former backslider who confirmed it was true, life without Jesus was so much worse.

Testimony after testimony, the message was clear, your life as a Christian is so much better than it otherwise would be. Like their infomercial equivalents, these mini messages were designed to tell you all the good news, without dragging you down into the messy details of daily life with the product.

Go to enough services, enough evangelical rallies and you're left with a dichotomy you 'll never really settle. In one moment you're told through all the testimonies that your life should be just rosy with Christ. In the next you're trying to figure out why your life isn't as pain free as the testimonials claim it should be.

I spent year after year trying to solve this one. Everyone I knew was doing the same thing. "You just have to trust that Jesus is doing a mighty work in your life", one person would say. "You just have to hand it all over to Jesus", another would say. All we were doing was trying to figure out why life with the Jesus Brand wasn't what the commercials said it should be.

In a long line of dogma I'm trying to deconstruct, this thought of hurt is ripe for rethinking. As I dissembled my beliefs about christ and deity I kept on waiting for the lightning strike - that promised painful reminder that I was walking away from all that was good and healthy. But it didn't happen. At least not like that.

I still get hurt from time to time, relationships go sour, people say mean things, I still get colds. And I still learn from my mistakes. But, the most amazing thing, I heal just like I always did. Except this time I heal without having reconcile the impossible. I know my life isn't perfect, won't be perfect, shouldn't be perfect.

As a christian my life was about upholding this Christainity, which bared much greater similarity to multi-national corporate brand than it did a faith. When I lived under the Brand, I had to reconcile all my ups and downs with the Brand. Now that I'm free of that, I'm free to get hurt and to heal without having to figure out how it all fits with "God's plan", whatever that might be.

42 scenes in the life of a former fundamentalist christian

2007-05-31T17:17:00.000-04:00

This blog has been extra sparse, but that's pretty much how I've intended it to be - a journal I write in to document my gradual change in belief about Christianity.

I've gone from being an on-fire conservative christian evangelical fundamentalist republican participating in all things church to a liberal ex-christian democrat who thinks that Christianity is at best a nice collection of moral beliefs and at worst, a harmful establishment bent on controlling its congragents.

Here's a brief glimpse of various points of my life of faith.

Growing Up

Grew up as a pastor's kid
Got saved as a seven year old
Did all the right christian things
Rarely got in trouble, never drank or did drugs or say bad words
Got saved, or "recommitted", over and over at every youth camp
Went to high school and ignored all 'worldly people' in favor of my youth group friends.
Joined the church praise band
Attended countless bible studies
Constantly felt like I was failing christ for the smallest of reasons.
Constantly felt guilty for "sinning"
Went to bible camp every year
In my later years at bible camp, I started to draw parallels with some of the bible camp practices and cult practices. remained committed to the idea of christianity despite some of the practices of it.
Believed that the 'Holy Spirit' would lead me in anything I did from the mundane search for lost car keys, to major life decisions about where to live and what career to persue.
Started to question what the difference was between the holy spirit and intuition. could I believe in both?
Graduated high school, switched churches to a less holy-spirit-centric church.
Got married
Rose in the ranks of the local megachurch social structure.
Became increasingly frustrated by the 'subtexts' of all the sermons I heard. Despite what the subject matter was, I felt like pretty much every sermon I heard came down to a handful of actual advice. Be more christ-like, pray more, doubt less.
Became frustrated with christian friends who would justify outrageously bad decisions with empty god-talk.
When questioning this point, was told, and wholeheartedly believed that it was wrong to judge the christian belief based on the actions of a few christians.
Wholeheartedly believed that no matter how bad any given christian acted, it was their fault for not understanding the bible well enough and by no means the fault of the bible's message.

On Healing

Our family was hit with a major life threatening and life altering disease
Watched friends become convinced god loved and cared for them because they found good sales on appliances and parking spots a just the right time.
Questioned what was so wrong with me that god would answer a prayer for an appliance sale but wouldn't heal a disease in my family.

The Bible

became a part of the emerging church movement since that was the only place i could find christians who were ok with questioning the sacred cows of christianity.
started to understand that there was more than one way to interpret the bible (i'll go into this more in my next post)
became convinced that the conservative and fundamentalist take on the bible had some serious flaws in it.
learned that christ's story was far from unique. before christ, there were dozens of heros who were claimed to have been born of virgins, lived sinless lives, turned water into wine, rose from the dead three days after being murdered.
questioned why paul (who wrote the majority of the new testament), knew next to nothing about jesus's life. he mentions only 3 of 27 significant events in christ's life.
decided that the bible is filled with far too many absurdities and contradictions to be taken literally. though taken figuratively, it has a great wealth of wisdom and good stuff.

Homosexuality

I once believed that it was impossible for a practicing homosexual to be a christian, live a ethical life (christian or not), or go to heaven without denouncing their "sin".
Heard the stories of many christian and non-chrisitan gays.
Began questioning my conservative beliefs that gays were sinners and must be converted "or else".
Learned that the biblical evidence against gays wasn't all it was cracked up to be due to bad translation, poor understanding of ancient culture and just plain missing the point.

Hell

Believed that because the "Bible just says it's so" and "God demands justice" and "We'll learn why later" that it was just fine if billions of people suffered eternal conscious torture without any hope of post-mortem redemption.
Decided that there's no good way to believe in a God who destroys most of his creation.
Learned that the fundamentalist view of hell is far from the only reasonable way to interpret the ancient texts.

Pro-life Pro-choice Pro-war Pro-peace

Began questioning my pro-life belief once I realized I couldn't reconcile my, at the time, pro-war and pro-life beliefs.

Prayer

Wondered why God doesn't seem to heal amputees.
Became exhausted by trying to "discern God's will through prayer and supplication" and instead decided to rely on the logic and reason I believed God created. I can't begin to explain how much easier this one shift made my life.
Decided that prayer is a great way to focus our attention on things that matter. just like meditation and a thousand other practices from all kinds of religions.

Atheism

Picked up a silly little book at the book store that nonetheless contained some faith altering questions. decided that atheism might not be all bad after all
Listened to Penn Jillette describe his life as an atheist in an public radio broadcast. I began to doubt that all atheist were raving angry heathens with no sense of morality.
Learned that there were plenty of atheists who did good in the world simply for the sake of doing good while I did good in the world only to prove that I was really saved.

Nowadays

At this point of time I'd say that I am very much against the conservative and fundamentalist christian ideologies. I think while there are some great people in those communities, on the whole they get it wrong. In my life I have only seen conservative churches succeed by spreading doctrines of fear.

On the other hand, I see that there is a kind of christianity that I was never aware of. A kind that says that the bible doesn't have to be literal to be true, that other faiths might also be right, that a literal hell might not exist, that the devil might be a literary device.

So at this point I don't wish for a world without religion or christianity. I just hope for a world where logic and reason trumps negative religious dogma; where faith and hope are a means to peace not war; and where religion is allowed to evolve and support science rather than deny it.

Quitting the Program

2006-03-17T23:50:00.000-05:00

So in my last post i was on the brink of atheism. since then, quite a lot has happened. most recently i quit my bible study.

i was in a very exclusive bible study. it was by invite only and limited to people the bible study leader thought would seriously get into the bible. i don't think i realized how exclusive it was when i started. my wife and i were under the impression that it was fairly diverse; as there were a number of couples from different churches attending. we joined sometime around last july. it was going to be a sort of "inductive bible study" and we were going to dive deep into the scripture. and we did, often spending two hours and covering little more than a few verses.

i don't think i was supposed to change the way i did. they had no idea that i was reconsidering my faith all together and whether i wanted to be a christian. and really i just sort of kept quiet in the study.

that all changed a few weeks ago when i had just about had enough of it. they were talking about sin and using the most prime example of sin they could imagine, homosexuality. so i decided to say something about it. i told them that i thought that that issue, along with others wasn't nearly as air tight as they had thought. and so started three weeks of some of the most intense debate i've been a part of.

basically they weren't open to much of what i had to say and i wasn't open to much of what they had to say. they just wanted me to back everything up with the holy word or at the very least with some reputable bible scholars and i really don't care to. that's not because i couldn't it's just not my approach, and i know they wouldn't respect any reference i could produce any more than they could respect me.

and so that's what it came down to. respect. i argued that homosexuality wasn't necessarily a sin and that hell didn't necessarily exist and that there might be other ways to interpret the bible, but they would have none of it. i was just someone who was falling away from truth, from their truth. at one point they even tried to convince me that their combined intelligence should be a good resource to me in figuring things out. with their degrees and studies in intelligence and deep theological background there was really no reason for me to question them. so they thought. of course, i was supposed to cower in their greatness. because obviously my intelligence was of no consequence.

i don't think that they realized why i was even being a part of the debate. it wasn't to debate the fine points of theology or anything like that. i just wanted to see if they were open to different ideas, even if those ideas were irrational from their point of view. and so, admittedly i was mixing things up a bit, i was somewhat bombastic in my approach. for example, one of them mentioned something about hell and i said 'sure that makes sense, if you believe in hell'. that's probably the most tactless way i could introduce that topic, but i just wanted to see what would happen. at one point i think i started agreeing with every other thing they said. because for me, i can often find a way to agree with anything people say if i want to. it's just a matter of agreeing on a different level. so that's what i did.

i guess what i was trying to find out was if i could break all the rules of debate, agree with things inconsistently, fail to provide credible sources and all of that. i just wanted to see if there was anything left to their faith beyond that. because, i mean, there really should be something. should our beliefs really come down to argument and debate? should our respect for others really come to that? i wanted to know if they would really hold to all of that or if they would embrace someone who was questioning and show some love beyond the arguments.

i was told that arguing with a group of hard core christians was really a futile thing to do. they don't ever change their minds, they don't ever consider other options. i think i knew this but it was really important to me to see it for myself. i wanted to give them a chance to see things from another viewpoint. they even said multiple times that they wanted that too, but when i really had things to say, they just wanted to see an airtight scholarly case for that. and when i could give them that, then i was just intellectually inferior and my arguments were of no use.

this whole thing is so amazingly and completely and thoroughly sad to me! i think i'm starting to understand what it means to have an open mind. but what a closed mind they were convinced i had. i wasn't open to anything they had to say, they told me about the bible and told me with great passion about how all truth originates from the bible and how i just needed to read what says. it is just so simple, the bible just says this and it says that. why couldn't i just be content with what it clearly stated? why couldn't i just get with the program?

what i couldn't figure out how to say was that i really was open to understanding it was just that they weren't telling me anything new. I had heard all those arguments before and had argued them myself a hundred times. i couldn't get with the program because i no longer believed in the program.

and that's what it seems to have come down to. i can't really tell which of their beliefs are core to them and which ones are just about being with the program. it seems that modern christianity is presented as this one monolithic package. sure it's easy to get in the door and say the sinner's prayer, but you've only just begun. what happens is that sunday after sunday, study after study, you're given more and more things to believe that are part of the program. even worse, you're given increasing doses of fear to make sure you stay with the program. don't question it. don't even think about questioning it. if you do need to question it, well it better just be temporary and you need to just call it doubt. but everything will be ok as long as you return to the program.

it's late and i should really continue this in another post.

On the brink of atheism

2005-11-20T22:37:00.000-05:00

"I picked a great night not to be a christian", I told my wife just seconds after leaving a dinner party that included a couple Campus Crusader missionaries.

No one is ever supposed to just stop being a christian and i certainly never imagined the thought would ever cross my mind. I've known christ practically all my life, been a part of all the christian things, prayed the big prayers and said all the right kinds of words. I stayed on the map all my life never venturing off, always believing no matter what. I've debated skeptics and atheists and prayed hard for my "unsaved" friends.

I wish I could say that it was something dramatic that provided the boost for me to reconsider my faith. It wasn't. It's just been a slow process and in some way allowed and mildly encouraged in by the emerging church. through that movement i've found that not everyone felt all gung-ho about saving the world through religious domination.

i'm sure someone could use that to damn the emerging church. "what!? you allowed someone to question?! and now they're questioning the most fundamental beliefs!?". yeah yeah.

it wasn't that though, and it wasn't any major life change or event or let down or anything. i heard about a book that promised to challenge perceptions and it sounded interesting. i drove to my local bookseller and started reading. i didn't realize how things were about to change. it wasn't so much the book than it was how the author confirmed things i had thought about my faith for a very long time.

within chrisitanity i've seen so many excesses and evil things. i've seen churches control their congregations and their congregants allow them so willingly. i've seen entire churches rise and fall, not for any reason other than their own pride. the formulas seem so cut and dry, everyone gets something for doing something. and so it has been easy to see church as grand misguided, albeit well intentioned, machine.

and as my view of church began to wane it wasn't so surprising that my bible reading ("devotions") became less and less. i know some would try to convince me that that was a cause not an effect, but i don't think that's the case.

i've had a bit of an interest lately in studying the church of scientology, not at all because i would ever want to join, but simply because i'm fascinated with how cults draw their people in and keep them. i've watched a friend loose almost everything to an MLM that works on similar principles. and i've questioned more and more how the modern church's tactics differ from either of those examples.

that's not to say it's all bad. i don't think it is. i think most christians i've known are well intentioned and not at all given to deceit. but then again nice things could be said about scientologists as well.

so all of this led up to my reading that book. it's a pretty simple little book where the main character tries to find the simplest most straight forward explanations for anything and everything. and you know what? after years and years in the church, after hearing thousands upon thousands of sermons, after reading countless volumes by the all the most respected theologeans, i was taken apart.

i sat in the near empty fluorescent lit bookstore listening to best muzak could offer at the moment, my faith dismantled word by word, page by page.

some might say, if that's all it took than i really had no faith to begin with. maybe, but why are we so quick to blame the lost rather than the beliefs?

what i found is that christianity, as it is most often known, hangs precariously on a few assumptions. while the occasional doubt had crossed my mind many times, i just assumed the need for a loving caring, all knowing, omnipotent being who sent his son in human form to take away my sins. much work had been done to convince me of this and to wrap my emotions into this mythology so that i could scarcely know myself apart from it.

i found myself asking why my reality required such a mythology. why does my reality require an omnipotent being, and why a virgin birth and why any of that? If God knows everything, sees everything and can do anything, what possible motive would he have to create anything? out of love? maybe, but it wasn't really making sense. it just isn't the simplest explanation for observable reality.

i began to wonder, though not for the first time, if the Bible and all of its truth was really just well refined wisdom passed down through the ages, a sort of way of saying, here's how to live a pretty good life and not get too messed up. and it does this in just the sort of way all religions do. i thought that maybe i could finally stop trying to defend every little thing that seems awry with the scripture and start living life as best i could.

i'm not eager to go dump the scriptures and it's moral teaching like a college student who is at last freed from parental rule. if anything, it's a harder life to live to not believe in God, but it does seem to be a good deal simpler than what i was trying to make work as a christian. i no longer have to worry about whether or not someone should be included or excluded, listened to or ignored, loved or rejected. i don't have to figure out if i'm living every little detail of my existence in accordance with a community i fear will judge my every weakness.

i can get on with living my life. to quote Penn Jillette:

"Believing there's no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I'm wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate."

i wasn't ever privy to this concept within the walls of Christianity. it was just fine with my community that i have no "unsaved" friends. besides, i figured i was just better off that way. and if i did befriend a worldly person, i needed to find every opportunity to let them know that i was a christian and they should be one too. i guess that explains why i didn't have so many unsaved friends.

if i had, maybe i would have heard some of these thoughts a little earlier. maybe i would have found out that the unsaved really weren't as lost in life as i had been led to believe.

now a few days have passed. i went to church on sunday and stood in the pews and sang the songs and listened to the sermon and had a sense of the sacred that i can't fully describe. i think i'm starting to get a little perspective on what i've experienced this week.

it's basically this. i'm so fed up with christianity as i have always known it. i've gone from being the kid that said all the right christian things to an adult on the brink of atheism. i've seen some great moments in the church. but more and more, i've seen that great moments are hardly exclusive to the church. in fact, christians are, on the whole, no different from the surrounding society.

i'm not alone in thinking this. and fortunately i seem to have found a church that proves there is an exception to the madness. it's the type of church that i feel like if i were to make the step into atheism i wouldn't be respected any less. that's refreshing. there is, for the first time in my experience, a community that i don't think is keen on judging my every action or belief.

on the whole though, i'm not sure i would recommend anyone become a christian if it means going to the types of churches i've grown up in. i would instead recommend reading about Jesus and making your mind up from there.

as the service progressed on sunday i considered my main question... why do we need a christian mythology at all? what is it about reality that necessitates all of that? isn't there a simpler, more up-to-date explanation for existence? I think that there is, but i'm not sure that explanation accounts for the sacred. i know this is circular logic, and christians are notorious for such logic. but there's something that defies logic in what we experience in the sacred.

so where am i with all of this? i'm not convinced that christianity as i have known it will ever have the answers i'm looking for, but i think that there's a new christianity on the horizon. one that somehow corrects the types of problems that have plagued my christian experience to date. one that is so true to what Christ taught that even the most enlightened monk, the most devout athiest, the most burned out evangelical or the most uninterested agnostic might find its truth compelling. it's happened in the past, and perhaps it's time for it to happen again.

Important Post

2005-07-31T22:12:00.000-04:00

If you haven't had a chance to read this yet. Please do. I was moved to tears several times reading this series by Natala about her friendship with a porn star. Be sure to check out the comments on Part 8.

Absolute Interpretation

2005-07-12T20:57:00.000-04:00

Turns out my post titled 100 things I've learned about church caused quite a stir. It was picked up by a church leadership blog and a pastors.com forum and debated by a number of people more qualified than I. One commentor took issue with much of what I wrote, particularly my views on absolute truth.

I wrote the following (minus a few edits) to that commentor. Though I haven't heard back, I thought it might make a worthwhile post:

I've really learned a lot through the various conversations about "100 things". I certainly wasn't expecting to see the post go beyond a few friends. It was just a way for me to journal a few thoughts on church through my eyes. What I could never prepare for was the context in which my remarks would be read.

Unlike a mainstream journalist or academic writer, I sacrifice context for immediacy. I leave it to the audience, whoever they might be, to discern the context in which I write.

So regarding my thoughts on absolute truth, maybe I can fill in a bit of the context. I've grown up around evangelical churches all my life and I'm currently watching one disintegrate. At some point I started considering what was causing evangelical churches to loose their effectiveness. I saw how people were reacting, how some of the best things about evangelical churches were becoming the most hollow. One thing that I saw was how churches were splitting on ever more obscure theological issues under the guise of absolute truth. And not just churches, people, friends, families (my extended family included), communities were breaking up because they were convinced that each other were parting with absolute truth.

That's so sad! It simply cannot be that all sides were right. There had to be another answer. I'm not so sure my answer to that is right yet, but at least it's a start: There is absolute truth, but not absolute interpretation. I know this looks for everything like a major step back into a sort of quasi-relativism, but I'd love to see another answer.

By interpretation I mean, I've seen people make the most amazing cases for the smallest of issues. I've seen people make what seemed like air-tight cases for a single style of worship music, only to see someone else make just as tight a case for another style of music.

I've heard some of the most obscure references in scripture used to back up some of the most trivial preferences. All I can say in the face of these is, our interpretation of scripture is as fallible as we are. At the same time though, I firmly believe that scripture is true and authoritative. I'm just not sure I can say the same for people.

I just wanted to clear that up so you know where I was coming from in case that's of any help.

about the name

2005-07-01T10:06:00.000-04:00

In this culture, we've been conditioned to assume everything has a black or white answer. We're not really satified with a shade of grey. So we work tirelessly to draw lines between just about any issue. When it's proven that something is neither black nor white, we accept, but think that somone, somewhere must have clear answer that we just haven't heard yet.

No more is this style of thinking prevelant than in many Christian circles, where biblical teachings are applied with mathematical rigor to every area of life. No matter what your problem, someone will be ready to find a verse in the Bible to answer your question, once and for all.

The only problem is, this doesn't work. Not like it used to. I applaud the theologians for attempting to build a systimatic theology -- one that makes sense on as many levels as possible. It's good to do that, but how do we know when we've gone too far?

A man walks into church. Long before the time he crosses the threshold, the elders have worked out exactly when, why and how they might exclude him from their church. They know which sins are too repulsive to allow, which philosophies are too dangerous and which behaviors to watch out for. Before they shake his hand, they've encoded his future into the airtight language of beurocrats. Love one another as you would be loved? Yes, but.

They'll say, "I'm sorry sir, this church isn't for you," and go on to recommend a good christian counseler who can help him with is problem. In most churches, he wouldn't need to be told. The message would be loud and clear, "don't come back until you're one of us".

The problem with love is that it is grey. It is never black and white. No policy can describe it, no book of law can contain it. Every effort spent trying to formulate love ends up circumventing it.

So instead of assuming something is black or white until proven otherwise, maybe we can begin with grey.

100 Things I've learned about church

2005-06-09T14:49:00.000-04:00

I don't have much of a faith anymore. At least not like I used to. I thought I was so great with all my theology and my good works. I worshiped my church and thought it could be great one day if only we got things right. If only we worked it all out, said the right things, acted the right way and looked just right, we would convince anyone to become just like us. We were Christians. We sang great songs, had great truths, married great people and did great things. We thought alike, talked alike and acted just as we should. We thought we were so great because we only had ourselves to impress.

I know that some of what follows will greatly offend some people, it would have offended me a little while ago. Some items result from great leaps of logic. That's ok. I'm not intending to write a thesis here. It's more of a snapshot of what I think about church now. Some of these I'll defend, but I'm sure many will vanish from my thought at some point. Basically, if it helps you, great... if not, oh well, at least you can see church from another perspective.

There's more to come. I'm treating this more or less like a table of contents for what I'll be writing about on this blog.

Corporate driven church

Your church is not a company.
Running a church like a corporation leads to all sorts of problems that church leaders are ill-equipped to handle.
The corporate driven church often leads to an entitlement mentality amongst the 'customers' who are paying for services. That leads to enormous abuse as churches scramble to get their employees and volunteers to meet the needs of their ever picky 'customers'.
Everything the Church ignores grows.

Diversity

Many churches, often in an effort to meet the demands of their top donors stifle diversity.
Diversity (of culture, style, thought, leadership, viewpoints) can only be good for a church.
Lack of diversity kills communities.
The more churches stifle diversity, the more they will find their members splitting on the most obscure issues.
If you aren't regularly saying "I've never thought of it that way", then you probably don't have enough diversity in your life.

The poor

Many churches who have the megachurch philosophy say "We don't invite the poor because we don't know how to handle the poor".
The truth is, the poor know how to handle the poor. If churches began respecting the poor, they would be amazed by what they have to offer.

Women in leadership

Contrary to what most christians are taught, the Bible has surprisingly little to say against women in leadership.
The typical views against women in leadership don't stand up well against the "where is it written" argument.
Churches often will model their leadership based on Jesus and the disciples, saying that all the disciples are men, therefore the church leadership should be similarly composed. If that's so, does that go for race as well? Or occupation?

Gays and Judgment

Most christians have no idea how much gays have suffered in the hands of so-called 'christians'.
Many christians believe that all sin is equal, yet they judge gays for their sins much more harshly.
Every time I've thought someone should be excluded from the church for some reason, I find out that I should be excluded for reasons which are just as equal.
Most christians are unaware of the amount of promiscuity that goes on within their church.
Most churches would rather appear without blemish than to provide a safe forum for their members to work through issues of sexuality. Whatever the church ignores, grows.

Absolute Truth

There is absolute truth, there just isn't absolute interpretation.
Many christians try to find absolute truth in anything and everything. This mentality leads to bickering, divisiveness and alienation.
It's never good to claim that you have the total truth.
There are plenty of things we just won't know the absolute truth on.
It's ok to not know the absolute truth.
The phrase "where do you draw the line?" is ripe with fallacy. Alarms should go off every time it's spoken.
Our job is rarely, if ever, to draw lines.
Many chrisitan leaders are uncomfortable with the idea of postmodernism. This is usually because they've spent their lives building a highly rational defense of their faith and postmodernism undermines that. Lesson: don't spend your life building a highly rational defense of your faith. Instead, live it out
There's something worth learning from every religion and every philosophy. Ask what's right before asking what's wrong.

Argumentation

Church communities often place enormous value in argumentation; alienating people who aren't easily understood.
Those people who lack a "clear voice" may still have profound truths to share. Ask.
It's good to ask this question: "Can you possibly imagine an exception to your argument?"
Every argument can be turned back into a conversation by believing "It's okay if I'm completely wrong about this."
Everything I say is wrong.
Everything you say is wrong.
We should have pity on each other for our shared inability to communicate truth.
Pity does not mean contempt.
There are exceptions to everything here.
All of us are always in progress always, all the time.

Style and Substance

Making a church look cool does not make it 'postmodern'.
When it comes to church; style does not equal substance.
There are plenty of 'uncool' churches that are far more "postmodern"/"emergent" than the "cool" churches.
"New Look, Same Great Taste!" doesn't work if it tastes nasty.
Churches spend countless resources in pursuit of the perfect formula for getting people saved. There is no formula. There never has been, there never will be.
You can't buy the formula, you can't sell the formula, you can't go to a 'cool' church and copy the formula. No amount of research will reveal the formula. So just step away from the Drucker.
Churches could move a thousand mountains with the effort they exert trying to perfect their formula.
Read the bible, everyone. Relentlessly discuss what it says with as many different kinds of people as possible. (is that a formula?)
Christian language has become so corrupt, so many of the words have taken on such terrible meanings, that the Bible is nearly unreadable for some people. There's something worth working on.
For example, when the bible uses the word 'grace' but we have never even seen anything close to grace being demonstrated in our churches, then how are we to understand what the bible is saying?

Definitions

The word "christian" means all kinds of things to all kinds of people. Very often it means bad things.
Same with 'Jesus', God, Savior, etc.
Republican does not equal Christian.
Many people will have nothing to do with church simply because they think that they have to change their political viewpoints to be a part of it.
In most Christian debates there's a big disconnect between what we are passionate about and what Jesus was passionate about.
It's good to always ask the question "What does the Bible say more about?". Does it say more about the small inconsequential issue we are fighting about, or does it say more about love and unity?

"Evangelism"

Find out what's right about someone else's beliefs before attacking what's wrong.
The focus of christianity shouldn't be to 'convert' people when it's at the expense of loving them.
Many christians have been relentlessly taught to 'convert' 'non-christians'. They do so with the best intentions but usually end up alienating their 'unsaved' friends and marginalizing the church.
Everyone has heard the salvation message, several times, with fewer exceptions than most christians have been lead to believe.
The four spiritual laws are never presented in scripture explicitly. They are simply one way of condensing the gospel message in a way meant to make sense to the modern man.
The four spiritual laws don't make sense to most people.
Trying to boil all the mystery of the bible down into faux-scientific fact does little to convince people who have little faith in science. Or in you.
The sinner's prayer isn't in the Bible. No one in the Bible ever got anyone saved by using the "sinner's prayer".
Truth is, no one ever, in any time has ever been saved by the sinner's prayer. Think about it.
Repeating "That's just your truth, I'm glad you found something that works for you," will confound many evangelicals. (and it tends to anger a few).

The next big thing

The more a church says "if we build it, they will come", the more they will find themselves in debt with their burned out volunteers walking out the door.
Two steps towards irrelevance: one, hold an evangelistic event that will impress your christian friends. two, blame the 'unbelievers' if they don't get saved.
What works for another church will not work for yours. Especially anything with the number forty in it.
Most of the "Next Big Things" in christianity end up disillusioning their proponents, even in small imperceptible ways. Did alpha, 40 days and the passion really live up to all their promises? Do you have the same regard for them now as you did when you first found out about them?
The "Next Big Things" are often the Get Rich Quick schemes of the church; promising pastors large congregations for a low low price.
Be wary of Get Large Quick schemes, just like you are wary of Get Rich Quick schemes that attempt to circumvent common sense and Godly wisdom.
This goes for the 'emerging church' too. Don't think that making your church 'appeal' to 'postmoderns' will make your church big.

Intuition

Just because someone says "I feel God is leading me to do such and such" doesn't mean that it's right.
3 steps to disaster: one, fill your intuition with lousy data; two, mistake your intuition for God's leading; three, silence your critics with God talk by saying things like "I know God is leading me" or "I'm just stepping out in Faith".
Many christians mistake psychological phenomena as spiritual phenomena.
It's dangerous to mistake the temporal for the eternal.

Long View

It's even more dangerous to treat the eternal as though it's temporal.
Take the long view.
Expand your timeline for change (of you, others; your church, community and world). It may take another 200 years.
Be encouraged by the kinds of changes that can be completed in the long view.
What kind of changes would you make at your church if you knew it was going to exist for 400 years?

Listen

Listen intently to why someone hates church. Really listen, actively listen, ask questions, don't react.
By all means don't say "well, our church is different" or "that doesn't apply to us".
When someone hates church, it is surprisingly rare in this culture, that they hate church simply because of Christ.
Be prepared to make significant changes to your point of view the more you honestly talk to those whom the church has abandoned.
If we believe that the church goes beyond four walls and includes all 'believers', then we need to be consistent in that view.
Most people who avoid the church have been hurt by the church. Not 'a church' but 'the church'.
It's worthwhile to see all christian atrocities as our own.

Question

It's okay to question.
Question everything, everyone, everywhere, always.
Nothing is off limits. Question God, life, salvation, death, sin, hell, bible, leaders and traditions.
Never accept "that's just the way it is" for an answer. Never accept "the Bible just generally says that".
Always ask "where is it written?".
Don't accept for a moment that just because someone has "the right credentials", that they have the right answer. Honor them, but question.
Questioning does not make you less of a Christian. Questioning isn't a sin. It isn't even doubt.
Don't stop anyone from questioning.
Don't give canned answers.
With few exceptions, there is always more than one answer.
Good answers take time and they account for truth on all levels.
A culture of questions is organic, fragile and easily broken. Don't break it.
Allow people to find their own answers. Don't impose your will on them.
Usually, asking a question is more important than receiving an answer.
If you believe God is sovereign, then you can rest assured that they will come to the right answer at the right time.

label me cc

2005-05-26T21:45:00.000-04:00

So I took a quiz (via jen) to find out what world view I have.

"You scored as Cultural Creative. Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational."

Cultural Creative 100%
Idealist 75%
Postmodernist 69%
Romanticist 44%
Existentialist 38%
Fundamentalist 13%
Modernist 13%
Materialist 6%

Interesting. I hadn't heard that term until today. I'm curious about the definition. It calls me a "modern thinker", but I scored only 13% on modernist. It seems like if they mean "modern thinker" in the modernist term, then I would have also scored higher on the modernist. right?

What shade of grey will you defend?

2005-05-18T09:28:00.000-04:00

That first comment on my last post prompted me to think about how we define black and white. To some maybe Poland was black, Russia was white, Germany grey. Or maybe it was white, grey, black respectively. Or maybe it was all black to some, all white to others. And on which issues are we assigning color to? Which issues matter?

I admit my knowledge of history is limited, but what emerges when you combine all of the blacks, whites, and greys across all the issues involved and all the levels of psyche for all the perspectives both local and global? Grey? How grey?

Now my knowledge of the Bible is no doubt more limited than that of history, so take this as however you'd like. Regarding Jesus, I tend to think he defined grey better than anyone in history. The pharisees would present him with the most clearly designed litmus tests they could think of, tests that would reveal once and for all where Jesus stood. Pick one answer and he'd be siding with them, pick another answer and he'd be siding with the devil. He'd find the third answer. One that restored grey to the conversation.

So if you stand in grey do you stand for anything? That's something I was recently asked. It's tricky because, yet again, that's a black and white question. Define "anything". If the definition of "anything" is left up to me, then I'm for a lot of things. I believe in the rule of law, the sovereignty of God, that pop rocks don't go with guiness and so on. I would even be willing to defend some of those views, especially the pop rocks.

However if, "anything" is the set of assertions that the questioner believes is fundamental to a peaceful existence, then question has become considerably more grey. What assertions matter to that person? Which assertions will stand the test of time?

To further complicate matters, usually what we say we believe isn't at all what we show we believe. This even goes for the deepest religious beliefs.

I know its true for me. Everything I say on this blog is what I think I believe, looking at a broad view of my life you might say that it is true, step closer to the canvas of my life and you'll see the uneven brush strokes, step even closer and you'll find whole swaths of inconsistency, step even closer and you'll see specks and grains of doubt and deception. Take out your microscope and you'll find layers and layers of black and white.

I guess what I'm coming to is this: Everything we think is a summarization. The previous sentence was a summarization. And so is this one. And this one. We have been created fundamentally grey, incapable of having a single boolean thought.

Now with all of that the question becomes, what shade of grey will you defend?

my church is falling apart

2005-05-15T00:15:00.000-04:00

It seems like no matter how deep you go, you find that everyone just wants to pick a side. one group likes the music, another group hates the music, someone wants the pastor to speak a certain way, someone else doesn't care for anything he says. Some want the church to be more hip, others want the church to be more traditional.

All in all though everyone takes their sides and defends them to no end. They see their issues as black and white. That's their starting point. A few of them may venture towards grey, even fewer would consider beginning from grey.

I used to believe in black and white, right and wrong, yes and no, my way or no way. Over time i saw my views tending towards grey. I couldn't just say that things had to be one way or another there were just too many factors. and about my church, i've gone through all the possible sides i can take and found that there is no side worth taking.

Taking sides means being black and white. That would be the easy thing to do. but black and white doesn't ever explain it.

Looking at my church. why does someone want the service to be more traditional? what is the real reason? when you really get to the emotional core of their argument, are they really just saying the same thing as the person who wants the hip church? and get to the core of that, is that really what the problem is with the church or is it something different?

The thing is, we rarely get the chance to find the emotional core of an opposing argument. it's a hard thing to do. it's easier just to take a side and assume the worst about whoever takes a different view.

So if we know that there might be something worth learning from all sides, why take a side at all? why not begin with grey?

escaping my name

2005-05-14T12:11:00.000-04:00

Somewhere out there is a site baring my name. I spent a lot of time on it. Many weekends and weeknights went into the design, then the redesign, then the redesign after that. Then I started this one.

That other one is still out there, going strong. But there's only so much I can say with my name emblazoned on it. Everything I write on it is a google away from old friends, current friends, future friends, employers, business contacts, etc. So I blog about technical things, general things, things that I would happily tell any stranger.

Not so here. Here, in this space apart, I take advantage of one gift provided by the internet architects. Anonymity. I know it's an illusion. I'm not really anonymous, no doubt I've left thousands of digital bread crumbs leading anyone with the right '3lite skilz' directly to this virtual doorstep.

But as long as that's what it takes to put my name with my writings, I'll take this bit of freedom with a smile--joining the ranks of anonymity (though not talent) with Lewis Caroll, Mark Twain, George Eliot and even Boz.

Welcome.