Why do we do this whole Christian thing? Why do we go to church and proclaim the faith that we do?

I’m sure that there are a number of readers who will call me an idiot for even asking that question. The expected answer of – “because we love Jesus” (or something like that), is all the answer they desire. In fact, for some, any other answer is inappropriate and evidence of a compromised faith. But honestly, I hardly know what that answer even means for many people these days. “Loving Jesus” is the rote response, but the problem with rote responses is that they are often a poor substitute for real introspection. The pat answer suffices when in reality one hardly knows one’s own soul well enough to even begin to answer the question.

As much as people want to make everything all about Jesus these days, Jesus has unfortunately become a shield to protect us from deep engagement. People start asking questions, a dialogue develops, differences emerge and instead of letting truth be sought with courage someone at that point suggests that we just need to refocus on Jesus and stop all the arguing. Jesus is what it is all about, so thinking anything more complex than just evoking his name gets shut down. But who is that Jesus to them? Without reflection or introspection, how can Jesus even be known apart from being simply an icon that we worship?

Faith is complex. Our motives for belief are complex. No one simply goes to church for the pure unadulterated reason that they love Jesus. We go because something in the environment resonates with us. Be the church hip and relevant (whatever those mean), or soaked in art and beauty, or thick with tradition – our souls find a home that we can be comfortable in. A home where we can best find the paths that lead us to God. Or we go for the community. Be it the stay-at-home moms who find a support system in the two hours of adult contact they get each week at church. Or simply the friends who can connect over a shared discussion of theology, the church offers the communal connections our souls cry out for. We go for the music, the emotional high, the networking opportunities, the dating opportunities, the playground, the coffee, the need to feel right, the intellectual stimulation, the need for encouragement, the reminders of childhood, the desperate need to feel welcomed and included. We go for a million different reasons.

And yes we go for Jesus. Sometimes this is a two dimensional Jesus we call upon to shield us from asking the hard questions. Sometimes it is a Jesus we are imperfectly trying to follow. Sometimes it is a Jesus who has transformed our lives. So yes, we go to church for Jesus. But also for all these other reasons. And in truth there is nothing wrong with any of it. We are complex creatures, piecing together meaning in our fractured world in whatever way we can. Faith feeds off culture which feeds off community. Jesus is there, but he is incarnate in all the muck and mire and breathtaking beauty just as much today as when he was born in that stable. There is nothing to be ashamed of or to reject out of hand in admitting this complexity.

Where the problem lies is when we can’t look into ourselves and ask these questions. When we are too afraid to know ourselves well enough to admit these truths. When we slap on Jesus like a shield to protect us from the hard work of knowing, then we’ve stopped actually following Jesus. Following Jesus should never be our excuse to stop pursuing truth or to stop asking the hard questions. Following Jesus shouldn’t force us to pretend that we are above the cultures of this world or are too good to be influenced by basic human needs (like the need to be loved). Maybe a flat image of Jesus we project can form a wall strong enough for us hide behind, but the real Jesus can’t do such a thing because he is deep in the midst of all the realities of life, and culture, and doubt, and longings.

Asking ourselves why we are Christians should never elicit a simple straightforward answer. We are complex people who worship a complex God – we need to allow God to be in even that complexity. Our answers might end up sounding less holy or more self-centered, but at least they will be honest reflections of reality. Hollow answers, although sanitized and religious sounding, do a disservice to the God we claim to follow. I think Jesus desires our whole self – neediness and cultural baggage included – more than some unreflective protestation of devout worship. To make it all about Jesus, we have to admit that it’s never just all about Jesus. And that’s okay.

But, obviously, Beck’s portrayal of liberation theology wasn’t exactly positive. Besides calling it socialist (seriously dude, stop being such a one trick pony), he said it wasn’t Christian because it focused on social sin and “collective salvation” instead of the strictly personal salvation message that is at the heart of Beck’s interpretation of Christianity. Granted, Beck knows his audience. His average viewer most likely believes that the message of Christianity can be reduced to this concept of one’s personal relationship with God. The message one hears in many conservative evangelical American churches can be boiled down to “Jesus died for ME. God demands MY worship. I must attend church to strengthen MY faith.”

To question this self-focused religion (even by proposing an outward purpose for our faith) is tantamount to heresy. For instance, I’ve been reading critiques of the evangelical feminist movement and many of them mock the movement because it prompts people to focus on the needs of women and men instead of solely focusing on God. These books suggest that if we were true Christians, we would only care about our relationship with God and not the petty needs of other people. To serve others or to care for people apparently have nothing to do with our personal relationship with God and so therefore must be cast as a deterrent to faith.

I’ve heard the same reasoning applied to Christians engaging in environmental action. I got in trouble when I was in junior high for wearing a “save the dolphins” necklace. I was told that in caring for the dolphins I was worshiping the creation and not the creator. My time and energy should be devoted only to developing my personal relationship with God – which at the time was defined as reading my Bible, praying, doing devotions, singing, and attending church. And as I’ve written about before, I received a similar response at a moms group when I mentioned how important ethical consumption was in my life. I was informed that as a wife and a mother, God does not expect me to care for the poor, but to only make sure I am fulfilling my role in tending to my family (since that is how a woman best serves God).

This “it’s all about me” religion generally masquerades as being “all about God.” In fact in such circles books, buttons, and bumper stickers that say “it’s not about me” are quite popular. And while I think there are serious issues with some of the self-deprecating, soul-silencing, and passion-erasing messages that such a stance often promotes (like telling women they are selfish for pursuing a career or that to cure depression one just needs to get over oneself and pray more), on the whole this sort of religion is very self-focused.

But the disturbing consequence of making Christianity all about MY personal relationship with Jesus is that we eliminate our neighbor. Oh, we are taught to pray for our neighbor in order to strengthen our own faith. We are taught to fear the corrupting influence of our neighbor. And, above all, we are taught to condemn our neighbor. But we have inoculated ourselves from having a neighbor to love. If we are not to care about the plight of women, or the destruction of the environment, or the oppressed third world farmer because it would take away from our complete devotion to God, then the idea of loving our neighbor becomes a meaningless concept. That command then becomes so confusing that we have to start focusing on the “as yourselves” part of the verse instead – making sure that each of us loves ourselves enough to devote ourselves only to God.

Having no neighbors to love does make our faith easier. As long as we aren’t going on murder sprees, cheating on our spouse (or looking at porn), and only gossiping in the form of “prayer requests” we don’t have to do the hard work of repentance very often. But add social sin into the mix and say that part of worshiping God involves caring for the poor and oppressed and faith becomes exponentially more difficult. None of us could claim a good relationship with God by those standards. And most of us would have to drastically alter our consumeristic lifestyles in order to avoid daily sin. So therefore it is easier to ignore the parts of the Bible that tell us God hates our worship and closes his ears to our prayers unless we are caring for the poor and the oppressed than to actually figure out how to do it. It is easier to label (and mock) such things as socialism or to say that loving our neighbor distracts us from loving God than it is to repent of social sin. It is easier to say, “MY faith is all about ME and MY relationship with God” than it is to making living sacrifices of ourselves.

So Glenn Beck gets it right – at least when it comes to understanding the felt needs of his target audience. Who cares if you are ignoring scripture and rewriting Christianity, the best way to keep ratings high is to define right living and true religion as looking out for number one. Because, seriously, who needs a neighbor to love when we have ourselves?

What really stood out to me was the theme of the weekend as represented on the objects placed on each of our tables. Each table had an old object on it (light fixture, shoe, cigar box…) that had been re-purposed to grow plants. So each of these old unexpected objects had new life emerging out of it, and we were asked to meditate on the objects at our table and share what they were saying to us. The thing is, is that when I looked at the objects at my table, I didn’t see life there. There were plants there, but my first thought was that this life isn’t sustainable – these plants could not survive for very long. Flowers clinging to life amidst rocks placed in an old potato ricer or felt hat will soon wither and die. The water will drain out too quickly and there are no nutrients to feed the plant. They looked pretty, even quirky and appealing, but there is no way life could survive in these objects. While others shared about their call to cultivate life in unexpected places or even to follow a call to somewhere they never thought they would go (and in truth the objects at other tables looked far more sustainable), all I could think of was that these representations of life could never survive.

Then in our time of worship, we sang these words – “Why do I stay where it feels safe when you keep calling me to come out?” I realize that I do this all the time. I like to stay where it feels safe – or at least where it feels known and I assume it is safe – but these places don’t always help me grow. They look like pretty places to be planted, but in truth they are not environments that nurture life. The death might be slow, but the environment is hostile nonetheless.

But of course I stay. I feel like I am running if I leave. Or that I am selfish to consider what is healthy for me. Or that I just need to strengthen myself through adversity. Or that relationships are more important than fighting for what I need to survive. The environments might be outright abusive – telling me that as a woman my only worth lies in my service to my husband and kids, telling me that I should not be writing (and therefore teaching men), or telling me that by being intelligent and serving God I must hate God and the Bible and am in need of discipline. Other environments are more subtle – like those who constantly debate around me if as a woman I am created in God’s image or if I am in sin for following God’s call in my life. The look of surprise on someone’s face when I tell them I have served as a pastor or that I’m considering going to seminary. The assumption that I will take care of food and hospitality and not the content at an event. Or even being in a church where the voice of women is never heard no matter how theoretically supportive it is of women in ministry. And I struggle wondering if I am called to be a light and voice into these places or if they are slowly sapping the life out of me?

So Convergence really made me take a step back and ask these hard questions. Am I in a healthy place to cultivate life? Can I grow good things where I am at, or am I just struggling to survive? What direction should I be heading in order to be faithful to the gifts and calling God has given me? I know it’s not really safe to stay somewhere just because it is known if it is not a life-sustaining environment, so I am seeking direction (which is far easier said than done). It’s hard, but I am grateful for the push at Convergence to really work through these questions and start trying to get to a more healthy place.

But for a long time I thought it was. Everything I heard about Lent revolved around the acts of self-denial. It was all about what object or habit one would give up and how hard it was to deny oneself of that thing. Of course that denial was meant to help one think about God and Christ’s sacrifice, but in truth the focus was always on the act of denial itself. The question always is, “what are you giving up for Lent?” as if that is what the season is about.

On one hand it’s understandable that we miss the point of Lent. In our religious traditions rituals and legalism are far easier to promote, understand, and implement than spirituality and faith. We can grasp rules. It is far easier to tell kids to obey rules than to explain to them why they should desire to act rightly. They then end up following the rules simply because the rules exist. When it comes to Lent we often do the same – denying ourselves something for the sake of denial. We give up chocolate or Facebook thinking that act of denial is the purpose of Lent. And we end up missing the point.

But Lent isn’t about denial, it is about transformation. It is the season in which we prepare to encounter Christ’s sacrifice by endeavoring to become more Christ like ourselves. Transformation is about letting ourselves be filled with God’s presence so that we can be shaped by God’s grace. Our acts of kenosis – denying ourselves in order to empty ourselves enough to allow God to fill us – are means to an end. They are disciplines that prepare us to be transformed. We deny ourselves so that we can be reborn as new creations – to live more fully as the Kingdom citizens God desires us to be.

So I am very tentative in choosing what disciplines I will follow during Lent to open myself up to God’s transforming power. I’ve discovered that for me personally, legalistic denial for the sake of denial often achieves the opposite purpose. Giving up coffee doesn’t make me a better follower of Christ, it just makes me more irritable and more of a bitch. Giving up Facebook doesn’t help me build community in the body of Christ; it simply helps me as a detached introverted person creep further into my shell. Those disciplines don’t assist me in emptying myself in order to let God in; they simply fill me with more of me.

I’ve come to learn that in order to become more fully the person God wants me to be, I instead need to make sacrifices that actually allow me to achieve those ends. Often those sacrifices are less about personal denial, and more about following disciplines that encourage me to love others more. In the past I’ve attempted to eat more ethically or shop fairly – which of course required discipline and sacrifice on my part (and a bit of denial as well), but the outcome of these outwardly focused changes was far more personally transformative than if I had just eliminated something from my life for forty days.

So for me the question for Lent is not “what am I giving up?” but instead “what can I do to allow God to transform me this season?” The answers to those questions might be the same for some people, for me changing the question shifted how I observed Lent. Whatever the case, I think it is important to understand what the ultimate purpose is behind why we engage in certain disciplines unless we miss their very point.

I had read The Da Vinci Code before it got really popular (I was on a “intellectual thriller” reading kick at the time). A year or so later I heard the pastor at the church I worked at talking about an upcoming Sunday School series he was leading about how evil the book was. He was shocked to hear that I had actually read the book, since he had not and had no plans to read it (even as he taught a class about it). I soon learned that his was the typical response of many evangelical Americans. When confronted with an idea that is outside the way they had been taught to see the world, they engaged fight or flight – denounce the work as evil or protect themselves from being exposed to its ideas.

Hence Dan Brown’s asides in The Lost Symbol.

I don’t agree with all of Brown’s ideas in The Da Vinci Code or The Lost Symbol (that’s not my point here), but I appreciate how he started a conversation around topics that might otherwise remain hidden. There is truth in the fact that the church is driven by ideology. The Bible we have today was shaped by opinions of factions in the church. Systems of patriarchy marred the name of Mary Magdalene by suggesting then upholding as doctrine that she was a prostitute. With the way Bible history is taught (or isn’t) in churches and schools today, this side of the story gets forgotten as embarrassing history to the point that basic biblical scholarship is labeled shocking heresy by the average Christian. Whether or not one agrees with Brown’s ideas, he at least helped some people ask if perhaps their way of viewing the world isn’t the only way.

It’s when we are willing to think about our beliefs in those ways that we truly learn. Granted we might end up believing as we always have, or we might tweak our beliefs a little, or change them entirely. And while I understand the people that instinctually engage with fight or flight when presented with anything other, what I don’t understand are the people who go through the charade of pretending to engage with other ideas only to reassert their original belief because they feel like they have to. I read a book recently that did just that. It claimed to be a fresh new perspective for evangelicals on a controversial topic, and while it did a great job deconstructing why a new perspective is needed, in the end it simply reiterated the same old traditional answer. In that evangelical tradition only one answer on the topic is acceptable, and so instead of actually allowing the intellectual wrestling to actually inform his perspective, the author ignored everything he had written about and parroted back the one acceptable answer. It made no sense. It wasn’t intellectually honest. But it kept the author (and publisher) safe within the box of their tradition. It wasn’t about truth, it was about allegiance.

So that’s why I am beginning to care less and less about being labeled a heretic. The term has nothing to do with truth (as much as they accuse us postmodern of abandoning truth). It has everything to do with toeing the line of a particular tradition. Call it what you will – “orthodoxy” “historic Christianity” “biblical Christianity” – all it is is the box that you feel comfortable in and pledge allegiance to. People who look, think, and act like you are in and everyone else is out. And while I fully acknowledge the need for community and tradition and admit I have allegiances, when that box becomes a shield to defend against ever learning anything new or entering a conversation in order to grow, then I have no use for the box. So while I love and appreciate (to varying degrees) The Apostles’ Creed, Augustine, Martin Luther, Calvin, Barth, and McLaren, I’m not going to exchange my faith in the living transforming God in order to cement myself in their camps. I may be a heretical Barthian or C.S. Lewisian, but since that really isn’t the point of my faith, I no longer really care.

Christi Bowman commented -
“As an American is it possible to not be exploitative…which is where begging for mercy from Jesus everyday comes in…no matter what I do their are countless ways in which I am exploitative and don’t know it and some ways I am exploitative and as of yet have not found ways to discontinue being exploitative…I am responsible for the damage living my life causes those who have to pay the price. I live in Babylon…I am the oppressor! You can step out of the empire in a day but it takes a life time to get the empire out of you (Shane Claiborne)“

And Dave honestly stated–
“What worries me most about the whole issue of justice is that I kind of see “working for justice” as working against me. I can’t shake the feeling that when people cry out against the unjust, the people they’re crying out against are people who live just like me and my friends. This makes me extremely uneasy.”

I admit, it is scary and it makes me uneasy too. Basically I don’t want to have to hear that I am part of the problem – that it is my actions that are what are hurting other people. Because if I know the truth, then I have a choice to make. I can continue hurting others or I can make changes so that I stop. If I am a decent human being who isn’t afraid to be responsible for my actions, then I have no choice but to choose to change my actions. But of course, I don’t want to change because change is uncomfortable and hard. If I were being completely truthful, I’d say I’d rather remain in ignorance and not have to be responsible or change anything. But I know I can’t.

The truth about injustice makes many people so uneasy that instead of taking responsibility they start making excuses for why we don’t need to bother. (and Dave, I’m not saying this is you at all, just some stuff your statement prompted me to respond to) I hear a lot, especially from Christians in this Western individualized world, about how we in reality have no such communal responsibility. That our participation in culture can’t be faulted since that is just the air we breathe. That we need to care just about the individuals we encounter, especially our own friends and family. That there is no reason to be forced to feel guilty about someone we will never meet, systems we don’t control, or events that happened in the past. I understand how a lot of that is based in a mentality of fear and a serious aversion to change, but I’ve also come to see how such attitudes are unfortunately rooted in a culture (religion) of individualism. Our faith even is individualized – all about our personal relationship with God. We’ve lost the idea of being a communal body that cares for all of its members. And we’ve forgotten the idea of corporate sin – our ability to perpetrate sins on a communal level. In fact we are so used to sin being just about personal individual heart things that we assume that the purpose of anyone pointing out issues with our actions is just to make us feel bad about ourselves.

But that’s not the point.

The point of telling the stories of injustice is to help us start living as a community – to admit that we are part of that community and be willing to work with that community. To admit that we are part of Babylon and that like it or not we are involved in the oppression of others. And that if we want to build healthy communities where the needs of all members are respected, then we need to get over this idea that it’s all about just feeling guilty. Change doesn’t come about just because we feel bad. Change happens when we admit we are part of the problem and then do whatever we can to stop. Sure, feelings will be involved, but when we start caring more about how we feel than about the injustices themselves our priorities are seriously messed up. I have a hard time understanding how people can be more upset at me for making them feel guilty about eating chocolate tainted with child slavery than they are about the child slavery. I wish I could just tell them – “Stop making this all about you and just start working to make things better! Be a part of this global community and be responsible for your role in it.”

But it’s hard to challenge individualism and personalized conceptions of faith. It’s hard to admit we’ve done things wrong. And it’s hard to change. I get that this has to be a slow process. I get that we will never create a perfect world. I get that it is impossible to ever step fully outside of systems of oppression and exploitation. I get that we just have to do what we can. I’m all about finding everyday ways to seek justice. I’m all about doing whatever is doable where you are at. I understand it’s messy. I understand that crying out to Jesus for mercy is all we can do at times. But I’m sick of those that use all of those excuses and more to just do nothing. To abdicate responsibility. To wallow in guilt and inaction. To not live as a communal body.

Being part of the Kingdom of God is hard. It is uncomfortable. It takes work. It requires us to get over ourselves and not insist that the world should revolve around our desires. That’s not a popular message in a faith that has attracted followers based on the message that Christianity is all about the wonderful things Christ does for us. But nevertheless, it is what it means to be a part of the body of Christ, and hard or not, it’s how we are called to live.

What do I mean by Jesus as magic wand? It can be as simple as needing to surround ourselves with the idea of or name of Jesus as if it is a charm. It’s the Christian radio stations that have quotas for how often the name of Jesus must be repeated in songs each hour. It is the churches that insist that the only proper Sunday service is endless repetitions of an alter call where the name of Jesus is to believed in. I’ve heard sermons that dig deep into scripture or help develop spiritually whole people derided because they didn’t include the magic gospel formula. Or the responses to the recent Sparkhouse video about sparking new life in faith communities that criticized it because Jesus wasn’t mentioned enough. Or when a book comes out on say social justice issues and it gets negative reviews because it doesn’t include a gospel presentation as its main focus. I’m sorry that’s like criticizing Calculus textbook for not including a full history of mathematics. Such things are assumed as given. (And btw, I did include a (brief) summary of the gospel message in Everyday Justice – so, critics, back off.)

But as amusing as quotas and shallow baby food sermons may be, where I find this fetishization of Jesus to be most dangerous is in the realm of personal faith. It’s when people are told to “claim the name of Jesus” or to “believe in the healing power of Jesus” in order to deal with depression or marital problems or whatever. I’m all for mystery and the power of prayer and all that – but seriously what do those phrases even mean? By claiming the name of Jesus do I just expect him to work like a magical spell – I say his name with enough conviction and poof everythings better? If it doesn’t work then I just must not be doing it right (i.e. I don’t have enough faith or I’m living in sin). I get it that Jesus heals – I fully believe that. What I can’t buy is that it happens by magic. Healing takes work – it hurts and it requires our effort. I’m reminded of that cliched sermon illustration of the people caught in a flood waiting to be rescued. Each time a boat or helicopter comes to get them, they turn them away saying God will take care of them. Of course they die and in heaven challenge God as to why he didn’t care for them. He replies that he sent boats and a helicopter, why didn’t they take them. People are so convinced that Jesus is so hyper-spiritual and other-wordly that we’ve forgotten that he has to work through the real world. That we are his servants, caring for others and for ourselves. Sure, he empowers and guides us, but not so that we can be lazy and expect fairy-godmother-like intervention. I hurt for those who have been sold that lie. Those they reject therapy or treatments or services because they are waiting of Jesus to suddenly deliver a better life.

Jesus is not a fetish. Jesus is not a magic wand. Following him takes work. His name shouldn’t just be a charm or a mantra. We have to actually look at him and choose to do the dirty work of being like him. That means taking responsibility for our actions, for our hurt, and for the hurt in the world. We are following a guide not clicking our ruby-slippers together waiting to be whisked away. Jesus is real and powerful – we shouldn’t cheapen him by reducing him to trite nonsense. Getting our panties in a bunch because his name isn’t mentioned enough on the radio or a sermon or book doesn’t list the magic formula to get to heaven is a waste of time. Praying for Jesus to save your marriage is pointless unless you take steps to make it happen. Asking Jesus to comfort the poor is mockery unless we are out there being his hands and feet.

So I’m sick and tired of people saying I don’t care about Jesus because I don’t treat him like a household idol to be invoked and ignored at whim. I want to actually follow Jesus – which takes a lot more work and looks vastly different than flicking my magical Jesus wand.

Luke 4: 9-12
The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here. For it is written:
” ‘He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully;
they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”

Jesus answered, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’

As we discussed the passage one of the ideas that emerged was that our need for certainty in our faith is in fact a means of testing God. Jesus, of course, could have easily done what Satan suggested and proven to the people of Jerusalem that he was indeed the son of God with angels at his bidding. Having that evidence, providing that proof – might yes have gained him followers, but they wouldn’t have had faith. They would have had knowledge of who he was, but wouldn’t have had to choose to place their faith in who he claimed to be.

In the Bible we are often presented with those who offer such tests to God. Gideon lays out the fleece to God multiple times – he wants tangible proof that it isn’t foolish to follow God. Moses tries to gain the power of God’s name through a sly question. Thomas asks to see Jesus’ wounds. And God responds with what each of them needed. But at the same time, in scripture we hear the call to be responsible for our faith. To choose to follow out of love not out of secure certainty. To exercise our faith without holding God to one test or another.

This isn’t about not having a rational faith or whether or not Absolute Truth exists, it’s about believing in something bigger than ourselves without having to confine it to the smallness of our imaginations. It’s about telling God that we are okay not controlling her and that we will trust her even though we are consumed with questions and doubt. That, like Jesus, we will not settle for the easy path where faith can be reduced to a magic trick or scientific explanation or historical argument. Those things are fascinating and helpful in discovering more about our faith, but really miss the point as foundations for faith. To demand certainty is to test God. Perhaps the strongest faith is to embrace the messiness of doubt, to wrestle with the hard questions, and to choose to follow Jesus every day anyway.

I’ve developed enough in my faith that I no longer see doubt as a sin or defect. But I’m beginning to wonder if I should start seeing certainty in that light – as a roadblock to true faith and an unfaithful testing of God.

I like this approach to learning about the faith.  I like that the children are encouraged to speak up and explore what they believe and the rituals of the faith.  They aren’t told to just be quiet and learn what the teacher wants them to know.  In the Seder tradition, there are no bad or wrong questions.  The child who asks the tricky or even the silly questions is not looked down upon, what is worrisome is the child who asks no questions.  Wrestling with faith or even attacking the faith are preferred to passively and unthinkingly going through the motions of faith.

My daughter is four, and is a chatterbox incessantly asking “why?”.  One of her favorite shows is Sid the Science Kid, a show about a preschool boy who each morning runs into a question he has about the world and then asks that question at preschool where the day is then spent answering his question.  She finds that fascinating, and loves the experimental approach they take to figuring out the answers.  I watch the show with her with chagrin.  No school (or Sunday school) is truly like that – allowing the inquisitive nature of kids guide the learning process.  While I understand the impracticalities of such a method, I wonder at what stage kids learn that questioning is bad.  Where absorbing facts, memorizing concepts, and reproducing them when asked replaces wondering about the world and wrestling with truth?  Even in Seminary my husband says the professors play the poor pedagogical game of having students parrot back the answer they want to hear.  Education has become about amassing information instead of learning to think.

So I want to tell the stories to my daughter and to enact the rituals of the faith with her, but I want her to know that those too can (and must) be questioned.  She shouldn’t just learn about her faith, she needs to live it.

This morning I caught it in the middle of a discussion on religion and the afterlife. I’m not sure about the context and I didn’t catch the whole conversation (trying to turn sideways to read a screen while trying to keep up the cardio-fat-burn pace was a tad difficult), but the whole thing was just an interesting commentary on popular conceptions of religion in America. There was of course the confused questioning of terrorists who kill others to get their virgins in the afterlife and Whoopi Goldberg’s slamming of the Catholic church for selling indulgences (really). But then there was the typical dichotomy between physical and spiritual life. A couple of the ladies agreed with the Jewish perspective (as they described it) that it is what we do here on earth that matters. That our actions and how we treat others are what really matter. Of course this visibly upset Elizabeth Hasselbeck (who I will always think of as Elizabeth from Survivor), who emphatically made it known that if it is this life that matters then we’re all screwed. The only hope we can have is to escape all this and go to heaven when we die. And of course in typical talk show fashion, at this point just as the conversation was getting interesting, Barbara Walters jumped in with a freaking product promotion. Apparently no matter what we think of heaven and hell, we can all enjoy going to Chili’s.

I felt like shouting over the Janis Joplin blaring through my earbuds – “where’s the third way??!!!” Seriously, I’m sick of this either/or business. But as I thought about it, even within the church we have difficulty entertaining the idea that this life can be a both/and. The idea that our spirituality is intertwined with our physicality just isn’t discussed. We are far too accustomed to dividing life into doing good works or going to heaven when we die. We have become extreme caricatures like Whoopi and Elizabeth on The View – so entrench in our own ideology that we ignore the truth in what the other is saying. Our theology has descended to the level of daytime television.

I’m reminded of the pre-election thing both Obama and McCain did with Rick Warren. The evangelical church loved McCain’s answers to the faith questions because he was very clear and absolute. He choose a side and made his position known. Obama was far more the both/and guy. He saw the complexity in the issues and chose to acknowledge it. He didn’t succumb  to the feel good easy answers, but was okay with the ambiguity and mystery that is simply a part of the faith. I admire that.

I’m sick of soundbites and either/or extremes when it comes to faith. I don’t care if it boosts ratings and grows your church following – ignoring truth for the sake of ideology just doesn’t make sense. Forget the popularity ploys of liberal vs. conservative or us vs. them, living in mystery is a far more faithful approach.