Category: Church

Perceptions of Christians Meme

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Brother Maynard tagged me recently for a really interesting new meme (thanks for the tag btw). This one is based on the new book unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity… and Why It Matters. The book seems to be getting some buzz and sounds like a fascinating read. Making the point that in many ways America is becoming a post-Christian nation may help change the “business as usual” approach many have taken to faith, church, and politics.

Anyway, the meme jumps on this idea by asking us to list four things about Christians: three negative perceptions and one thing that Christians should be known for. I found it amusing at first because it reminded me of that old parenting technique of making a kid who has just said something mean or negative about someone then say something nice about them. That ploy always bugged me because it never addressed the validity of the negative statements and resulted in generic positives (“He’s nice”). So I hope this will be neither, but will instead allow the negative perceptions to be better understood and the positives to be rightly appreciated. So for my additions to the meme…

Negative:

1. Christians are anti-intellectual. When Christians refuse to study science or history or whatever because they think it will contradict what they believe, they are not lauded for their faith but ridiculed for their rejection of basic reason and intelligence. Sure there are a lot of people out there who are afraid to encounter new ideas, but Christians make a really big deal about entrenching in ignorance. It doesn’t inspire much confidence in those who have devoted their lives to the pursuit of truth.

2. Christians are manipulative. From TV preachers asking for money to the rock band creating a worship “experience” Christians are seen as being in the business of manipulating people to do what we want. We promise them health and wealth if they support our ministry. We create an emotional setting through music, lighting, and preaching that results in spiritual highs, encounters with God, and new commitments. That could just be the typical way you worship God each Sunday, but outsiders see that as manipulative, cheezy, and fake. They don’t want to be conned into something false (especially if it involves money). Authenticity is even suspect because of the church’s long history with manipulation.

3. Christians are selfish. Christians always want to get their way. They want their morals to rule, they want their prayers in schools, they want their holiday decorations displayed, they want their creation story taught, they want, they want, they want… Christians are not known for caring about the needs of others, just about getting their way. And when they use lawsuits and boycotts to get their way, they lose the right to claim to love and care for others.

Positive:

okay since love has already been taken by others, I’ll go with…

1. Christians are passionate. Okay not in the physical sense, we still need to work on that, but in the caring deeply, being zealous sort of way. And yes, I know that this could be a scary perception for some, I think it is really a positive part of most Christians lives. Instead of being apathetic and not engaging with life or the world – Christian have a reason to care, and care passionately at that. We are passionate about God, about Jesus, about service, about worship, about truth, about love. Sure that causes issues and conflicts with others (and way too often amongst ourselves), but we care enough to be doing something. We are committed to what we believe and that counts for something. Now if we can just direct that passion into the things Jesus told us to be passionate about then we might start to change those negative perceptions.

So what are your thoughts? Are these perceptions real? Are they based in truth? How can they be altered into positives that truly reflect Jesus?

And I would love to hear from others who can add to the list. I specifically tag Makeesha and Sonja (if you want to play).

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[Grid::Blog::Horizon2107]

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I wanted add my thoughts to the Gridblog started by Bob Carlton on “what does the year 2107 look like from your vantage point.” What to imagine? Should I be cynical or utopian? Will we be suffering from the environmental devastation of our planet or will we be on the road to sustainable living? What about war? Poverty? Religion? It was in looking back at what the world was like 100 years ago that helped me determine what to speculate about for the future.

Apparently, 100 years ago tomorrow New Zealand and Newfoundland became dominions of the British Empire (the step between being a colony and a Commonwealth). The word dominion dates back to at least the 17th century within the British Empire, referring generically to any British overseas possession. A country populated with indigenous people that another country has taken possession of and imposed their government, morals, and religion on. That’s the exposure that other cultures were having to Christianity 100 years ago – a belief system forced upon them generally in ways that made them easy to control. It was the old mantra of “colonize, Christianize, and civilize.” To be a Christian in those settings meant aligning oneself with the empire of oppression.

Not a whole lot has change in the past 100 years, but the past decade or so has seen the emergence of voices of those oppressed peoples. Voices that attempt to affirm the truth of Christianity apart from its marriage to colonial powers. And this Christianity in its attempts to set itself up as a countercultural alternative to Empire (gee, does that sound familiar?) is flourishing. So I wonder how this will play out 100 years from now. As Christianity assumes a local flavor in these autonomous countries briefly held as colonies and dominions, how will that change the global face of Christianity? Will the Western philosophies and theologies so central to our debates and arguments (Calvin anyone?) be usurped by local ethnic theologies? Will the numbers game naturally shift the power of Christianity from the Global North to the Global South?

For all the talk the emerging church does about rediscovering the fuller Gospel of the Kingdom (a good thing imho), I wonder if it is just setting the stage for the rise of the (soon to be?) formally marginalized voices. In this imagined future, the Church might actually have the potential to be a truly communal gathering of every tongue, tribe, and nation. A gathering that isn’t built on patronizing attempts at domination, but mutual respect and love. That is the optimistic view of the future I want to see.

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Up/Rooted Panel Discussion – Megachurches

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In my continuing comments on the recent Up/Rooted panel discussion on the topic “the emerging church critique of evangelicalism” with Scot McKnight, Wayne Johnson, and David Fitch…

The last question of the evening involved if typical evangelical seeker style services (complete with the rock show and other celebratory gimmicks) are worthwhile if they manage to reach people. i.e. As emergents (or mainliners, or fundamentalists) we may criticize such services as lacking in depth, devoid of true worship, and for promoting an individualistic and consumeristic view of the church, but if they are what people need at that point in their life does that make them worthwhile? I think that is a good question that needs to be addressed, unfortunately the panelist ignored it and dove straight into an all out fight about megachurches. Seriously. Okay maybe “intense discussion of varying viewpoints” is the better way to describe it, but as “fights” go, this one was pretty good. It wasn’t mean spirited and it was carried by humor throughout. It mostly involved Scot McKnight (who attends the megachurch of megachurches – Willow Creek) vs. David Fitch (who wrote an anti-megachurch book and recent blog post). Fun times.

Scot defended megachurches by saying that there is nothing a small church can offer that a megachurch doesn’t offer. He dislikes it when people criticize churches like Willow when they have never actually attended the church. They don’t know the church, they don’t know the people there. They are just reacting to stereotypes they have heard. He also praised the potential anonymity at a megachurch. People can show up and not be known – they aren’t pressured to “do”, they aren’t judged, and they aren’t automatically labelled as a “visitor” (the ultimate church Other). Scot explained, “at Willow there is a permeable boundary between who is in or out.” It is one of the few evangelical churches where gays and lesbians can attend without being ostracized or forced to immediately give up their “gayness” (whatever that means). It is in other words, a safe introduction to Christianity.

But my question is – is it really church if we can’t be the body together? Can we really exist as strangers to each other and still claim to be a community? Is the desire to be unknown and unconnected a good thing? I personally think that the boundaries of all churches should be more permeable. I’ve attended churches where it was very clear who was in and who was out. Those who didn’t fit in immediately (the occasional homosexual who might wander in) were given a very specific amount of time to repent and change who they are or else they were kicked out of the church. That is not church either imho. Places like that are what create the need for anonymity in the megachurches. People want a chance to discover what they believe before they identify themselves with a particular group in all of its religious weirdness. But can’t the church offer people a place where they have the freedom to explore (at their own pace) and be accepted into the community? Are we really that incapable of loving people that to be lost in a crowd is preferable to joining a community? I personally don’t think that being alone and unknown is a good thing no matter what circumstances forced it to be necessary.

I know that Willow does great things. And I know that there are many small churches where true community is non-existent. I’m just hoping for a better way.

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Missional and Seekers

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Bob Roberts of Glocalnet recently put up a post about “being missional in the Sunday service” (ht – Rick Meigs). He had some good suggestions about being missional within the cultural trappings of the Sunday service. Like – if your worship consists of singing songs, it would help if those songs focused on service instead of just being another “me” centered melody (which is way easier said than done since songs like that are limited). But I was a bit uneasy with his opening assertions about being missional and seeker sensitive. He writes –

Can you reach seekers and be missional? Yes. Reaching seekers is missional! The challenge is how do you communicate to seekers, change their perceptions of God and church, help them find Jesus, and then help them understand we’ve been called to community to together live out the Kingdom.

I see all of the things he listed as good things, it is the order that he presents them in that bugs me. First you give them the messages about Jesus, God, and church and then you get them on board with being missional. It might just be me, but that smacks of the whole bait and switch technique that so many of us so desperately try to avoid. If the point is to follow Christ then call people to follow Christ from the get go. Don’t woo them with spiffy seeker services and then expect them to catch the missional mindset. It’s that old saying – “what you call people with is what you call them to”. Calling people to enjoy a service and get committed to the church before you expect them to actually serve God can lead to disastrous results. In our “me? centered culture that sees church as a place to come, sit, mingle, be entertained, and possibly fed, to get people into your church for those things and then ask them to serve doesn’t work. They either ignore the call to get up off their butts, or they find another church that doesn’t make such “extreme” demands on their life.

But that can be a problem for churches. I’ve known churches where the people have left in droves after the church leadership started pursuing a more missional route. Our tiny little church plant continues to struggle with this as well. We don’t want to present people with one conception of church and then push another agenda down the road. We try to be upfront about who we are and that scares people. They don’t want to have to engage with the sermon, they don’t want to have to give their time to missional events. It’s too far out of their comfort zone. But it is who we are. We recently had a booth at our town’s annual Hometown Days. We debated what to do with the booth (do we give away water or popcorn, what about free games for kids?). We eventually decided against the attractional gimmicks and instead sold fairly traded goods for Ten Thousand Villages – it sparked some good conversations about who we are as a church. What was amusing was that the new church plant in town went for all those attractional give aways (water bottles, candy, free games, ipods…). What you call them with is what you call them to – but somedays it seems like there are a lot more people out there interested in passive “gimme” styles of church than there are interested in missional churches.

That said, I also think that calling people to be missional does not come after the call to be a Christian, but is part of the call itself. In fact people can be serving God and helping others even if they are not onboard with the whole faith thing. Inviting people to engage with doing the work of Christ is part of calling them to Christ. We invite anyone to help out with our missional projects at church – even if they are not part of our church or any church at all for that matter. They are welcome to be the hands and feet of Christ even before they believe in Christ. And the interesting part is that action of serving and following Christ often makes them actually want to well, follow Christ. So being missional vs. being seeker sensitive doesn’t follow in my book. It’s about following Christ and that means being missional always.

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Cultural Imperialism, Contextualization, and Postcolonial Missions

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I have my Master’s in Intercultural Studies and Missions from Wheaton College – a very Evangelical institution. I was a bit of an oddball in the program as I went through it and would most likely not even begin to fit in now. I appreciate what I learned there and the paths of inquiry and questioning it led me down, but in many ways it didn’t seem to go far enough. I studied cultural anthropology, intercultural communication, linguistics and the like all within the framework of contextualizing the Gospel into other cultures. For many students in the program the whole concept of contextualization in the first place was “liberal and heretical.” For them the ends justified the means. Getting converts was worth whatever cultural cost had to be paid. (granted most of them actually thought that the way evangelicals did church was the way it had always been, so why syncretize the Gospel through such dubious means as contextualization?). But it wasn’t until later that I saw firsthand that the vestiges of cultural imperialism in the guise of Christian missionary work are alive and well in many areas of Christianity.

During my stint as a Children’s Ministries Director at a small Baptist church, I had the horrific experience of encountering one of the worst examples of Christian missionary cultural imperialism that I have ever seen. There was a family from another local area church (the super conservative and filthy rich one) that was doing the rounds of local churches to raise support to go be missionaries in Africa. They came to our church to do a special presentation during the Sunday school hour. That meant that somehow I got stuck with them coming to do a mini-presentation for the kids during the children’s church I led during the main service. The wife who was wearing a dress straight out of Little House on the Prairie didn’t say a word the entire morning, so we got to listen to the husband give the most racist missionary talk ever.

To give a bit of background, this family was white, very white and most of the kids in the children’s church were black. After giving a report on Africa straight from the World Book Encyclopedia, the “missionary” guy launched into the whole “white man’s burden” to go help the savages in Africa sort of thing. It was the whole “go convert the heathen” sort of missions work, but that wasn’t the worst of it. He talked about the Africans as if they were less than human. At one point he even said that the Africans do nothing but sit alongside the rode all day being lazy, but they like it if you give them peanuts. I am so not kidding, he actually said give them peanuts like they were some sort of animal at a zoo. I was so appalled and shocked I didn’t even know how to respond. I could tell that the kids were uncomfortable, but didn’t think that they could disagree with the adult missionary. So when they finished their talk about what they would be doing in Africa, I just asked them to leave and then I started in on damage control with the kids. I officially begged that our church not support them and was seriously stunned that missionaries like that were still being sent out as representatives of Christianity. I have no clue if they ended up actually making it to Africa and I hope to God they did not.

I react in horror to stories like those, but of course there are those who react in horror to any sort of missionary work no matter how culturally sensitive or contextual it is. But I am realizing that most of my perspectives for or against contextualization or missionary work in general have come from Western sources. I rarely hear indigenous perspectives on cultural encounters with Christianity. I instead hear selected reports from converts who have bought the Western Christian package in its entirety and I hear missionary reports that include only the success stories spun in such a way to keep the money coming (and yes I’ve written such reports). But encountering the whole postcolonial theological perspective is new to me. Not only are the methods of church and missions questioned, but the whole Western theological paradigm is deconstructed. I’m exploring how the pieces all fit together for me. Where does the line of imperialism lie? When is compassion and dialogue and contextual expressions of faith domineering and condescending, and when are they appropriate? How do I not place my cultural heritage at the center of my beliefs? I’m just beginning to struggle with how these questions play out in my life.

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Pastor’s Wife

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I haven’t read the book pictured here, or the widely popular She Can’t Even Play the Piano. I throw away the denominational fliers I get for “pastor’s wives” retreats. When we started in this whole church planting adventure, the thing I was most horrified by was that I would be a pastor’s wife. Of course I was reacting to stereotypes and my limited experiences, but whatever a pastor’s wife was – that was not me.

I didn’t want my life, my personality, defined for me by others. I didn’t want to be merely what others expected me to be. I am myself and being a “pastor’s wife” should do nothing to change that. It helped that Mike and I are ministry partners doing this church planting thing together. I’m not just some invisible support beam that arranges the coffee behind my mask of unfaltering allegiance to every word that drips from my husband’s mouth. We plan together, make decisions together, and share responsibilities like preaching. As a person I am going to have questions and doubts and am not going to hide those because I am a pastor or pastor’s wife. When I think something is full of crap, I’m going to say that. I have no interest in being told what mold I’m supposed to be fitting into. I think the mold is stupid to begin with. (how’s that for a thoughtful critique).

But apparently, the struggle to maintain a personal identity is a major problem for many pastor’s wives. There are numerous books on how to be a good pastor’s wife (or at least on how not to go insane as one). Most of them focus on how to be yourself while being the person everyone expects you to be. Did they ever stop to think that it is because of whacked out advice like that that women are reading those sorts of books at all? And of course, everyone’s favorite go-to guy for sexist quotes, Mark Driscoll, has even suggested a few things that will help make a pastor’s wife’s life easier and less stressful. He writes –

“What can be done to help the pastors’ wife?

* She needs a clearly defined and guarded role.
* She needs some help with the kids and house.
* She needs some help getting to and from church on Sundays.
* She needs a designated parking place.
* She needs a handful of safe relationships with other godly women.
* She needs to choose her own friends and define her own relationships.
* She needs to see her first jobs as Christian, wife, and mother, not free hire for the church.”
http://www.theresurgence.com/md_blog_2007-07-17_death_by_ministry_part_10

Wow my own parking place at church, that would really make my life easier. And to be allowed (within my protected and guarded role) to choose my friends! What am I – a grown woman or a kindergartner? Maybe it would have helped if he had added to the list – “She needs to have a husband who doesn’t say that a pastor’s sexual sins are the fault of his wife not looking hot.” But that might be asking too much.

These books and this advice is so condescending it’s embarrassing. Sure the stereotypes and the expectations have caused problems, but I would think that allowing a women to be herself would be more useful than defining and restricting her role more. It’s a messed up system, the whole church culture is a messed up system. We’ve created this ultra-ritualized pageant where people are expected to act in certain roles. It would be amusing if it wasn’t so very sad. So do I have a point here? I don’t know. Just that I refuse to be labeled with any of the expectations of being a pastor’s wife. And that I feel sorry for the women who are confined by that role.

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Church Signs Once Again

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So I’ll put up a short post in my continuing series of rants on crummy church signs. Once again the local Baptist church has caught my attention with their sign. On one side it displays the evangelical pseudojoke – “And you think it’s hot here!” Cheezy, but I’ve heard it before. Then the other side reads – “Free trip to Heaven. Inquire inside.” Does anyone else find that just a tad creepy? Doesn’t exactly inspire confidence to make me want to go anywhere near that building. It’s a bit like a scuba place advertising “We’ll help you swim with the fishies.” True from a certain perspective, but creepy nonetheless.

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Responsibility

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I get rather annoyed when I hear people talking about how irresponsible youth are these days. Oh, I admit that there are teenagers who are self-centered and flaky, but so are many adults. It’s just that teenagers can be blamed and have rules and laws imposed on them to make them shape up (or at least allow the adults to pretend the problem’s solved). A few kids get drunk and have an accident, all teens then have to have a curfew. A few kids wear gang symbols, then all kids have clothing restrictions imposed on them. Not that rules don’t exist for adults, we at least have the opportunity to complain about their stupidity without being grounded or suspended.

Why does it annoy me? Because in my experience working with youth they are exceedingly more responsible than adults. I can hire a neighbor kid to cut my grass and I can be sure he will show up to do the job. The cable guy, the plumber, or the phone company are never that reliable. Similarly when I was a Children’s Pastor, I do not recall a single year of VBS when there were any adult volunteers who showed up every night. Every single one of them managed to come up with some last minute excuse to skip an evening or two (as well as the entire training period). The teenage helpers on the other hand made it to the training, showed up on time, and were consistently there every night for the kids.

And it’s not just that teens are often more responsible than adults, but that I have seen parents forcing their kids to bail on their responsibilities if it cramps their (the parents) style. One year when I was on vacation, I left the weekly Children’s Club to the responsibility of one of my teenage helpers. He knew the lesson, knew what set-up involved, and was a committed helper that all the kids knew. Well, he talked back to his mom that week and she grounded him from all activities he enjoyed – including helping with the kids club. (and yes his mom was a committed church member involved in other children’s ministry activities herself). Since when was a good punishment (if that exists) to teach your kid that failing one’s responsibilities is a good thing? Similarly when we would train teams of teens for mission trips we got to the point where we had to have the parents as well as the teens sign commitment forms. We had discovered that the parents saw a teen’s commitment as nonbinding if the parent wished. So last minute family trips, or chores, or babysitting siblings came before training sessions the teens had signed a commitment saying they would attend. But then nothing changed even after the parents signed the commitment forms as well. Apparently giving one’s word and signing a commitment held less value for the parents than personal convenience and pleasure.

What really got me though was that the same parents who forced their kids to avoid responsibility then complained to us (as youth and children’s pastors) that their kids were irresponsible and could we please teach them something about responsibility. Somedays I just wanted to shake those parents and tell them to open their eyes. But I didn’t. That wouldn’t have been the nice and responsible “Christian” thing to do. So I just rant about it now.

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Emerging Church Demographics

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To address a question from one of the comments below. Is the emerging church just a generational thing? Is it just something for young people?

When the first stirrings of what has turned into the emerging church began, it was just about generational ministry. It was obvious that the church was missing an entire generation (which implied that the next generation would be missing as well). So people began to ask why Gen Xers had left the church and what it would take to bring them back. As usually occurs with such strategic plans, the initial answers were surfacy. Change the style of church to be relevant to that demographic. So churches abandoned the choirs and organs of the grandparents, the praise bands of the boomers, and went alternative. They added coffee and candles, brought art back into the church, and re-introduced liturgy to the low church. It helped bring some Xers back in, and really pissed off a lot of Boomers and older folks that church wasn’t being done the way they liked anymore. Since when church becomes all about what one particular demographic likes it becomes about consuming a commodity and not about being the body of Christ. So went the ongoing worship wars that divided churches into generational clubs based on personal “worship” preferences. It wasn’t intergenerational. It was selfish. And yes some “emerging churches” stayed in this realm and are just about relevant worship. Others perhaps get labeled that, but are really much much more.

But some of the initial voices in the EC soon realized that there was a greater cultural shift occurring in our culture. People were moving from the dominant philosophy of modernism to the dominant philosophy of postmodernism. It wasn’t about choosing the believe in such a thing, it was the general air that we were breathing – the culture that shaped who we were. Granted, higher percentages of younger people were more immersed in postmodern thought than older people, but it was a culturally pervasive thing. That made a lot of people think about how our assumptions about how we do church were influenced by our cultural philosophy. And then even to think about how our theologies were influenced by such philosophies. So yes, church eccessiology started to be questioned. The habits and trappings of church were questioned. And many began to take a historical perspective on the interpretation of scripture and examine how culture has influenced how we read the bible. Things started to change and it involved people of all generations.

So for example, in our small church plant we have representatives from 8 different decades (and aren’t too heavy on the under 35 group either). Church isn’t about reaching a certain demographic, but we still do things differently than many churches. We “worship” with hymns, praise choruses, art, dance, liturgy, lectio divina, walking labyrinths, and prayers of saints ancient and modern. We understand that the sermon is the least effective form of teaching. So we open the teaching time up to discussion. People ask questions, challenge interpretations, and contribute examples. So instead of the pastor contriving examples that generally work for middle age men (golf, sports, retirement plans…), the church becomes involved in understanding how the scriptures fit into their lives. “Elders” and intergenerational learning isn’t contrived or hierarchical, but just part of what it means to all interact together and be a church family. Of course its not perfect and really freaks some people out. Some show up expecting to just sit, watch a show, and “be fed.” We don’t think that is what church is about at all. And apparently people of all ages seem to think similarly.

So yes, there are emerging churches that consist of college students being college students. Just like there are seeker sensitive churches full of Boomers and traditional churches full of the elderly. Then there are churches with people of all ages that look new and different. There are traditional mainline churches that are embracing emerging theology and worship ideas. For many it is about new way of doing church, exploring theology from a broader perspective, and being the church as opposed to having church imposed upon oneself. And it involves people of all ages. I would recommend that the stereotype of the EC being just for gen Xers be dropped, and people take the time to see what is occurring within this very diverse movement.

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Faith, Certainty, and Tom Cruise

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A few days ago Erin put up a great post about “Things I Learned From Church (That Didn’t Prove True And What I Am Learning Lately)” It was part of a new synchroblog stared by Glenn Hager. As he describes the purpose of this blog – “I am tackling this issue not because I have an axe to grind with church as we know it, not because I am bitter, and not because I think people who are into attending and supporting conventional churches are inferior. Rather, it is to help me to understand my own thinking…” I was intrigued by the concept and have appreciated some of the posts the participants have put up so far. Then after reading Scot McKnight’s post on certainty and faith yesterday I was reminded of an experience in my church background that I have since learned to regret.

I grew up in a traditional, conservative, Texas dispensational church (I’m sure they would merely call themselves a biblical church, but then again so would just about any church…). Most of my experiences there occurred in the youth group. But this was no games and cool music youth group. It was a sit and listen to hour long sermons, read lots of books, attend seminars, and make fun of those not like us type group. Being a Christian meant one crammed oneself with knowledge about the Bible (oh, and avoided sex at all costs as the youth pastor frequently reminded us by recounting his sinful youthful sexual exploits…). We had to know exactly how to argue people into the faith and how to show them that whatever they believed (be they atheist, pagan, catholic, or baptist) was completely wrong (implying we were completely right). I loved it. As an intellectual nerd who prided herself of getting good grades, this was a religion I could relate to. My “faith” was all about facts and knowledge. So while most of the youth group dreaded attending (their parents made them), I and my small group of friends loved being the know-it-all star Christians.

At one point when I was in high school (here comes the Tom Cruise part), the youth pastor choose a new motto for the group. Taken from the popular movie A Few Good Men (back when Tom Cruise still had a career and wasn’t the Hollywood freak of the week), our rallying cry became – “it doesn’t matter what I believe. It only matters what I can prove!” We were treated to sermons about certainty and correct hermeneutics. We were told that if we do not have 100% certainty about our faith then we are not real Christians. Forget saying a prayer and accepting Jesus into one’s heart, this was the gospel of intellectual works. Knowledge, evidence, and proof were what got one into heaven when we died (the whole point of Christianity of course). Belief and faith meant nothing, all that mattered was proof.

When I mentioned the new motto to a friend at school, he looked at me quizzically and asked me if such a stance undermined the whole idea of faith in the first place. I’m sure I parroted something about rationalism and absolute truth back at him at that point, but over the years since then I have come to see that he had a better conception of true faith than I did. I was Thomas demanding proof and not accepting that “faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” I cared more about CSI style investigations and converting people to creationism than I did about actually serving others or following Christ.

Now as the idea of certainty or absolute knowledge seems so utterly impossible I laugh at my arrogance in assuming I could ever grasp them. But it was a long journey to move to that point. My grip on certainty held me tighter than my grip on Christianity itself. I couldn’t tell if I was more afraid to give up my philosophical system (which defined my religion) than I was to question my faith itself. Or perhaps, I just assumed that they were one in the same. That if I gave up trusting in certainty and empirical proof, I would no longer be a real Christian since I would then have doubts and incomplete knowledge. So the process of letting go was exceeding difficult, but I had to let go in order to discover faith. To discover the mystery and the trust that it takes to believe. To walk by faith not sight.

Now I am sure there are those that will mock me for not being a rationalist. Others who don’t see room for doubt and faith in the Christian faith. Perhaps their experiences work for them. This is just my experience of what I learned from church that didn’t prove true.

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