07.24.06
Posted in faith at 1:04 am by Brandon
My dad (and I’ve genetically picked up his predisposition to corny humor) always used to quip about Sunday morning sermons that the pastor preached about sin. And, the pastor specifically came down squarely against sin.
Of course, this little joke lost a little of its bite–you know, given that my dad WAS the pastor in question. Nonetheless, sin is an interesting topic. Perhaps the topic itself isn’t so interesting as what Christians try to do with sin.
Some Christians try to use sin to scare people. I’m sure you all know the type. There’s the Falwells, the Dobsons, the Robertsons of the world trying to convince us all that the homosexuals are off reproducing like bunnies and dragging society down the fast lane to hell. If we don’t turn from our heinous, liberal ways, our society is going to burn like a couch or a parked car after a Michigan State sporting event loss.
The funny thing about all that is the types of sins that they pick that’ll send us down the highway to destruction. It’s always the sexual sorts of sin–the kind you always loved to hear about when you were young at church–that are the focus of such folks. Sexual sins–though rarely discussed–were like solid gold ingots; they were the best gossip currency out there. Followed very closely, of course, by sins of addiction.** On the heels of which follows the closely related issue of divorce. I very clearly remember a time in my life when a young man in our church got a young woman pregnant, out of wedlock, of course. I distinctly remember thinking that if that EVER happened to me, my life would simply be OVER.
It must be nice to be able to pick those sins that aren’t so much a problem for you, and then rewrite a couple thousand years of religious tradition to suit your denominational fancy…but frankly, it doesn’t work for me. And, it doesn’t work for others either.
Take for example those Christians who want to get a pat on the back for just recognizing sin. Jim Wallis and a lot of other Christian Left-ists are, rightly in my opinion, infuriated with the narrowly (selectively) enforced sin of the Christians who want to use sin to scare people and generate juicy discussion. These folks, again rightly, notice that some issues are completely ignored as sin issues. So, they spend their time pointing out that it’s sinful to live opulent, selfish, consumeristic lives. And, they are, of course, correct.
Of course, because they’d rather shrivel up like a turd on a hot day than be confused with a conservative right winger, they often tend to ignore the damage sexual sin can do in people’s lives, or tend to condone divorce (not that there aren’t significant and some right reasons to get divorced) as something that’s just par for the course for the 21st century couple. Too often these people seem to want gold stars for pointing out that we should buy less gas and love people more. Sure, they’re right (we should buy less gas and love people more), but honestly I don’t see much about them that’s any different than the folks on the right…they’ve just got a different set of rules to enforce, and a different set of standards to judge people upon (rather than talking about the girl in church who’s 16 and is 5 months pregnant, they’re the ones talking about who’s going to hell for driving an SUV and not using cloth diapers).
Then, there’s a whole other bunch of Christians–well meaning ones, I’m sure–who’re busy desperately running around trying to figure out what, if anything, is a sin. For example, on a message board I used to frequent there was recently one exemplary discussion about whether or not it would be “a sin” to wear the AC/DC t-shirt that this person’s fiance just bought them. You know, would it hurt their witness?
The last time I checked, 60 posts of discussion had ensued.
Staving off the nearly overwhelming desire to drink a gallon of bleach, instead I headed for the liquor cabinet. Then, once I got my nerves under control (because 4 pages of discussion about why or why not on whether or not to wear an AC / DC t-shirt just shoots the hell out of my nerves) I staggered off to find my laptop so I could write about sin. Which brings me here.
Sin, as it’s been described to me from the scriptures, is quite simply falling short of the mark. It happens to all of us, and it can and does happen in the most innocuous of situations. In fact, most things I do, if I really think about it have been touched to a degree or another of sin. Sure, that sucks, but it’s a fallen world (pardon the kitch-y, cliche-ish phrase).
What I’ve started to think about sin is that it has the power to paralyze people. That can happen in lots of ways. We can be paralyzed by our judgementalism. We can be wooed into a sense of self-satisfied righteousness by simply being able to name certain types of sin. And, we can even be brought to a standstill when we focus on the everyday ins and outs of the depth of our depravity.
But, I don’t think we’re called to be a paralyzed people.
Jesus caused many a lame man to walk. Sure that was a literal healing (I believe). However, there’s something distinctly metaphoric about Jesus’ healing of the lame or paralytic. Jesus doesn’t turn the paralytic loose on the world with the admonition, “Now, watch every step you take that you don’t step in a hole and break your neck…cuz’ if’n you screw this healing up, there’ll be no more for you.”
No, Jesus tells us to go out and sin no more. Go out and stop missing the mark. Go out and use your gifts. Go out and drive less and walk more. Go out and be sexually pure. Go out and love people. Go out and be kind to the environment. Go out and help failing marriages that can be reconciled to be reconciled. Go out and love the orphans.
It’s no easy calling, to be sure. To go out and sin no more, to be perfect. But to be stuck in a rut somewhere looking at the actions of ourselves and others, well, that’s a long ways from perfect, if you asked me.
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**Kevin very correctly points out that only certain sins of addiction are really counted as sin.
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07.18.06
Posted in faith, culture at 3:14 pm by Brandon
Ah, it’s a beautiful day here in internet-avoiding-the-finishing-touches-on-my-Master’s-thesis-land. It’s funny, all joking about avoiding work aside, how we internet-happy blog-surfers tend to think of the internet as a real place. Almost as if we could reach out and touch our fellow internet surfers.
I was just reading a piece at Stupid Church People about the idea of a community of internet-Christians being a church. It’s an interesting, even intriguing thought, isn’t it?
I admit, I like the idea of being able to be a part of a community of believers, no matter the medium by which we interact. However, it’s an idea that I just don’t think I can buy into.
Now, at the outset, I must admit that I wholly think it’s possible to be part of THE Church in a particular internet community. But the idea of being A church is what I’m not sure I’m on board with. Being a part of the Church is something you take with you everywhere you go, I think. So yeah, having a community of believers interact is a good thing. Probably something that needs to happen more often.
However, becoming a church is another thing entirely. I think in American society we Christians have fallen in love with the pat answer about a church being about the people, not the building. The thing is, proximity IS a big part of what makes A church “a church”. The church is a body of believers called together at a specific place.
Why does it matter? Well, I think it matters for a few reasons. First, being bound together by proximity creates a community whose first tie is not ideology. I think there’s a real danger in church communities whose ideologies are their binding characteristic. Now, that’s not to say that it’s entirely a bad thing to be involved in all ideologically driven communities, it’s just dangerous for churches. An ideologically driven church will necessarily single out and endivinate (no, I’m not sure that’s a word) specific ideologies–such as conservative, or liberal ones. Everybody else is sort of left out to dry. In fact, if you’re reading this blog and empathising with what I’ve written about here for, say, the past 2 plus years, you’ve probably been hurt by an ideologically driven community.
Another thing that lacking proximity does for religious communities is that it disallows them to do things. I mean, sure, we can have a computer mediated discussion, and we’ll even be more likely to be incredibly satisfied with that discussion…but the bottom line is that we don’t shake hands, celebrate the eucharist together, serve at a soup-kitchen together, or go visit the sick.
Being a community of proximity also allows us to contact people of multiple generations. If you hadn’t noticed, most of us in the blogosphere–at least those of us who I usually interact wit–are basically my age. Sure, there’s the odd 50-something (no offense intended by the “odd”) but for the most part, we’re in our late 20’s through our 40’s. There’s no elder stateswomen from whom we can glean pearls of wisdom, nor are there many (any?) children whose faith the scriptures tell us hold the key to the very moorings of our faith.
The people with whom we discuss (read: argue) often hide behind a hot-headed rhetoric of youthful-righteous-indignation, and to be honest we (read: I) often respond in kind. In a community of proximity, we wouldn’t do that. We wouldn’t berate, belittle, or any of those other awful “be”’s because, frankly, we’ll be seeing them throughout the week.
Now, that’s not to say that we shouldn’t involve ourselves in online communities. Far from it. They can be a place of solace, fresh thinking, and a place where the soul can be rebuilt. We can use these communities as a place to be THE Church.
I’m not sure the article in question was advocating a position that the online community can REPLACE a church; however, I fear that some of us can start to think that way from time to time. When we get frustrated with the current state of the Church of proximity, we like to think that there’s another, better option. I fear, though, that that option isn’t really “better” at all, it’s just different. I think it’s human nature that the grass will probably ALWAYS look greener, no matter where we are.
I don’t write this to be adversarial, but I do write it to point out that it is important to be reminded that despite all the angst we’re caused by the church’s antics, it’s important to remember that antics exist everywhere.
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07.13.06
Posted in politics, culture at 8:31 pm by Brandon
Why, friends, do we insist on labeling ourselves? Why the rigid adherence to giving ourselves an identity? I mean, I’m one of the worst; I admit it. Religious, Liberal, Religious Right, conservative, baptist, conservative Christian, activist, pacifist, Dutch, Jew, bad, good, intellectual, anti-intellectual, realist, cynic. Let’s be honest, we’ve got a love affair with putting ourselves into boxes.
To be fair, it’s sometimes a matter of simplicity. I’ve identified, here, as a liberal so that people could easily determine whether or not they’d like to read on. But, the cold hard truth is that calling myself a liberal is mostly misleading. Sure, if you’re a conservative you assume we don’t agree on politics…but if you’re a liberal, you assume we do agree on politics. And, sometimes–even a lot of the time–we don’t agree on politics. That’s ok, really. Agreement isn’t some sacred golden calf, but why should I put myself into a box.
You may say, “what’s the big deal? Who cares if you’re in a box as long as you know what you believe? What’s the harm of being in a box of your own placing?”
I’ll tell you. The harm is that you begin to associate more with the box you’ve placed yourself into than you ought. You let your self attributed categories do your thinking for you. By labelling yourself, it’s quite simple to let those labels define you. If you’re not careful, you really cease to be yourself.
People that define themselves in their labels aren’t hard to pick out of a crowd. The “conservatives” will be spouting off “Bush-rhetoric”, and the Religious Left will be off in the corner waxing eloquent about how wonderful Barak Obama is…what a man of faith.
I have a hypothesis. It’s not supported yet, but one day it might be. It goes like this:
The powers and principalities of evil want us to label ourselves, because in doing so we become so caught up in the work of rhetoricalizing ourselves against the “evil-other-side” that we forget about the work of the Kingdom.
So, friends, here is my apology to you: I’m sorry for labelling myself a religious liberal. Will you please forgive me?
Frankly, I’m tired of being one.
I’m sick of caring how the latest bullshit from the “religious right” is “ruining the image of Christianity.” I’m tired of trying to defend Democrats who are sniveling, whiny, people panderers with more concern about getting re-elected than they have any real concern about the disenfranchised. I’m really just over hearing Jim Wallis prattle on about how poverty is a moral issue–rhetoric really aimed at deflating the religious right, and not at “making poverty history.” I’m even more tired of feeling like, because I’m a “liberal” I somehow need to respond to assholes like Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson, do we really even have to respond anymore–I mean, is anyone who really matters listening? I’m even tired of Barak Obama and his ilk of Democrats who feel like faith is a thing to be co-opted as an instrument by which morality MUST be legislated…as if the right is any less of a faithful position.
So, I hereby un-claim any political, religious, socio-economic, or any other activist labels. They’ll no longer do my thinking for me.
Sure, that leaves the blowhards on the religious right without an answer about their contention that there’s no such thing as a progressive Christian. But, let’s be honest, who cares? Who cares if no one’s there to respond to the Brannon Howses of the world? Frankly, our response of, “Yes, there is such a thing as the religious left!!! Look we’re supposed to love the poor!!!! Jesus was a liberal!!!” is a tad sophomoric. It launches us into a bitter rhetorical battle in which the only certainty is that the Kingdom of God loses. As I reflect on this war between the right and left, I can’t help but think that old Uncle Screwtape must be ordering his victory fireworks. Powers and principalities of evil are, after all, notoriously good at the powers of distraction.
Whilst we argue and claim the moral highground–whatever our side–people continue to be ignored, hungry, hurting, and lost.
In closing, I just have to say that I really wonder sometimes, if we create the very culture-war we claim to fight. We claim to be Emergent, and fight with our elders or more conservatives. We claim to be liberal and fight with the right. We claim to be capitalist and fight with the socialists.
What if we didn’t claim to be anything? What if we just loved God and our neighbor as ourselves? It seems to me we’d rather run out of people to fight with. What a pity.
Tags: Labels, Progressive Christian
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07.11.06
Posted in faith, culture at 1:18 pm by Brandon
Jen and I were in Amsterdam about a month ago. Now, before your mind gets to racing about all the debauchery in which we were enaged, let me assure you–we didn’t do anything more immoral than usual.
We were in a small group a number of years ago at a relatively local mega-church. At one, rather memorable, meeting a couple who travelled through Amsterdam on their way to a mission trip to India quipped, “Yeah, we got off the plane in Amsterdam–you could just smell the sin.”
I was justly confused, then, when just a month ago my schnoz was incredibly active desperately in search of the “smell of sin” and I just couldn’t detect it. Admittedly, I was probably absent the day they taught the “good Christians” what, exactly, sin smelled like. I imagine it smells a little like a Kerusso T-shirt–fresh from the sweatshop, but I can’t be sure.
What we found, instead, was a city of wonderful people. Probably some of the kindest people in Europe that we ran into. To be fair, the wholesale lack of a language barrier probably helped. Still, I was on the hunt for sin in Amsterdam–surely I’d missed some orgies and the like.
Everytime we encountered a new person, I expected to see some sign of Satan–you know, maybe in a moment of indiscretion they’d slip out their forked tongues, or reveal that they actually had two sets of eyelids or gills or something. Imagine my shock when on a worshipful Sunday morning canal boat tour we cuised past a church that was–gasp–just getting out of service. Imagine that, a church, filled not only with grandmotherly types, but young families. Quietly sipping their coffee (an after church ritual) and chatting–pausing only momentarily to kindly wave to friends passing by on their Sunday morning boatride through the canals.
Sure, a prostitute in the red light district asked Jen and I if we’d like to “do it”, but when we politely replied, “maybe next time” she just sort of let us go on our way.
In west Michigan (and in Christianity, too, I think,) we like to think of Amsterdammers and their ilk as the embodiment of Beelzebub. We speculate that any Christian who supports liberal Marijuana laws can’t really have Jesus living in their heart. No people who make a space for, and–again, gasp–protect and care for their prostitutes could have Jesus living side by side with them.
This is not all to say that all Amsterdammers go to heaven and all Americans go to hell. Far from it. There, like here, there is a pressing need for the love of God to touch people. We all have a need to be transformed.
Transformation.
That’s the tricky bit. Here in America we tend to surmise that transformation moves us in the direction of wealth–what with streets paved with gold and all. Yet, I’m not so sure wealth is the direction of God’s transformation. The Dutch seem, knowingly or not, to be on to something with regard to being transformed by God’s grace. They get that working 60 hours a week in search of something approaching upward mobility, may just be moving us backward. They get that just sitting on the front porch eating dinner with friends and sharing a bottle of wine isn’t such a bad thing.
In short, the Dutch understood the meaning of rest. That rest isn’t so much something to be done passively–so that we can store up our energy to head back into the grind. They understood that rest is something to be done actively…riding your rowboat down the canals, sharing a dinner with friends, and generally stopping to smell the roses.
So, I guess I went to Amsterdam in search of the smell of sin. What I found, however, wasn’t sin–at least not in any more abundance than I find here. I found the smell of delight, the smell of patience, indeed, I found out what the roses smell like. And that, my friends, is not a smell I’m likely to forget.
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07.05.06
Posted in culture at 1:46 pm by Brandon
After taking a trip to Europe for about a month, Jen and I are home. There are lots of things that, in Europe, aren’t inalienable rights that we’re now quite glad to take for granted. For example, free tap water and larger bathrooms. And, while there are a number of good conveniences here in the U.S. of A. that we enjoy, and do in fact make life just that much easier, there are some bad conveniences in the States as well.
I’ll probably be writing a bit about both in the weeks to come.
Today, though, what strikes me are the people we met while travelling abroad. Now, we weren’t so outgoing as to have an adoptive Dutch family take us in and show us the Amsterdam ropes, and we didn’t find any long lost Italian mother-types. But, wow, did we ever meet travellers. Americans, Brazilians, Kiwis, Austrailians, Brits, and even Texans, you name it, we probably shared a train compartment or dinner table with them at one point or another.
One thing that struck me about the people we met while travelling was how quickly and how well we got to know each of them. Sometimes we just shared a meal, other times it was a 7 hour train ride. It occurred to me on our plane ride back from Zurich that while we were travelling we REALLY talked to people. There was something about being in a place in which we shared the experience of being out of our cultural comfort zone that really made us get to know one another.
In reflecting further on this (it was, after all, a 9 hour plane ride) it became clear that we got past asking questions about what others DID and focused more on who they were, and what they believed. It makes me sad, a little, that I’m back in the States, enjoying the incredible space we’ve all come to take for granted. When I sit at my little coffeeshop (American not Dutch) table and type this, I’m struck by the physical space separating me from the next table over. And even when close to others in proximity the walls I erect to keep me from interacting with the people around me are frustrating. And, when I do interact, I ask “what do you do” kinds of questions–the kinds of questions that really only hint at the more important and interesting “what do you believe” kinds of questions.
It strikes me that we desperately want to be known, and yet we strategically–even systemically–live in a society where asking the kinds of questions and talking about the kinds of things that allows us to be known is taboo, or at least awkward. Some of us turn to online media for those relationships. And, I fear, we fool ourselves into feeling known without really being known. Eventually, we feel let down when that fantastic online community we call “home” (or even “family”) lets us down.
So, in the interest of being known–really known, that is–I’d like to tell you all a little less about what I DO and give you a short list of the things I BELIEVE. I’d encourage any or all of you to play along.
I believe:
…that an evening meal should include at least 3 courses.
…that we should walk more and drive less.
…that the Kingdom of God is present and that I’m a part of it.
…that socialism got a bad rap.
…that some of the French really are jerks.
…that Jesus died because of my sins.
…that Rome isn’t as “filthy” as the Americans who refuse to walk a quarter of a mile to drop their used water bottle, rather than to just dump it in some pile.
…that all people are worth knowing.
…that science is worth engaging.
…that cats are worth loving, and that loving a cat well is a part of my calling as a Christian.
…that “scrubby” artist types are often more interesting to know than Aber-christians.
…that no matter how much Aber-christians annoy me, belief number 8 still applies.
…that I’m worth knowing.
And you. What do you believe?
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07.04.06
Posted in life at 10:20 am by Brandon
So, I know I said I was going to quit writing here. And, the truth is, I thought I was. Frankly, I ran out of things to say. But, after a month off and a trip to Western Europe in the rearview, I’ve decided I have a few more cultural comments to make before I completely throw in the blog towel.
The truth is: I like what I think about when I live life with the idea of blogging in the back of my mind. To live life critically is something I relish, blogging helps me to do that. So, while I keep writing things for publication elsewhere, too, I think it’s good practice for me to keep on chuggin’ here as well. (Albeit at a bit slower pace than the past two years.)
I hope this doesn’t disappoint anyone–especially not the worldview weekend folks, or the Christian T-shirt zealots, who find this blog so troublesome to their faith. Anyway, thanks to all of you who’ve emailed and really made the decision to keep on blogging much easier. Your kind words mean a lot!
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