The End of Idolatry and the Beginning of Love

Rather than struggle on and on about this whole issue, I need to make up my mind to stand for God.  Wherever the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy is in opposition to the character of God, I will stand with God.  Where it opposes Beauty, I will stand with Beauty.  Where the Bible is written as sacred myth, I will let it stand as myth and learn from it.  I will stop forcing the Bible to conform to some man-determined ideal, and let God be the one true God. 

This will not be an easy transition for me.  I will have to overcome my past.  I have frequently put the Bible in God’s place.  I have become accustomed to taking God’s authority and handing it to this book of Scripture.  I bowed down to the material rather than looking to the Spirit.  I have defended the inerrancy of a book rather than defend the goodness of God.  I worshiped the creation over the Creator.

In the past I have undertaken militant and harsh crusades to rid myself (and others) of the idols of materialism, pride, lust etc.  At times I developed a bit of a paranoid obsession against “the world” and what the world told me was important and worthy of devotion.  Those were worthwhile endeavors, but I realize now that I was guilty of a much more severe idolatry and I never even noticed it.  Wow.

I don’t know exactly how all of this plays out from here.  This diary/blog is part of the process.  I want to think anew through my priorities, beliefs, and behaviors.  It will be a long process and I will never be completely free of my past, but I no longer have any excuses why I should not immediately begin.  I no longer need be bound by today’s evangelical version of biblical truth.

I will seek, teach, and defend Truth, Beauty, and Love, for God is Truth, Beauty, and Love.  And I will begin the long process of freeing myself of false, ugly, and hateful ideologies whether anyone or not thinks they are “Biblical”.

The Evolution of Religion – Part II

The Evolution of Religion – Part II

I find the following things interesting about biological evolution.

#1.  Evolution is not random.  It always promotes the propagation of the species from one generation to the next.  And this is the ONLY metric that is important to evolution.

#2.  Species don’t plan ahead as they evolve.  In fact they don’t plan to evolve at all.

#3.  Species can’t help but evolve.  It is impossible for them not to change, and that’s a good thing, because if they were not able to adapt and change, they would go extinct.

I think the idea of biological evolution is distasteful to many Christians because the forces that shape the progress of evolution seem random, chaotic, cruel, and purposeless.  How can God be working out His will when the process seems completely against His character?  How can I be special and made in the image of God if I am just one step in a line of continual change?

I think it becomes even more distasteful when applied to the church.  But as I look around me I find that “evolution” explains the state of the religious landscape quite well.  It is becoming clear to me that religions evolve and change following the same survival of the fittest principles as species do in the wild. 

As one example; At one point in our countries history, preaching “fire and brimstone” was a popular method for creating converts and growing churches.  The famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by Jonathan Edwards was a powerful sermon in its day and quite effective.  Many people came to faith through these methods.  However in the U.S. today people are generally more educated and less easily emotionally manipulated by this style of fear mongering.  The result?  That type of in your face preaching, threatening and angry, is no longer widely practiced in U.S.  This is not to say that emotional manipulation is no longer employed (especially the emotions of fear and guilt) but that this particular type of emotional manipulation has left the “DNA” of the church.  Why?  Not because it offended God, but simply because it doesn’t work anymore.  And by “work” I mean help the church survive and propagate.  If it still worked does anyone doubt that it wouldn’t be used?  But it doesn’t work as well now, so it isn’t as widely used.

As another example:  The early Christian church was rejected and (at times ruthlessly) persecuted by the Roman Empire.  Christians refused to worship the Roman emperors and refused military service on religious principle.  It wasn’t until Constantine converted to Christianity during the 4^th century and made Christianity the state religion that Christians started to engage in military service and changed their religious principles.  The newly changed religious principles included the idea of a “just war” that Christians were free (if not encouraged) to join.  And one of the justifications of war included the spread of Christianity.  After that point, Christian history is replete with the barbarous examples of the Crusades, the Inquisition, Conquistadors,  and “manifest destiny”- the doctrine justifying the genocide of native Americans.  Most recently the idea of American “exceptionalism” is used to justify current U.S. military policy.  In short, when Christians were not in political power, Christianity denied the moral legitimacy of ever using violence on enemies (per Jesus’ instructions), but once Christians came into political power, the Christian religion evolved to view violence as a morally acceptable means to impose religion on others. 

In both of these examples, these changes in the church were not “random”.  These changes specifically have the effect of growing the church, and assuring its survival.  The church adapts to the new environments it encounters.  But who is to say if these changes please God?  They may or may not be “right”.  The change has only made the church “work” better.  The important thing for religious evolution is that the changes work regardless of whether they are “right”.

As a reminder, this is true in biological evolution as well.  A butterfly doesn’t have beautiful wings because of their beauty; they have beautiful wings because that “works”.  The skunk doesn’t stink in order to smell bad; the skunk stinks because it works.  Some of what Christianity has evolved is undoubtedly beautiful (truth), and some it stinks (falsehoods), but what has given me pause is that maybe none of what the church is today is “on purpose”.  The degree to which the church is beautiful and/or stinks has nothing to do with mankind purposing, directing, or protecting truth any more than the butterfly is trying to be beautiful.  Some truth is undoubtedly good for church growth and some truth unfortunately is not.  I am becoming convinced that the truth that doesn’t work has long ago been jettisoned and the remaining truth has been allowed to survive only because it is useful to the church and it survives alongside that which stinks in the church.  (e.g. Is our understanding of hell as some sort of "eternal conscience torment" based on Truth or on what is effective at keeping people attending a church?)  Maybe religion today (this is nobody’s fault) consists solely of what works.  It is up to us to find the Beauty and Truth that is still contained therein.

I don’t deny that God could or would intervene to protect His beauty.  I believe He has, but I don’t see it being contained in any one church, or in any one religion.   I have not lost my faith in God, but I have lost my faith in religion.  I think it is just too tempting for any religion not to use their most powerful tools (doctrines on theology and morality) to further their own survival rather than reflect the glory of God.

What is a soul? What happens after we die?  What is heaven and hell?  How does one become saved?  What is required of the believer?  What pleases God?  How do I win God’s favor?  What is right and wrong?  What is the Bible?

These are the deep questions of life.  How does Christianity answer these questions and how much of those answers are grounded in Truth and Beauty?  How much of Christianity's answers are rooted in the religion’s mere survival?

The Evolution of Religion – Part I

The Evolution of Religion – Part I

Biological evolution is the slow change of a species’ DNA (the instructions controlling the shape and functionality of an organism).  These evolutionary changes are not random.  Changes in shape or form that increase the likelihood of the survival of a species are adopted into the species’ DNA while changes that decrease the chances of survival are not allowed to continue in the species gene pool.  In this way, a species is continually changing over time to improve its chances of continued existence in a dynamic, competitive, and hostile environment.

Though these changes in DNA are not random, neither are done “on purpose”.  An organism never decides to evolve.  It changes because it is impossible for it not to change.  The giraffe never tried to make a long neck, but it evolved one anyway because a long neck was a competitive advantage.  And though evolutionary changes are necessary for the very survival of all species, the species themselves are never aware of the fact that they are changing.  The process is so subtle and slow that even today many people deny that it even happens.

I taught church history to seniors for a while.  In preparing to teach the class, I became aware of just how much the church has changed through the millenniums, and that many differing “species” of Christianity have come into being; Coptic (Ethiopian) Christian, Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Protestant (Calvinist and Arminian), evangelical, fundamentalist, charismatic, Pentecostal, post-modern, and emergent churches. 

I wasn’t aware of all of these different Christian churches when I first became a Christian.  I was young and I just assumed that what I was shown was normal and stable.  I trusted that what I learned was simply truth.  I had no idea that someday I would learn that what I was being taught was only the current version of truth.  The churches I attended were only the current versions of “church”.  It never occurred to me that all churches are slowly changing. 

Now I know that doctrines changed.  Worship changed.  Sermons changed.  Even our view of something as fundamental as right and wrong changed.  Which parts of the Bible we select to study changed.  Our interpretation of the Bible changed.  Our very understanding of what the Bible is changed.

Intellectually and emotionally it disturbed me see all these changes that had occurred though the years, because it forced me to face the fact that these changes must be continuing.  Doctrines are changing now.  Worship and sermons are changing.  Views of right and wrong are changing now.  Our very understanding of the Bible is changing now.  My own reaction to these facts makes it easy for me to understand why some people are screaming, “Stop!”  but if I have any intellectual integrity, I must admit that there is nothing about the current state of the church that makes it worthy of being enshrined as the absolute "right way" to believe or behave.  It makes no more sense for me to want to freeze Christianity in its current form  today in 2014 than it would be for someone in the Roman Catholic Church 500 years ago.  The truth is that long after I’m gone, Christianity will continue its evolution and what people believe about Christianity in 500 years will be so much different than what I think it is today.

I am seeing that religion evolves in many ways similar to biological species.  Instead of actual DNA, churches have traditions, doctrines, and morality.  They have forms of worship, art, liturgy, ecclesiastical structures, and sacraments, and of course they have interpretations of their Scriptures.  And just as DNA is never transcribed perfectly from one generation to another biologically, so the passing down of religion from one generation to another is never completed without some small (and sometimes large) "mutations".   Some changes take hold and continue to be passed down while other changes result in a parish or church dissolving so that those changes are “lost” in history.  As I have learned about the role of Constantine, The Great Schism, The Reformation, etc.  I see that some churches survive and thrive while others are eliminated and forever lost.  John Calvin, Martin Luther, and John Wesley made enduring changes to the Protestant church (resulting in the formation of many new denominations).  Most evangelicals even know the names of John Smith of the Mormon Church or Mary Baker Eddy of Christian Science even if they vehemently disagree with the radical changes that these people instituted.  And there are undoubtedly countless well-meaning pastors whose names will never be known because their changes were small or their churches "failed" after some change or another was made.

Is God orchestrating all of this?  Should I try to believe that God willed all the successful (and often contradictory) churches to thrive and simultaneously willed all the failures to go extinct?  In other words, is a church's survival the mark of God’s approval?  Is He more pleased with my evangelical church today than a Puritan church of the colonies?  Is God more pleased with evangelical churches than mainline Protestant churches?  Is He more pleased with Protestant churches than Catholic?  Catholic than Greek Orthodox?  Mormonism?  Amish?  Islam?  Hinduism? 

Is God intervening and choosing winners and losers?  I don’t think so.  I am not ready to deny that God’s purposes are working throughout history, but I can’t ignore the facts.    And if it is not God who is determining which churches thrive and which churches whither, another question looms large for me.  What is determining which changes in religion survive, and which changes fail?  Or to put it another way, why is the church the way it is today?  Why do we do the things we do?  Why do we believe the things we believe?  Is it because they are the right things that God wants me to believe?  Or is it simply because by acting and believing in these particular things these churches/religions were more likely to attract and retain members and therefore survive to pass on their beliefs to the next generation?

Soundtrack of My Life

When I first learned of the existence of “Christian music” I had just accepted Christ and it was early on in the Christian music movement.  It was the years of Keith Green, Amy Grant (before her “fall”), Larry Norman, etc.  I loved it for what it was.  It was good music about God.  It helped me contemplate and love God.  But I never gave up my secular music.  I never felt “convicted” to do so though I heard the arguments put forth by many well-meaning youth pastors and chapel speakers who thought it important to get rid of the devil’s music.   But I never bought it, and I’m glad I didn’t.  My life has been richer because of all the music that has accompanied me.

The Christian music industry has evolved and changed and now I rarely listen to any of it outside of chapel and church.  If I go to a Christian conference and hear a particularly impressive performance (e.g. David Crowder, Kendall Payne, Reliant K) I may pick up a CD, but I do not listen to Christian radio because I can't stand the insincerity.  For a more complete explanation, read Gungor’s old blog on Christian music.  

http://69.89.31.177/~tovrosec/2013/12/04/michael-gungor-on-the-problem-with-the-christian-music-industry/

Though worship and praise are very important parts of the essence of humanity, so are many other fundamental emotions and feelings.  Limiting myself to the “positive and uplifting” music of Christian radio would necessarily leave so much of who I am without deep expression.  God has made us intricate beings.  Our spirits are richly textured and He has called it good.  I have much to feel and those feelings are allowed to come into focus with music.  I am alive and awake when I hear myself expressed in song.  For example, Jazz is a great expression of a complex mellow.  How about the sultry energy of Latin music or the carefree release of Reggae?  Why would I want to miss the political frustration of U2, the raw sexuality of Barry White, the sunshiny joy of the Beach Boys or The Go-Go’s, the angst of Everclear or Nirvana, the introspection of Death Cab for Cutie, or even the mischievousness of Van Halen?  I have felt (and feel) all of these things and I have been able to feel them more completely because my life was blessed with music.

“Christian music” has its place in my praise and worship, but it is not the only soundtrack of my life.  God has made me wider, deeper, and more varied than that.  And as I become more comfortable with this thought, I am becoming aware that God is wider, deeper, and more varied than I’ve made Him out to be too.

God is Good

It took me a while to gain enough confidence to finally confront the Genesis account of creation and to be able to call it what it is - sacred myth.  There were two critical realizations that led me to this point.  First is the belief is that God would not create absolutely overwhelming and obvious evidence that the universe is billions of years old if in reality it is only thousands of years old.  Since God is good, He would not try to fool me into believing a lie.  I am free to believe my own eyes when I see proof of the universe’s age.  I don’t have to pretend the proof doesn’t exist in order to please God.  The second was that I saw that the Genesis account contains clear spiritual lessons.  I saw that the purpose of the story was not to answer how God created the universe, but rather why he created it.       

Though these two realizations helped me accept the Bible as inerrant when it is read correctly, it set up for me a future dilemma.  I would soon be forced to deal with some other O.T. passages.  For example, God specifically commands barbaric war crimes including the killing civilians, pregnant women, genocide, and infanticide in a few different places (including 1 Sam 15:1-3 and many others in the book of Joshua).  And it is pretty clear he is authorizing the rape of the captured women by His army in the book of Numbers 31:17-18.

Even if I take these passages to be historical fiction, I am left with the question of what am I supposed to learn from them?  Why would God want these evil commands attributed to Himself?  What am I to learn about morality and God’s character?  I hear the easy answers about how this demonstrates his “holiness” and his “hatred of evil”, but how can God be “holy” when He behaves humanly?  How can he hate evil when He commands evil? 

C.S. Lewis addressed this problem in a personal letter in the following manner:

 On my view one must apply something of the same sort of explanation to, say, the atrocities (and treacheries) of Joshua. I see the grave danger we run by doing so; but the dangers of believing in a God whom we cannot but regard as evil, and then, in mere terrified flattery calling Him ‘good’ and worshiping Him, is still greater danger. The ultimate question is whether the doctrine of the goodness of God or that of the inerrancy of Scriptures is to prevail when they conflict. I think the doctrine of the goodness of God is the more certain of the two. Indeed, only that doctrine renders this worship of Him obligatory or even permissible.

At this point Lewis abandons the doctrine of inerrancy.  In other words, the Bible is just plain wrong when it asserts God commanded such atrocities.  The authors of the Bible wrote these words for other reasons.  It is easy to see why men would want to justify their own behavior by attributing it to God’s will (some people still justify the USA’s treatment of the Native Americans on the same grounds).  I really like how C.S. Lewis simply pits the doctrine of God’s goodness versus the doctrine of inerrancy.  Which is higher?  It is obvious.  It is much more important to my faith and to my understanding of who God is to believe that He is good rather than hold on to the less important doctrine that the Bible is inerrant.

So now when I read the Bible clearly devaluing women such as in the book of Leviticus 12:1-5, I am free to realize that this may have been men once again justifying their own oppression of others (other people groups or other genders) rather than God actually commanding that women are to be viewed lower than men.  It is amazingly freeing to no longer have to try to ignore/rationalize/apologize for certain passages or Biblical statements that are clearly wrong, oppressive, and/or barbaric.

Inerrant and Infallible

Inerrant and Infallible?

I know these words are fraught with all sorts of meaning (and baggage) for a certain subset of evangelical Christians.  “Inerrancy” in particular has become a litmus test for evangelicals.  It is part of the statement of faith that I sign each year.  And though I don’t claim to know all the nuances and implications that are fervently debated by those passionate about such matters, I’m pretty sure that I came off the rigid rails of evangelical "inerrancy" quite a while back.

Twenty years ago I went through a phase where I read everything I could get my hands on that was written by C.S. Lewis.  I found his writings to be insightful, witty, and engaging and I’m sure I secretly felt some pride in my “scholarly” reading.  But thinking back, I now see that I was also attracted to his willingness to approach Christianity with temperance and reason rather than dogma and absolutes.  And now as I am trying to figure out what the Bible is, I have come to find that Lewis once again offers me his wisdom.

CS Lewis said that the Bible contains “sacred myth and sacred fiction as well as sacred history”.  The word myth is not a term used in evangelical circles when talking about the Bible.  It made my wife cringe when I mentioned it.  However, the concept of sacred myth is intriguing to me.  And the modifier “sacred” is as important to the phrase “sacred myth” as the word “Holy” is to the phrase “The Holy Book”.  Lewis admits the Bible contains myths, but that they are sacred myths.  The Bible is not just a book, but a holy book.  Lewis says that a sacred myth is “at its best, a real though unfocused gleam of divine truth falling on human.”

Since I was in high school I recognized that the Bible contained different literary genres such as poetry, historical narrative, wisdom sayings, prophecy, etc.  But what if the genres include myth?  What if they include historical fiction?  Will I allow the Bible to contain those genres as well?  If I did, it would certainly relieve the tremendous pressure that is building in me to simply reject the Bible as plainly wrong (for I see that if the Bible is taken literally as historical narrative, it contains much that is plainly wrong).  Is a myth wrong or is it just a myth?  Our school library is filled with Christian historical fiction.  Are those books “wrong” or are they just historical fiction?  Maybe the pressure comes from my trying to make the Bible something it wasn’t ever meant to be.  Maybe the Bible can still be holy and sacred even if it doesn’t fit my western, linear, fact-based, face-value, black and white mindset.  Maybe parts of the Bible are more nuanced, relational, blended and filled with stories, ancient tales, and myths, in addition to the poetry, prophecy, personal letters, and historic narrative.  What if the Bible is wrong (to my western mind) in some places because it was never meant to be “right”?  What if the value of the Bible doesn’t come from it being “inerrant”, but rather from it being “sacred”?

The Good Book

It is exceedingly easy for me to ride a pendulum and develop an actual disdain for the Bible.  I have held it in such high esteem for so long that to finally see its faults creates a storm of difficult emotions.  I have seen it happen to others when people have idolized something or someone and are subsequently let down when the ultimate reality sets in. 

When I was in college my Intervarsity leader found out that (then president of IVCF) Gordon Macdonald had succumbed to an affair.  She cried and expressed such anger at him.  I remember at the time thinking how she must have idolized Gordon Macdonald to have such a severe reaction at the revelation that this man had a fault - that this man was after all, just a man with weaknesses and limitations as all men do.  (Macdonald is now the head of Denver Seminary.)

Likewise it is easy for me to focus suddenly on all that I see as problematic and “wrong” with the Bible.  But the reality is that there is so much that impresses me about the Bible.  For example, the poetry of the Psalms has resonated with millions of people for years, expressing the deepest feelings and longings of the human spirit.  Even though it is translated from a different language, the beauty of the prose still comes through in today’s English. 

The books of Job and especially Ecclesiastes have absolutely amazed me.  The very essence of modern existentialist thought is expressed here thousands of years before Camus, Nietzsche and the like.  The depth of insight expressed is phenomenal.  The juxtaposition of these books (dealing with the absurdity of human existence) next to the other books of the Bible is so surprising to me that it verges on jarring.  And this fact is (to me) one of the strongest indicators of God’s hand in the canonization process of the Bible.

There are many stories in the Old Testament and New Testament that have helped me understand certain immutable truths about man.  It always fascinates me that the weaknesses and strengths of man as depicted in the Bible seem so relevant and present-day.  I have seen the Bible’s depth of insight into the nature of man proven out in my life and the lives lived around me.  The validity of its commentary on man gives me confidence in its commentary on God and other spiritual dynamics.

And finally, Jesus’ teachings in the New Testament amaze me.  I have studied them for years and years through many stages of my development.  And even though they were written down two thousand years ago, I still find them to be refreshing, challenging, and uncompromising.  Reading them today through my 2014 American eyes, I find Jesus’ words to be authoritative, compassionate, and timeless.  I don’t think that this is simply my personal reaction to Jesus’ teachings, but I have to believe that most modern scholars of ethics are impressed with Jesus' teachings on hatred, objectification, and social justice.  His themes of mercy, grace, and tolerance could be mistaken for modern day movements of social improvement.  Morality, as established by Jesus’ teachings, is a demonstrably real and beneficial calling for individuals and society at large. It is because of Jesus’ teachings, (Christ’s teachings) that allow me to still consider myself a Christian.  Though I no longer subscribe to much of what many Christian churches teach “from the Bible”, I am still a faithful follower of Christ himself.  And though I’ve never liked the label “red-letter Christian”, I do now at least appreciate the impulse that drives people to use it.

I will need to watch myself as I search out my path forward.  I don't want to impugn something so good as the Bible.  It still has so much to offer me that I can't let resentment blind me to it.  Tearing down the golden calf does not require the slaughtering of all cattle.

I Believe in Love

U2 - God Part II

Don't believe the Devil
I don't believe his book
But the truth is not the same
Without the lies he made up

Don't believe in excess
Success is to give
Don't believe in riches
But you should see where I live
I, I believe in love

Don't believe in forced entry
Don't believe in rape
But every time she passes by
Wild thoughts escape

Don't believe in Death Row
Skid Row or the gangs
Don't believe in the Uzi
It just went off in my hands
I, I believe in love

Don't believe in cocaine
Got a speed ball in my head
I could cut and crack you open
Did you hear what I said?

Don't believe them when they tell me
There ain't no cure
The rich stay healthy
The sick stay poor
I, I believe in love
Love, love, love, love

Don't believe in Goldman
His type like a curse
Instant karma's gonna get him
If I don't get him first

Don't believe that rock 'n' roll
Can really change the world
As it spins in revolution, yeah
It spirals and turns
I, I believe in love

Don't believe in the sixties
The golden age of pop
You glorify the past
When the future dries up

Heard a singer on the radio
Late last night
Says he's gonna kick the darkness
Till it bleeds daylight
I, I believe in love
Love, love, love, love, love, love

Feel like I'm fallin'
I'm spinnin' on a wheel
It always stops besides a name
A presence I can feel
I believe in love, stop it