A night of the Grateful Dead and the Ten Commandments

Tonight...tonight was good.

I'm not gonna lie. Losing two pastors who were instrumental in changing my view on my relationship with the church has been rough. I'm scared. I fear change like this not for the change itself, but because I fear the organization could once again become something from my past that I actively distance myself from. Black, White, whatever, traditional churches are places where I have a difficult time growing--a hard time staying out of holes of resentment and frustration and doubt..and that's mostly because I end up spending the bulk of my time dealing with the emotional weight of lack of acceptance or flat out rejection, be it because of my color, my culture or my personality.

But yes...tonight. Tonight our new small group went on a field trip (all the way to the main sanctuary) to hear the church counselor speak on the Ten Commandments in relationship to the family...not the most obvious connection. There were four of us...one couple and two single. I was happy to walk into the room and see a mixture of singles and marrieds (mostly couples and parents, but that makes sense). I really think we need to learn together, if only to maintain understanding of what the other group is going through. Beyond that though, any of us could end up on the other side of the relationship coin at any point in life, so it's a good idea to keep an ear out regardless of what team you're on.



I love the way this guy teaches. I adore quirky people to the point that I have to contain my elation at finding another outlier in the world. Humans that, for whatever reason, are aliens among their own pique my curiosity like nothing else. This guy...he is one of us Nots--going off on Faulknerian tangents mid-sentence, considerately wavering in and out of awareness of his audience with quick apologies and an occasional qualifier (that's where the Grateful Dead and the Monkey and the Engineer come in). He's aware, I'm sure because of his background and because he's a professor, of cultural impact. I was giddy when he spoke on individualism vs. collectivism in the Western World and how it's almost impossible to not be affected by an entire country with an individualistic bent...seriously giddy. For a split second I was digging frantically for reasons that I might need to make an appointment for counseling--though I'm sure he wouldn't appreciate my guise of personal turmoil and efforts to pick his brain.

Any Christian who can use the gifts God gave them, take their field of study seriously and live their lives flying in the face of anti-intellectualism gets a +10 from me.

He paralleled Ephesians and the Ten Commandments and spoke on why they are basically only two (Love God, Love others) split into more detail for our little brains...but if I remember nothing else, it will be these two concepts that he spoke on in relation to the family...

• The honor of a child is not the right of the parent, it is a command to the child.
• Men are the spiritual head of household 

That first one was blatantly ground-breaking for me. He spoke on how often he has clients come in, complaining of not being honored by their children, and how he then has to gently remind them that they are not entitled to honor...that their job, simply, is not to frustrate their children and to train them up to follow God's word.

The second though, much more subtly, but more profoundly ground-breaking...it sounds like a repeat of what I've heard before, but he said it in a way that changed the way I'll view it forever. Tonight was the first time I heard anyone explain it in a way that clearly articulated the importance of the use of "spiritual" as a limitation on the word "head". As he stated..."that does not mean that he is the head of where the cups go in the cabinet, that he has the final say in disciplining children or in money. Go read Proverbs 31." He also went on to say that boyfriends are not the head of girlfriends in any way, and that headly status is not conferred until marriage has occurred. 

I think I'm still internalizing all that. 

Rethinking Science vs. Religion

I adored The Dark Knight Rises. It's seriously going in my top 10 movies. The purposeful action, the elegant melancholy, the cool accents...and that plane scene (my jaw was literally open both times I saw it). One thing spoke to me more than anything else though. The movie struck me as one long effort to highlight the futility of the false dichotomies we create in life and relish on a daily basis in efforts to keep an otherwise messy existence clean and simple. We do it all day, every day, Bulls or Heat, Democrat or Republican, us or them, Creation or Evolution. While the core of Christian status is quite black or white (did you go through Jesus or not), the clarity after that point, I believe, is only to be fully grasped by God.

The Pharisees were NOTORIOUS for trying to trap Jesus with false dichotomies...Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife or not? Is it right for a man to pay taxes or not? Should this adulterous woman be punished or not? Each time, Jesus responded with an answer that rejected the yes/no dynamic inherent in the Pharisees' efforts to confine him to two choices.

Reading The Guide for the Perplexed, I'm seeing the false dichotomy has almost a tradition in Jewish culture of being used to deceive...which would make perfect sense as to why the Pharisees ran straight to it so often.  This time, it's Natural and Divine sciences. The section I'm on now addresses the placement of creation in the Bible, how it should be taught and what importance in plays. Maimonides asserts that Divine sciences  cannot be understood until the Natural sciences are grasped and quotes Jewish sages as saying:

 "It is impossible to tell mortals of the power of the Account of the Beginning. For this reason Scripture tells you obscurely: In the Beginning God created, and so on."

That flies in the face of the stance main-stream modern American Christianity has taken against the sciences and it continues to make me wonder...how did we get here? Why was it, that so many years ago, American colleges, universities and scientists believed in and worshiped God, following the paths of Jewish teachings like that listed above, but now, some Christians reject science altogether. Maybe it really is as simple as the backlash of the emotional Second Great Awakening against the cerebral bent of its predecessor...that though, I am beginning to think, is a mere case of the Church again absorbing secular culture instead of blazing its own paths to God.  As Mark 12:24 says, I think we are in error very much because we simultaneously do not know the scriptures, and want to limit the power of God to fit human understanding. 

This book turns my head upside down and my soul inside out. I'm only a few pages in (it's a VERY rough read) but I am very much beginning to believe that creation...something we regard as simple enough to be grasped by 5 year olds (I spent a lot of time in Christian school, and we spent a lot of time on creation)...is much more advanced a concept than we realize and that we ask people to do the impossible when we tell them to simply accept the teachings of Genesis at face value. I am beginning to believe the reason Jesus did not speak much on creation was not because it was not important, but that it was simply too advanced a concept for his following, then and now, to begin to contemplate or understand. 

Why I Fear for the American Church

I was ready to move on from this. Politics in the US has been digging up a lot of unresolved feelings for me and I thought I'd blogged my way through...and I have quite a bit...but today I was listening to the talk below by Ravi Zacharias. It's called "Why I'm not an Atheist" and in the talk the former Hindu turned anti-theist and current Christian apologetic talks on some of the issues he has with hard-line atheism (not to be confused with agnosticism).

He comes at it from multiple angles, but most prominent, at least to me, was his assertion that atheism is frequently the moral safe-haven for people who simply want to live purely for themselves...something that most religions will not let followers do without some level of internal discord. He spoke of a desire to acquire wealth, staunch individualism and  lack of responsibility for those around you...the core of the direction the Republican Right...the former "Moral Majority"...is moving. And this just isn't in words...I don't believe that Paul Ryan is necessarily following Ayn Rand's philosophies point for point (though it's been a while since I read the Fountainhead), but the way the woman thought is almost wholly incompatible with Christian teachings.  The kicker is watching those same Christians support a man who follows a faith that teaches so much that directly contradicts the Bible over a sitting president who is a Christian (I believe the rumors that the President is a "secret Muslim" are efforts to quiet some of this cognitive dissonance). I'm not just watching this on TV. I see this in new Christian friends and those I've known for years and I am at a loss.

I don't take issue with people voting Republican...I've done it myself and will likely do it again. What concerns me is seeing large segments of the Church tiptoeing into waters this strange for the sake of preservation of tradition.

Zacharias, as usual, boils it down beautifully. The argument isn't theist vs. atheist, it's all about world views (I thank G.K. Chesterton for shifting my line of thought on this). We're embroiled in a battle between those who focus their fight for the self, the here, the physical and the now, and those who fight for others, and what may exist on the other side.

Why are Christians intimidated by science?

Is Creation too Complex for most Christians?

Great message this morning on continuous learning through life. It was timely for me because I decided earlier this week to pick up my copy of The Guide for the Perplexed and give it a go. It's a 12th century Jewish text written by Maimonides as a letter to one of his students. I initially bought it because I wanted a better understanding of the Old Testament.

*a thanks to Family Guy for the reminder a few hours before reading this, that Jesus was a practicing Jew. 

Click the link for more detail on what the work actually is, but let me just say...it's one of those books that made me feel like an idiot. Seriously...it took me 2 minutes just to find the first section I wanted to explore. I read 3 pages of the introduction and was ready to accept defeat...but the book put forth a concept that drew me in. Maimonides asserts that certain concepts of faith were simply not fit for the masses and that even to those who were able to handle them, they should only be taught late in the Jewish tradition. That thought landed oddly on my equality-drenched American psyche. My gut reaction was that the concept was simply wrong and archaic, and I with my open, modern mind would continue reading despite the ancient ignorance...but then I thought of my study of jiu jitsu. There was a moment last year where another student and I were working a technique for his belt exam. I played the part of throwing dummy. He'd been studying 4 years, I, 2. Our instructor saw us from across the gym, walked up and said to him "Stop. You don't have enough control to keep from hurting her and she doesn't have enough understanding to protect herself."

This work is definitely one of those situations. It is specifically geared toward deciphering the mysteries of God and it tackles them forthright...is the "hand of God" an actual hand? Was the universe actually created out of nothing? Can God actually be described and if so, how should it be done? These are questions that have split churches and synagogues and, on the surface, seem to be elementary to divine belief...yet this books takes them on as advanced topics.

I couldn't help but marvel at the disagreement over creation out of nothing and how neatly a discussion within a faith community mirrored the one had today so publicly between Christian and Atheist/Agonistic groups today.  

I sometimes wonder if we're not laying the foundation of our faith on the spiritual equivalent of differential equations, encouraging people to feign certainty about things they simply cannot genuinely understand and waiting to teach basic addition (personal, internal things like love and self-sacrifice that Jesus plainly laid out as the core true religion in his teachings) until believers have been practicing for years. Creation comes on the first page of the Bible but seeing as the Bible isn't based on progressing difficulty, I wonder if beginning at the beginning isn't a bit confusing.

The pastor this morning brought up a profound point about Jesus that I think Christians miss while people who don't believe in the divinity of Jesus understand perfectly. The man made ground-breaking social strides. As I was reminded this morning, he was revolutionary in that he treated women and children as humans, wholly worthy of his love and attention as any adult male in a society where they were simply background players. We miss these simple, amazing, transformative and obvious things about Jesus' walk while getting caught up in mysteries few of us are likely to ever understand...and I think this is an active choice.

I have a DVD set dedicated to one submission in jiu jitsu...just one. The triangle. That's 3 DVDs on one technique. I could come home tomorrow and spend 4 hours watching them. I could then sign on to a couple of forums and debate the effectiveness of the techniques. After that, I could start blogging about my experiences learning a submission that I'm physically well suited for. I would leave the experience with no sore muscles, no burned and bleeding shins, no torn ligaments, not one drop of sweat spent...and I would feel accomplished for having accomplished nothing.

Or...I could go and suffer the pain and frustration of cleaning up my sloppy, ineffective, easily defended triangle. Application, even of simple things, is usually painful.

I'm going to keep reading...slowly. Many of the mysteries of God that the book addresses really are light years beyond my understanding. I felt my chest burn as I was reading and knew that I was taking a look at God that I had never even considered before. It scares me a little...and not in the ways that intellectual pursuits of Christianity have before. I don't worry that I will begin to replace an understanding of God with a knowledge of him...it scares me in a way that is exciting and intimidating and possibly the closest to true Fear of the Lord that I have ever gotten.

Today was my pastor's last day.

I cried.

As he read what's possibly the last message I'll ever hear him give, I realized I was sitting in a new emotional experience. I've sat under six pastors in my life and never have I had one leave on good terms. I've never been sad to see one go. I also don't think I'll ever get used to looking into a man's eyes when he's about to cry.

2012 very much feels like a year of loss for me. My grandmother, who I consider one of the few mentors in my life, passed in late 2011, but I'm just now coming to terms with it. I also lost two cousins, one to a sudden, violent death. I feel like there's something else there too, but I can't pinpoint what yet.

I was talking with my cousin today about internet dating experiences. As a Christian single, it's important to have someone as a sounding board for things like this. Navigating life as a single requires that one be able to improvise and be very clear on what you're trying to accomplish or avoid. You have...so many options when it comes to housing, use of time, use of finances, etc. But yeah. I told her about a message I got from a man.

"You say you don't consider homosexuality a sin. Are you actually a Christian? What do you to say about Sodom"

I have on my profile that I am Christian and that it is extremely important in my life. He was foreign, so I don't think there was as much accusation in his message as might be perceived. I explained that I do not consider the state of simply being gay a sin any more than I consider finding a married person of the opposite sex attractive to be a sin and directed him to Ezekiel 16: 49. He replied that he misjudged me and we continued on with the conversation.

Processing.

When Janet Reno came to church.

The idea of American Exceptionalism scares me on many levels, one of them definitely as a Christian.

I love the Olympics. It's easy for me to. I have a natural bent toward international environments. I get excited at seeing a new country's take on the games. I love seeing the names I can't pronounce (Eastern European names make seeing Chinese ones a relief...so, so many consonants), the native costumes, the bloodless competition. It's also easy for me because I'm American. I wonder how excited I'd be for the games as a whole if I were from, say, a country like Grenada who just won their first medal ever (a gold to boot...huge congratulations to them!).

So yes...due to our recent political climate already having things riled up, the Olympics, from what I can tell, has only caused a slight uptick in the frequency of the "America is the best/greatest/most powerful/most awesome country in the world" meme. During the Games it makes perfect sense. The Games themselves are essentially one huge, two week festival of comparison and oneupsmanship. That's what competition is. I'll take this any day over war. Imagine...if instead of Japan attacking Pearl harbor and America responding with two atomic bombs, Russians began using professional basketball players against our college Olympians and we responded with Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson...oh wait. 

But comparison outside of clearly designated boundaries? I have to ask why. When a comparison is being made, there's a reason...usually to assert the superiority of one, to emphasize the inferiority of others or to retaliate against an attack. It's not always bad, but there is, always, a reason.

When I left the church I was raised in, it was bigger than just walking away from a building, my family, a routine or a peer group. I was walking away from a social institution. I walked away from the Black Church. I did it to preserve my faith. I haven't said it in a while, but I got to a point where Sundays in church were when I felt the farthest from God. (I say that not to assert that one can't be Christian and attend a Black Church. I'm saying simply that I found a conflict between the culture and the working out of my personal journey of faith as a Christian.) Yes, my individual home church had some issues, but I believe...I know that they were symptoms of cultural retaliation.

Displaced cultures are peculiar creatures. It happens afresh in today's world, but here in the US, we watch, every day, the effects of a country trying to regroup and redefine itself after engaging in the mass displacement of Africans...a practice that flew in the face of the very values a young country was trying to implement, all for the sake of economic prosperity. National cognitive dissonance of that level does not go away without the growing pains of racial relations we live today. (This is one of those points that I believe the US actually is breaking ground on, but yet another point of exceptionalism we choose to ignore in favor of clinging to successes of the past).

The solidarity and uniformity of the Black church is a reaction to that displacement. It's not just a religious institution. It's a place where culture is affirmed and reaffirmed and recycled and replayed. It was and is a core of education, family and community during the Civil Rights era and continues to be one of the primary funnels and filters of power in the Black American community. Pastors know this. Politicians know this. I realized this one Sunday when, as an usher at 16, I stood face to face with the formidable presence Janet Reno.

...and this is where things get fuzzy. You have an institution that has a dual purpose...one of faith and one of culture. The words in Matthew 6 apply here. An organization cannot serve two masters. It will eventually, if not every day, have to choose. My old church made its choice and I vowed not to return until a specific leader left. Well...a few years ago he did leave. He did not though, take the influence of Prosperity Gospel with him. I heard reports of a new song titled "Speak it to the Universe" that had made its way into the rotation at the church. I knew then, that this was deeper than one building or one branch.

I see something similar going on in the White Church. The culture is threatened and trying to regroup and redefine. Christianity is still, by far, the dominant religion in the US, with almost 80% of people identifying as Christian. What has changed though, is that it is no longer the default setting. People of other faiths, or no faith, now, thanks to social media and...well...more media in general have more of a voice to express their disinterest, disagreement or animosity. More platforms to highlight their displeasure and faults of the past...and this disruption in the status quo...this redefinition of the profile of America...I think is the birthplace of this reactionary new use of the concept of American Exceptionalism.

The loss of the perception of security is shocking (see Sept 11th). No one needs to assert their superiority when they feel secure. Part of the reason you hear overweight women assert their beauty, attractiveness and sexiness is self-acceptance. Part of it is them trying to convince themselves.



But a few personal words of affirmation aren't too much to be concerned about on a global scale. My concern is what happens when any group of people go from saying they are inherently exceptional to believing it...when they feel they and all their actions have been ordained by God. It hits my ears as the beginning of the latest reincarnation of what was once referred to as Manifest Destiny, British Imperialism, the territorial expansion of the Holy Roman Empire...etc.

God is not a fan of pride. Never has been. Check out Obadiah 1. Yes, it's addressed to a specific nation, but it tells us a lot about the character of God. The tone behind the term of American Excpetionalism is completely devoid of the submission and subjugation of Amazing Grace that is, at least in word, so respected by those that sing it. There is no scent of wretchedness, no acknowledgement of a state of loss. There is no hope in God's word. There is no need of Grace.

My father told me today that he heard a speaker on Moody Radio say that politics was the new religion of the American Right. I fear he may be correct.