BUT WHY?- AN ARGUMENT FOR BEING DISCONTENT

“Some men see things as they are and say, 'Why'?”(Robert F. Kennedy)

Yesterday morning my five year old wanted to get on the computer about twenty minutes before we needed to leave for school. When he asked me I was trying to finish up a few things before we left and couldn’t give his request the attention he wanted me to give to it. My response when he asked, therefore, was, “No.” He asked back, “Why?” My reply was, “Because I said.” And as the story goes for so many parents who have this same conversation, Brennan asked back, “But why?” I replied again, “Because I said so.” This went on for a couple of minutes. I later realized that I should have praised his persistence. His dissatisfaction with a simple and typical response is the very thing that I have built my spiritual, professional, and personal life on. Robert F. Kennedy said, “Some men see things as they are and say, 'Why'? I dream of things that never were and say, 'Why not'?” I guess I would rephrase that for myself to say, “Some people are satisfied to ask, “Why?” I exist with the need to persist with, “But why?”

Before I entered into this new ground I was often able to add to conversations I had with my friends here in west Texas and was even occasionally commended on what I had to offer. However, since becoming what many of my still very good evangelical friends would consider borderline hell-bound, I have not been able to participate in conversations as I used to or encourage people with the deep insight that I was able to occasionally pull off. Despite feeling as though I am actually able to relate with people across the faith spectrum much better, I typically feel as though I hit a threshold of comfort with my perspectives pretty quick. But I don’t feel as though I have a choice. The typical and often well rehearsed responses just don’t cut it or me. My dissatisfaction with the typical responses shouldn’t be interpreted as an insult to those who are content with them, but I simply am far too aware of my dysfunction to find peace in answers that seem so superficial. This has earned me the title of postmodern by some (others have a term for me that isn’t as objective.) But I don’t consider myself a postmodern. Postmodernism has provided me an avenue to ask many of the questions that I have. Postmodernism is largely influenced by existentialism and I would consider myself an existentialist, but the Book of Ecclesiastes, Job, and The Psalms are also existential writings. I would say that for the most part I am uncomfortable with labels, but if I had to label myself I might call myself post-evangelical, which would mean I am still an evangelical, just with doubts. I wouldn’t call myself a liberal even though if you took my political and religious beliefs and put them on paper they probably would be pretty liberal. But postmodernism fails to acknowledge the questions of purpose that I feel are still far too important to dismiss. Postmodernism attempts to differentiate between what can and cannot be deconstructed, but unfortunately I feel like it has done a poor job at this, and I don’t think it has adequately clarified what truth means.

There are many who have struggled in the same ways as I have with their faith and the institution that promotes it who may have also felt that they no longer have a place to go. Their faith is still central to who they are and they still long for a community that develops it, but they feel that if they were open about how they really felt and thought that they would be identified as a heretic (or liberal which is the same thing in west Texas). All that I can really offer is comfort related to what is a defining characteristic of what I know believe: the tension that exists between who you are in this struggle and the world around you that doesn’t understand is shaping you in ways that are far more significant than the end goal of finding your fit. For those who have left the church because they have been hurt by it at least have the comfort of rejecting the church, but for those who are simply looking to embrace something new in Christ, we must recognize that not only are we trying to find meaning, purpose, and intimacy the tension, but that we represent an unidentified tension for others. My old friend Soren Kierkegaard tells us that there are many kinds of despair, but that we all have to experience it fully if we are ever going to escape it. An acknowledgement of one’s discontentment is the only path to peace- a path that I, unfortunately, feel that I will be on for a long time.