Another Simple List

Last time I wrote about the things about Christianity that I miss from when I was younger. It was a list that reflected genuine things from that part of my life that I really enjoyed. While I struggled with them all and all of which contributed to the place where I find myself now, they were things that I really loved. But to be honest, so much of what I miss from that time was working in the church. The things that I didn’t enjoy about church are things that I have written about extensively. It began as a frustration with the institutional nature of church and ended up with a concern that the Christianity of church was not consistent with the faith that it was founded on. While I recognized that this was something that varied from church to church, the dominant culture of Christianity was unacceptable to me. However, despite this deep frustration, there were things that I really loved about working in the church that I truly miss. My purpose in identifying those things is to help me with context as well as to show to remind me that this is not a rant against the church framed as a crisis of faith. 

·         A professional network committed to meaningful relationships. This was significantly flawed, but the commitment to each other found in professional ministry offered me lifetime friendships as well as timely interventions. 

·         A deep sense of calling. Probably the concept of calling has been what has changed in me most over the past few years, but when I was in the ministry I felt that God literally handpicked me to do His work. It felt meaningful, powerful, and vindicating.

·         A truly fun experience. In the ministry I got to go skiing, kayaking, and touring as part of my job. Most of my daily activities consisted of being at a coffee shop or playing Bond. This was such a fun time in my life ad one that I worry I will never have a gain.

·         Jeans and sandals. This sounds insignificant, but working in the church was so much more casual. Now, I look forward to Fridays when I get to wear nice jeans with a dress shirt to work. Nice jeans used to be my dressy outfit.

·         Time for spiritual formation. It is unfair that people who work in the church get to spend a disproportionate time reading and studying, but that was a time when I felt the most productive and creative in my faith. 

·         Similarly, creative outlets. In the ministry there are so many opportunities to try new things and go in new directions. 

·         Being the hero. It would be a lie for anyone in ministry (youth ministry especially) to say that at least early on it wasn’t a real ego boost to be the hero in someone’s life or to have someone have a crush on you. Eventually everyone should grow out of that, but early on, it is a real perk.

·         Being a part of something big. Even when I worked in a small church, I felt like I was contributing to something really big. The work I did, I knew changed lives and shaped the world. Was this correct? Probably not. At least not any more than any other job. 

There are things I didn’t include that are great, but more something that anyone can experience like the joy of service and worship that might be heightened in the church. These are the things from the job that I miss.

A Simple List

What I miss about my Christianity from when I was younger:

Euphoria. While I have never really enjoyed praise and worship or traditional worship music, I did enjoy the experience potential that it offered to participate in a social enthusiasm.

Purpose. This is something that has had a negative affect on me as I have often felt discouraged when purpose was lacking, but the ability to claim something that felt like a calling always gave me something to lean back on.

Community. This is something else that I am reluctant to state as a always present. I have always struggled with feeling like I don't belong or feeling like whatever group I was with that I disagreed on things that really separated me from the group. But the social experience of community can be really powerful in Christianity, especially in ministry. There is often a sense of superficiality and a pressure to conform for fear of judgment, but when it is good, it is really good.

Certainty. While I have never been one to feel much certainty, evangelical faith gives certainty that transcends uncertainty. This provides a confidence that is hard to argue with.

Direction. There was a long period of time when I knew the direction my life was heading professionally. The loss of this isn't a criticism toward Christianity because many have this outside of Christianity, but I followed that direction into my 30's. Then I found myself working in a secular field that isn't particularly rewarding with no idea what I would even do that would be rewarding.

After Life

Adopting a naturalistic view of God allows for much greater spiritual development in my opinion. It allows for the traditions and traditions of religious faith without restricting us to dogmas. I feel that it promotes a spiritual development that is more positive and centered on development instead of conditioning. It allows us to not feel conflicted by alternative views of God. And we can still hold to high standards of ethics and morality, but allows room to experience revelation from God and to love others without judgment. But for all that it does, it opens the door for a problem that is fundamental to faith in God- the afterlife.

For the past few years my thoughts and feelings regarding the afterlife have varied as much as the great works of faith and popular literature have on the issue. I have at times dismissed it entirely choosing to accept whatever death brings but concentrating my development on this life. And at times when I have felt that this betrays fundamental aspects of Christianity have chosen to go back to my evangelical beliefs and hold to the after-life being all that is really important and that this life is but a reflection of the life to come. Many things have influenced this inconsistency such as the problem of evil, concepts of the soul, and more. But ultimately I have to confess that I am choosing a concept of the after-life that fits my concept of Christianity and making it fit.

I am curious how others have made their concept of the after-life fit their concept of God.

I'm Back

I have not kept a journal in quite a while, much less blogged, but I decided that I wanted to give journaling a go again. I wrote this out today and decided that it might be worth giving blogging a go again as well. So despite the arrogance associated with keeping a record of my faith that is public for all to see, I feel that this accountability associated with sharing my journey is worthwhile. So I encourage you to share your thoughts if you choose to read. This time around it may be more random than previous entries, but feel free to challenge me or agree with me. Here is what I wrote in my journal this morning that spurred this back to life for me:

To state my crisis plainly, I feel as though I can no longer go back and forth believing in God and feeling a sense of identity (calling) in the ministry and rejecting God and pursuing more earthly pleasures and calling the struggle organic, real, or postmodern. The arguments I have heard for a belief in God feels more like a justification in God than I real reason to believe in God. But to reject God means to reject all forms of meaning and no atheist argument for meaning without God seem like anything more than justification for meaning without God. So for me, the argument is not about do I believe in God or not, but do I believe that this life has meaning or not. This is when then crisis turns to one of philosophy instead of theology. Meaning is inherently both subjective and objective. While meaning has an objective component in that we don’t have to be aware of the meaning and will always fall short of grasping the full extent of meaning, it also has a subject component in that it is affective and individual. To elaborate on the individual nature of meaning, that must account for true individual, experiential, and psychological creations of meaning and corporate meaning that is based in community, traditions, and sociological creations of meaning. To turn the argument away from theological and philosophical and into the realm of developmental, when one considers all the factors that attribute to our understanding of meaning a belief in God becomes a construct on a reality that is more determinant of our relationship to GOD than any objective reality. In other words, my evangelical and zealous understanding of God as a youth is radically different than my liberal and postmodern understanding of GOD today and therefore I relate to that GOD quite differently. The objective meaning of GOD is only the construct by which I relate my theology, philosophy, and identity to despite the fact that the same objective meaning is so radically different that it cannot accurately be called the same GOD. (However, based on the definition of objective reality that I have already selected, this can be the same God since objective reality extends beyond our understanding.)

The consequences of this crisis have left me both rejecting God and embracing God at the same time. For the past couple of years (as I have embraced a more postmodern-friendly concept of God) I have been able to live quite contently with this paradoxical spiritual development. It allowed me to experience God in new ways and deconstruct old, worn out ideas about God that worked against my development. I could see myself as an atheist and devout Christian at the same times. I have felt little need to resolve any inconsistencies and simply experience God as “He” chose to reveal “Himself” to me. This has not been disingenuous as GOD has been a significantly less person-like and possibly less bible-like entity. It has been a time of much greater integrity in my beliefs system as I have focused less on beliefs and more on meaning. However, even in this time of awakening, I have felt that my path has taken me further and further away from a life that love. And now I see that the duality within has moved to a place of new tension where I no longer believe in anything and have no tie to any world. I think that this lack of identity is natural to me as I often feel that I don’t ever belong wherever I am. This lack of identity, in other words, snuck up on me. And now I find myself feeling little sense of guilt, purpose, and passion.