The Question Series #6
Killer Sheep.
An inordinate amount of my friends are in the ministry. I however, am not. I’m like most people, just a person that tries to mess up my faith as little as possible based on the very limited understanding I have of my role in it and this mess that we call life.
I’ve found that, over time, the more I learn about my faith, it’s history, and it’s application, the less I’m sure about. I don’t mean to say I’m unsure of Jesus Christ, or that I’m a sinful SOB in need of grace on the part of my creator if I’m ever going to live up to any of His expectations beyond failure. No, I mean I’m less black and white about my faith’s application. I can no longer look at what happens in the world and say, “God hates this,” or “God loves that,” or “God would never allow such and such.”
Sometimes it feels like it is.
Let me go back to the part where I told you I have a lot of friends in ministry. A lot. Like 90% of ’em. Maybe you have a bunch of friends in the ministry yourself, and, if so, you find yourself in a similar situation to mine. A situation wherein you’re surrounded by friends with differing opinions about the real nature of God but all of them absolutely sure (well, mostly absolutely sure) of what their doing because God has called them to do it. It’s tough to be the non-minister friend because, if gangsters have street cred, religious folks have church cred, and I have no church cred.
In fact, I have strikes against me. I wrote a book that had lots of swear words in it. I say dirty words on my website from time to time. I don’t always get to church. I don’t pepper my Facebook timeline with scriptures or Christian band lyrics. And, maybe worst of all, I ask big, hard questions about my faith and refuse to accept dogma as answers. Consequently I have been accused of facilitating the the means by which many Christian’s faiths are injured.
Do you know how that makes me feel? Terrible. Absolutely terrible. It’s not my intention to hurt a believer’s faith. It’s only my intention to get answers, to over come challenges, and to understand why we believers do things, and if we are indeed doing them right or are simply pawns to some socio-political-capitilist Jesus message. How is that we’ve turned into a faith that can’t handle questions like, “Is homosexuality really a sin?”, “Is capitalism something God even cares about?”, “Is America actually the best country on earth, did God really bless it?”, “Can the best candidate for president only be a Christian?” How have we turned into a body of believers that looks at this kind of talk as the mark of the proverbial beast?
I confessed all of this to a couple of my ministry friends a while ago. One of them listened in lurking silence. You know, listened but didn’t really hear, more of a wait? He did graciously let me get it all out of my system before he started into a prerecorded speech about sin and judgement and God’s will based on some books he once read a while ago, plus what someone had told him once, and just a general feeling he had. But the answer wasn’t what I cared about. It was that he listened to me without hearing, then gave his answer almost unaugmented in any way based on what I’d said.
If there is one question I wish I could ask more than any other, it is: Why do we listen and not hear where others are coming from once we’ve decided where we’re coming from? We only take enough of the message so we can debate it with out looking like idiots, but we don’t actually hear it.
I wonder how many times Jesus sat in front of the needy and sinful and listened to their moaning and questioning with a vacant stare on his face, feigning that he cared because it was the merciful thing for the supreme being to do, waiting for them to finish so he could launch into his preconceived argument?
The other ministry friend I talked with said that he understood my questions and he felt I had a point. I asked him why he didn’t address things like I’d brought up from the pulpit: why couldn’t things like homosexuality or the Christian superiority complex or how Jesus shouldn’t be someone’s political lobbyist get addressed in front of everyone?
He said that it wouldn’t go over very well. It would upset the church and there would be a lot of fall out.
“Are you afraid of that?”
“I’m not a afraid of it, I just know what could go wrong?”
“But if it helps people find the truth, it’s worth it, right?”
“Well, we don’t want to damage anyone’s faith.”
“Wait, you’re telling me that you were called by God, the Supreme being of the universe, to preach his word and reveal his truth so that his people wouldn’t walk in darkness; that you have His authority to speak, but you’re afraid of saying the wrong thing because it might upset the church? Isn’t that you’re job?”
There was no answer to this. It was yet another one of those hard questions that seems to get you into more trouble than truth. I apologized after I asked; for putting him on the spot, and because I genuinely felt sorry for the state of things at the moment.
Then I had another question hit me: is God the God of the stupid? I mean, is he only interested in those who don’t question Him, don’t ask why, and don’t want to know more? Is He offended by those who can’t make their minds stop running? Does he call that sin? Why then did he give us such voracious intellects, and such a great need for knowledge? Why doesn’t he shut off our seeking genes once we’ve “found” him? Does he want us to build boxes, put points and lowercase t’s on top of them, and then filter everything that comes in to it with labels like, “Healthy” or “Damaging!” Does he prefer those who don’t struggle with head knowledge?
I fear a faith that can’t endure self questioning. I fear a faith that can’t handle the biggest and hottest topics humanity wrestles with. I fear a faith that shuns those who talk or think differently. But most of all, I fear a faith wherein the leaders of it are afraid of saying something contrary to the teachings its followers are willing to believe.