It's a good question, in fact one I've had before. And there isn't an easy answer. I haven't avoided the subject entirely--there are a few odds and ends here (such as this one and this one)--but it is not something that I tend to talk about other than a casual mention or the direct subject of a blog post. I simply don't include references to God in my normal writing. I definitely had to chew on the question for a while to try to find a way to explain a number of feelings that I have that I understand but don't necessarily have words for. In short, perfect blog fodder for me to explore and find the right words by experimentation with a blank page.
So as a starting point, I would say that the kind of Christianity I agree with stands firmly with the main tenant of love your neighbor--I want to emphatically say that my belief structure is not the same as the "American Evangelical Christian God," including elements of the prosperity gospel and/or pretty much any of the poster children for Christianity that actively excludes anyone by their gender, sexuality, race, creed, or different religion. I don't think that anyone is saved by doing the right collection of good deeds or being born into the right situation. In short, Christianity has a PR problem partly because there are some bad examples propping those perceptions up--I don't judge Islam by ISIS; I wouldn't want someone judging Christianity by the Westboro Baptist Church.
The God I know does not encourage me to hate anyone and encourages me to be love recklessly and be supported in turn. I'm a fan of the brown, radical, welcoming-all-persons, upsetting the status quo, chase-the-money-lenders-out-of-the temple, compassion to the scourges of society, kind of Jesus. So why don't I talk about it? Clearly there's at least a bit of a chip on my shoulder for what is "right" Christianity and its interpretation. With all of my medical history that I've put up in this blog and where I find myself now, surely I have a lot of thanking and scripture to throw down as part of it somewhere, right? But it's not as easy as that.
I've started to narrow the thoughts into a few major ideas:
- I have a number of people in my acquaintance that have been hurt by the church. And "the church" I mean both the church as an entity and the church as persons proclaiming to be godly. I know people who have been told that they were going to hell or cast out by those that claim to love them. These are the people who profess love and compassion? The ones actively screaming at women walking into Planned Parenthood, knowing absolutely nothing about their lives or what kind of healthcare they're there to receive? The ones actively lobbying to ensure that transgender people have less rights under the law? The people asserting that they hate the sin but love the sinner, backhandedly condemning someone with a veneer of kindness? The hurt and betrayal runs deep--these were supposed to be people that we could trust, that we grew up with, that media and social perception says you're safe with, but even in my experience I know that church politics can be the nastiest politics there are. It is a trauma trigger for a lot of people, truly. Yes, it's my blog and I have exercised the right to say what I would like to in this space, but I also don't want to intentionally exclude people, including a number of folks that are incredibly important to me, whatever their religious beliefs might be. I'm not insensitive to how widespread and deep this hurt goes.
- The kind of theology I subscribe to follows the idea of "Preach faith; if necessary, use words." I see God in people and love the goodness in them as well as the ways that they are broken and sharing compassion anyway. I have grown a lot of compassion through my experiences that I can then extend to other people needing that particular warmth in the moment, to demonstrate love and kindness that I have experienced. That extension of myself is God working through me, in my estimation of things--I don't feel a need to call it that when it's obvious to me. I also don't want to cheapen the very real feeling and intent I have by implying something like "well, God told me to do it" because I'm not an automaton. I've got a lot of free will in how I express compassion and choose to express it: not because I'll be punished if I don't, but instead out of a genuine love.
- Evangelizing is not my spiritual gift. That's not to say that I couldn't develop it, but I'm more geared toward hospitality, responding to people with real warmth. I can tell anyone my experience with God if they would like to hear about it, but I do not presume that anyone wants to hear my opinion about it nor that anyone who doesn't believe the way I do is inherently wrong and in need of "fixing."
- I have a general distaste in some of the methods how God and Jesus are actively talked about in a few societal contexts. This one has multiple parts.
--Let's start with scripture quoting. Quoting scripture has been used to support terrible moments in history, including the Holocaust and slavery. Taking pieces out of context can be misleading at best. I would tell my Sunday School classes, holding up a Bible in one hand, that if they were using this to hurt people, they were using it wrong. And otherwise, I will remind you that the devil can quote scripture, too (Matthew 4: 5-7; Luke 4: 9-11). I'm interested in both the exegesis of scripture as well as the overall context of the Bible, checking to ensure that it matches with the overall message of the time period as well as the Bible overall before I accept it as evidence. Additionally, I accept that I am reading a translation (possibly of a paraphrase of another translation), meaning that I'm not going to get hung up on a single word out of context or otherwise consider the specific passage outside of the context of all else. For example, when folks are hung up on "day" as in "the world was created in seven days" I have a few specific points. Firstly, God rested on the seventh day, so it would be six not seven. Secondly, how do we measure a day? By the sun and the moon? Which weren't created until the fourth day? No, this word could also be translated as "age" which makes much more sense given the poetical context of the beginning of Genesis. But, yes, I'm sure that the translation that has been translated and retranslated again is the literal interpretation that I should assume is literally correct (~sarcasm flag). Allowing metaphor into different parts of the Bible gives us a huge degree of depth and richness that it would be a shame to miss out on. More importantly, I don't think that God wants blind faith but instead a thoughtful pursuit of growth. Scripture can be helpful to understand facets, however, it is not the clincher for any argument without its context.
--Second point--I loathe the implication that has been made in certain places that if you simply believe enough that your mental health problems or financial problems will disappear. I feel that God can work through things, like your therapist and an antidepressant medication, but the idea that "well, the reason that you're suffering is because you don't have enough faith" is a huge disservice and piles guilt onto the rest of that hypothetical problem. I've also heard "well, God must be punishing you" in this camp to and I have MANY thoughts about how messed up that is.
--Third point--I'm not a fan myself of a conversation that is a regular conversation that now has to be about theology against my will. There's no consent asked, just assumptions. And that lack of consent rubs me the wrong way. As such, I'm not intending to make every conversation about God by forcing the issue into every pause. God's plan is good and all, but I might just by trying to vent about my day for a moment, thanks. I don't need to focus on cosmic relevance when I'm remarking on my frustration in how the grocery store layout changed. Similarly, there is an assumption made that everyone has the same context in the conversation, that clearly everyone grew up in mainstream Christianity and must know exactly what you're talking about, which can then exclude people--Jesus then becomes a tool to "other" people rather than bring them in. I find myself annoyed in conversations that were not otherwise consented to talk about theology to metaphorically beat me over the head, peppering in Jesus and God at every opportunity. I'm not offended by God being part of the conversation--speak your truth, please--but there is a point of saturation somewhere, six platitudes or so in.
--Fourth point--when every conversation is so peppered with references back to God, well, great, now a precedent is set that every single thing has to come back to that. I will never put a fish or Jesus bumper sticker on my car because I simply don't always drive like a Christian, accidentally or on purpose. For example, I will spitefully block someone from entering in the lane that blew past everyone else and the closed lane signs for miles--sure, allowing people to suffer their own consequences is an act of love in the right circumstances, but that is definitely not my motivation in blocking that other driver in that moment. My own struggles with faith are for those that I share them with, not for opening [a likely imaginary] general judgement, thanks. I give myself enough grief to hold myself accountable without that outside pressure.
--Fifth point--there is a part of how God is talked about that rubs me the wrong way that is vastly unempathetic or used in place of empathy. What I mean is the kind of verbiage that tends to get used, the Hallmark kind of God statements, are often used to stand in the place of actual responsibility or empathy. Let's take "I'll pray for you." Praying is a good thing to do--and sometimes the best that you can do in many ways--but I've seen it used as a cop-out far too often. As a more extreme example, we talk about our thoughts and prayers to the victims of gun violence, but what are we actually doing to help them now or prevent more in the future? Faith without works is dead. Platitudes, even ones that invoke God, are similarly pretty useless without action. Our thoughts and prayers are with a lot of things, but are our actions? Some of these phrases seem to translate into: "God's got it so I don't have to do anything." There's a balance in how much we take on in trying to help, but using God to not do something that we clearly can/should help on is not okay. Compassion is movement.
I have also seen far too many God-phrases that shut down the conversation in regards to empathy, where someone going through a tough time is told that God has a handle on it, as though that is the conversation clincher, entirely shutting down their need to express their feelings and any empathy they might have received--it reads as "I'm uncomfortable talking about this," and invalidates the person experiencing that hardship. Way too many of these platitudes shut down the person's voice in the conversation, under the guise of being helpful, souring the experiences that the speaker was trying to relate. Chief among these in my life has been "God has a plan," but that one has its own blog here. The intent is good in, I daresay, most cases, but the impact is not matching with that, meaning we need to address this. In short, any God platitude that could end with something like "so stop crying" is a hard pass. I do not want God to be used as an excuse for us to not help each other and look for ways to help each other or even just listen to someone with real compassion. - On my part, I think of some this also comes down to humility. I don't want to insist that anything greater than my feeble attempts are at work, because I know that this world is chaos and terrible things that don't make sense can happen just as easily as miraculous, wonderful things. I can feel where God might be working in me, but I cannot presume that I know what you might be feeling in a moment. I think God can certainly use me, but I don't necessarily trust to be proficient at weeding out all the other voices all the time.
And from there, I'm left with several disjointed feelings that don't seem to fit anywhere else, so here there are in a disjointed blob: I don't think that I have to be vocally Jesus-y to have an impact in others. I want to be a force for good not because a voice in the sky is going to punish me if I don't, but because it is right. I have known atheists far kinder and gracious than someone I've gone to church with for years, genuinely loving folks that don't have any special eternal reward for loving you but choose to do it anyway--I want to model the compassion of an atheist. I want to be a breathing expression of the love I understand and want to share it. There are humans involved in the modern expression of Christianity--this means we're bound to get a few things wrong that we will continue to work toward rectifying in the future. I want be a force for inclusion and compassion where possible, but I also want to make bigotry a lonely hobby, which is an odd balancing act at best.
There are teachings and feelings that I recognize and appreciate in Christianity that have shaped my understanding of what is right, especially in broadening my view of whom I should be helping, that I need to practice seeing those that are most vulnerable and working toward their benefit. Simultaneously, I won't force someone to interpret it a specific way. So rather than force it in my speech, I prefer to make myself a more subversive force for good, to extend love and compassion but more importantly to genuinely feel those things and not be kind out of obligation. We can talk about dolling out the right amount of credit and naming facets of it as the other party is also comfortable with.
Or the short version of things:
- I've seen how forcing verbal "God" into every conversation, action, and movement has attached inaccurate impressions of God to terrible/inaccurate associations and therefore enforcing these ideas to persons both inside and outside, validating bigotry for example
- I am wary of adding any negative interpretations with my own flawed experiences and failures, and I especially do not want trigger anyone's previous trauma
- I want to love people in a way where it's obvious that I genuinely mean it, passing that love on not because I'm obligated to but because I want to share it
- I won't assume that I have consent to turn all conversations into a theology debate
- I have a real disdain of the kind of God verbiage that is used in place of compassion and/or actual aid, voices that speak love but don't practice it
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