The trouble with Christianity

Christianity is so weird. I was reading this post and it really upset me. I really passionately believe that the last things Christians need to do is to criticize each other. We do have a common goal, and it is enough to unite us. But even so, there is so much about common Christianity that upsets me, and that I think is making us totally useless. That is why I'm writing the things I'm writing.

Over the past year, I have come to embrace myself, my humanness. I'm not sure why it happened, why I made the choice to quit hating my humanity, but I did, and it has fixed everything. I'm not kidding. Fixed. Everything. Sadly, once this transition happened, I found myself pretty strongly opposed to a lot of things that lots of people consider core to Christianity. For instance, thinking the things that are natural to you are bad and need to be weeded out, things like emotion and sexuality, this seems absolutely tragic to me now. It seems like Christians are setting themselves up for failure and for a lifetime of feeling like they're not enough. And it seems like they miss the beauty of life as a human. It seems this way, because it's true. But for some reason, lots of Christians find satisfaction in this, because it gives them real concrete reasons to need a savior, and because it makes their God seem bigger. It's a shame that they don't realize there are plenty of reasons to need Jesus without resenting the way God made you.

You know what else is funny about Christians? Their compulsion to always want to live in a way that is biblical, to think things that are biblical. What does that even mean? My friend Beth always says that there's no such thing as biblical; it's all about the way you read the Bible. It's also about which parts of the Bible you read. If you read the whole thing, and let it say what it says and not what you want it to say, there's no way you can pretend there's a single unified body of ideas that are biblical. But as you were reading, you would be so overcome by the beauty of the differences represented that you wouldn't even care anymore. (Or, you may be so disturbed by some of the sick nonsense that you find in there, you begin to wonder why you would even want to associate yourself with this book in the first place, but that is another story for another day.)

And another thing. Brian McLaren talks about how the lovely thing about postmodernism is that it allows Jesus to mean many things, it allows the Bible to mean many things. We are so hasty to try and pin a single meaning on God and on the Bible, to say this is right and that is wrong. It means this, and absolutely not that. But often when we do that, it's just a way of making our experiences universal and discounting everyone else's. For instance, Jesus is only our Savior. That is all he can be, he is the one who pays God off for our sins, and if you don't see him primarily as savior, you probably aren't a Christian. But he is so much more than that! He is liberator, teacher, example, prophet, king, co-sufferer. Theology is not an absolute. It's a framework for thinking about God. It isn't true in itself; it only points to truth. So, we don't have to be limited to one theology. We can examine a whole host of them, even ones that may seem conflicting. And, we can all cultivate different ones and still be true.

And finally, why are Christians so trapped in fear? Christians will even talk about their fear as if it's this pious thing, say "I don't want to corrupt my mind with theological error" or something like that. Even if we listen to other people, it is only long enough to prove them wrong. We would never actually step into their way of thinking so that we can, even for a moment, see the way they see. Why are we so afraid to listen to people who think differently than we do? Don't you understand that any set of principles can be proven true if never exposed to dissenting voices? Anything. Two communities can hold to truths that are polar opposites, if they never talk. Whole generations of people just like you can and have been raised to think that killing other people is a good time, while others think it's grossly opposed to all that is right and good. Why, then, doesn't it bother you to only listen to people you already agree with? It is because you know that if you listened, you might see that you are wrong, just like everybody different than you. And that is frightening, I know. Faith is a fragile thing, but the surest way to keep it from growing is to never use it, never expose it challenge.

Sorry, this is dangerous and scatter-brained stuff that I'm writing, and maybe I shouldn't post it in public. All of the things I've just countered, total depravity, some vague notion of what is biblical, theological homogeneity, and fear, these are all things I used to love, I used to think were so right, so if you think they're so right, I would understand. But I would also ask you to open your eyes. Entertain, for just a moment, that the world might be bigger than American 20th century Christianity. Nearly all the things that you think are absolute were not absolute two hundred years ago. Let yourself feel the weight of that reality. And then, start listening.