An online friend of mine recently went on a spiritual pilgrimage, and journaled during his time away. He shared one of his written prayers with me, from during a church service he endured. I so deeply appreciate his openness to self-exploration and his desire for the church (the established, Western church in particular) to become more self-aware:
"Father, please help us not to stop at praying for the Christians who are persecuted! Please open our eyes and show us where we ourselves take part in oppressing structures. Please help us to see the world through your eyes and show us the people we should be in solidarity with in our own country. Help us to love Muslims, the marginalized, those who fell through our social structures and all the other people without a voice, with your perfect love that knows no boundaries. Please forgive us, that we traded your Kingdom for our own comfort. Please help us understand the reason that we are not persecuted."
We often keep the faith of our upbringing without any real reflection or exploration to determine if this truth is true for us. There must be room in the church for evolution of belief.
I’m excited to be participating in another Synchroblog with a bunch of brilliant bloggers! This Synchroblog starts:
Marginalization results in an individual’s exclusion from meaningful participation in society and it’s source is many. Economic circumstances, illness, disability, geographical location, gender, sexuality, race, religion are all dominant sources of individuals being marginalized. Sometimes it’s easy to see holidays or certain systems from a position of power or privilege. As God’s people, what does it mean to see the world through the eyes of the marginalized? * What is it like to be one of the marginalized? * How can we be part of bridging some of these gaps?
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In my senior year of high school, I remember getting into anargument with my mother: “No Mom, racism doesn’t really exist today – not inany meaningful way. I don’t know ANYONE who’s racist. It’s just an excuse to complain. Oprah iswrong…”
It’s unbelievable to me, remembering the attitudes I held not-so-long-ago.
I recently took a little criticism for being overly negative on this blog. I accepted it. I even agreed with it and have tried to spend more time focusing on things I’m FOR, rather than things I’m AGAINST. I don’t want to be liberal the same way I was conservative. Back then, I was angry, self-defensive, complaining – I had a real chip on my shoulder… I didn’t like the way white males were being “demonized” and the way American Christians were being “oppressed.” Good thing there was no Glenn Beck when I was in high school.
While trying to be positive is a noble endeavor, I won’t apologize for advocating for people I love! I won’t apologize for decrying racism and sexism and homophobia and elitism and downright meanness – especially when it’s coming from white Evangelicals like me.
I was recently in a group discussing a wretched biblical story in Judges 11, where a man named Jephthah promises God:“If you give the Ammonites into my hands,whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the LORD’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.” So who do you think tends to come out of the doors of a man’s house in Ancient Israel after a battle? The women: daughters and wives. So Jephthah’s only daughter comes out of the house after the battle, celebrating her father. Jephthah mourns and laments the promise he made to God, but he ultimately keeps that promise and burns her to death: “a burnt offering” to the Lord.
Someone in the group suggested that we needed to look past the murder of the daughter, and remember how deeply Jephthah agonized over the horrible choice. ”It was about his obedience.”
Someone else said we were overlooking the narrative that God took a nobody like Jephthah and made him into a great warrior. That was the point.
The problem is, while both of these excuses understandably attempt to downplay the awful violence of the story, they simultaneously take an already marginalized female character and marginalize her even more! Not only is she burned to death, but she’s also not a very important part of the story…
This is the effect in Scripture and in real life, any time we say, “God has a bigger plan…” and “let’s try to see beyond the immediate pain of the situation” in the face of the suffering and the wounded. We marginalize the marginalized when we cautiously, delicately, judiciously, politely look the other way and move on…
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I don’t know what it’s like to be one of the marginalized. I’ve been picked on and threatened for looking like a “fag,” but it wasn’t actually painful, just frustrating. Six years ago I accidentally went on a gay date (I swear I didn’t know!) but my response wasn’t to see through his eyes – my response was fear, paranoia and… you guessed it: marginalization of him. I’ve come a long way since then, but I’ve got a long way to go.
Here are some other participants in this Synchroblog, trying to work through these tough questions…
I really like the Tao Te Ching. One of my online friends here calls it his “favorite book of the Bible.” I first got turned onto it through Thomas Merton’s interpretation, and later read the enjoyable Tao of Pooh which was cute and sort of nostalgic, but also surprisingly insightful.
Embracing the Way, you become embraced;
Breathing gently, you become newborn;
Clearing your mind, you become clear;
Nurturing your children, you become impartial;
Opening your heart, you become accepted;
Accepting the world, you embrace the Way.
Bearing and nurturing,
Creating but not owning,
Giving without demanding,
This is harmony.
I highly recommend TaoTeChing.org for an easy, readible way to explore the verses. And if anyone happens to be counting, this is my fourth positive post in-a-row about things I like and things I am for. My ratios are starting to realign…
Six years ago I had my Myers Briggs personality type assessed, and my wife is taking a class on Myers Briggs now. I am an ENFP (Extraversion, Intuition, Feeling, Perceiving).
Some particulars of ENFP’s at their BEST:
Responding appreciatively to different viewpoints.
Striving for diversity and fostering cooperation and fun.
Providing creativity and warmth.
Democratically soliciting everyone’s opinions and negotiating differences.
Acting as a spokesperson for new ideas that relate to people.
Joyfully embracing the novel and untried.
Supplying energy to initiate a new course of action.
Seeing the need to include people in the decision-making process.
Injecting fun and spontaneity.
And at their WORST, ENFP’s:
Talk too much or randomly interject ideas.
Persuade others to follow a plan without a thorough investigation of facts and specifics.
Are too flighty, flitting from cause to cause.
Expect others to be comfortable with a free-flowing, open-ended approach.
Promise more than is reasonable or possible.
Encourage change for change’s sake.
Lose track of the details in their enthusiasm for the big picture.
Are overly optimistic.
Well, I may be some of the first set, but I know I’m guilty of all of the second set. It’s important to be self aware. At least as much as possible (an ongoing venture). Do you know who you are? What your tendencies are? Your cycles and patterns?
After my recent contribution to the latest e-issue of The Porpoise Diving Life (an article called “Family Questions: Will Evangelicals Still Love Me?”) Cheryl Ensom Dack, the current editor of PDL, asked me to do an online web interview about the article. Cheryl, again, thanks so much for the great conversation!
I mention some thoughts on hell in this video, and it’s timely, because I had a recent reader e-mail me about my thoughts on hell. In a few days, I’ll share that exchange with you.
My experience with God is… sketchy. I read “the book” :) I have heard countless people say they know things/have experienced things with God. But it’s been hard to believe that a real God who is all that others say he is would only reveal himself personally to some and not to others. That in many ways contradicts the nature that those who say they’ve experienced God say they’ve experienced! I don’t KNOW God. Can I have faith in him? Not really. I can’t have faith in something I’ve not directly experienced. I can think MAYBE it’s true, real, etc. I can even think it probably is, but until I have a direct experience that persuades me personally that there is a God, I can’t KNOW if it’s so or not. I can choose to trust you or someone else who says you have experienced God, but truly that means I am having faith in YOU, not God. I’m having faith in the inerrancy of the Gospels. I’m having faith in the accuracy of the disciples’ accounts. I am not having faith in God. To have faith in God would require that I had had a PERSONAL EXPERIENCE of God that engendered trust. On the contrary, my experiences have been that I have tried to have a personal experience in every way I could possibly come up with, including just plain sobbing/begging for years, and the fact is, it didn’t happen. So my personal experience is actually one that adds up to God probably not being real, at least not in the “Christian” sense. I have personal experience with there being a spiritual dimension to life. I’ve seen, heard, touched, felt that. But a personal God? Not so much. I guess I’m saying that I had faith in OTHERS for a few decades, and now I’m not going to do that anymore. When it comes to God/beliefs that form my decisions, perspective, etc… I will not allow my beliefs to be built on faith in others’ experiences any longer. I can’t tell my children, “Well, we brought you up, telling you thus-and-so was true because so-and-so told us that thus-and-so was true.” That’s no explanation! I must know something to say I believe in it and that requires a personal experience with it. … So here’s another question: Carl Jung and lots of people I’ve been reading who practice Jungian psychology talk about a “knowing”/intuitiveness/wildness” that is in all of us. They even talk about a collective consciousness… almost as though each of our individual “knowing places” are the nerves that end up connecting to a common brain or something… Jung believed that’s why we see common “archetypal” themes showing up in our dreams; the fairy tales, the folklore and the dramas in our individual lives. So how does that strike you? When I’ve asked my children if they have a “knowing place” they, without pause or reflection, immediately say, “yes, of course.” They are quite familiar with it. I asked a roomful of kindergartners I was subbing for this last Spring and they all said the same. I asked them where that knowing place was and about 98% of them pointed to their chests. A couple pointed to their tummies! I’ve had some experience of this “knowing place.” I know it’s real… Wondering what you think about it.
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Really great questions, Cheryl. I’m particularly drawn to your comments about taking the word/testimonies of others’ experiences as fodder for one’s own faith. Too regularly, domestic faith relies on the “promises” of others to validate and prove itself.
A few days ago I posted on the concept of belief and theology as choice:
There are countless positions on the conservative-liberal spectrum; dozens of legitimate theological traditions, all with impressive scholarly work behind them; which do you choose? Few Christians study all of the options available; few experiment with more than a couple of denominations – few very disparate from one another, much less culturally unique. 99% of the time our church or denominational affiliation (and therefore our personal theology) comes down to one of these two identifiers:
( A ) I was raised in this denomination (or a similar one)
( B ) I like the people/pastor/worship style/vibe here
And yet so many Christians are willing to wage war over the rightness of their theology, when theology typically has NOTHING to do with why an American Christian chooses a church. You can tell me: “for the Bible tells me so” but let’s be real. You probably came from (A) or (B).
The post instigated some really interesting dialogue (in my opinion) that I’m still processing – turning over in my head. I have highlighted some of the key statements (and a little bit more) from various comments, and wanted to see if it would fuel any further discussion. I hope my hack-and-slash approach (below) doesn’t cause any of the commenters too much grief. Any other thoughts?
asthedeer.com said… [I hold my particular theology] because it is the best explanation I’ve found for things and more reasonable and more compelling than the alternatives.
Personally, I do not align myself any longer with a church of any sort, nor do I adhere to a specific doctrine. Theology is out the window… All of [the] denominations [I have attended] say that one must have a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ”/i.e. accept salvation through Jesus so I didn’t do a lot of belief-swapping when I moved from church to church… Is it even possible to have authentic belief/faith in something that you *have* to believe in order to avoid hell/eternal conscious torment? Does that fear of hell automatically make authentic belief impossible?
…Often this affiliation is accompanied by a conversion experience or a deep insight that certainly feels very real… Because this experience emerges in or is constructed by a particular cultural milieu, that milieu itself is then fraught with epistemological weight. It becomes part of our identity, and it does not let go easily. We don’t feel like we’re choosing. In many cases we feel like we’re responding to something outside of us. The attendant belief seems like it goes all the way down, and the idea that we could choose something different undermines our need for that belief to be genuine… We have to recognize that beliefs we hold now which seem to go all the way down could be just as arbitrary, just as constructed, just as much of a choice whether we’re aware of making a choice or not…
Ira, I think you’re really right – especially about my post under-appreciating the weight of the conversion experience. I think I need to add that as a very important (C) - and probably the most “troublesome” of all… I don’t have any problem acknowledging that the choices I (we) make are arbitrary. The key differentiator is self-awareness and intellectual honesty…
Stanley Hauerwas has written that “the project of modernity was to produce people who believe they should have no story except the story they choose when they have no story. Such a story is called the story of freedom and is assumed to be irreversibly institutionalized economically as market capitalism and politically as democracy.” …It’s easy for us to think that we actually make free rational choices when in fact even the notion of “freedom of choice” is in some ways a story that was given to us. Choice is hardly arbitrary but is deeply informed by the communities and stories that form us (for good or ill)… Regarding the church/denominational affiliation, my reasons are a bit different that the two reasons you list. I was baptized Episcopalian, raised in fundy/charismatic churches, and went to a Catholic university. I joined the Evangelical Covenant Church as an adult after attending a local Covenant church. I did indeed “like the people/pastor/worship style vibe” there, but that is not what keeps me in the denomination now. It’s the relationships I have with the many different people I’ve met in my 10+ years as a Covenanter…
… Not not everyone holds beliefs with the level of self-consciousness your question assumes. Good, solid, genuine belief, it seems to me, feels like having your eyes opened to the truth; it doesn’t feel like a choice. The problem comes when you’ve had a few of those, and they’re mutually exclusive in content, and you begin do doubt the experience of belief itself… But for people who haven’t faced that, or people who can continue to think their latest epiphany is true no matter what it means for their conviction that the last epiphany was true, the idea that belief is a choice can be baffling, which is why I invoked the idea of beliefs being chosen for us. This, I think, is what Gavin is insightfully getting at: the idea that belief is a choice is part of a belief that has been chosen for us…
Marnie said…
… I finally realized that the whole hell thing felt like having a boyfriend who told me that he loved me and that he wanted me to love him and that if I didn’t love him that he would lock me in a room in my house and burn me alive… it really doesn’t leave much room for love, you know… I think I can only really love God if that isn’t the situation. It isn’t about me picking an choosing what things sound fun, but about the facts about love…
My argument is that choice, for better and for worse, is reality. We all do it… What I’m really trying to advocate for is exactly what the problem seems to inherently be with my argument in the first place: people are not aware of the choices they have made. They see them as inevitabilities – often inevitabilities resulting from Absolute Truth… It’s interesting that you see “choice” as a choice chosen for us. Because I see theological choice as profoundly counter-cultural, in the midst of a mindset that sees “right belief” as an inevitability of ones conversion or church-of-origin
… [Gavin's] comment speaks to the contingency of our own belief, including (or especially) our beliefs about belief… You want people to recognize the choices inherent in their theological constructions, the arbitrariness of the theological particulars they seem ready to die for. I think this is especially key for those in a place where they’re experiencing some serious cognitive dissonance. To the person who says “I love gay people, and I want to be able to support same-sex marriage but I just can’t, because the Bible says…” and so forth, I’m always tempted to say that if they really want to be able to support it, there are ways to get there. But this breaks the rules. It’s asking them to step outside their own language game and adjust it consciously, and this probably seems cynical to them. We’re left trying to either get them to see they’ve always already been making choices, as you are doing, or helping them get there within the rules of the existing language game, as others are doing. Both are difficult. …All belief is contingent, which covers choice but also those choices made for us. And I mean this of all belief, including my belief that belief is contingent.
I’m back. And I think being saved doesn’t require God’s people to choose the theology – although I wish they’d think through what they say… The better question is why do we refuse to listen and change by someone else’s opinion? Instead of grappling with points of view, men hold their own to the death…
Ira… Your point on cognitive dissonance is well-taken. If that dissonance hasn’t yet occurred there’s little point in talking about choice… You said: “against the idea that belief is inevitability, you’re putting up the antithesis that belief is a choice. I’m negating that, not to get back to the affirmation of belief as inevitability, but to point out that belief-as-choice is also a choice, and one that might not have been made consciously.” … Ira, yes, choosing to believe belief is a choice is a choice... So I guess I’m choosing to believe I have the power to choose. And I’m choosing to believe that you have that power too. And that whether you know it or not, or make use of it or not, that power remains. And my central argument (at the risk of sounding ridiculously redundant) is that IF people can be invited to step outside of their immediate vantage and see the commonalities between their own faith experience (upbringing, conversion, membership, community) and those of others, they may be naturally more inclined to value the positions of others, and less inhibited to explore and adopt those positions that seem more… authentic? Consistent? Organic to their own gut-level values.
Your basic argument, as stated, is something I agree with. I would just nuance it in two directions: 1) Beliefs you recognize as choice are not recognized as such for people who feel them as deep beliefs. They might get there, and your questions about cultivating cognitive dissonance are apt… 2) That belief is a choice is a deep belief of yours… that you don’t recognize as choice. You’re smart enough to concede it intellectually, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t feel like a choice… Isn’t your belief in God a choice — which is to say, something contingent? If we lack free will, it might be because God is in control, or it might be because the result of materialistic determinism. Or perhaps free will is genuine, but even here we have many, many choices that could be made. Do your choices touch bottom in a way that mine don’t, or that Gavin’s don’t, or that Cheryl’s don’t? At any rate, I’m trying to get you to grasp — not just intellectually, but in to really feel it — how slippery all of our constructs of belief and knowledge really are. If I can get you to see that others might not be prepared to accept belief as choice, I might be able to get you to see that there are things you are likewise not prepared for, or at least haven’t been previously… I think I’m starting to sound overly pedantic. I don’t really mean that. Let’s put it this way: the line of thinking that belief-as-choice puts you on goes some interesting places, and I think you’ll enjoy them…
Ira, it’s been helpful to have you push me to refine this language and thinking in terms of choice… You said, “If I can get you to see that others might not be prepared to accept belief as choice, I might be able to get you to see that there are things you are likewise not prepared for, or at least haven’t been previously.” My recognition that many aren’t prepared to accept this belief is why I’m so interested in flushing out what – exactly – it means in the first place. And whether or not it’s an area worth exploring for that very reason. Are there ways to help others become more self-aware? …
…If you follow the belief-as-choice line, and accept the idea that some of those beliefs are chosen for us, and you really internalize that, then you have to face the possibility that any or all of our beliefs are similarly contingent, or constructed, and even if we assume (or insist) that some of them aren’t, there’s no calculus by which we can arrive at which ones. This applies even (or especially) to the beliefs we hold most dear.
…In regards to how we choose what we believe, of course our background plays a huge part in that. But if we limit ourselves to that, we are totally ignorant and basically robots. At the same time if we are just constantly exploring our options, we can never really move forward. At some point, we have to determine what we believe. Being a part of a denomination is about affirming beliefs that resonate with a majority, but that definitely doesn’t mean everyone agrees on everything. And that is okay.
Ira, I believe that on some level ALL of our beliefs are contingent. I’m not afraid of saying that, and simultaneously choosing to affirm those beliefs that seem most constructive, good, helpful, transcendent, etc… I don’t believe any of them aren’t. Which is the whole point about choices. No non-negotiables. Only faithful choices. And my belief that my choices are faithful is, itself, a choice. I agree: no objective calculus. If “certainty is the opposite of faith,” then it’s faith through which I choose to move forward as a spiritual/religious being. As Kelly said (below) “if we are just constantly exploring our options, we can never really move forward. At some point, we have to determine what we believe.” I think there’s a way to determine or choose what one is going to believe, but remain open-handed, so that if no experiences, studies or evidence leads us to change/evolve, we’re open to that. In that way, in response to Kelly, I think it can be both/and: we can believe and move forward without building walls around those beliefs. We will always change.
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I know, I hacked all that up a bit. As I’ve said, I’m really enjoying reading and re-reading the comments here. Let me know what you think about the idea of BELIEF-AS-DELIBERATE-CHOICE…
I’ve been talking with a friend, Cheryl, online about how we choose our beliefs. It’s really becoming an overarching theme for me: there are literally thousands of Christian sects and denominations in the world. There are countless positions on the conservative-liberal spectrum. There are dozens of legitimate theological traditions and approaches, all with impressive scholarly work behind them.
Ultimately, which do you choose? Few Christians study all of the options available (probably a lifetime of reading, in itself). Few experiment with more than a couple of denominations – few very disparate (American Baptist or Southern Baptist? Foursquare or Assemblies of God?) much less culturally unique.
99% of the time our church or denominational affiliation (and therefore our personal theology) comes down to one of these two identifiers:
( A ) I was raised in this denomination (or a similar one)
( B ) I like the people/pastor/worship style/vibe here
And yet so many Christians are willing to wage war over the rightness of their theology, when theology typically has NOTHING to do with why an American Christian chooses a church.
You can tell me: “for the Bible tells me so” but let’s be real. You probably came from (A) or (B).
So I’d like to talk about theological choice: why do you believe what you believe? And if we can come back to those reasons for attending a church: why can’t you choose to believe something different if it sounds better? The typical comeback is, “that’s buffet-style Christianity, and I won’t pick and choose…” but – again- we’ve already established the random way in which theology is chosen (as an after-the-fact of what church is chosen).
Really want to hang your hat on that?
How about your lifestyle?
Your friendships?
The salvation of the cosmos?
You made a choice about your theology. So did I. All I want is for us to think a little bit about the reasons for our choices, and if the stakes are worth the outcome of our choices… and if they’re not, I want us to be brave enough to change our minds.
I’m an M.Div student at George Fox Seminary, and a contributing writer in Spencer Burke’s Out of theOOZE (NavPress), Leonard Sweet’s Church of the Perfect Storm (Abingdon Press) and Christian Piatt’s Banned Questions About Jesus (Chalice Press).
I’m a liberal, an egalitarian, a deconstructionist, an Outlaw Preacher, and a loudmouth. I want to be your friend...
I really like the Tao Te Ching. One of my online friends here calls it his “favorite book of the Bible.” I first got turned onto it through Thomas Merton’s interpretation, and later read the enjoyable Tao of Pooh which was cute and sort of nostalgic, but also surprisingly insightful.
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