New Blog

Here's a link to my new blog. I will be posting on this new blog page between now and January 12, as it is then that I will be returning to classes and may not have much free time to write outside of academics for a while. The first fourteen entries are segments from a paper I wrote (entitled "Religion: Missing the Point") last semester for a Lit class. The entries thereafter will come from some of my thoughts over the past semester. Enjoy!

http://critiqueofchristianity.blogspot.com/

And apologies for never having finished the mini-series on postmodern Christianity. Simply because of timing I was unable to publish the remaining segments.

Delay

Sorry for the delay. I recently moved into college, and have been busy the last couple of days, therefore getting in the way of posting the last three of my eight-part series on postmodern Christianity. I will be trying to post them within the next couple of days.

Postmodern Christianity - Stop Avoiding the Question - Part 5 of 8

Postmodern Christians do not like to think in absolutes. They think that by giving a precise answer, you are pinning down God into a nice little box which you are the master of. They are very humble about admitting that they do not know everything. They say that they are merely “furthering the conversation”. At one level this is a good thing: being humble enough to admit that you don’t have it all together and that you do not understand everything. That kind of humility is admirable. But when someone is a leader, whether they like it or not, there needs to be some form of answers for them to give. A pastor is of no worth if he has no answers.

When I was going through what I have labeled as Act III of the past few years, I had a lot of questions going through my mind. The troubles that I had with the church I was going to at the time, only manifested my questions about religion; questions that far exceeded my understanding. Around this time, there was a guy I knew that told me one day that “the search for God does not lead to better answers; it leads to better questions.” With my non-stop questioning-nature, this quote gave me hope that what I was going through was a good thing.

Postmodern Christians have done a good job at avoiding responsibility for what they say and do. And now they are avoiding responsibility in helping those around them. Don’t get me wrong: I understand that they are all about helping the poor, needy and such. But what about the new or growing Christians? Is it really the best idea for older/wiser people to be publically broadcasting their spiritual journey? A spiritual journey that is surrounded by questions and very little answers? Or even worse, a spiritual journey that is surrounded by answers, none of which come from the most pure source about who and what God is. Those that are given more have more expected from them...pastors, authors, bloggers. All people that have been given a voice to use, and the first thing that postmodern Christians do when they are confronted with a question is not to aid the person with Biblical answers, but with either more questions or economically/socially-appropriate answers.

People need to have Biblical answers. Not answers that they could find out of any number of “Christian Living” books, but answers from the Word of God. Don’t give the “let’s ask better questions” answer. I can appreciate the Socratic Method, but for the here and now if I need answers and all you have is a brush-off answer, then what good are you? I understand the idea of “there is a time for questioning and a time for answering, etc.” but if your lifestyle is to ask continual questions and hope that answers will magically appear, then you’re dead wrong.

Postmodern Christianity - Running Away From Responsibility - Part 4 of 8

Postmodern Christians, although commendable for attempting to contextualize a two-thousand year old Bible into a more appropriate present-day model, have found an easy way to relieve themselves of any responsibility for their actions and influence.

Something that bothers me about postmodern Christianity is their lack of confidence in anything they say. Brian McLaren, for example, has a tendency to write all sorts of disclaimers in his books before ever revealing his own opinion, going as far as to completely discredit what he has to say. In an interview that he gave, McLaren stated that he is “no doubt wrong on many things,” that he is “very likely wrong in my personal opinions on homosexuality.” Why would someone completely deny what he has to say? “In the postmodern world of spiritual journey, authenticity and sincerity have become the currency of authority, and dysfunction, inconsistency, and idiosyncrasy are worn as badges of honor (Kevin Deyoung in Why We’re Not Emergent).” I understand that honesty is a virtue to strive for, but when people use honesty about one thing to supersede another of their viewpoints that happens to be atypical, then the honesty quickly becomes manipulation.

So we have a group of people that converse what they are thinking (“furthing the conversation”), preempt any criticism from being effective by admitting their imperfections early on, and then go the next mile by denying the fact that they are in fact leaders. “Emergent authors, bloggers, and pastors do not see themselves as leaders or authoritative theologians, but as talkers.” When someone disagrees with their philosophy on something, they brush it off by saying “we’re not theologically trained, therefore we shouldn’t be held responsible for what we say.”

“It’s one thing for a high school student to be in process with his theology. It’s another thing for adults to write books and speak around the world about their musings and misgivings. I agree there must be space for Christians to ask hard questions and explore the tensions of our faith, but I seriously question that this space should be hugely public where hundreds of thousands of men and women are eagerly awaiting the next book or blog or podcast arising from your faith journey. No matter what label you put on it, once you start selling thousands of books, speaking all over the country and world, and being looked to for spiritual and ecclesiastical direction, you’re no longer just a conversation partner. You are a leader and a teacher (Kevin Deyoung).”

Another attribute of postmodern Christians is that they see themselves more like travelers than tour guides. “As a traveler, I’m free to love and be loved. I’m not worried about taking a wrong step or losing my position. I’m just one more person on the journey – a beloved child of God.” The negative mindset that comes out of this one is with the statement that they are “not worried about taking a wrong step or losing my position” because it’s simply part of “the journey”. I like the idea that life is a journey, but to be apathetic to taking a wrong step or losing position can become a very slippery slope. If the emphasis is less on going in the right direction, then who’s to say that morals or beliefs have any basis on whether or not you’re doing the right thing. Apathy towards direction and the road leads to what postmodern Christians have vocalized hating: doing the “religious” thing on Sunday mornings at church and the rest of the time do whatever you want to.

Postmodern Christianity - Postmodernity, and My Experience With It - Part 3 of 8

As Kevin Deyoung puts it, trying to define and explain what all is included under the umbrella of postmodern/emergent Christianity is like nailing Jell-O to a wall; no matter how hard you try to keep everything together, somewhere or another you’re going to lose something. But here is my analysis of what it is: postmodern (also known as emergent) Christianity is an underground movement of sorts that is very intentional about not putting anyone in the role of leadership. They are intentional about not having spokespeople for someone to ask what specifically they believe, always saying “we’re not experts, just furthering the conversation.” Even Brian McLaren, who coined the phrases “postmodern” and “emergent”, denies being a spokesperson for the group. The people who have been associated with the movement are a group of authors, pastors and bloggers who write about some of the same issues, but because of the lack of uniformity, do not all consider themselves as “emergent” or “postmodern”. The people within this movement look at what they do as having less to do with doctrinal theology and more about furthering the “discussion” or “conversation”. Their mission is to “further the discussion” about how to take Christianity into an ever-changing society. Although Brian McLaren is the unofficial spokesperson for the Emergent Community, other authors/preachers/bloggers who have delved into some of the same themes have been unofficially put into the postmodern Christianity label. Such authors/preachers/bloggers include Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt, Brian McLaren, Mark Driscoll, Donald Miller, Rob Bell, Erwin McManus, Spencer Burke, Dan Kimball, Andrew Jones, Chris Seay, Peter Rollins, David Tomlinson, Leonard Sweet, Stanley Hauerwas, Henri Nouwen, N.T. Wright, Stan Grenz, Dallas Willard, Brennan Manning, Jim Wallis, Fredrick Buechner, David Bosch, John Howard Yoder, Wendell Berry, Nancy Murphy, John Franke, Walter Winks and Lesslie Newbigin. But again, because of the lack of uniformity, some or all of these authors may not see themselves as being involved with any of the others.

Now if the so-called “leaders” of postmodern Christianity won’t even stand up to the role, then it is fairly easy to see that figuring out what exactly it means to be “postmodern” or “emergent” will be even more difficult. Here are a few things that either apply to myself or things that I’ve seen come up through the reading that I’ve done: postmoderns long to be the church without having to go to church; they long to live in a community that is more relational, tribal and primal; they believe that doctrines (and denominations) get in the way of having a truly interactive relationship with God; they do not believe (or simply refrain from thinking in these terms) in a sacred-secular divide; they believe that no one goes to hell and chances are it doesn’t even exist; they believe that truth is so pure that humans are incapable of describing it or comprehending it (thus making it unattainable); they believe that to show your love for God it is more about doing the right things than believing the right things; they see life as being one great adventure, not to be held back by any rules or regulations; they believe that there should be less doctrine and more living.

Leonard Sweet describes the postmodern Way as being more of an “experience” that cannot be defined. “The journey is more wandering than directional, more action than belief, more ambiguous than defined. To explain the journey would be to cheapen it. The Christian faith is not a math problem to be solved.” Postmodernists are travelers and adventurists, not tour guides. Spencer Burke has used the same analogy: “Tour guides don’t feel free to deviate from the ‘route’ other Christians have set. Becoming a traveler however enables you to be true to yourself. As a traveler, I am free to love and be loved. I’m not worried about taking a wrong step or losing my position. I’m just one more person on the journey – a beloved child of God.”

Postmodern Christianity - Summer - Part 2 of 8

Seventy-one…that’s how many days my summer was. And not until seven days prior to leaving for college do I find any means to spiritual progress prior to heading off for college. I work at a Christian bookstore (kind of an accident that I even have that job) on the weekends, and this past weekend I came across a book that the title immediately grabbed my attention: “Why we’re Not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should Be”. The majority of that “spiritual maturing” during Act II and the preceding juggling act of Act III came in the form of reading mounds of books as well as deep discussion; reading books from authors like Rob Bell (Velvet Elvis and Sex God), Brian McLaren (A New Kind of Christian, The Story We Find Ourselves In, The Final Word and the Word After That, and A Generous Orthodoxy), Donald Miller (Blue Like Jazz and To Own A Dragon), Erwin McManus (Uprising and The Barbarian Way), and Shane Claiborne (An Irresistible Revolution). Although I did not know it to the extent that I do now, all of these authors/books have a recurring theme: postmodern/emergent Christianity. It’s not until I started reading “Why We’re Not Emergent” that I realize how postmodern those books were and how postmodern I had become through reading/studying them. My “Sin as long as it’s amongst believers” blog entry was a precursor to my current discussion of postmodern Christianity without me even realizing it.

Postmodern Christianity - Intro - Part 1 of 8

It’s moments like these that I truly appreciate the timing of God. I’ve felt the overwhelming feeling that I’ve become spiritually stagnant this entire summer. I’ve been working forty-five to sixty hours a week for the entire summer with church only being what I do each Sunday between 11am-noon. I’ve had little to no contact with any people with whom I would normally bounce ideas off of, and although I started seriously reading my Bible for the first time in my life over the summer, each read was only ever something that influenced me for a couple of days and then it was back to the mundane workday that occupied my time seven-days a week. That’s why it is only appropriate that the week before I head off to college I discover a book that has been the complete wake-up call to everything that has manifested within me over the past year and a half. I look back over the past three years and can break down those three years into four distinct acts of the play that is my life. Act I ended three years ago when I had just left a church that my family had attended for two years. Act II is when I became acquainted with a Nazarene church which proved to be a blessing at the time. That lasted for two years. The amount of change my personality underwent as well as spiritual maturing probably was some of the most profound change I’ve ever had in my short life. Act II was abruptly cut short when I found out some significant information about the church, at the same as saying goodbye to two families that were the catalyst behind my transformation over those two years. Act III, then, started with a large amount of both anger and frustration with the situation that I was projected from by the previous events. Along with the frustration and hate that I accumulated was the constant juggling act I was doing with numerous theological principles, having been heavily affected by the legacy those two families bestowed upon me. And now Act IV is about to begin, not only because of the lifestyle change that college will bring with it, but also the unique spiritual journey that I feel will come out of the book I just purchased.

Why We're Not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should Be

The other day I saw a book entitled “Why We’re Not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should Be”. The title alone made me want to buy the book. The book is written by two guys, each speaking about postmodern Christianity and the emergent movement within the Christian community. I picked the book up, looked at the description on the back cover, and within about thirty seconds decided to buy it. It’s ironic because two days before I bought the book I had been thinking about this very subject. Needless to say, the book has been one of the most pertinent wake-up calls I’ve experienced in quite a while. The book has shaken me up to look at the whole mindset of post-modernity, how postmodern I am, and the extremes that it is being taken to. It was surprising to find out how postmodern I am in some regards, at the same time as so many aspects of the emergent movement that completely rub the wrong way. The title alone of this blog is incredibly postmodern; a title that I am now thinking of re-titling. But all this to say, I have been writing for the past five days on this subject, each day adding more and more to it, cutting parts of it out, while constantly revising others. So wait just a little bit longer and I should have a very interesting blog coming; something that is actually opposite of anything you’ve ever read of mine before.

Sin is sin, except amongst believers?

I find it interesting the excuses we use to justify our sinful actions. A popular one that I've heard within the Christian community is "Well…as long as you are in the presence of believers who know where you stand spiritually, then you're fine". Here's an example: Two Christians are talking about something that is wrong (i.e. an unfortunate event that has happened, such as the end of a friendship) and in one person's frustration he/she swears. Let's even say that person swears a lot during this conversation. I find myself excusing my sin to some unfortunate event which somehow "gives me permission" to get away with swearing (sinning)…something that is clearly not a good thing within Christian morality. I try my best to keep my frustration bundled up inside. Then, when I get to someone who I feel is safe to vent to, everything comes out…sometimes with an abundance of expletives. I acknowledge that I do this often, and that it is something I should probably not be doing as a Christian. But the salt in the wound is when I start dancing the line of excusing my sin. Aristotle says that "every rational activity aims at some end or good". We think of ourselves as least in some way as right/good…until we have some small doubt. No one wants to think of themselves as a bad person. So what do we do instead of admitting our fault? We have an explanation for each of our actions…painting them as "rational" or "okay". A passage many Christians inappropriate use to rationalize their sinful actions is the following:

"Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak. For if anyone with a weak conscience sees you who have this knowledge eating in an idol's temple, won't he be emboldened to eat what has been sacrificed to idols? So this weak brother, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. When you sin against your brother in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall." – 1^st Corinthians 8:9-13 (NIV)

Instead of focusing on not being a bad influence on the "weaker brother", many Christians take this passage as, "that means if someone understands/knows me and we share our faith in Christ, then my visible sin won't so negatively influence them, thus making it alright for me to do". Again, this is a very convenient excuse for our wrong actions. We make up some lame excuse for our actions, painting the picture that we are in "fine" moral standing with God, rather than acknowledging that we are going down a slippery slope of excusing our sins. This eventually makes us believe that sin is not that big of a deal.

I recently watched Ben Affleck's directorial debut movie Gone Baby Gone, starring his brother Casey. The movie's "bad" guys were people that I and others could easily identify as. The "bad" characters try to protect someone, and even go about it in a way most people would think was the best choice…but, in fact, it is wrong. Another false idea that we have is that IF we do evil, in order to accomplish good, that somehow it takes away the evil we did. It was probably the most realistic representation in a movie that I've seen of someone doing the right thing regardless of the unintended consequences. That's something I think we don't quite understand: the fact that doing the right thing is difficult and that it comes with attachments.

The next movie I'll reference is The Dark Knight. If you haven't seen this movie yet, I really don't feel bad for somewhat-ruining the ending, seeing how EVERYONE should have at least seen it once already. But at the end of The Dark Knight, Batman chooses to take the blame for something that he was innocent of doing. The movie ends with a powerful monologue about how he is "the hero we deserve…just not the hero we need right now". He will take the role of a dark knight "because he can take it". I try to make things as easy as possible, whenever possible. This sometimes means that I rationalize my actions regardless. In The Last Kiss, Zach Braff's character must stop what he's doing and put everything into getting something good back. His girlfriend's father tells him, "The way to win is to not give up". He then sits on her porch for days on end in order to win her back. Sometimes doing the right thing takes a lot of time and uncomfortable moments.

Regardless of what we may be able to rationalize in our mind about something not being "that big of a deal", sin is sin. Sometimes we just need to bite the bullet for our actions, despite how convenient it may be to continue to see ourselves as innocent of any wrong doing. I think we need to act the same way in front of believers as we do in front of non-believers. When faced with the fact that we are human and sin, we need to admit fault and change. Jesus did not call those who thought themselves to be righteous, but those who knew that they were sinners. That involves not cowering behind illegitimate excuses for what kind of person we are.

Agree or disagree? Let me know. Comment.

A Different Approach

"Every rational activity aims at some end or good." - from Aristotle's Ethics

In response to my last blog entry about questioning the intentions of my complaining/criticism, I found this quote to be somewhat helpful. I have been reading Aristotle recently. The section that I started reading with was about "goodness", and that each person is in fact aiming "at some end or good". This means that the only thing different between an honorable person in society to someone like a murderer, rapist, terrorist, or bank robber is how they go about attaining their own personal "good". Another variable that Aristotle talks about is that "good" is relative to each person and that those views of what "good" is are far and wide in definition. This last year I have very actively tried to separate myself from what I saw as being "bad" in the church. I saw the shift as being a good thing for me to do, but not until recently have I begun to look back at how things could've been handled differently. The easiest way for us to significantly distance ourselves from God without even knowing it is to never question how we are doing things and see if they are really what we should be doing as followers of Christ.

The conversation that I had with my sister along with the follow-up conversation I had with my father has brought me to realize that although I may have a noble goal in mind, I may in fact be going about it improperly. Maybe all the "good" that I thought I was doing was in fact all undone by the way I went about it. Criticism is a great way to lose respect for something, and if you go about criticizing the same thing for too long you lose all desire to associate yourself with that something. That's the process that I've at least partially been a part of these past few months. My father is always the one in our conversations to look for the good, regardless of how small it is. I have always rolled my eyes at this "positive" comment, usually with me being the "negative" one in our conversations. But I realize now that without him counterbalancing every negative thing I had to say, I would have slipped much farther away from the church than I am even now.

In order to get back to where I wanted to be in the first place, I'm going to have to do a little bit of changing. The church-building should not be my example of what God had planned. That road leads to inevitable frustration. But I need to realize that I cannot leave it, especially in light of the fact that I want to be a pastor...which will certainly have me in the church for quite a while. A quote that I've held onto for a while now says that, "the church is like Noah's ark...sometimes it stinks and smells like *cow manure* but if you get out you'll drown."

Regardless of how noble a goal is, if it is not constantly being assessed and modified, you will lose track of where you're going. The worst thing that you cacn do is lose track of where you're going, because if you wait long enough, you won't even know where you ended up.

How much truth is there in what I have said?

I just got from being at the beach for a week. During that time I had a conversation with my sister that started one night (or should I say morning) at 1am, and didn't finish off until around 3:30am. Some of the topics we discussed were religion, the church, pastors, Christianity, and the church-building (not to be confused with God's vision of the church). What I have classified as "discuss" came closer to "argue" in some situations. It was probably one of the first discussions, though, that I've had with her where we both stated our opinions and I realized that there wasn't a "right" opinion and a "wrong" opinion. But through this "discussion", I started to realize something. Something that I should think about more frequently, but either don't at all or disregard it fairly quickly after it enters my mind. The question of "Is what I say/think really right? Or are there some fallacies in it?" It's a question that even a cynic (like myself) needs to ask once in a while.

My upbringing has been fueled by incredibly high standards for the church as well as for pastors. I have an idea in my head of what both should be, but have in fact never seen expectations fully met. Some would say this is in itself a problem, but I do not agree with that statement very willingly. Along with these expectations, I have also seen more than my share of (trying to find a polite way of saying this) "bad" situations within the church. I have gradually become more and more turned-off to the whole church-building idea. Again, this statement alone brings up great controversy with even my close friends. To add salt to a wound something that drives me nuts is this "religious dialect" which I have more safely branded with the phrase "Christian jargon", due to the fact that me speaking of anything "religious" as being bad is beyond some people's comprehension.

Between two and three years ago I started thinking about the possibility of becoming a youth pastor when I get through with college. Since then the vision that I've painted in my head is a ministry focused more around "fixing the humanized Christianity" if you will, than what most pastors would say their vision is: "expanding the body of Christ" (ergo, creating "believers" out of "non-believers"). As I actually read my Bible now on a regular basis, I have been reading the Gospels for th epast two months. Intentionally or unintentionally I have picked up on verses to support my vision. Reading about Jesus calling out the "religious leaders" of the day is more in line what I have been doing recently. But just about anyone can find a few verses in the Bible to have it say whatever they want. I have seen verses both support and negate my argument, which has left me at somewhat of a stalemate on whether my philosophy on ministry is Biblically-based, or more just my own flavor of it.

Through this blog, through the reading I do, through the conversations I have, through the churches I have attended - all of these together - make up my very different philosophy on ministry and God's vision for his people. I have done a good amount of complaining and criticizing with what I have seen. But does all the complaining have a greater point? Am I somehow defining my vision of ministry by first weeding out everything it's not? When do I find what I am really looking for? Or am I criticizing for criticism sake? Has the complaining helped me or hindered me? Are my off-the-wall statements shared a hint of a very different ministry? Or do they point to an inevitable schism between me and Christianity? As extreme as that may seem, maybe it's exactly what it comes down to. If the Christianity that I have been shown is in fact God's vision for his people, then maybe I don't want to be a part of it.

I am heading off to college in a little over a month. I have looked at college as finally being the time where I become what I've been holding back for a while now. Will that be a good thing? Or will it be more of the same pissing off the Christians while never finding the pure essence of church? I know that this blog is just a way for me to vent, and that by complaining and criticizing I am merely figuring things out, but this isn't the way it should be. Let me clarify: there has to be something I'm missing or something I haven't reached yet that will somehow make my vision of ministry trymp all the crap I see.

I'm not exactly sure how to end this, so I'll kind of just leave it hanging. Let me know what you think. Am I doing something wrong? I know I'm in the minority with my views, but are there others that have the same ideas? Or am I simply putting impossible expectations for what I think God's people should be doing?

Deliberate Living

I've been reading Into the Wild recently. Near the end of the book there's a small excerpt that I came across the other day in what is one of Chris McCandless' last journal entries. Here's the passage:

"Deliberate Living: Conscious attention to the basics of life, and a constant attention to the immediate environment and its concerns. Example: a job, a task, a book; anything requiring efficient concentration. Circumstance has no value. It is how one relates to a situation that has value. All true meaning resides in the personal relationship to a phenomenon, what it means to you."

My father has always said that he never wants to hear us use the f-word. Now most people say, "well obviously," but my father is actually referring to the word "fair." "Life is not fair" he has always told us. Maybe it's because I am the baby in the family, or maybe it's simply human nature, but I have aquired a good sense of rationalizing any any and all of my failures. I can always find blame for what happens. It is a rare and quite profound thing, when I mentally cut myself off from making excuses. In those instances I am left speechless. Anything I would have said would simply be another excuse. Back in March I spoke about a similar instance where my father very directly got in my way of makingany excuses in the discussion we were having. As there is not much more time before I head off to college, I am thinking about who I am and what I want to become.

When I saw the movie Into the Wild when it first came out, it is not an overstatement in saying that i did not like it at all. I took the approach that the guy was a nut who set impossible goals and was just completely out of touch with society. But as I have read the book now, I have begun to sympathize with him. I have even begun to admire him to some degree. This guy actually formulated a plan in his mind and did it, regardless of what got in his way. As I am a fiend of both books and movies, I like to quote both frequently. In preparation to the next Batman movie, The Dark Knight, coming out in two weeks I watched Batman Begins today. There's a scene where Bruce Wayne comes out of a hotel after having recently swam in the "pool" with two of his lady friends, only to run into long-time friend Rachel Dawes. She says something to him that hit home with me. She said, "It's not who you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you." I've read a lot of books, including numerous philosophers and theologians. I've encountered many shaping experiences within the church as well as the Christian community. Apart from all the knowledge that I could possibly gain from these instances, if I do not take that knowledge and do something with it, it is worthless. In order to become great, you must take knowledge and put it into practice. Gandhi said, "Action expresses priorities." The emphasis is on the action that is taken.

I strive to become intelligent, maybe even wise. But if I go to the ends of the earth in seeking knowledge and do nothing with it to help others, than all of that searching has been worthless. As some religious people are nervous about philosophy as a field to investigate, I am not. With that said, though, I will say that philosophy only takes you so far. The fulfillment of knowledge comes when you take what you have learned and positively benefit those around you with it.

Greatness comes when you accept the fact that life is not fair, and yet you go forward nonetheless. I am amazing at making excuses for why things happen. "Circumstance has no value." If I want to succeed in becoming great, I must abandon all attempts to excuse what happens, and instead live with a vision in mind. To bring spirituality into this discussion, we must accept that God is in control. I have a great vision of what I can become and what I think God wants me to be. Things are going to get in my way, but I must have faith that God's vision for me can still break through all the crap falling around me. There's a scene in George Clooney's Michael Clayton when he talks to his son about not being brought down by the circumstances around him, and not wondering where it comes from. Crap happens. We must accept that fact before we can begin to fulfill who we were meant to become.

This Weeks Encounters

This past week has been kind of humorous with my encounters with some people. At the beginning of the week I was talking to two close friends about someone else who has just recently had his immediate future pretty drastically altered. I listened in the back seat of the car as my two friends talked about how this was a "turning point" for this guy to "come back to the Lord". Just by the way this conversation was going I was trying my hardest to bite my lip and not say anything. The thing is that I know the guy pretty well and know for a fact that this guy would not see his recent course of events as having anything to do with religion or a result of his "immoral" actions. I tried to tell my two friends this, but they quickly went even deeper into what I have classified as "Jesus talk" or "religious talk". Quite ironically this classification has gotten me into even more trouble recently through an argument I've had with another person. When I refer to "religious talk", I do not necessarily mean that they are hypocritical or even wrong in what they are saying. In fact everything they say is probably correct, but not necessarily relevant to the discussion, but in their eyes it is (if that makes sense). And to me it just sounds like a lot of Christian jargon. Comments like "well only the Lord knows what's on his heart". This is true, and may even be relevant to the discussion. But there also is a thing called realistic thinking in which (not saying that I'm a mind reader or anything) but I can pretty accurately say how this guy would have responded to some of the things my two friends had to say about him.

The next fun little event that I had this week was a discussion between two other friends and myself about the event that happened between James Dobson commenting on Barack Obama's religious views. If you missed the news clip, James Dobson (a well-known Christian leader) claimed that Obama is "deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own world view, his own confused theology". One of my friends hates Christianity and has the "there's teh Christian-right always sticking their foot in their mouth" attitude. The other friend is part of hte Christian-right who has the mentality to defend all Christian figureheads solely to "defend the faith" or something like it. My problem is that as much as I could agree with what the Christian-right person may have to say, I can also whole-heartedly agree with the person who hates religion. And the other person's ignorance of the facts of the facts that James Dobson may not be handling this situation in the most ideal light, only works against his argument.

The situations above are only a picking of a constant clashing of two different views that I encounter on a daily basis. Is the Christian who constantly says stupid things (and is ignorant of that fact) more reliable than the non-believer who is okay with the fact that he does not abide by a religious code? I know what the answer should be, but why? I need a better reason than, "well at least they're Christians", whatever that's defined as. I need a better reason. Actually it's usually not a different reason that I need, just a better explanation to the one I already have.

Ingrained Responses

As I am always questioning certain things, one of the big themes that I've had recently has been focused around how faith/religion will work in college. I just got back from orientation for college. Even in the short time that I was there, I was opened to the freedom that comes with the college scene. And with the new environment of college on the horizon I'm trying to bridge the gap between who I am now and where my faith is now, and where college will drop me into. I am in the last summer before going away to college and I've got nothing left. Friendships have been ended, and chuches have been left. What I'm left with is family and a temporary church. In the chasm between now and college I'm stuck with what to "do with my faith". The phrase sounds almost cliche to me, as if there should be a "how-to" for that. And that's what I've been thinking about recently: all of these phrases and responses that I have built up in my head that I have no reason to have, other than because that's what I've always been told.

Here's an example of one of the strings of thought that goes through my mind: "I don't feel like I'm doing anything with my faith right now. I feel like I'm just coasting. And that's a bad thing. Somewhere it says that the moment in which you think that you're fine is the exact moment where you are at your worst." So then my mind goes into problem-solution mode, in which I try to formulate some kind of answer to my dilemma. "So how do I grow in faith?" And this is where the ingrained responses come in. "Well, I can stop swearing." Or, "Maybe I should read my Bible more." And yes, those are good things to do. But they are not in themselves the easy button to "getting more spiritual." In fact there are no "easy buttons" to life. There is no easy button to spirituality or faith. But those solutions are the easy outs; they are stagnant solutions. They do not bring with them any real guilt for failing, or aspiration to do more. Their sole purpose is to sound good, and that's it. There is no depth to them. It's like those pastors that say, "Just have faith and it'll all be okay." Okay, yes, but it's not that easy. Again, there are no easy answers. That's why I find the whole bullet-point style sermons somewhat amusing. They try to confine a very broad, difficult question into three (if you're lucky, four or five) short statements.

I've had a severely fragmented church history which has led me to doubt large chunks of the whole institution that man has made of God's vision. But if there is one thing that I have learned, it is that those that think they have the correct answers tend not to, and those taht don't think they know anything tend to have more wisdom in their words than they believe. Each person has a set of opinions on certain things, but none of them are the exact right answer. They merely have the accumulation of their own thoughts on a specific topic. These beliefs are never the same two days in a row. That is why I am constantly questioning. As good as the idea that I have one day may be, the next day I will always have a different angle of how to approach it. I've spoken before of my trip to DCLA two summers ago. If there is one thing that I took from that trip, it is admitting my faults and weaknesses. I have overcome the fear of looking bad for what I say/admit. But at the same time, I am more than willing to admit how stupid I have been at times. When in doubt, look at the main title of my blog and that should give you my general idea of how sure I will be about the things I say today tomorrow.

Looking Back

I was at church today and as the band played "No One Like You" by David Crowder Band I was hit by a thousand different feelings. All of a sudden I was taken back to a conference that I went to two summers ago in Washington DC. I was back in front of ten thousand people singing their hearts out to the same song that I was listening to in a church of three hundred. I graduated high school this past week and have had a great time since the end of school. One of the gifts I was given was a scrapbook filled with letters from a couple dozen people that I've known over the years, from all the different states I've lived in. Some of these letters brought back great memories, and some even brought some hope for the future. But also, two of the letters brought me to realize how much has changed in only three years.

Three years ago I met two guys who have had a greater impact on me than any other two men. Through both of their mentoring I became passionate about my relationship with Christ. Prior to coming to these men I was an incredibly shy sophomore in high school. As anyone who know me now, I am not that person any more. Two short years. That's all the time I had with them. Two years filled with memories. From discussions about faith that lasted for hours or disc golf rounds that proved to be deep discussions about theology. DCLA came in the summer of 2006, and proved to be one of the most impactful events of my teenage years so far. The next April was when I found out that both of these men would be moving to Rowlett, Texas to plant a church. That same summer (2007) included another huge church event that was supposedly "the next DCLA". Two years I knew these men and what an impact they had on me. I went to Nazarene Youth Conference 2007 in expectations of another miracle. Either because of impossible expectations, or what I have labeled the reason, I was not mentally there. The shock of both men leaving and the growing anger towards the Christian church both worked together to forbid me from experiencing "another DCLA". The following year (this past year) had almost more impact on where I am today than the two years I had with both men. The church I had been going to with them went through some "interesting" trials which drove me away from the church and Christianity as a whole. This blog has been a haven for me in the past year to vent some of my thoughts, though thoroughly filtered and through many edits from numerous people. Thankfully I have learned some self-control in what I say in the past year.

Three years since I was that shy sophomore kid. As I listened to "No One Like You" my life of the past three years passed through my mind's eye. I saw the evolution of my life. I saw the passion for Christianity as well as the hatred of religion. I saw the admiration of pastors as well as the loathing of the self-righteousness I saw in those positions of power. I came to observe a new character trait in some of those in the church: intentionally oblivious. Some would say that I went from shy sophomore to passionate Christian. But I have since gone down another path: tearing down all the walls of thought. The foundation that I set up within the church through those two men has been torn to shreds in the last year. The walls that I had once found comfort and protection in, I now hate. Whether it was for the better that I did this, ask me in another year.

I'm going off to college in August. I am very excited. But at the same time as I took look back at the past three years, I also look forward to what the future holds. The past three year has been me destroying the walls previously put up with help of the church I had previously attended. I am going into college with no walls up. As terrifying as that may sound to some of you (as well as myself) I feel it something vital to have happened. I have seen too many people go into college who are solid "Christians" and all of a sudden they're drinking, doing drugs, having premarital sex, have a kid, or are prematurely and naively married. They've been sheltered their whole lives and have never really struggled with anything that they say they believe. As soon as they're given the freedom that comes with college they go nuts and do everything they weren't supposed to do in some rebellious attempt to prove that they don't need to be told what to do. I do not plan to do that. I plan to grow spiritually in college and go as far with it as I possibly can. But this "spiritual growth" is something entirely different than what I have experienced yet. I have a journey ahead of me that I must achieve in order to get to where I want to be. There are far fewer walls to tear down in college than there were a year ago. From here on I hope to be adding my own walls, and I'm sure there will be a few more torn down before it's all over. That's my journey ahead. It will be the most difficult thing I have done yet, but as I have seen in the past year, through pain there is growth. It's like when Paul says to be filled with joy when persecution finds you, for it shows that you are doing something right.

Wrecked

So today was a long day. I got my copy of Grand Theft Auto 4. I then had a round of tennis playoffs. As it was dreadfully bright out there, I left burnt and exhausted. Somehow me and my doubles partner got away with two wins, which we were both grateful for, but not too pleased with our performance. So after the match, I was on my way to pick up my father from the school, and on the way got into a car accident. I was driving along when a lady suddenly crossed the double line coming directly head-on in my lane. I swerved just enough to avoid a head-on collision, but she smashed my side mirror off. As my side window was open, the mirror flew through the window and into my passenger side seat. Glass shattered and coated my lap, the floor, my seat, the passenger side seat, the back seat, as well as everything in between. Somehow I came out of the event with only some minor cuts on my arm and face. The lady driving said that she had dropped her cigarette and was looking down for it when she decided to come into my lane.

What was later brought to my attention by my father was the fact that if I had had my arm out the window, I would mostly likely have either no arm or a severely broken one. Luckily, I keep my arms in the car when driving. It's pretty crazy when you think about how easily things could have been much worse. Thankfully, though, I am alive and intact. Close call.

Vague Concepts

I was writing today in my journal, and I realized that sometimes I get an idea in my head, but I cannot put it into words. I try to clarify by expanding on the idea, but a lot of the time, I just ramble about things that are relevant to the issue but not very effective in refining what I'm trying to say. This is one of the reasons why I can't write a blog on a regular basis. In my journal, I'll write whatever comes to mind. Usually there's a general lack of direction or structure to my thoughts, but eventually I try to tie off all the knots. When I write a blog, I try clear things up to the best of my ability at the time. But even then, sometimes I write things I don't mean or don't fully understand (as things have always been pointed out to me afterwards).

Thinking is always good, but there comes a step when one must explain what they believe. I've come into trouble with this, when I ramble too much and then come off sounding way too pessimistic. But sometimes I just think in ways that aren't structured properly. I ask eight straight questions before thinking about any form of answers. I answer questions and I'm already thinking about the next question before I even finish asking the first one. During a writing class I took last semester, I ended up turning in some of the best papers I've ever written before. But for most of those papers, when I received the assignment, I didn't know what I was going to write or how I was going to write it. I brainstorm ideas, make an outline, write sentences, and then try to connect the dots. But even beyond this, when I connect the dots, I make rigorous revisions before I'm done. This is also how I blog. This entry may be fairly straightforward without too much thought being put into it, but when it's something I'm passionate about and struggling with, it takes me more time to figure out what I'm trying to say.

I've been trying to write about humility for a while now. Maybe it's because I lack it myself, but I cannot put into words what I'm trying to say. I don't even think that I know what to say yet. I don't know where to begin. I don't know what the point is or what the answer is. Without those two criteria, I keep to myself and refuse to present my ideas.

Insufficient Community: Unfortunate Situation or Reason for Inactivity?

As I look back over some of the journal entries and blog entries that I have written, I can see a non-stop evolution of thought. For a while, I believed that the only answer was to say "screw the church." But over time that has been shot down.

My father has stamped in me a few atypical views on numerous things (Christian leadership, fellowship, friendship, salvation, the role of the church and Church, etc.) that are usually the cause for my friction among people within the Christian community. This produces an incredibly limited community within the church for me.

This limited community has greatly fueled my pessimism, and has caused me to rationalize that I was better off without the church at all. Needless to say, the outcome was less than satisfactory. I thought that if I could not receive the help I needed from within the church, then I would be able to discover it on my own. I told myself that I could do it alone. But now I have come back to reality in realizing that I cannot do it solo, and that I need a positive community to keep me in check with what I should be doing.

This realization, though, has not brought me springing back to the church. I have gone on an excursion away from the church that has brought me back with a much more refined sensitivity towards the church. I have come back with a calmer response towards the downfalls of the church, but still refuse to concede the fact that "this is just the way things are, and there is nothing we can do to change it".

My lack of outward community has made me search for more of an inward community: something that goes more along the lines of a close relationship between myself and the creator of the universe. But apathy, laziness, and the ability to rationalize false cognitions are all things that I have manifested recently, and are all things that are getting in the way of that inward community I am striving for.

So for now, I am back in the church. During the conversation that I had about inward and outward communities, I realized that I lack both. The most difficult change that anyone can make is the one that involves changing who they are at the moment in order to become who they want to be tomorrow. Donald Miller says, "What I believe is not what I say I believe; what I believe is what I do." Gandhi said, "Be the change you want to see in the world." That is what I have waiting ahead of me on the horizon: change.

The Confederate Flag: The Racism No One Seems to See, Care About or Stand Against

So here's the article that recently was published in my school newspaper, after two months of battle with the teacher and administration at my school. The paper was strategically handed out at the end of the day of the last day before spring break, thanks to the teacher. So I hope to have at least some people remember it long enough to have an audience of protesters when I get back. A side note: the teacher also dulled the title without my knowledge the day before publication, so the following is my original title:


"Confederate Flag: The Racism No One to See, Care About, Or Stand Against"
I realize that anyone who knows me on any kind of a level knows that I am not originally from North Carolina, or the South for that matter. So with a title like the one that I have presented, and my personal background, I have successfully lost a good 80% of my audience without any of you reading a word; which leaves me with only twenty percent of you. But for those of you reading, I am here to analyze the Confederate/Rebel flag and the racism that it undoubtedly stands for.
Before I begin to evaluate why the Confederate/Rebel flag stands for racism, I feel the need to discredit a few common viewpoints that people take about the flag. Some people in the South are always claiming that the Confederate/Rebel flag does not represent racism, but simply "Southern pride." But let's think here for a second. The Civil War had a lot to do with the division between the North and South's differing economies: the North being industrial, while the South was agricultural. But when we investigate a little bit more, we find out that the South's agriculture-based economy was powered by slave labor. If one of the reasons behind the South breaking apart from the Union was its differing economies, then a large part of the Confederate/Rebel flag stands for is slavery. And with the way slavery was handled in America, it is not difficult to quickly go from slavery to racism.
Another point that the "it does not stand for racism" argument states is that the Confederate/Rebel flag is not offensive to black people. Now we need to take a deeper look at that. It is a fact that Nazi flags and swastikas are outlawed in our schools today. But in the same sense that the Nazi flag and swastikas are offensive to Jews, the Confederate/Rebel flag is offensive to some black people. Although the Nazi flag does not solely stand for the Holocaust, the first thing that any Jew immediately about when seeing the Nazi flag is in fact the Holocaust. The same concept goes for the Confederate/Rebel flag: the majority of black people (including those that I spoke to individually) see the Confederate/Rebel flag as standing for slavery, therefore racism and potentially more specific things such as groups like the Ku Klux Klan.
Another aspect of the Confederate/Rebel flag that no one seems to see is that the Confederate/Rebel flag was created when the South broke apart from the Union. Therefore the Confederate/Rebel flag is a symbol for division within our country. I do not see the point in glorifying a flag that stands for the separation of our country. In a nation where all we hear are slogans like "United We Stand," why do we need to praise a flag that completely contradicts those slogans? Every morning we are given the chance to "pledge allegiance to the flag, of the UNITED States of America." Not the Divided States of America, not the Confederate States of America, nor the Union States of America, but the UNITED States of America. If you are so willing to say the pledge, you should probably know what you are saying first.
Over the past few weeks, I have discussed this issue of racism with numerous people at this school and outside sources. As it was apparent I was not scoring any points from the beginning, I started looking for reasons behind our differences (besides me simply being a "Northerner" or "Yankee"). What I found in those discussions is that to some extent I am trying to be "politically correct." Now "politically correct," although most of the time is presented in a negative light to the more conservative groups, is not in fact always a bad thing. Part of the reason I have such a problem with the Confederate/Rebel flag and racism as a whole is that I try not to offend people. And I am sure you are now saying, "well you are doing a good job of offending me right now," but I have reason to speak controversially. I see others being hurt by a lack of control over the Confederate/Rebel flag issue, and so, for a second, I am thinking less about the people I will offend with this article, and more about the potential change this article could bring about.
Sometimes the only way we find out that something we did was wrong is by screwing up. But the next action is determined by whether or not you decide to change. In today's society, companies that support sweatshops or allow harsh treatment of animals lose business by their customers. Companies like Nike and the Gap have been charged recently of such things, and have lost a large amount of customers because of it. In the same way that those companies immediately changed after being accused, I, too, will change any behavior that I learn will offend someone. Even if your intent is not to offend people, you just might.
The Confederate/Rebel flag is offensive to some people, black and white, and it should be to anyone that does not support racism. You may not agree with me for whatever reason, but here is the question: will you continue to support a flag that you know offends people and divides our country?


So that's my article. Respond with anything you have to say, nice or mean. Honestly, I'm prepared to take both extremes. Peace.

Nothing Short of a Fiasco

So a while ago, I spoke about an article that I had written for my school newspaper, and the controversy that surrounded it. The teacher directly involved did not have the nerve to print a controversial article such as the one I presented, so I was then sent to the administration of the school. Long story short, one administrator was iffy about publishing it and another was a sharp "no" for having the article published. The actual principal didn't get to read the article until last, and was surprisingly supportive of the article. Which led to an overrule of the other principals to get the article published. I was ecstatic, until the following week, the lead principal went out of town/state on a conference, and the teacher proceeded to do nothing with the article and question the remaining administration on whether he should really publish the article. So finally this week, the lead principal was back, and I spoke to her today about the status of the article. She then took the article and emailed it to the district superintendent of the school system to look over it. I found out later today that the D.S. is in support of the article. So tomorrow, hopefully, the principal will "politely" tell the teacher to print the paper with my article in it. I say "hopefully" because I've had this article confirmed so many time already, that I'm a little hesitant to believe it. But if all goes well, my article will be published in the school newspaper within the next week or so, which I am very happy about.

With all this going on, along with a constant argument with one of my coaches, it has definitely been a testing time for me. But through all of it, I've attempted to have a little bit of faith that God would handle things (whatever that involves), and for the most part he's done a pretty good job (somewhat joking). So there's an update. I'll try to be having more legitimate discussion about spiritual things here shortly. I've just been a little busy with schoolwork. God bless.

Expect the Worst, Hope for the Best

If any of you know me, you'll know that I tend not to be an incredibly optimistic person when it comes to certain things. I'm very perceptive to what is really happening (to a fault) and sometimes assume things even before they happen. Or I get upset/sad because I know what is going to happen before it happens, especially when things could get bad. I recently had a conversation with a guy, that the whole day beforehand I was thinking about. I thought about all the possible ways that this conversation could go. I saw one single good way that the conversation could end well. Every other way was bad. Now I'm not saying I'm just overly depressing...I try not to be. But I could easily see this going in a whole lot of different ways, none of which would accomplish anything. So I met with this guy a little while ago, and when we met I almost couldn't do it. My nerves were completely shot the entire time. I'm pretty sure that my hands were shaking the whole time, and I had to stop my leg from doing so. I couldn't even think as to what I was trying to say, but somehow I said everything that I think needed to be said. Going into this discussion, I was expecting the worst. I could rationalize the worst, and see how the worst would fall into place. I couldn't see any good. I was expecting the worst, but somehow I came out of this discussion with peace of mind...something I had not expected. On a scale of where the discussion went, it didn't go well. So now I'm back to expecting the worst for the future, but hoping for the best. These are the instances that God is seen clearest. I see no light, no good, no hope in something, and I realize there's nothing I can do about it. But then out of nowhere somehow it ends better than expected.

This of course throws me two more observations. Does our expectation of where things go match up with where God thinks they should go? AND...do we not sometimes miss the sucecss that we have through the journey, as opposed to the destination? These can both be talked about for quite a while, but I'm done here for the day.

Ticketed

So Monday, I'm coming home from school early in order to get lunch before a haircut, and on one of the roads there is a stop sign. Now the two roads come together at a T that is more slanted, almost like a merge lane. So as I'm in a bit of hurry to get home, I look left as I approach the stop sign, and see no one. So I, like the idiot that I am, continue to go through the stop sign without stopping, only to be welcomed by two county sheriffs in a cop car coming the other way. Long story short, the ticket they gave me is $170, and with it being a time where I already owe $150 for piling up bills, I went from owing $150 to $320. Not exactly the best way to start off a week, let alone the week which includes my birthday. So I'm hoping for some cash from people for the birthday party, in order to pay off this ticket. Definitely a jacked way of using your birthday money.

Then the day got better when the article that I fought tooth and nail over Friday to get published in my school newspaper, and FINALLY got approved by the principal, is now in question by the spineless journalism teacher. It's only appropriate that the principal that okayed the article is now in San Diego for a conference, and the teacher is rallying up support amongst the assistant principals against me. Now I'm not a violent person at all, but I've never wanted to physically harm a person more than this teacher. I would like nothing more than to just beat this man with a book. But then comes my father who calms me down (or at least enough to get me to go home with storming to the administration and start to protest).

On top of all this, I've got some major friendship issues about to go down very soon with a few people, that I'm really not looking forward to, but things that have to be done nonetheless.

So that's my week so far. Great, I know. But on a more positive note, I'm still reading my Bible every day so far (a feat in my book), and it's actually pretty nice. So there's an update. Peace.

Wake-up call

Last night I was having a Bible study with my dad, as we've done our best to have one once or twice a week the past three weeks. The first week that we had it was the week that I read the Genesis passage that gave me the whole new view on religion and science working together together to tell the same story. So last night we're reading a passage from the Bible, and it didn't really do much for me. It was all stuff I knew, and core factors to who God is and all that, but it just wasn't all that significant to me. This is one of my problems. I need to be influenced by something or I discard it. Perfect example (which my father said about me)...when I watch TV, I flip channels. If whatever is on a channel doesn't grab my attention within about five seconds I change the channel. And since I've seen an unhealthy amount of movies, I usually flip long enough because I've already seen everything that's playing. So when I read the Bible if I don't get something out of it right away, I disregard it and it's relevance. This is going to be a MAJOR problem that I'm going to have to tackle in order to grow at all.

So the conversation continued, and at one point it got pretty heated, and he finally just laid it on me. He said, "stop being so lazy and get off your ass and do something". Now this sounds really harsh, but it was honestly something that I had been waiting for for someone to say to me for the longest times. Finally someone who has the spine to call me out on my complete whiny, spoiled, complaining, procrastinating actions. It was the wake-up call that I have been waiting for in so long. He then said, "do something about it or shut up." Looking back on it (and even when it was happening) it's so funny. I wanted to say so many things to him, make so many excuses to my behavior. But he shot every single one of those down. It's so great. He finally shouted, "stop making excuses." It was one of those frustrating moments, but I was humble enough to say to myself, "there is absolutely nothing I can say in this moment to justify anything." So I started reading my Bible today. Reading on my own, not for a Bible study, but just to become familiar with the Word. It was encouraging. Not because I got a lot out of what I read (although I did learn from it) but because I was finally doing what I knew I should have been doing all along. It's really exciting.

So today, I went to church, and thanks in large part to my new church, I have had the desire to become more generous now. So I was at Blockbuster between my church service and my parent's church service getting out, and I saw this huge poster/painting of the Office. It had a handful of the characters and some of their quotes. My dad's a nut about the show, and so I bought it for him. At church we've been talking about giving for no reason. It's such a bizarre concept to our society, but let me tell you, it feels freaking great when you do it.

So this is just an update of my day today. It's definitely been a great Sunday, and weekend. Something that I have not had in way too long. I just thought I'd document it, so that whenever I'm having an exceptionally bad day, I can come back to this post and remember what a good day feels like. Peace.

It started with simply "darkness is the absence of light" and it has evolved into peace of mind...for the moment

So I know that I said I would be sharing about something that greatly influenced me. But the fact is, to completley share everything that has gone on since last week would take up way too much space for anyone to want to read it. So I'll recap very briefly. Three weeks ago yesterday, I read the creation story like I had never before. I got more out of that one chapter in Genesis than anything I have ever read from the Bible. One of the things that I took from that passage though, that has been on my mind since I read it, was the when God creates light. It says he "separated the light from darkness" without specifically creating darkness at all. My conclusion is that darkness is the absence of light. As my father is a high school history teacher, one of the things that he has are "memorable concepts"...things that are simple statements that have so much more meaning and applicability. One is "if you know anything about a group of people, know their religion". This has huge ramifications to it, which can be used throughout history. So I think that through this one passage, I have found one my own memorable concepts: darkness is the absence of light. From this one concept, I've analyzed good and evil, the role of Satan, is hell an actual place that you are sent to?, what is faith?, free will/choice, and so much more. I've taken this one statement and run with it further than I thought possible, and somehow I know that I have not taken it as far as it can go.

In one of the conversations that I had with my father, somehow we got the point where we were talking about the good and bad things that happened to us, and I was asking basically how you make it through all the bad times. His response: "You look for the good, and be thankful for them, and thank God for blessing you". Now I was pretty doubtful of this, because I was more "glass-half-empty" mindset at the time. But as my journey with this memorable concepts has grown, I have started being thankful for the small things. Yesterday was a perfect end of the week. A lot of crap had built up, and it seemed as if what happened was straight out of a season finale of a TV show...everything got wrapped up. I have been fighting the administration at my school for weeks now to get an article for the school newspaper approved that is talking about a very sensitive topic, but yesterday, through what can only be described as a circus of events, it got approved, and the paper will be coming out next week sometime. I have met people in the last few days that I now cherish meeting. I am at a church that I am thankful for, and am excited every weekend to go to. I have pastors at this church who are amazing, and have given me hope that I have not had in a while. There are so many bad variables with my tennis team, but I this morning I have peace of mind over them. I am going to be hearing back from five colleges this week, and specifically about how much scholarship money and loans they will give me. It is scary, but I have peace of mind right now. School has been stressful recently with classes, but for the first time in a months I have a Saturday free of work. I woke up this morning at 9:30...the latest I've slept in for months!!!

Even it all this is just for the morning, and is all gone by this afternoon, at least for now I have peace of mind. The tale end of the movie Alfie has a great line that connects with where I'm at now. He's giving this long monologue at the end, and at one point he says: "But I don't have peace of mind. And if you don't have that, you've got nothing." I am blessed at the moment to have peace of mind. I only have one person to thank for that, and I am finally realizing who it is.

Expanded understanding of a key concept

So I've had two conversations with two different people within the last forty-eight hours that have greatly added and developed my thoughts on something. One of the things that I spoke about during my evaluation of the creation story is the fact that darkness is the absence of light. The thought has been on my mind since I wrote it, and through my conversations, this concept has evolved into something far larger than I had foreseen. So I will be expounding on my thoughts here shortly. But needless to say, I finally found some answers to what I need to be doing/searching for. It's quite exciting.

Creation + Evolution = Evoleation

Genesis 1:1-2:3

Chapter 1

Verses 1-2
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

Verses 3-5
And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from darkness. God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning - the first day.

Verses 6-8
And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning - the second day.

Verses 9-13
And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good.
Then he said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seeds according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit wtih seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning - the third day.

Verses 14-19
And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. God made two great lights - the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning - the fourth day.

Verses 20-23
And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky. So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kins, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth." And there was evening, and there was morning - the fifth day.

Verse 24-31
And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to their kind." And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created him.
God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."
Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground - everything that has the breath of life in it - I give every green plant for food." And it was so.
God saw all that he made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning - the sixth day.


Chapter 2

Verses 1-3
Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.
By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.



The following are my thoughts on the passage above. As I stated last blog entry that I had had an incredible experience reading this passage, I feel obligated to share what I found. So what follows will follow the general linear path of reading the passage, but will be all over, jumping ahead, jumping back. But I will try to bring things all to a nice close at the end (keyword try). A side note: after writing my thoughts on the passage, I then went and discussed what I had read with a man who has three Masters Degrees...two of which are in religion. He shared more about what the ancient Hebrew originally meant, as well as other observations that other educated people have made about the same passage. So as I claim most of what is said, I do also attribute some of the more "high-end" knowledge to this person.

The first thing that I noticed when reading this passage was the overwhelming feeling that this passage sounded a lot more like a narrative story than a historical account. It all sounds more like a guy at a bar or a guy sitting around a campfire retelling an ancient story, as opposed to a historical account...just a thought though.

I found it interesting that in verse 2 of chapter 1 it talks about the earth being "formless and empty" but at the same time it says that the Spirit of God was "hovering over the waters." Water...something that hadn't even been created yet, right?

Again, I feel the need to side-note, that a lot of what I say throughout this is just interesting thoughts that I had, and not necessarily something that I found reason for. But to be interested in something that I've read in the Bible is more that I can say about my recent readings of anything in the Bible.

It says in verse 3 that God created light. But says nothing about God creating darkness. Whenever we think of there being nothing at some point (before anything was created) we think of darkness. But then there's that person who says, "Well darkness is in fact something." So the argument can be made that it is impossible to truly comprehend 'nothing'. So the verse says that God created light, but then it says in verse 4 that "God saw that the light was god, and he separated the light from darkness." So God created the one thing, light, yet somehow he separates that one thing from something else (darkness) that it does not even talk about him creating. So the question opens up, "So where did darkness come from?" Some would say that darkness is simply the absence of light. This has profound implications if referenced with the question, "Did God create evil?" If darkness is the absence of light, then evil is the absence of good (or God). This is thought can potentially spark an incredibly deep discussion, but to save at least some time, I won't continue the debate today.

Something that I find kind of interesting is that every day ends with "and there was evening, and there was morning - the _____ day." But whenever we think of day, we think of morning as coming first and evening being the end of the day. But for whatever reason, morning is the end of the first day (or at least the last thing). Again...just interesting.

Day two starts with God creating an "expanse between the waters to separate water from water" (vs. 6). So two things jump out right away: 1) there are waters above and below the expanse, and 2) again, there's a reference to water, when the story of creation has not even introduced water yet as being one of God's creations. So I go back to verse 1 where it says, "God created the heavens and the earth." Well then, what does this 'earth' that's spoken of include? Is it simply that verses 1 and 2 are a huge summary of the entire creation story and what continues is a detailed account of what verses 1 and 2 speak of? Is it like the difference between micro and macro? Again this sounds less like a historic account and simply a story. Think of an essay: there's usually an intro (broad statements about the whole essay), then the body (detailed reasons to support the main claim/story), and then the conclusion (maybe there will be one at the end of the passage?)

Verse 7 speaks about water being "under the expanse" as well as being "above the expanse." What is the expanse? Later in verse 8 it says that God calls the expanse "sky." So there's water below the sky, which I am assuming that we come in contact with as humans, but what is this water above, essentially, the sky? Some would say that all of what the Bible calls "the Flood" was just the waters above the expanse falling upon the earth. But is that it, or is it something else?

Now as I was looking for clues for evolution to exist within the constraints of creation, I found my first example in verse 9 and 10. Nine starts off with land appearing and then the separation of the seas where the land comes in. So there's land. Not until verse 11 do we hear about land providing vegetation. Because I do not believe that the earth was created in seven 24-hour days like we know them as today, I also see the potential in this verse. The fact that there is no time period designated between land appearing and then vegetation occurring, makes me believe that there is a possibility that vegetation could have not come for millions or even billions of years later. Some evolutionists would claim that the earth did not start with the luscious ecosystem that it is today, but that it started out as simply rocks and earth (sounds like creation) and that over millions and millions of years organisms slowly became more complex, starting with single cell organisms like bacteria and fungus, slowly evolving into multi-cell organisms and then FINALLY into the ecosystem that we see it as today. Now not until after I read the whole thing through, wrote out my thoughts, was it brought to my attention that vegetation requires photosynthesis. Photosynthesis requires sunlight. So God created light, he created land and seas, and then vegetation...but no sun (at least not until fourth "day"). So how does the earth vegetate without the sun to photosynthesize? I don't have any form of an answer, but thought that this fact was worth noting.

Day four is when we finally have the things created that are needed to count the 24-hour days that we are accustomed to: sun, moon, stars. This is my biggest example of how the world could be billions of years old (like evolutionists say) and not just 6 thousand years (like typical creationists believe). If the things required to record a twenty-four hour day did not exist prior to the fourth day, this means that there's no way to claim that they had to be three twenty-four hour days. So if this passage is essentially a story, stories like parallel structure. you don't have this parallel structure of "days" without them either all be the same exact measurement (24 hours) or the word "day" means something more along the lines of "back in the day" or "in the day of our Lord". Neither are finite time periods or are even structural for that matter.

The fifth "day" starts with the creation of the "great creatures of the sea" and "every winged bird" (vs. 21). I was informed that the Hebrew word for "winged bird" didn't actually mean bird like we think of it today (i.e. eagle, falcon, cardinal). It meant more literally "insects". This is more proof of evolution existing within the Christian creation story, and can include natural selection. Insects (just like all organisms) start out simple and become more complex. The earth starts with land (rock, earth) and then begins to vegetate (plants, trees, complicated compared to rocks). In the same sense, the world started as insects (flies, beetles, smaller creatures) and grows into other animals (dinosaurs?)

But really it is not until the sixth "day" that we can start talking about dinosaurs. This is when "land animals" (vs. 24) come into the picture. I'm in an environmental science class right now, and it is said that through natural selection that we really don't even see today one-hundredth of one percent of all the species throughout history. So I'm going to take a guess that these "land animals" looked a lot more like what we now call "dinosaurs" than the animals that we see today (golden retrievers, poodles, squirrels, cat).

Here's a part that hints at the whole trinity concept. Verse 26 has God saying "let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule..." Two interesting things. God references himself as "us", and then he talks about man as being a "them". So in this case, man is more mankind or humanity than it is about male man. If you go on to verse 27 it says that "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." All of a sudden, "man" is clarified into being both male and female. And a side-note, it sounds a little ironic that the fact that man is made in the image of God is stated three times...trinity?

Look at verse 29 and 30. It says "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit in it. They will be yours for food." So plants and trees are the foods for man. It then goes on to say the same thing for the "beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground - everything that has the breath of life in it." So all living things at this time eat plants, and that's it. That means that all this time, all of mankind were vegetarians. Nowhere does it say that man is given permission to eat animals/meat.

Day seven, God rests. Now why would the dude that created everything into being with his words need rest? Is he tired? (A pretty "human" characteristics for a god!?!)


I didn't include them, but if you then go into chapter 2 of Genesis, it talks about the creation of Adam and Eve. This adds to my belief that Genesis is more of a narrative than a historical account, and that the world is closer to 8 billion years old than 6 thousand. Chapter 1, verse 1 talks about God creating "the heavens and the earth". The remainder of chapter 1 and some of chapter 2 talk about the creation of the earth. Now chapter three talks about one part of one "day" within the creation story. Something I also thought about was: so where does the creation story end, and the world that we know it as begin? Does it start exactly after man is created? Or is it later? This is what to think that the world was created in six "days", and that what we are experiencing now is still the seventh "day". John the Baptist always talked about the "day of the Lord is upon us". Well, maybe what he's saying is that we're still in the seventh "day". In chapter 2 it also talks about the creation of the female version of man: woman. And it talks about Adam being placed into a "deep sleep" (vs. 21). How long was this sleep? What happened during this sleep? Ice Age? The extinction of dinosaurs?

One of the last things that I was told is that in the ancient Hebrew, the difference between "a day" and "the day" are easily confused. So read all those "days" again but substitute "the _____ day" for "a _____ day". It would sound more like, "and there was evening, and there was morning - a first day." If this is simply a first day, then could there not then be another first day? More than just one "first day"? This is a wicked stretch, but...aliens? If Genesis is the creation story for mankind and this world, then what other creation stories could there be? All I'm saying is that there is the possibility.

So comment back. I know that I gave you PLENTY to think about. Let me know what you think. Peace.

A Good Week

It's amazing how quickly things can change. Last week I was upset about things, not looking forward to where things were about to go with several situations. And this week has been completely different. I started off the week with a lunch-meeting with a guy from my church. He's a genuine guy, and it was simply refreshing to have a guy understand all that I'm going through. As I questioned last week about the "point of the Bible", I have found new meaning to that question through a Bible study that I had last night with my father.

Me and my father had decided last week to start a Bible study where we actually read the Bible and studied the Word, and dug deeper into what it had to say...something that I had unsuccessfully done on a few occasions throughout my life. Before I started reading anything, I prayed for my mind and heart to be silent, and that I would be able to comprehend the Bible like never before. What proceeded was nothing short of "ask and it will be given, knock and the door will be answered" occasion. What I had previously thought of as a simple creation story and something that I thought I already knew everything that I needed to know, unraveled into a study of a well-known passage into something beyond anything I've done before. I read the passage and got more out of it than I ever have from the Bible in my life. Going into the reading, all that was on my mind was the question "how does evolution fit into the creation story that we know?" It was nothing short of amazing to find that throughout the whole creation story, there is proof that the world is 8 billion years old (like anti-creationist, evolutionists believe). There's enough in that passage to prove that dinosaurs existed and died off however many hundreds of millions of years ago. That there was in fact an Ice Age, or several. That in fact the world started as just rocks and ground, and that over millions of years it turned into single-cell organisms, and over a few more million years evolved into the luscious ecosystem that we think of it today. So long have I heard that creation and evolution could not exist together. I read one of Brian McLaren's books entitled "The Story We Find Ourselves In" which talks about the concept of creation and evolution coexisting, but not until I read the passage just last night did I find all that evolutionists say could in fact fit within the Christian's creation story. It gave me new hope in what the Bible has to offer. As I read the passage (Genesis 1:1-2:3) by myself, I wrote two pages of notes of my thoughts on what I was thinking while reading. If any of you know me personally, you will know that I write incredibly small, and that two pages of my writing could easily be five or six of someone else's writing. Then after this my father came and we talked about the passage for over an hour and a half. He then took me to an even deeper level, educating me on some of what the Hebrew originally meant. But all this to say, even without my father's vast education within religion, there is an easy way to say that evolution and creation can coexist. Kind of like Rob Bell's pen..."is it creation or evolution? Yep." Now some of you may want to dispute this claim, in which I will welcomely send you my notes on the passage, and we can discuss it further. I would be glad to. But all of this was just a breath of fresh air from the Bible, and it was done because, before I even started reading, I asked God to let me see a Bible that I had not read before. A book that I had almost written off for having any real meaning, and now all of a sudden I want to read more of it.

Today, I went to church with a clean slate on Christianity. I went to a service where the pastor's sermon series' title is "Monopolife"...speaking about finances. It hit incredibly close to home, even as a teenager, as just last night I spent $75 on clothes from Express (especially since if I hadn't had coupons, it would have been $130). And what was refreshing was that it wasn't one of these guilt-trips about how I need to give more money to that church. The pastor in fact didn't even pull it all together at the end and challenged us to give more to the church, like so many churches do. A point that he made, that really got me thinking is to "define the vision that God has for your life" but then to ask "are finances getting in the way of fulfilling that vision?" Wow. That's a pretty incredible thing to think about. I started looking at how to become more of a person of God, and that giving is something that fits in that persona. I decided to give a tithe to the church, something that I had not done to a church in over a year and a half (and back then I only gave a few times). Not from guilt, but from a personal desire to become a better follower of Christ.

I left the church a few hours ago, with my nerves completely shot. The only thing I can compare it to is when you almost get into a car accident, and the feeling you have afterward. All of your nerves are completely gone, and you are physically shaking. You can't stop it, and I was simply somewhere else for about a half-hour after the service. The whole ride home I couldn't put words into what was happening to me. What I think it is now, is that for the past week, I've had a better representation, and a better outlook on faith and Christianity, and have been closer to God, and have been closer to his presence than I have been in the past year. I'm excited about reading the Bible, and going to church. I have a desire to give, and become a better person. I want to stop doing things that do nothing but bring me down. I have hope in where I am going spiritually. The past year I've been confused with no goal in sight. Anger, depression, annoyance, frustration were all things I felt. But hope and excitement were not things I felt until this week. I'm excited and even now as I write this, I've got that feeling of my nerves being shot. It's a good feeling.

What do I believe?

I'm not really sure where to start. All the guys' blogs that I've been reading recently are usually updated every twenty four hours or so. As it has become brutally apparent, I am incapable of doing this (apologies). My life has become drastically busier since the beginning of 2008, and due to my complicated nature, I can never cut my thoughts down enough to write a blog on just a single topic (as I'm sure some of you are aware). A better word for the way life has been recently might be "eventful". So here's a general recap.

Two days after my last blog, I was talking to someone, and the conversation ended up with the person pretty much witnessing to me. They took out their Bible, started reading scripture to me, and asked me questions about what I believed, so on and so forth. I can honestly say that the conversation ended with the other person terrified of what had been said. Two days after this, I was taking a trip with a group of people, and I had another major conversation. It was one of those conversations that changes everything that you thought beforehand. This all occurred not even a month ago, but it feels like it's been a year.

Since then I've tried to do things more for myself, and less about pleasing people. I've realized that over the incredibly stressful times that I've faced over the past year, that I've come to a point where I need to protect myself. Things that I had previously written on the calendar six months down the road have been completely erased from the board. Friendships have completely changed. Some have sparked up out of nowhere. Some have been completely destroyed. Others are borderline over. Events have taken place and conversations have occurred that, as I look back five weeks, have had a wholly change on who I used to be. I have learned more about those that I respect and trust. People that I got along with a year ago have shown me that we have nothing in common. People that I thought were my friends have bashed me behind my back to people I know. People whose views I thought I shared have proven to be disconnected from my own.

I have moved on from people and places that have hurt me in the past. But I don't know where I am. I've gone from "this is crap" to "who cares". This apathetic mindset quickly becomes detrimental to faith. As my last blog spoke about watching the "Everything Is Spiritual" DVD, I did in fact watch the DVD. I even watched it a second time with a friend. And although at the time it was mind-boggling (and even gave me a bit of a headache), not it means almost nothing. If you were to ask me right now what effect it had on me, I wouldn't be able to provide you any form of an answer.

I'm at a loss of what to do. I'm not saying there is no good to Christianity, or to church, or to faith. But at present, I am without any personal proof of anything good coming from them. I can see the good they do to others. I can see the change they have on others. I can see the good it does to different parts of the world. But none of that is within the rhythm of my heart. None of it is personal to me. I understand the philosophy. I understand the ideas. But I am trying to join two things that cannot be connected in a simple way. One of the best things I do remember from the "Everything Is Spiritual" DVD is Bell's presentation of the pen. "Is it a square or a circle? Yep." I see the circle (Christianity/faith/religion/spirituality). But I do not see the square (my personal involvement and depth). Explain a three-dimensional object to a person that lives in two-dimensions, and that's where I am.

I spoke to someone last night about all of this. The person was very careful in what they said. Out of that conversation I came to two very loaded, but also very critical questions. But to understand the question completely I must make a few of my own statements. Religion is man's attempt to explain God. With that comes misinterpretations, misrepresentations, and sometimes just bad things in general. The excuse (excuse not with a bad connotation) is that "we're just human" and all that is poorly done "does not reflect God". Okay, so here's question one: If the excuses are true, which I do in a sense believe, then what's the point of going to the physical building church? And the second is: what is the point of the Bible? Numerous people have told me that it is not simply an answer book. So what is it's purpose? This question comes from life of not getting an accurate portrayal of what the Bible is. These are dangerous questions, that should not be answered carelessly. Although some of you may feel the need to give me your own view on what they are, beware that there is not one answer to either of these questions, but several different views. If you intend to answer these questions at all, put a lot of thought into them, and not just simply what first comes to mind. Think about them and come back later. Thanks again.