The Benefit of Dissonance

So earlier I tweeted this: “As one with Anabaptist colored beliefs, I benefit from never lacking in ppl who disagree with me... Blog post coming on?”

Soooo I figured I’d follow up on it J

Here was my fully fleshed out thought and I shall call it “The benefit of dissonance”

Face the music

One of my favorite things in life is music. It has been a staple of my reality since I can remember. I grew up with my father playing in Tejano bands and as a young boy I’d go to his gigs. As soon as I could, I began playing percussion in school. This led me from concert band to jazz and rock in middle school and on to marching drum corps style percussion in high school. After roughly 9 years of playing drums, I decided to broaden my horizons and pick up guitar; this was mostly out of boredom. There is much more I could say about my musical past, but what I specifically want to say is that I was steeped in music as a child and have remained immersed ever since.

Through my more formal encounters with music, I have learned a lot about the mechanics of what usually sounds so organic. It is paradoxically beautiful. One of the most beautiful things that I have learned is that sometimes the most interesting, moving and absolutely incredible moments in music happen when there is dissonance. Yes. Dissonance.

What is dissonance, you say? Dissonance is that moment in music in which the tones seem to fight each other; almost as if they both want to occupy the same space and thus clash leaving both notes with less than all of the space. It is discord. It is harshness of sound. Chaos and longing. Unsettled.

Dissonance can be the most awkward and off-putting part of music when done accidentally. 

Fortunately, many brilliant minds throughout the history of man have harnessed the inspired power of dissonance and have learned how to position it in such a way that it communicates truth about our lives. This is doable because the truth about our lives is that it is unsettling. It is unruly. It is: dissonant.

What makes our lives dissonant?

Conflict. By and large, over and against all things, conflict is the one thing that creates tension in our lives. What is incredible about conflict is that, like music, it can lead to some of the most incredible revelations we have yet to experience.

Conflict pushes us; it drives us. It is the thing that necessitates evolving our world views and our societies. Conflict is of God because it is creative.

Tragically, conflict – thanks to man – is fallen. It is bent; twisted; perverse.

And so the conflict that we see ravage our world is one that reflects the brokenness of the Kingdom of Darkness as opposed to its intended reflection of God’s creative glory.

But, like our human condition and like the cleverest of lies, there is a nugget of truth; a fragment of God’s intended reality remains.

Growth

There is this funny thing that comes of conflict: resolution. It is the same with dissonant music, it resolves. It settles and somehow, on the other side, we’re changed. We’ve grown; we’ve evolved.

I submit that the beauty, the creativity and the nuanced divine purpose of conflict is the fact that we are stretched, pressed and molded into a different person in some way. That is why I welcome arguments. Now, I should be clear: I don’t mean fruitless squabbles over petty opinions – this is foolish. I mean well-informed, well-argued and well-reasoned positions being held up next to each other by mutually respectful people in order to examine wherein truth might lay.

This was the idea behind my tweet. As a person who has what I like to term as “Anabaptist-colored beliefs”, it never fails that I find myself surrounded by Evangelical Christians who see my world-view as ludicrous or out of touch with the realities of America (which I find ironic).

However, I call this a benefit; even a blessing. Because through these discussions, I find myself either more convinced of the beliefs I hold or (at the very least) I find a different perspective for examining issues that I have already hashed over in my mind.

What a trip

The reality is that we’re all on a journey – even if you don’t realize it. We’re all that devilish red loading bar that sits on your screen or the spinning blue wheel of frustration that mocks you while waiting for a YouTube video to load. We’re in process.

Once we grasp this concept, grace extended and grace received seems to make more sense.

That is, when I realize that I don’t have it all figured out, that my beliefs (though I am undoubtedly convinced of them) really could be completely shifted, I finally find the capacity to acknowledge people as also on the journey.

As such, we should be charitable to each other in all things and in all situations consider others as in process like ourselves.

What we should not do is avoid the conflict or dissonance that will happen when you spend time with people. This is where we develop. This is where we purge ourselves of biases and false pretenses. This is why we need each other – why the human animal is a social creature. It’s in our nature.

A hope

It is my hope and prayer that we embrace the dissonance. That we reach out to connect, rub shoulders with and wrestle with those who disagree with us. In these relationships we can find growth. We can find the true purpose of conflict. We can find beauty and music.

Let us conflict so that we may reconcile. Let us cause friction that we may be polished. Let us clash so that we may belong to each other.

Thanks for reading,

The Dread

Do and Be Crossfit

Ok, so I haven’t blogged in a while and this is largely due to the fact that I’ve once again started my master’s classes in Theology which is mostly reading and writing…and I have to force time for that. Needless to say, my blog isn’t my top priority…so take that for what it’s worth.

I have, however been plagued with a couple of ideas on the Christian life that could easily be a year or more worth of sermons. Unfortunately, I don’t really have time to flesh these thoughts out into said sermons, so instead I’ll try and get the bare bones out here on my blog, so thank you in advanced for taking the time to read this.

Here goes…

For the last two months or so, I have been doing Crossfit or have been a Crossfitter or whatever you like. If you’re not familiar with Crossfit, feel free to watch this video. For me this is quite a spiritual experience and it's that idea that i'd like to really address here.

So, while I’m in no way, shape or form the strongest person alive, much less at my local gym (Cowley Fitness), I can definitely say that I am the fittest that I have ever been in my life; even more so than when I was a collegiate cheer leader or a Universal Cheerleading Association Staff Member and that is saying something.

So where am I going with this? Well, the name Crossfit (I believe) is about “cross fitness” or the idea that all aspects of fitness – agility, flexibility, strength, endurance, etc. –  find their intersection inside the kinds of work outs (known as “wod’s” or “work out of the day”) that are programmed for Crossfit. In short, every work out is a total body work out and improves every aspect of fitness simultaneously. For this reason, I’ve often found myself thinking throughout the day “wow, while doing Crossfit, EVERY physical task in life is easier”.

While I could stay here and plug Crossfit all day, that’s not really my main point...

So, while Crossfit is about being as fit as you can be (which I’ll get to a little later…perhaps in another blog) the name just rings in my ears as a theologian and I have come to the conclusion that, as Christians, we are called to be “Cross-fit”.

WOA! I’m not some fitness nut, but I love Jesus!

Hold on, I’m not saying everyone should do Crossfit (notice the hyphen/no-hyphen distinction).

As Christians, we are meant to be continually “fit for the Cross of Christ”. Jesus says in the synoptic gospels:

If you want to follow me, you must take up your cross daily and actually follow. If you try to hang on to your life, you’ll lose it, but if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but are yourself lost or destroyed?       – (my paraphrase of Mark 8:34 & Luke 9:23 and following).

So let’s chew on this a bit:

1.    “If you want to follow me” – this is clearly a conditional statement. Assuming you are truly looking to be a Christ follower, i.e. disciple, then here’s whats up…but only if you’re wanting more than just weekly attendance and your conscience cleared for the week.
2.      “You must take up your cross daily and actually follow” – bear in mind that this is pre-crucified-Jesus that’s speaking here, so there is no “redemptive” or “salvific” context for the original hearers. What they hear is essentially “if you want to follow me, you must be shamed to the point of being dehumanized and this is going to painful and gruesome”. You can imagine their confusion…Now this is also clearly a metaphor, so don’t freak out.
3.      “if you try to hang on to your life, you’ll lose it, but if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it” – I’d like to put forth a slightly different interpretation of this passage than what you may be thinking. I think that this point is more about Christian living and less about salvation through Christ; that is, I don’t think that Jesus is giving some coded message for how to get to heaven, but is instead showing us that in order to live like Christ (i.e. follow), then you must order your life starting with Christ and his sake which is the good news that God loves and forgives.
4.      “and what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but are yourself lost or destroyed?” – This question solidifies his point that following him is about lowering yourself and being prepared to look ridiculous in front of people (remember the crucified were often buck naked) but the alternative –  that is, trying to hang on to your pride and gain some sort of status, security, “the whole world”, you know, whatever – is a lost cause because in as much, you will not be able to “save your life” or “really live”.

Now that is the quickest breakdown of that passage that probably exists, so bear in mind you could get a book out of this one passage and I’m not trying to do that here.

My point is that if we’re to be disciples of Christ and not just disciples of the Christian church or religion, it means remaining “Cross-fit” daily. So what does that look like? Well, I could attempt an exhaustive list, but I don’t think Microsoft Word has enough pages to cover it, so instead we’ll go back to Scripture for a good answer.

In the book of Mark, Jesus sheds light on the “main thing”:

Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen up, Israel, the Lord our God is the one and only God and you must love him with all your heart, all your soul all your mind and all your strength. ‘ The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’. No other commandment is greater than these. 

– (my paraphrase of Mark 12:30 and following).

So, let’s chew some more:

1.      The most important commandment – this means “listen up”
2.      Israel’s God is the only God – this means that we can trust that we’re talking about the real God as far as we can trust the Word’s of Jesus. This is a big idea, but I don’t have space to get into it here.
3.      Love God with all your heart – typically understood to mean your will and/or affections
4.      Love God with all your soul – I put forth that while we could theorize about what that soul is made of, we can generally agree that it is all the parts of you that are not the physical parts.
5.      Love God with all your mind – traditionally understood to mean your reason, logic, thoughts, etc.
6.      Love God with all your strength – contrasting with the “soul” part, this means all the parts of you that ARE physical.
7.      Second command: love people as yourself – pretty clear, but very hard to do
8.      No other command (including the big 10 from Moses) is greater than these – that is, these trump all others (though they are not mutually exclusive from all others).

Again, that was a quick run down, so I’ll zoom in on what is relevant to this blog post and we’ll do it in reverse order.

First, being Cross-fit (remember the hyphen distinction) means loving other people like I love myself. Now, you may hate yourself (and that’s a WHOLE other issue), but generally we all care about ourselves and to this extent, we should regard all others with the same care. This is vital, but not what I’m trying to get to – just know that there is much much more to be said on this point.

Second, being Cross-fit means loving God in four specific ways that all sum up to equal your entirety. I’ll make it into a neat package for you:

Love God with…

• Your heart and mind – that is ALL of your will and affections and ALL of your intellect and reasoning. How do we do this? By continually working on lining our will, affections, intellect and reasoning up with the things of God; this means wanting and willing the things of God and it means spending time thinking and meditating on the things of God.
• Your soul and strength – that is ALL of the parts of you that are intangible or non-physical and ALL of the parts of you that are physical. Now, typically we’re okay with the intangible – after all, no one but God and myself know exactly how much of my intangibles I have truly given to him, and this affords us the ability to maintain a superficial façade of piety and goodness. The trouble is the second half for most American Christians – leaders included, or rather leaders especially – because it’s convicting. We like our laz-E-boy recliners, our cans of soda, our chips and dip and our generally over chemicallized, over gmo’d diet. After all, “this is ‘merica”. The truth however, is that we are stewards of everything that God has given us (Matthew 25:14-30) which includes our bodies and according to Jesus, we are to love him with them by using them to do the things of God and keeping them in the best shape we can.

So, let’s conclude:

Being Cross-fit is the only way to truly follow Jesus and that looks like following his two greatest commands in their entirety. I can love people everywhere I go by showing compassion, not trying to change or judge them and simply being there with them (I know there are other ways, but these are some of the simplest). I can love God in practical ways as well by wanting the things he wants, meditating on him and his will for creation, by truly giving him all the non-measurable, non-physical parts of me and by loving him with my body by taking care of it as best I can and using it to do physical good in this physical world.

Again, I’d love to unpack all of this, but that would take a very long time….and I might yet do it. For now, however, suffice to know this:

If you want to be the fittest version of you that is possible, do Crossfit.

If you want to follow Jesus and live the only real life worth living, be Cross-fit.

Thank you all for reading.

Peace,

The Dread.

Free will, choosing and sneezing

Blog. Right. Um, well…

 

So, I have a few spare moments while Atticus (oldest son) is playing with a new friend and Archer (youngest son) is “napping” or, rather whining in his bed...

At any rate, I thought I’d take this opportunity to vomit some of the philosophical nuggets that have been churning my stomach lately (you’re welcome for that picture). So, here goes:

Let’s start here à I feel like it is a plague in our generation to look back on the limitations of our childhood or the hardships that we’ve seen and simply be content to be in the place we are in life because of those events, circumstances, situations, etc.  I use the word “plague” because, like a plague, this sort of thinking seems to eat away at the fruit of people’s abilities and gifts (to develop the analogy a bit).

The fundamental issue with this line of thinking is that, while some of the consequences of said events (or whatever) may still be in effect, there are always opportunities for new circumstances. In fact, I’m a believer (as of now) in the idea that, to a large extent, we create our realities. We do this by way of our free will and choices. For example, I choose my friends, my job, my career, where I spend my time, where I spend my money and what I do in those places, with those people. If I choose or have chosen people who cause my life to be less than what I want out of life, then it is only my own choices that have brought those people to influence me. If I want to change it, I do. Now, in reality, this isn’t as easy as it sounds (feelings get hurt…or whatever :P), but the truth is that I hold the power to decide who influences me.

So, while I don’t choose how those people act, I choose who to be around.

This same principle holds true for other places in my life:

 If I constantly don’t have money because I go out a lot, I must stop going out. It may not be as fun, but it changes the reality that I am short on cash.

If I don’t like the job I have for whatever reason, I quit. It may be a struggle to find other work and there may be other struggles that go along with this, but it changes the reality that I don’t like my job.

There are seemingly endless examples of how the power of choice can shape your reality, but my point is not that we can choose, but that we must.

To simply offer up our past as an excuse to our present is essentially quitting on being the creator-of-your-reality that you were meant to be. I believe that God gives us genuine free will and I believe that he does so because, as creatures made in the image of the Creator, he wants us to create. Now, you may not feel creative, but odds are it’s because you haven’t flexed your creative muscles for some time and like physical muscles, if you don’t use them, they are weak. I’m not saying go paint a picture, I’m saying look around you and change what you don’t like about your life.

*** I feel the need to disclaimer here: if you love every aspect of your life, this blog post is obviously not for you J but you can share it with someone who needs to hear this if you want. ***

Now, this is not easy, so I don’t want you to read this and say “hey, he said it was cake!”

It is simple, not easy. The simple part is “1. Identify what you don’t like, 2. Find the first step to change it, 3. Take that step, 4. Repeat 2-3 until 1 is no longer true”. The hard part is that steps 2 & 3 may come at a cost. It is that cost that must be counted, weighed and decided upon.

For some, the cost may be friends. For others, it may be the respect of someone whose opinion you value (whether you should or shouldn’t). Whatever the cost, it’s not mature or relevant to blame your discontent with life on a reality that was or is when there are ways you can change it.

In short, if you don’t like something about your reality, then change it.

This is a good (not really) segue to my next topic: waiting.

I’m there. Right now. And it sucks.

Sometimes waiting for the next opportunity can be agonizingly slow. I think, for me, it’s because I am a “do-er”; I like the doing part. I like seeing a vision of a project or job completed and I want to do it and see it actualized. However, this is not always how things go down.

If you’ve kept up with my blog (I don’t know why you would have, but whatever), you know that I’ve been looking for a full time music ministry position of some type. This is my passion: music and ministry. So it seems logical that those two things are the two things I should be doing with my life, gifts, time, etc.

But! That means waiting for me right now.

I recently talked about this with a close friend of mine and (by way of incident) we came up with the great picture of how I feel AND how much of main line Christianity has portrayed the Christian life.

“It’s like waiting for a sneeze. It burns and is uncomfortable; sometimes you can’t talk or think or do much of anything until that sneeze comes.”

For me, some days I feel like this. Like there is a never ending list of things to do and I can’t do any of it because I’m “pre-sneeze”. Unfortunately, sometimes the church encourages this kind of thing; that is, the idea that “you just need to wait until God plops his plan in your lap in a nicely catalogued, 3-ring binder with color coated tabs and a table of contents so you can find where you are in his plan at your convenience”. …ok, that was kind of cheeky. I’ve never actually heard anyone say to do this, but that is the feeling that I get sometimes when people try and encourage me (pessimist much? I think so). Sometimes it just feels better to hear people identify with me; not try and convince me that the “pre-sneeze” is where I need to live.

Instead, I think it is important to realize that, when you’re “pre-sneeze”, you just have to keep doing what you can where you are. For me, that looks like serving faithfully at the awesome church that I find myself at and it looks like being Christ to those around me by way of service, love and encouraging. It’s not always comfortable, but it’s a lot better than JUST waiting for the sneeze. By doing this, I sneeze. (That came out funny) What I mean is, that by staying active, I make things happen. I stay active in the things that I feel called to do, I am much more fulfilled than just waiting around for the next step to happen. Make life happen by doing.

While I think I could probably prattle on and on, I think I’ll spare you since you graced me to read this far.

Take away points:

1.      Create your reality. Choose to.

2.      Sneeze while you’re waiting. Choose to.

I guess that’s it. Thanks for reading, sharing, “liking”, etc. If you have a minute, pray for me J

 

Peace,

The Dread

 

It's been a little while

Hello all,

It's been a little while since I last wrote. Life got busy...

yuck.

Moving on, however, I hope to have some more free time in the near future (if I can manage to not re-overload myself).
One of the most recent things that has gone on with me is that I've decided to pursue full-time ministry. The funny thing is that I actually decided this back in the fall of 2010 when I changed my major from Biology to Philosophy and Religious studies. At that point, I was all gung ho that I would work in a church and spend my life serving the Kingdom of God. Needless to say, I got side tracked. And as I started to learn that there were seemingly infinite possibilities for my future, I started to think that maybe I could figure this thing out ('cause that's worked out for me before...).

My control-freak  mindset wanted to figure out where I would serve and how I would serve and where I would live and the kind of money I would make and the kind of life my family could live and the list goes on and on and somewhere in it all, I kind of stopped listening for God's direction. My first love was always music ministry; it's actually what I first felt called to do. Being a part of music ministry teams since the age of 12 has created a constant in my life; even the times when I was off partying away my mind and not being the person I knew I needed to be, my hypocrisy was worth it because it was the music that was my link to God. My one way back. That is how big a role music ministry played in my life and it's what I knew God wanted me to devote my life to. Now the reality is that I'll likely never get rich off of music ministry, but that's ok because that isn't why I love it.

So, part 2 to why I've been bouncing around from "real job" to "real job" goes something like this:

I got scared.

It's really as simple as that. Fear told me that I'd not be good at it, I was under qualified and should find a "real job" to provide for my family while I do worship ministry part-time. I think that this plan could work for some people, but I also know what I was called to do and that is to sell out.

So, as of late, I've been looking for that full-time position that God has for me somewhere. I have no idea what that will look like and its really kind of exciting to wait and see, but I still struggle.

I'm kind of a melancholy person naturally, so pessimism is only ever a stone's throw away. I often struggle with my imperfections, my lack of righteousness and wonder if I'm ever really going to be "qualified" (by my standards of course) to lead God's people in any capacity. ...this is fear talking again.....

I am encouraged by people in the Bible like Moses who made up excuse after excuse to not follow his calling and Jonah who turned tail and ran (and that worked out for him too...after a while). See, I know that I am lacking a lot, but I believe I'm called for a purpose. I read once that, in regards to ministry, "the moment you think you're qualified, you most definitely are not". Now, the reality is you need some basics (understanding of theology, scripture, in my case music, etc.) but I think what the author was getting at is the idea that when we can be "good enough" or have enough experience "under our belts", then and only then we can do the thing God has for us. This is just ridiculous.

If there is something that God has for you (and me) to do, we're to be faithful and pursue it and trust that his Spirit will give us words to speak when we need them and guidance when we need it and reprimand when we need it. This is living by faith and not by sight.

So, I'm looking for a place to serve and dealing with a very selfish, insecure person who lives in my mirror.

I hope that you too will look for what God has built you to do. It's a life-long struggle and a day-to-day decision to do so, but it's so worth it.

Thanks for reading. and if you could spare a prayer for me, I'd really appreciate it.

Pax,
The Dread

just realized this one never got posted.

            There is a lot of teaching here in 2 Corinthians 5:11-21 from Paul to the church in Corinth. Paul covers three main topics in these verses: a statement of why they are doing what they are doing, a point-of-view adjustment for the letter recipients and finally a note on what the church’s role is in this world.

            So, looking at the three sections in pieces, Paul starts this selection with his statement about what his true motives are. He says that it is their (the church and himself) responsibility to work hard and that God will see how sincere their hearts are in searching. He says that if they seem crazy, it’s only to glorify God and not to draw attention to their own actions. Paul then draws a parallel between the Christian life and the life and death of Jesus. He says that since Christ has died for the entire world, they believe that all Christian believers have died to their old lives and are re-defined as living for Christ. This moves into his second section in which he says that, as Christians, we have to look at our lives as new in nature and in purpose. Living with this perspective on life will keep us from evaluating things from a human perspective. He ends chapter five with a section that functions as a replacement identity for the church in Corinth. He basically says that God’s whole point in sending Jesus was to reconcile people to him; in the same way, Christ is sending us to continue the work he started in bringing God and people back together. He says “we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us” (NLT v. 20).

            This passage was extremely important for the church in Corinth as they were dealing with all types of immorality and non-Christian traditions penetrating the church there; as people who were fairly new converts they were slowly losing their mission focus without a solid Christian leader living among them. This passage gave them a point of reference on how they should be assessing ideologies and traditions that were leaking into their church. This portion of Paul’s letter also gave them a sense of purpose and belonging in that he gives them the title of “Ambassadors for God”; they are the one’s pleading with people to come back to God through accepting Jesus and what he did to bridge the gap between man and God.

            This message is just as applicable in our lives as it was to the church in Corinth. We all too often as materialistic, western Christians forget that evangelism and calling people back to God is a central mission accepted by us when we accepted Christ and that in deciding to become disciples, we are also deciding to make disciples. It is all too easy in this age of communication and technology to forget that we are dead to our materialistic selves and our identity is now in Christ as the continuation of his message of love. Paul also gives a word about directing glory to God and not bragging about how spectacular our ministry is, but rather having a sincere heart for lost people. This charge for this ancient church is the same charge for our church.

            My reaction to this passage was that of a student listening to a teacher. Paul writes in such a direct way (this being a letter) that everything he says is instruction for my life. All we have to do is place his instruction in current day terms and settings which, strangely, is similar to the sinfulness of the church of Corinth. I know I can learn something from Paul and I think that any Christian can also grow by applying Paul’s instruction based on its validity and not on his reputation.

           

Through the difficulties of decision making.

In the last few weeks or so, I’ve been going through what I’ve come to call my “quarter-life crisis”. This has been a time for me to stop and evaluate everything that I’ve been doing, what my goals are, what I want out of my education and who I want to be. Needless to say, this has been a heavy time. Out of this heavy time, however, there has been beauty. There is something great about stopping to survey the landscape of one’s life. You get fresh perspective on what you’re doing and it can be an encouraging and energizing time. One of my favorite people, Michael Gungor, covers it well in his book “The Crowd, the Critic, and the Muse”. He describes times like these as climbing out of the valley of the Grand Canyon to the edge and looking at the big picture in all of its God-given beauty and then making one’s way back to the bottom where the work gets done.

From a lot of these ponderings, there is one thing that has come to light and that is that I have some serious decisions to make; ones that could change everything. While I’m not studied or skilled in metaphysics, I do believe in some sort of butterfly effect. I believe it’s evident when I reflect on how (for better or worse) one selfish decision in my past set in motion events that would eventually put me where I am today. Now, I can’t know whether some of these things would have happened regardless of that decision, but I do know what did happen and it’s the actualities that lend themselves to support some theory of chain reactions where if we had chosen a different page in life’s “choose your own adventure” book, things would have been dramatically different.

So, I thought I’d share some of the insights that have helped me along in this big-decision-making time in my life. If you can use them, God love you for it. If not, well, thanks for spending some time reading my thoughts; it does mean something to me that you’re just reading it at all.

First and foremost in our decision making process, we need to understand that some things in life simply take priority. For me, this is an easy enough thing to distinguish. I intend to devote my life as a servant-minister to other Christians in some capacity. What that actually looks like is evolving and what that will look like in ten years, no one can say. But for me, the bottom line is simple.

 This got me thinking about how one can feel assured that one made the right decision and the truth is that you can’t. It’s difficult to swallow, so take some sugar with it, but the truth is that you will never know beyond a shadow of doubt that you made the best decision. Thankfully, Scripture and tradition tells us that God has our best interest at heart and, though we’ll mess up (and we will), he can make beautiful things out of our mess. This isn’t an excuse to not try, but it is encouragement in the face of uncertainty. So in order to attempt to make a broader rule of thumb in regards to decision making, I’ll offer the following statement (that I tweeted earlier):

“The only true obligation you have is to love God with all that you are and then to love people like he does”.

It seems like a simple modification of Jesus’ two greatest commands and what theologians refer to as Jesus’ “new command” and it is, but what I have done is set it in the context of decision making. For those of us in the position to make these decisions, we need to keep one thing at the forefront as our primary decision-making filter: love God. Thankfully, this can be done in innumerable places, times and processes. So this first and greatest command actually alleviates a lot of stress while still narrowing our options down. Thus, we must first ask “which of these options best demonstrates my love for God?” Now, don’t be discouraged if this doesn’t narrow it down too much; like I said, loving God can look like any number of actions.

The next filter or standard we then use is “loving people” and not just loving people like we’re comfortable loving people, but loving people like God loves people. This raises the standard to an unreachable height, but it is inspiring because we can reach beyond our natural capabilities (via God’s Spirit) and touch the heart of those that God loves. Loving like God means loving when it’s hard and uncomfortable or even painful. It means costing you something of yourself and it means possibly facing rejection. Take heart, though: Jesus himself faced those things so that he could demonstrate God’s great love for us. So this next filter also doesn’t narrow down the options too much because there are people everywhere and, thus, you can love people wherever you are in contact with them.

Now, you might be thinking “I thought this blog was going to be helpful” or “can’t you just tell me what the right thing to do is?”And while I wish I had all the answers, the reality is that we’ve each been given tasks to accomplish and no one can do yours for you.

We can, however, be encouraged that God extends ridiculous amounts of grace. I’m writing a song right now that starts with this line: “God is not the god of the necessary, but he is the god of extravagancy…” I believe that’s true and within that extravagancy, we find that he only asks two life-defining things of us: to love him with everything and love people like he does. When these are our parameters of decision making, we find that it takes a lot to get outside of his grace. He gives us room to make real decisions and while many Christians will pray “your will be done”, many don’t realize that within his perfect will, he gives us choices. God is so creative that he created creatures that create and can reason like he does and make decisions like he does. It’s part of who we are.

So I apologize if I didn’t make your decision-making-process any easier, but I hope you can take this as encouragement that there is grace extended to you in whatever you decide. There is a broad plethora of options, all of which allow for your only true obligation (as opposed to the ones we place on ourselves):

Love God with everything that you are and love people like he does.

Grace and Peace to you all,                                                       

The Dread

About a Relationship, Not a Religion: An Apology for the Christian Tradition

I have heard many Pastors and lay-Christians say this phrase “It’s not about a religion, it’s about a relationship.” Boy, doesn’t that feel cozy. See, I used to love this phrase. This morning, however, I couldn’t get this phrase out of my head (which is weird because I don’t think I’ve heard it in a while) and I started to realize how misleading this statement is to a Christian’s spiritual development (that is, discipleship).

So I started thinking and I came up with several reasons why it is more damaging than good for us to keep repeating this. I didn’t, however, feel like anyone would simply take my word for it, so I found some people who agree and I’ll introduce them as I come to them.

Premises

First, the phrase in question is very inaccurate. Oddly enough, most of the people I hear say this are, in some way or another, a Christian leader in a formal Christian context. What is odd about that is that this statement throws out the Christian religion in place of a Christian relationship but those repeating this statement would not have a platform or the authority to say this statement had it not been for the Christian religion. I’ll press further: they may have not ever heard about the Christian God if it hadn’t been for the Christian religion. This effectively renders the statement self-contradictory and, thus, self-condemning.

Now, don’t misunderstand me, I am well aware of the atrocities that have been committed in the name of the Christian church. I would hope that it is obviously not these that I am talking about. What I am talking about is the pliable Christian tradition that tells and re-tells the story of Christ and then offers us ways to be a part of that story.

Against dead church-ism

I think what the proliferators of this statement are trying to say is that going to church and performing the rituals without a heart for God behind it is null and void. I think that this is a noble thing point out (though I don’t necessarily agree with the way that people tend to use this intention to point fingers at liturgical traditions), but I think that as leaders it is our responsibility to be exact with our words. Religion, then, is not the enemy. It is the heart of whoever is practicing said religion that is at fault. Isaiah prophesied in Isaiah 29:13 “these people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.” Jesus, actually quotes Isaiah in Mark 7:6 and goes on to put a finer point on it in verse 15: “It’s not what goes into your body that defiles you; you are defiled by what comes from your heart.” Obviously, Jesus and the great prophet Isaiah were against worshiping without having a heart for God behind one’s actions. Jesus makes this clear in John 4:23-24 when he says that true worship must be done in spirit and in truth. This means that our worship must come from our deepest being and be honest. So, when I’m having a cruddy day, I don’t have to slap on a smile to worship God. I simply need to be honest in my heart that I know who he is and I’m having a cruddy day.

The apostle Paul also wrote to the early church of the importance of having a heart for God. We see in his first letter to the Corinthian church:

“If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.”

Paul’s thoughts here coincide well with John’s letter in which he wrote “Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God for God is love” (1 John 4:7-8).

From these passages and good reason, we can assert that if we are to do anything, especially worship, it must be done from the depths of our spirit and in an honest way and, most importantly, from a heart that loves. Again, I don’t think any evangelical Christian would disagree that doing things void of love and with the wrong heart behind it is worthless, but the statement “it’s not about a religion, it’s about a relationship” throws the wrong bathwater out. Neither Jesus nor the apostles spoke out against religion and, in fact, both were pious in their practices of Judaism (Mark 7 and other places) and Christianity (see the letters to the early church in the New Testament). We mustn’t lose our religion in the misguided search for a fulfilling life in Christ.

Against over-spiritualization

There is something to be said against churches whose leadership has lost the value of a faith that is motivated from love and true spirituality. I, however, want to give a word of warning in letting the pendulum swing too far to the other side and result in a hyper-individualistic and super-spiritualization of one’s faith. The Christian tradition does not teach a spirituality that is wrapped up in some high-church theology or some guru-level spirituality. While some may cite scriptural passages such as the thief on the cross (Luke 23:40-43) in order to justify the superfluousness of going to a formal worship gathering, this passage cannot be twisted to say that it is right for a Christian to abstain from the formal gathering. The conversation between Jesus and the dying criminal must be read within the context of the fact that they’re dying. For those living, Jesus says “come follow me”. That following, today, is most life-giving when we stay connected to the body of Christ in the formal church which is located, yes, inside the Christian religion.

Western, post-Christian, culture has left Americans (and other country’s citizens) with a do-it-yourself spirituality in which one can have a relationship to God apart from the body of Christ. This notion while in its most basic form is true, is not how Christ left us to live. Instead, he is constantly placing our relationship to him in conjunction with our relationships to each other (Matthew 28:19-20, Luke 24:49-53, Luke 22:25-27, John 13:34-35). This is why Jesus’ greatest commands are to love God and, secondly, to love people (Matthew 22:37-40). For us to let things become overly individual and overly spiritual detracts from how Jesus regarded humanity.

Finding balance

So here’s where we stand: somewhere between dead, rote-repetitious traditions and overly individualistic, overly spiritualization of reality. It is important that we acknowledge the necessity for a vivacious spiritual life as well as the need for a life that is connected with people in a real way. Our balance is important because, while we can come to an understanding of Christ and a relationship with him by ourselves, we are prone to folly. Theologian Ellen T. Charry writes in her book By the Renewing of Your Minds: the Pastoral Function of Christian Doctrine:

“We started out by observing that insight and understanding are not the only way we are formed. We also come to understanding by doing: thinking is shaped by experience…It is not only the case that we must know God in order to love him. It is also the case that in loving we learn what loving is…The need to quiet the din of a busy life, however, should not be understood in opposition to Christian service (which can keep one very busy). The criticism that practicing doctrine has been severed from hands and feet is real. One can grasp what our theologians are inviting us to consider through silence. But being in Christ can remain theoretical unless one meets Christ by caring for children, the elderly, the poor, the sick and those in prison.”[1]

For us to actually be Christian, we must do so. By that, I mean, we must “do”. We cannot let our faith remain theoretical and we cannot divorce ourselves from the larger church. To do so is damaging to our spiritual lives and our understanding of who God is. For Christian leaders to guide people towards this folly is scary. “It” is about a relationship, but it is a relationship that is found within the context of a religion that has been abused and misrepresented. This does not mean that we should get rid of it, only that we should practice it more carefully.

There has been no thought more damaging to Christian spiritual formation than the anthropology that man is an eternal soul trapped inside a carnal body. No, the Christian understanding of humanity is that we are both spiritual and carnal; we are one unit. For us to assume otherwise results in all kinds of misconceptions of how we are to conduct ourselves; we see everything from rigid piety that is convinced that the physical world is the problem to a restricting empiricism that sees scientific discovery and physical observations as our only salvation. This is not what God shows us in his incarnation, life, death and resurrection. Man is 100% spiritual and 100% physical. Being a part of the Christian tradition allows us to exercise both in a way that grows us in our relationship with Christ.

Concluding thoughts

I had no intention at the outset of writing this blog to write over people’s heads or get some personal glory. I only long for the Church to in America to value herself again. To say that we don’t need our own religion is like me saying that I don’t need my bones in order to live. The church is our structure, our skeleton. While it can be difficult to describe at times due to its beautiful diversity, the church is the body and bride of Christ. AND the church practices a religion; it is a religion that fosters a relationship through maintaining other relationships.

If you are a Christian – especially a Christian leader – I implore you to abolish this cozy phrase from you library of Christian phrases. It feels good because it doesn’t require much out of us. For us to simply “be” in a relationship doesn’t necessarily require us to do much except “be”. Furthermore, there is no accountability here. If someone thinks I’m acting wrongly, I can simply say “my faith is between me and God” or “only God can judge me”, but this is no way to be a Christian in a community. Religion, on the other hand requires something of us. It demands we give our time and actions to being a Christian in more than theory. If I don’t show up to church for a month, the Christian tradition gives my brother and sister Christians a clear indicator that something may be wrong with me and then, in love, they can reach out to me.

Our religion is valuable. Let’s not get rid of it because some hearts are in the wrong place.

Pax,

The Dread

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[1] Charry, E. T. (1999). Conclusion. By the renewing of your minds the pastoral function of Christian doctrine (pp. 240-241). New York: Oxford University Press.