A Christian Take on Divorce

So, this is probably one of the most personal blog postings I’ve ever written; time to be bare. 

I come from a family with divorced parents and while I’ll not bore you with the details of being a problem-child due to my grief, suffice it to say that this event characterized much of my formative years. The reason that I bring this up is because I think that in Christian circles, it’s tempting to regard such topics with latex gloves on; that is, we talk about messy situations in sterile terms and I don’t think it’s always helpful. On occasion, such as now, it’s ok to look at the thing for what it is. 

I talked with my father on the phone this afternoon and he disclosed to me some of the “behind the scenes” goings on in his personal life from around the time of his divorce from my mom. This was hard. I’ve heard most of it before because my dad has always been remarkably honest with me, but this was difficult to hear now because it was the first time that I had ever approached the issue as a Christian leader. I called him, you see. I told him that I was struggling with this idea of divorce and how to approach it as a Christian with influence. Not because I'm having problems with my marriage, though I'd be lying if I said that the word has never come up in the heat of argument, but because the topic was weighing heavy on my mind. So my question to him was essentially “What did the church do that was effective/ineffective in your life when you were the one who was doing wrong that allowed you to continue to grow in your faith? How should Christian leaders treat divorcees?” 

His words cut me deep because they were raw and honest. I’m a well adjusted adult now, but somewhere deep down, there is a little boy who still grieves the loss of a life once cherished. What was incredible was how he was able to talk to me in a way that allowed me to talk the answer out of myself. 

Be Christ.

It seems simple, but the one thing that he communicated that was vital to his spiritual life at the time was a small congregation that he was a part of for a short time and a few Christian men in his life that gave him room to continue to draw near Christ. In his words:

“I never wanted to leave God. I knew I was doing wrong, but the choice had been made.”

Amidst a flurry of emotions and confusing feelings, this space created by a few men who verbally acknowledged their disagreement with his choices and yet showed grace anyway, made all the difference.

For some odd reason, I had a hard time holding it together during this phone call. I’ve long since forgiven both of my parents for the divorce and yet in discussing God’s grace in that context, I couldn't help but tear up.

As Christians and especially as Christians with sway, we need to lead with this: Christ loved the lost. Christ died for the confused who didn’t know what they were doing. And if Christ did that for them, I need to do that also. I need to crucify that part of me that is hurt from my parent’s divorce and thus wants to hold back grace. I need to shower forgiveness and give people room to continue to work out their faith while they work out their lives.

This is a blog for me. Mostly. But I think there’s a message here for all Christians; a challenge to show Christ in messy and painful situations. In this way, we join Jesus’ martyrdom for the Kingdom; we die to ourselves and our personal issues in order to shine the light of the Kingdom of forgiveness; the Kingdom of love; the Kingdom of God.

Pax,

The Dread

Stepping around Jesus to get at God

Okay, so I don't always do indicting think pieces, but this one has been rattling around in my head since Sunday.

I grew up in the Christian, main-stream, Evangelical, pop-Christianity, insert your label __(here)___ church. So I feel like it goes without saying that most of the things that I could be critical of about Christianity, I have probably held as my view point at one time or another. Now my ego would love to chalk it up to the fact that I was young and impressionable when I practiced my faith in a way that was less-than thoughtful, but the reality is that we should all take responsibility for the inconsistency between our beliefs and our practice.

The thing that has really bugged me in the last week is this sense that, a lot of times, Christians who are thinkers get wrapped up in thinking about God and how exactly God is and forget that we were given a clear picture of him in Jesus (John 14:7-11).

Now, some might like to debate the extent to which Jesus intended when he said "If you've seen me, then you've seen the Father" but I'd like to suggest that he meant it in a similar way that I would speak of myself in relation to my earthly father. That is, I am my father's son and while we are ontologically and really different persons, we are both of the same bloodline and hold the same values and believe the same thing (now this is a limited analogy since my father and I have some variance on beliefs; for Jesus, however, he and the Father have the same point of view; that is, they are both all-knowing. So we can trust that they in their wisdom have drawn the same conclusions about reality and act/believe the same things).

So if Jesus says more or less "I am the clearest picture that any of you ever have or ever will get of God", then I feel like we can trust him on this if we're believers in Christ. Now, being a philosopher/theologian myself, I know how easy it is to get caught up in my theories and debates about things regarding the nature of God (i.e. how exhaustive is God's foreknowledge? To what extent does he grant us free-will? How does salvation work? Does prayer work? etc.) without acknowledging the fact that Jesus is God. I feel like I should re-emphasize that last bit:

Jesus Is God

Now the point may seem moot among Christians, but so often we don't act like it. More specifically, we don't act like God is Jesus. We get this picture of an old man scowling in the sky when we think of God or the Father (some of this may be due to our experiences with our earthly fathers) and then we think of this buddy-Jesus, cuddly-Jesus or Jesus-my-homeboy. The reality is that Jesus was something of a rascal and, if not God, was no kind of good man. But we Christians proclaim him God incarnate. Let's give that some weight.

I'm all for people theorizing about how God functions in his relationship with humans, but I get nervous when people emphasize points that Jesus didn't. We lose our Christocentric faith in exchange for a well-thought out conclusion. 

I was recently at a small group meeting in which, in discussion, I said something to the effect of "well, lets remember that the way that Jesus did evangelism was through relationships, so we shouldn't be afraid to come close to atheists". Immediately, the response from the whole group was something to the effect of  "yes, but Jesus called people out about their sin!" (everyone phrased it in their own way, of course).

Now, my point isn't that I don't think Jesus "called people out", but that Jesus led with love. The fact that he has the authority of God aside, Jesus never asked people why they were demon possessed. He never ridiculed the Roman centurion for letting his child get sick. He just loved them. So why should we act like we have any kind of authority to hold people's beliefs or actions against them? Without going on a Scripture-slinging-frenzy, I feel like the Bible is pretty clear throughout that judgement is not our responsibility. Even more clearly, it states that love IS our responsibility. Can we ignore this?

I submit that the reason that we tend to ignore this is because we latch on to this idea of God that requires a perfect-behaving kind of righteousness instead of the kind of righteousness that comes from Jesus and is not sourced in our actions. The Kingdoms of this world are concerned with our behavior; the Kingdom of God is concerned with our hearts. Let's not try and understand God or behave in such a way that is essentially by-passing Jesus in order to get to some philosophical picture of God because it makes sense. Most of what Jesus did doesn't make sense; his Kingdom is upside down from our fallen understanding. It's hard, but it's the way of the cross; the way of Jesus.

Don't step around Jesus  

Peace,

The Dread

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