Friday, April 28, 2006

199. memories of my sophomore (HS) year

I'm not sure why or how it happened, but recently I remembered something, somewhat out of the blue. And it's difficult to put into words because the details surrounding the memory are vague as well but I'll just come out and explain what I can.

I'm pretty sure it was my sophomore year in high school. And, again, I don't remember how or why I came to this decision. I'm pretty sure I had just been hurt or betrayed by a friend, but I can't make out the details.

"Yeah, we get it already. You don't remember. So what DO you remember?"

Okay, I remember making a decision to do my best to not hurt peoples' feelings. And I remember now that, yes, I did make this decision after suffering some kind of very painful, personal blow to my self-esteem. And I remember feeling powerless at the time. I remember being angry about whatever had been done to me. And I remember thinking that I had a choice - I could plot and scheme and try to exact some kind of revenge, or I could do the opposite.

And I'm not sure but I think this all happened around the time I decided to get serious about my relationship with Christ. See, I went to a Baptist high school (Hawaii Baptist Academy) and every year they have this week long event called Christian Emphasis Week (CEW). During CEW, we'd have classes half day and then the rest of the day would be a kind of all-school Christian rally complete with special speakers and altar calls. It was during my sophomore year CEW that I decided to really get serious about being a Christian.

Looking back now, I can see that I had no idea what being a "serious" Christian meant other than going to church every Sunday. And so that's what I did.

That year marked the beginning of something like seven years during which I never missed attending some kind of church service on Sunday. And I remember the first Sunday I didn't attend service. When I was 23 or 24, due to a variety of pressures and stresses in my life at the time, I got fed up and burnt out with church and I stopped attending for a few months. That first Sunday, I remember thinking that it was going to feel like a really big deal but at the end of the day, it didn't feel any different from Saturday and that made my weekend twice as long as it used to be. Sweet.

Anyway, back to my sophomore year. It was after this decision to get serious about following Christ, during CEW, that this emotional trauma (whatever it was) happened and I made another decision. Instead of seeking revenge, I would do the opposite. Whatever hurt I was feeling at the time, I vowed then and there that I would never do anything out of spite that would cause another person to feel the way I did then. My mantra became, "do no harm."

You know, the speaker we had that year must have been a kick-ass preacher because I remember another big decision I made that year. Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) was gaining an audience (at least in churches, which is pretty much where it remains today) and I remember starting a fledgling Christian music collection (albums, vinyl, LPs...remember those?). And I remember going into the music stores whenever I had cash to spend (which wasn't very often) and I would always have to make a choice between buying a non-christian record or a Christian record. And this decision was made doubly difficult because there were no Christian music stations around at the time that were playing CCM and so if I tried to be spiritual and buy a Christian record, I had nothing to go on. I honestly don't know how I ended up choosing the Christian records that I ended up buying - records by artists like Petra and Whiteheart. I think I just went with whatever covers looked cool.

Now at the time, my musical tastes were not very sophisticated. I remember playing the grooves off of my Wham and Nu Shooz and Duran Duran LPs. So you can see that I wasn't the most discriminating listener in the world (and come on, I was in high school) but even then I could tell that none of the Christian bands I was finding were anywhere near as good as what non-christians were coming out with.

But again, that sophomore year CEW had an impact on me because even though I liked it more, I decided to get rid of a bunch of my non-christian records. I remember dividing up my collection into two stacks. One stack was made up of my Christian records and the non-christian records that I thought were not evil enough to warrant expulsion, and the other stack contained records that I would sell for cash - cash that I would use to buy more Christian records. And I have no idea what standard I used to judge between which non-christian records I would keep and which I would throw away (I mean how in the world did Chicago 16 get axed while Van Halen's Diver Down stayed in?) but I let go of some records that I LOVED. In return I bought Christian records that I ended up hating - Russ Taff, Greg X Volz, The Rez Band. It was a pretty heart wrenching experience.

(Oh, and here's a little side note for free. I was a part of a super-strict Bible study at the time and after selling some of my favorite records, I told the guys in my Bible study what I had done. And I was all stoked because I thought I had made this huge sacrifice for God but then the Bible study leader looks at me and says, "you mean you SOLD your records? That means someone else is going to buy that evil music and be corrupted by it." Now how's THAT for a guilt trip?)

Anyway, I tell that story to illustrate the kind of serious commitments I made that year. Some of them I still stick to (I'm still pretty anal about attending church every Sunday although I let myself off the hook if something else important comes up) and some I've given up (although there are a few exceptions like Sixpence None The Richer and Over The Rhine, I still think most Christian music is garbage and I refuse to buy in...a blog for another day, to be sure).

But I had completely forgotten about the decision I made to do no harm to others. And earlier this week, the memory of that decision came back to me like a kick in the head because it explains so much about why I am who am I today and why I act the way I do. See, last year I did a bunch of blogs about how confusing and frustrating it was to be a nice guy (see blog 29, blog 30, and blog 75 for a few examples). And the general tone of those blogs was anger because, truth be told, just because you do your best to not hurt others, that doesn't give you a pass from being hurt yourself and I was angry because that's a pretty raw deal.

But also, I think I was angry because I had forgotten why it was that I did my best not to hurt others. I had forgotten that decision I had made way back in 1987.

(A curious thing. Even though I had forgotten about that decision, last November I came to a similar conclusion about how to deal with hurt and disappointment. In blog 123 I made a new commitment to living a life of generosity and kindness. BTW, If you don't click on any of the other links, click on that one because it's a really good blog entry, if I do say so myself.)

And in conclusion.

I started this entry with the intention of just talking about my "do no harm" decision but once you open up a can of worms. . . When people asked me how I became a Christian, I tell them I accepted Christ in the 2nd grade (when I started attending Hawaii Baptist Academy) but I also tell them that I didn't get serious about it until my sophomore year in high school. And I've only now, after writing and remembering all these things, come to realize how true that is and how profoundly the decisions I made then continue to affect me today.

Thursday, April 27, 2006

198. on passion (thanks Kelli)

Maybe what I'm really lacking is passion. On the way home from house church, I was talking with Kelli about the prayer session and she was asking me all these questions about what I was passionate about, about what drives my life, about what God put here to do. And it was an odd conversation for a couple reasons. First, I didn’t have very much sleep that weekend and so I was having a hard time getting my thoughts together enough to adequately answer her barrage of questions. Second, she was asking about my passions, and I thought I knew what they were but she kept picking my answers apart (Socratic method style) and in the end I was left in a dizzy mess, feeling like a tornado had just torn through my life’s mission statement.

My passion?

Well, put simply it's to reconcile the church and the arts. Actually, the original version used to read, "to get the church back into the arts," but like I said, it was found lacking when called into question so I kind of reworked it with the reconciliation bit. And I'm not sure if the new version is any more robust than the old one but Kelli's not around to pick it apart so I'm going to roll with it for now.

Back in blog 187, I wrote about why I'd like to see the church encourage (with words) and support (with funding) artists. And it has to do with building culture, a task that we've neglected for far too long.

And I think of stewardship, the task of overseeing what belongs to another. I think about how God has given us stewardship of this earth and how caring for culture is a part of that mandate. And I think it's no accident that at a time when the arts have become all but irrelevant in the church, that many Christian conservatives willingly trade a sustainable environment for a thriving economy.

I'm ashamed to say it now, but there was a time when I was all about mocking tree-hugging environmentalists. I remember reading a chapter in one of Rush Limbaugh's early books about the environment and how the earth is far more resilient that we give it credit for. He said that all this talk about man hurting the environment was arrogance on our part. He actually said (and I'm ashamed to say that I actually believed him at the time) that for us as humans to say that we can have an adverse impact on the earth, even with all of our cars and factories and paved roads and clear cutting, is overstating our impact on the globe. He pointed to studies that showed how a volcanic event, like Mount St. Helens eruption in 1980, releases more greenhouse gasses than all the greenhouse gasses emitted in the first half of the twentieth century (actually, I don't remember the exact comparison he used, but it was something along those lines).

Follow that line of reasoning and it gives us clear mandate to rape the environment since our dick isn't big enough to do it any harm. And that's such irresponsible bullshit. Even if our impact on the environment isn't as large as we think it is, isn't it still an abdication of our responsibility to steward the earth to say that we can pollute the air with impunity?

Among other things, art can be about reminding us about the delicate beauty of nature, about what a rare jewel of a planet God has given us, about what we need to protect and preserve.

Unfortunately, capitalism is the pagan god of our day and I think it's clear that the church in America worships at its feet along with corporations and political parties.

(Randall steps off his soap box)

You know, this blog was originally going to be about me not knowing what my passion was, but even with the little bit that I wrote above, I guess it's clear that there's fire left in me yet.

No, I don't have it all figured out just yet and I suppose that's why it was so easy for Kelli to poke holes in my ideas. But I know I'm asking some good questions and in the end I'm aiming for nothing less than a kind of revolution. Capitalism is a wonderful economic system but like any system, we have to remember that it's there to serve the needs of humanity, not the other way around.

And I can't believe it but I feel like I'm talking like a liberal more and more these days. But that's a whole other issue that deserves it's own blog entry.

Anyway, I know she meant well. Maybe she just wanted to understand where I was coming from. Maybe she was trying to get me to understand myself better. I don't know. It got me thinking again and that's a good thing.

Two kudos for Kelli.

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

197. motivation and writer's block

This past Sunday at house church I got prayed for. At first I was just going to submit a simple prayer request and then be on my way but it became a more formal time of laying on of hands and being anointed. My prayer request was basically about my writing. I initially asked for a kind of validation of my writing by someone in the established writing world - basically what I was asking for was some kind of comment about my writing by someone who's been published or someone who works for a publishing house or an editor or an agent...just someone who could tell me if I really have something to offer or if I'm just another vestigial appendage hanging off of the blogospherus maximus.

But Pastor Blake (don't tell him I called him that) said "shine that, we're not praying for that." And what he meant was that I should write anyway, with or without anyone's "professional" opinion. Instead, they prayed for encouragement and inspiration. And they prayed that I would find writing groups or mentors because what I really need is some guidance and advice. And it was super cool of them to pray for those things for me. And we've seen some pretty cool answered prayers in the past and I'm hoping that the prayers my friends lifted up on my behalf found favor with God because I really do need some motivation.

Motivation.

Two weeks ago, I wrote about how I've somehow ended up at a place in my life where I don't really care about getting a girlfriend or finding a wife. And I wrote about how, in the past, this quest for love and relationship was the one thing that was near and dear to my heart, and it was the one unquenchable fire, the one passion that could lift and inspire me or crush and depress me. But now that I'm content as a single person, there's nothing left to fuel my writing.

And now I feel unmotivated. But I have come to understand something that had perplexed me for quite some time.

This newfound understanding has to do with people who suffer from bipolar disorder. There are medications that they can take to balance out their serotonin levels and that allows them to function on a more even keel. However, there are many cases where patients stop taking their meds because, among other things, they miss the euphoric fits of mania as well as the dark, dank lows of depression. Better to feel something rather than nothing at all.

Until recently, I could never understand why someone would want to stop taking their meds, knowing it would leave them open to debilitating levels of depression. And I'm not on any such medication, but I think I can kind of understand why they stop. Because...because I'm having a hard time remembering the last time I was really, truly excited about something, and it's also been something like four or five months since I've felt really bummed about anything. And maybe that sounds like a blissful, Zen-like paradise to some but for me it feels like...well, that's the problem - it doesn't feel like anything at all. And if this lack of emotion was the result of some kind of pill that I was taking, I'd probably stop taking it.

Then again...

I don’t know, maybe I'm being overly dramatic about all of this. Maybe this is just another episode of plain ol' writers block and all this talk about not feeling anything and serotonin levels is just me blowing smoke up my ass ("how the hell do you do that?"). All I know is, it's been very hard to get myself to write anything lately. I mean, even now as I'm writing this, it's like I have to purposefully will the words to the page as opposed to times when the juices are really flowing and words are falling from the sky faster than I can paste them to the page.

In the past when the words were elusive, I would just blow it off and not write. But to be honest, I feel like I have something of an audience now and I feel like I don't want to disappoint. And I don't know if that's pride or if that's some strange kind of accountability, but there it is. And I'm glad because in the end, even when it's hard and when it feels unnatural and forced, I still like to write.

"But why?"

Just because I can.

196. on empathy and innocence

...and I wonder if what you gain in empathy you lose in innocence.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

195. on communion (part 1)

Depending on what you believe and how you understand communion, you may be surprised to know that the house church that I attend has never celebrated the Eucharist or communion or the Lord's Supper (to be used interchangeably in this blog). Why not? Well, basically because none of us really understands what it's about.

I mean, yes, we're supposed to do it "in remembrance" of Christ, but just speaking for myself, I've never understood the elements of communion. What are we remembering, how does the bread and the wine help us, what was Jesus trying to do, what's up with the body and blood? And those are just a few of the questions I have.

Back when I was still worshiping in a corporate church setting, I would participate in communion along with everybody else. Honestly, it was more of a when-in-Rome kind of a deal because who wants to be the Christian that doesn't partake? And although it often felt like I was just going through the motions, I really did try to make it mean something to me. I tried to think about Jesus suffering on the cross, I tried to think about how good God has been to me, I tried to repent of my sins so that I would not be unworthy, I tried to remember not to swallow too hard because with those tiny little cups it's easy to pour the juice down the wrong pipe (at least it was for me...I can't remember how many times I've choked on communion grape juice, trying not to disturb the solemnity of the moment with my hacking cough).

And I couldn't understand why participating in the Lord's Supper meant so much to some people. And I couldn't understand why churches that followed a liturgical order of worship called the Eucharist the high point of the worship service (I actually attended an Episcopalian church for a couple years but still didn't get it).

So I'm at this house church and we've never celebrated communion formally with bread and wine, but it was Easter Sunday and so we decided to give it a try.

And here's where things got a bit messed up. I volunteered to do some research and to try and come up with a short teaching of what I'd found. But in the middle of the week, I was talking with Blake (the unofficial senior pastor of the home church...don't tell him I called him that) and he made it sound like he was studying up on the matter along with Christine (she and Blake teach on alternating Sundays) and so I thought some of the pressure was off of me - that it was going to be more of an open discussion between the three of us rather than me presenting a teaching on the matter. Anyway, Sunday comes around and it turns out that I was the main speaker for the night but I didn't have anything prepared and so I had to wing it and it was kind of a mess.

But...

But it did leave room for discussion and it surprised me how many people had the same questions and the same lack of understanding that I did. We made the best of it and stumbled through a very informal communion service and at the end of the night, we agreed to pray and study the matter on our own and try it again the following month.

And so, I'm going to be thinking and writing about communion here in the next few weeks. And I invite people to pass on any helpful websites or books or blogs or bits of scripture that might help me and the other people in my home church to understand what's going on in communion. And for those who, like me, don't fully understand communion, I invite you to ask questions because often arriving at a good answer depends on asking the right questions. And I invite those for whom communion is a vital part of their Christianity to talk about why that is - what does it mean for you, what does it do for you, how does it enrich your life as a Christian?

I need help with this because even with the little bit of research that I did, I came to see how deep, rich, and complex the topic is. But I like to keep things simple. What I'm aiming for is a kind of communion narrative. What I mean is, I think there's a hint of story in communion and I want to get at it because a story is so much easier to grasp than a theological construct. And maybe this isn't a useful way to get at the meaning of communion but it's an avenue that looks interesting to me and so I'm taking it and if I run into a dead end, I don't mind heading back to the beginning and trying something else.

Anyway, pray for me and pray for our home church. Pray for wisdom and understanding and clarity.

And again, your hints, suggestions, ideas are always welcome.

194. i heart questions

I was listening to Terry Gross on the NPR Books podcast. And I've always loved Gross' show, Fresh Air because I've never heard another interviewer ask such consistently beautiful, insightful questions.

It's actually a secret goal of mine to do something with my life worthy of being on Fresh Air. See, when she's interviewing an author, you can tell that she actually read the book herself (rather than having an assistant read the book and submit a list of questions) because she doesn't just ask the standard, "what made you write this," or "tell us about the plot," type questions. She gets into the substance of the story by asking specific probing questions about a character or story element. She has a way of getting her guest to open up and reveal the heart of what makes their book tick, and you can tell that the authors appreciate the inquiry because her questions come out of a careful reading of their work.

So anyway, I'm listening to this podcast and for some reason the thought hits me - despite the things I wrote in my previous blog about my finding contentment as a single person, I can totally see myself falling crazy in love with a woman who knows how to ask amazing questions of me. And I hope that doesn't make me come across as some narcissistic egomaniac. I love to ask questions of the other person as well, when on a date, because I find women fascinating.

But sometimes I go too far.

I know for a fact that my love of questions freaked out this one girl a friend set me up with in college. See, one question I like to ask is, "what are your goals in life?" And she said she didn't know and unfortunately (for her) I found that amazing and so I started to ask things like, "well, if you could do anything you wanted to do, what would you do?" and, "what did you want to do when you were growing up?" and "what do you like to do in your spare time?" And I suppose the short, one word answers should have been a hint, but I just didn't know when to stop. I thought I was showing an interest in her, she probably thought I was a member of the Inquisitiion.

Needless to say there was never a second date.

Saturday, April 15, 2006

193. I suppose

So I was hanging out with some friends the other night after playing a show with my band and somehow my blog got mentioned and then someone made a comment that my blogs aren't as bitter as they used to be.

See, I don't know exactly what happened or why or how, but sometime in January I stopped worrying about getting into a relationship. And this might not sound like a big deal, but anyone who knew me before January would tell you that this is a miracle of Biblical proportions.

It's hard to convey how deep the longing for relationship used to be. Hard for two reasons: one, because it was a very desperate, needy, aching-void kind of longing that's hard to express without appearing as if I'm using hyperbole and two, because I don't feel it anymore and I don't really want to use my imagination to put myself back there just so I can describe how awful it was.

Suffice it to say that I used to be a very bitter, lonely guy and I wasn't afraid to rant about it in my blogs (see blog 73 for an example). And I wasn't afraid to rant about it to my friends either. More than one friend made the comment, "sheesh, would you do us all a favor and just get a girlfriend already?" And I can understand their frustrations because I must've sounded like a squeaky wheel that just didn't know when to quit.

However, now that I've found this contentment, I wonder if there's something I've lost as well. I mean, most of the stories I used to write were about finding or losing love. I find it's harder to put myself in that imaginary space - to imagine what it's like to be in love and to use that as the raw material out of which to carve a story.

And maybe it's odd that my stories were about love because I've always had a kind of hyper-cynical view of love as portrayed in movies and television (and I'm not talking about cheesy, soapy love stories). My favorite part of any movie that involved relationships was the bit where things fell apart and people were heartbroken, because that's the only part of the story that I could relate to. I don't understand courtship or wooing, I don't understand the giddy butterflies that accompany the early stages of a relationship, I don't understand the warm, buttery language of touch. I am, however, rather well versed in love purloined, spurned, unrequited, and so (and this is messed up, I know) the breakup scene was always a kind of private joy for me because that was something I could recognize.

So why would I write stories about the very thing that I don't understand? I can think of two reasons. First of all, the way I try to understand things is by writing about them. Secondly (and this is a bit embarrassing to admit) the stories were a kind of acting out in imagination what I couldn't find in life. They were a kind of wishful thinking. It was a substitute for what I wasn't experiencing in my life. But because they weren't informed by actual, real life experience, some of them had surreal elements about them (see Tired of Talking and The Birds and the Bag Lady).

And here's the other thing. That longing for relationship was the one thing that I really wanted out of life. It was the one thing that could drive me to elation when it seemed like something might work out or drive me to despair when it didn't. I'm a pretty laid back kind of guy, I take things in stride and it's generally very hard to get me worked up. But this love thing was the one constant agitator, the one sense of longing that made my heart burn, the one thing that I could count on to stir my passions.

And now that it's gone, my life feels clinical, rote, benign. I don't miss feeling lonely, but I do miss feeling...something. And what does this mean for me, this contentment? Does it mean that I'll be single and celibate for the rest of my life? That thought used to repulse me but now as I'm writing it, it doesn't faze me in the least. And I know some say that it's when you stop looking for it that love finds you, but even if I were to bump into the woman of my dreams walking down the street or in the new fiction section of a bookstore, I wonder if I could turn it all on again because honestly, the thought of getting into the whole business of making a relationship work just exhausts me. If it were to work, I think she would have to do the initiating, and that's pathetic and unmanly but that's just where I'm at right now. Because I'm content with where I'm at and why would I want to disturb that?

But if I were to find her (or she to find me) and if the cards on the table looked right and I had a hand to play, I think I'd still be willing to push my luck and go all in. I think.

And I'll end with this amazing song by Loudon Wainwright III called, "I Suppose."


I suppose that I could love you
though my mind tells me, "no way."
it says, "screw it, you've been through it,
it's not worth the price you pay"

then it reminds me of the last time
each gory detail
"it's a drag," it tells me, "bag it."
no my memory doesn't fail


and I suppose that I could love you
if my heart were still intact
it keeps ticking but not tricking me
like it used to, that's a fact

I've been burned and I have learned
to let the muscle do its job
I let it beat, it's no mean feat
no, it doesn't need to throb


and I suppose that I could love you
if I wasn't so afraid
I might go berserk if it did work
and I didn't feel betrayed

I've been writing off love for so long now
it's all I know to do
but if it's real this thing we feel
well then, yes, I could love you

Friday, April 14, 2006

192. televison

Television is rotting my brain.

If you don't see more blogs in the next few days, remind me to turn that damned thing off. Perform an intervention if you have to.

TV is evil, foul, sick, repulsive. And when you find yourself flipping between the movie, The Craft, and The Best Of Talk Soup, and a rerun of the X Files, you know you have a problem.

...although I must say that the Gospel of Judas documentary was quite interesting and not as anti-Christianity as I thought it was going to be.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

191. on salvation

So this past weekend at home church, I was in charge of bringing the message. And I took on the topic of salvation. And I think best when I write and so I wrote out a lot of my thoughts on the subject while I was doing my research. And I was pretty stoked on what I learned and so I figured it would be an easy thing to kind of edit my notes into a blog entry.

Boy, was I wrong. I'll spare you the details, but cleaning up my notes and making it readable was far harder than I thought. Anyway, I was hoping to post this last night but it took a whole 'nother day to whip into shape, and even then I only got the first part done.

Okay, on to the blog:

There's an amazing song by (one of my favorite songwriters) Sheryl Crow called "Letter To God." It's part plea, part critique, and the second verse goes like this:

I took you in, made a bed for you
in return you gave me some
words to go on, told me I was saved
but you never said what from

And maybe it's not as clear here, but in the context of the song, she's talking about becoming a Christian and in this verse she's trying to figure out what it is that salvation means - what is it that she’s saved from? And I think this is a useful question because there's so much discussion in Christianity about how to get people saved that I think we forget to stop and ask what it is that we're saving people from.

Now when most Christians talk about salvation, they're talking about saving people from going to hell after they die. They talk about salvation as if it's a token you can hold in your pocket - a token you earn after praying the "sinner's prayer." And making sure you have this token is of utmost importance for believers because it's your get-out-of-hell-free card.

To illustrate, think about one of the most common ways Christians are taught to share their faith. They're taught to try and steer their conversation towards this question, "if you were to die tonight, do you know where you'll spend eternity?"

And it makes sense that we would look to the afterlife to get people to think about the need to be saved because in our modern world, the things that we need salvation from are relatively small. Chances are, if you're reading this blog, you have a job (and/or are going to school), you have a roof over your head, and you're not worried about where your next meal is coming from. Congratulations, your life is a pimped out luxury compared to that of most people on earth.

For example, I just finished reading a book called Left To Tell by Immaculee Ilibagiza. It's a firsthand account of what it was like to live through the 1994 holocaust in Rwanda (the same one depicted in the movie Hotel Rwanda). Ilibagiza is a woman who hid from roving bands of killers for three months in a tiny bathroom. And she wasn’t the only one hiding in that small room, she hid there with seven other women. At times, she could hear the voices of killers outside the window. And occasionally the roving gangs stormed into the house where they were hiding. They'd make it in to the room adjacent to the bathroom, and they would confront the man who was hiding them, accusing him of hiding Tutsi women.

Imagine being huddled in a tiny room with people on the other side of the wall chanting death threats. Imagine standing there knowing that if you were found that your death would be neither quick nor merciful. During the genocide, women were gang raped before being literally hacked to pieces with machetes - the killers would start with their victims' limbs, cutting them apart, piece by piece, and only when there was nothing left to hack off would they deliver the blow that would kill them. With all this hanging over her head, it's clear that she was someone who understood the need for salvation.

Compare this with our lives in America. For most of us, having a creditor call to remind us about an overdue payment is the closest most of us will ever come to feeling hunted. With this in mind, it’s no wonder that most Christians need to resort to talking about what happens after we die because what else is there that our modern world needs salvation from?

Sin.

See, I think talking about salvation from sin is far more useful than talking about salvation from a life in hell because being saved just so that you get to go to heaven is kind of like loving your parents just so that you can get a share of the inheritance after they die. On top of that, it leads to a kind of belief system where a person can pray the sinner's prayer but still live a wretched life.

To me, salvation is about being freed from the burden of sin. And it’s clear to me that there are lots of Christians who don’t get this. I think we all know Christians who aren’t very nice. I’m talking about Christians who talk about believing in Christ but act like assholes. There's a big dent in the back of my car that I got after parking in a church parking lot, and no one left a note with their contact or insurance info or even an apology.

And I know I’m stepping on sticky theological grounds here, but I have to wonder if Christians who behave badly are really safe from a life apart from God. And on the flip side, I wonder if non-christians who do their best to live virtuous lives are really doomed to hell the way most evangelical theologians say they are.

In Matthew 13:47-50, Jesus tells a parable about net fishing. After the fishermen haul up their catch, they throw the bad fish overboard and keep the good ones in the boat. Jesus says, "This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Check it out. The angels aren't separating the Christians from the non-christians, they're separating "the wicked from the godly." And I don't want to get into the details of who is and who isn't getting past the pearly gates (because in the end, God only knows). My point is that salvation has to be about more than getting a ticket into heaven.

The Bible makes it clear that apart from Christ we are slaves to sin - that we can't do the good that we ought to do without him. In Romans 7:15-24, Paul spells out what this slavery looks like: "For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it." (Romans 7:18b-20 NIV)

And this, finally is what salvation is about - freedom from this life of sin through belief in Jesus Christ: Romans 7:25-8:2.

And what does a life free from sin look like?

It's a life filled with "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control," (Galatians 5:22-23 NIV). And that's something non-christians can have here and now while they're still alive. That's a kind of salvation they can use, a salvation that makes their lives better today. And as for the question of who's going to heaven, I think it's a no-brainer that a life that calls upon Jesus for freedom from a life of sin will be guaranteed a place in heaven (they'll be one of the good fishies).

[segue]

Okay, there it is, part one.

"That was the edited version?"

Yeah, can you imagine how unreadable the original version must've been?

"You suck."

Yeah, and you must be one of those non-christian Christians. Hope you like to swim. "Man overboard!"

Anyway, there's part one. I'd love to get your feedback on anything I shared here and stay tuned for part 2!

Thursday, April 06, 2006

190. transistors and dating

A friend posted this comment on my blogger site in response to my previous post:

"I'm no Bible scholar, so I ask sincerely: Is there anything in there that tells of a demon AND the holy spirit living concurrently in the same person?"

And the answer, as far as I can tell, is "no, there isn't." And this is another reason why it was hard for me to accept what was happening to T.

But the people who pray for freedom from malevolent spiritual influences do have an answer to this challenge. (And I'm still new to - and still a bit skeptical of - their understanding of spirituality, so the views expressed here as relates to their reasoning rests solely on my shoulders.) I think they would say that what T was going through was not so much demon possession as it was demonic oppression. And again, I'm not the best spokesperson for their beliefs, but my understanding of the distinction is that a full on possession is...well, actually I myself don't know what it means to be possessed, but demonic oppression is kind of like those remoras - those fish that stick to the sides of sharks. Because the host is a Christian, the demon can't get completely inside to possess the person and so they do the next best thing which is to kind of latch on to the outside and hang on for dear life (life?) until prayer and fasting and laying on of hands pries that sucker loose.

That's my understanding of what they believe.

"So what do you believe?"

Me? I'm still trying to figure that out. However, there's a handy little phrase that I like to keep in my back pocket for times like these where I don't quite understand what God is doing. And I remember the circumstances that led to me uttering that phrase. See, there was this really smart and really cute half Asian, half Polish girl that I met in church. She was visiting from Chicago and was staying in Hawaii with a couple who knew one of her parents.

I really dug hanging out with her because she was whip smart and articulate even though English was her second language (she was born in Poland). And we'd have these amazing conversations about religion and God and truth and philosophy and morality. And it was quite the intellectual sparring match because she was an atheist and her atheism wasn't just some anti-establishment idea that she latched onto because she thought it sounded cool. It was reasoned, researched, and thought through, but at the same time, she was an open minded atheist who had a lot of questions.

"Randall, only you could make an atheist friend in church."

Yeah, so anyway, I remember that we went to see some movie and afterwards I was driving her home and we were having yet another conversation about the existence of God. And then somehow we started talking about the Bible.

"Hey, wasn't there some phrase or something you wanted to share with us?"

Yeah, chill. I'm getting to that.

So this girl and I start talking about the Bible and how I believe it's the revealed word of God written through specially anointed writers and she was talking about how there were useful ideas from other religions on how to live life. And we're going back and forth with this when a phrase fell from my lips like a verbal epiphany.

I told her, "everything in the Bible is true, but not everything that's true is in the Bible."

Now some Christians might look askance at the second half of that sentence, "not everything that's true is in the Bible," but if you think about it, that has to be the way it is. Two examples to illustrate, one long (feel free to skip this one) and one short: transistors and dating.

1. Transistors

Before I started going to my home church, I was part of a midweek Bible study group. Well at one of these Bible studies, this guy starts going off about what he referred to as, "black hole theory." Now I'm no physicist, but I like to read about physics (books like The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene and Hyperspace by Michio Kaku) and from what this guy was describing, I think he was referring to quantum theory, the science of the subatomic where the rules of classical physics break down and incredible, otherwise impossible things happen. And I think he called it black hole theory because the absurdities and complexities of quantum theory come into direct conflict with the more stable, elegant theory of relativity when one studies black holes.

See, quantum theory deals with things that are very small whereas the theory of relativity deals with things that are very huge and because they operate on such different scales, the theories normally don't affect one another. However, a black hole is basically a large massive object (like a star) that has been squeezed down into a very tiny space. So small, in fact, that quantum effects start to appear. And so in order to understand what's happening in and around a black hole, you have to use both the theory of relativity and quantum theory. But the two don't mix. When you scale up the formulas that describe quantum phenomenon to relativistic levels, they fall apart and the same happens when you try to squeeze the math of relativity down to the subatomic level.

So this guy keeps going off about black hole theory, about how it conflicts with the Bible because the Bible describes an ordered world, not a chaotic one. He accuses scientists of trying to debunk God's design and starts going into a whole conspiracy theory about science dismantling the world-view described in the Bible. He was working himself into a frothy, passionate mess and at the same time he was getting me pissed off because this is just the kind of anti-intellectual, irrational, non-reasoning that makes Christians look like such idiots.

Because here's the thing. All the scientists who work in the field agree that the findings of quantum theory lead to some pretty outlandish conclusions. The theory says that particles can exist in two places at once. And they're not talking about two particles in two places, they're literally talking about one single particle in two separate places at the same time. It also says that particles can pass (more accurately, tunnel) through solid barriers, like magic. In fact, things get so strange in quantum theory that one of quantum theory's pioneers, Richard Feynman, is quoted as saying, " . . .the only thing that quantum theory has going for it, in fact, is that it is unquestionably correct." And he can say this because the theory has passed every experimental test scientists have thrown at it with flying colors.. Data in some quantum experiments corresponds to theoretical predictions with an astonishing 99.999 percent accuracy.

"Yeah, but that's in the lab. What does that have to do with the rest of us in the real world?"

Well, let's go back to my friend at the Bible study. I hope he doesn't have a cell phone or a computer or a CD player or anything else that uses semiconductors because the diodes and transistors that are the bread and butter of modern electronics would not be possible without the findings of quantum theory. And heaven forbid if he has an iPod because without transistors, it would have to be powered by vacuum tubes which means he would need a pocket the size of the Empire State Building to carry it around.

2. Dating

There's no mention of dating in the Bible, certainly not what we know of today as dating. In both Old and New Testament times, marriage was an arranged affair. And I don't know about the rest of you, but the idea of my parents picking out a bride for me makes me more than a little bit queasy. I think I'd rather rip my toenails out with pliers.

"That's not why you've been single for 34 years is it?"

No, and let's not go there.

My point is, neither transistors nor dating are in the Bible, but they're a part of everyday life. if we are to restrict ourselves to the things we can find in the Bible then we're going to have to do away with a great deal of the modern conveniences we've become accustomed to. And we're also going to have to ask the parental units to start setting us up with dates, and how fun do you think that will be?

Thankfully, not all things that are true (things that work) are in the Bible.

"So what's the Bible good for?"

Well, that's where the first part of the phrase comes in brilliantly: "everything in the Bible is true. . . ."

"All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16-17, NIV)

No, it might not contain the secrets locked within the heart of a black hole, but it does contain the information we need to know what we need to know about God and how to live our lives and how to get along with one another. And because everything in the Bible is true (though not always literally true), the things we glean from it can be trusted as a reliable source of guidance as opposed to physics textbooks which need to be revised on a yearly basis (for example, if the textbook you remember from high school or college had a picture of an atom with a nucleus in the center and electrons orbiting the nucleus in neat little circles, it's wrong. Most textbooks today describe the electrons as circling the nucleus in shells or clouds).

And finally, to end where we began, even though we can't find examples of Christians being possessed in the Bible, that doesn't necessarily mean it can't happen.

Phew. How's that for too much information?

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

189. from either/or to both/and

I am really confused. See, back in blog 168 I talked about how I saw what some would call a demon manifestation. Well the friend of mine (I'll refer to him as "T") through whom the manifestation took place believed that there was still one big fat (and I hesitate to use the word, but for simplicity's sake I will) demon left inside himself and so he invited me to go to the Monday night healing service at Moanalua Gardens Missionary Church. And although I have some serious reservations about this whole demons and prophecy and healings thing, I went for two reasons. One, I wanted to support my friend. Two, I wanted to see what would happen.

Now I don't want to give a blow by blow account of what took place. It was basically the same thing as what I described in blog 168, only this time there were more people praying in our little circle. It got pretty intense sometimes, but after about an hour or so of prayer and laying on of hands and scripture reading, T kind of launched out of his chair onto the floor and then it was all over. He said he felt lighter, that just before he felt the demon leave he saw a shining white hand reach into him and yank something out. And the guy who was leading the whole prayer thing said that finally, T was free of any kind of demonic oppression.

And while we were still in the middle of it, there was the same gnashing of teeth and growling that I had seen before, but at one point the guy praying for him had to restrain T's arms because T started punching himself. In the face. It got pretty wild like that.

And I feel bad for saying this because I know what happened means a lot to T, but at the time, I just wasn't buying it.

"So you think it was all an act?"

Well, no. I don't think T was putting on a show or that he was consciously acting out some kind of scripted routine. T's not like that.

"Well, he certainly wasn't acting like himself, so if he wasn't doing it consciously then it must be some kind of possession right?"

Well, no. If pressed, I would say that I think what I was witnessing was a combination of a few things.

1. I think it's a kind of psychosomatic acting out. See, T's been attending a church with a heavy pentecostal flavor to it and so he's exposed to a community that believes in spiritual strongholds and demonic influences and open doors, etc. And to me, it's only natural that he'd buy into that way of seeing the world. I mean, when in Rome right?

2. T used to be a heavy drug user and I can't help but think that that takes a toll on the wiring inside his brain. I think there are a few frayed ends that are sparking a bit too hard, causing him to act these things out.

3. The guy who's been praying for T when he attends these healing services has a pretty elaborate understanding of these spiritual matters and because he's praying for T and because T is acting out in such a pronounced way, this guy tries to share his understanding of these spiritual matters with T. And to me, that's just adding fuel to the fire - it's just giving him more license to act these things out.

4. T is a self-confessed danger junkie. He's not one of those extreme dudes who jumps out of planes or off bridges, he just likes to see what he can get away with. I was in Vegas with him a few years ago (to help him put on an art show, not for gambling or the shows...I think Vegas is a stupid city) and we were looking for something and we were getting lost and somehow I let T talk me into letting him drive the rental. Well, we have to make a U-turn and once he gets on the dirt shoulder, he guns the engine and kicks up a Pigpen-style ball of dust before returning to the road. Why? Just because. And I can't help but think that this whole demon possession idea appeals to that side of him.

And so it seems like there are ways to explain what I saw.

But...

But here's the other side of it. These things happened in the past. The gospels are full of stories about Jesus casting out demons and his disciples continue this in the book of Acts. And if you believe that the Bible tells a truthful tale, then what do you do with accounts of healing and exorcism?

"Yeah, but that was then."

And yes, there is the unspoken assumption in most congregations that supernatural acts took place in the early church but they don't happen anymore. But where do they get that from? Where in the Bible does it say that those things are supposed to stop happening? As far as I can tell, there's no verse or passage where the Bible talks about these spiritual events as a limited engagement event. They weren't supposed to have a shelf life. And what are you going to do with a verse like Ephesians 6:22, which says, "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." (NIV)

To reduce what T went through to some kind of short term psychosis brought on by psychosomatic stimuli, compounded by history of non-prescribed psycotropic drug use, is to discount the fact that the physical world that we see, touch, taste, smell, and hear is not all that exists. God is a spiritual being and if you believe in God then you must believe that there is a spiritual component to reality. And if you don't believe in God then I imagine you stopped reading this blog a long time ago (and if you don't believe in God but read anyway, two kudos to the open mind).

The bottom line...

I had a really good conversation this afternoon with the talented Rocky Green. And not only is he a ripping guitar player, he's also a very smart man (dare I admit that he unintentionally talks over my head sometimes? Well, I just did, didn't I?) and I kind of asked him about this struggle that I'm going through and I'm not sure if he meant for me to take it this way, but the conclusion I came to at the end of our conversation was this: it's all about metaphors.

There are some who look at the world and rationalize everything with empirical evidence - facts and logic and proof are the metaphors that they use to grasp reality. And then there are other people who look at the world and see spiritual oppression and strongholds and open doors through which the influence of the enemy can enter in - angels and demons and spiritual warfare are the metaphors they use to grasp reality. And those who are conversant with one view of the world have a very hard time communicating with the other because their metaphors are different and so the words they use don't mean the same thing. People squarely in the logic camp might say that it's a problem of starting premisses. People in the pentecostal camp might say that a heavy spirit of skepticism is at work here.

But here's the thing. I believe both perspectives are a fallen way of looking at the world because those perspectives were developed and were passed on by fallen people - smart people, gifted people, devoted people who studied and thought long and hard about their viewpoints, but in the end they were people subject to the fall. No one has the whole, complete, inerrant picture of how the world works. Not the cloistered academic, not the flaming pentecostal, not even the ultra-moderate mega-church pastor. None of them does and none of us will.

"Well what are you saying then? Does that mean there's nothing we can know about God, that people can just go and believe whatever they want to believe?"

No. There are essentials that must be held to, and here's where we can thank our liturgical brethren (and sistren) for the work that their forefathers did in developing the creeds (not to be confused with the band Creed, which I'm more than happy to be rid of). On any given weekend, there will be congregations around the world gathered in all kinds of churches who will recite the words originally penned in the fourth century at the Councils of Nicaea, otherwise known as the Nicene Creed. And I believe part of the genius (and usefulness) of the creed is that it can be recited by both the academic and the pentecostal with no feathers ruffled on either side.

And so in closing, let's all say together:

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty
Maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God,
begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit he was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered, died, and was buried.
On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures
he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
And his kingdom will have no end
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life,
Who proceeds from the Father and the Son
With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come.
Amen.