This is a continuation of my previous post, I might ask you to quit Christianity <br/> Part 1 of 2: Door-to-door Evangelists
For a period of time in college, I would venture to say that I stopped being a Christian for a brief period of time. I don't know if it was a matter of seconds, hours, days, weeks, or months; but I had had it, with the general bullshit associated with the construction of Christianity I had formed in my head. I didn't want anything more to do with it. Much of this time overlapped temporally with my position as the music minister at a local church in San Diego. From a superficial standpoint, I never dropped the label "Christian" or ceased my effort to generate the appearance of piety because my only source of reliable income was from that church job; but amidst the struggles with nearly unbearable depression and an overwhelming sense of oppression, I resented "God." I still managed to have people come up to me and tell me how "anointed" I was. Obviously, musical skill made it seem as though I gave a shit about whatever I was singing.
My prayer life was very angry. There's no other way to put it. Every fiber of my being felt like I had been duped and that everything I believed in was a lie. I would take the ideas taught to me about God and combine them with the realities of life I had observed firsthand; the image I formed was of a sadistic, piece-of-shit, supreme ruler of the universe who takes particular pleasure in my ironic suffering. Even in those moments, I verbally acknowledged the fact that it was most likely my view that had become twisted beyond utility. It might be accurate to assess that my angry prayer life was actually a violent rejection of a clearly erroneous picture of God.
This was the best thing that ever happened to me. I began a long and vigorous journey of spiritual audit where I unleashed my insatiable lust for intellectual harmony upon a wealth of religious teachings that appeared to lack logical integrity. I'm not trying to make it sound like I'm smart, but it's that I cannot accept "because" as an answer. After realizing that God's primary objective was not my happiness, I systematically abandoned a version of Christianity that put me first instead of Christ. I wasn't able to learn the easy way, so I learned the hard way that God being the big boss means that all things work together for God's good first, and then mine if there isn't a conflict of interests.
Title
There are a number of reasons why I chose a title that endorses the abandonment of Christianity. Firstly, the word "Christianity" has been made to mean a lot of things that have little if anything to do with Christ. So, like I did so painfully years ago, it's an exhortation to spurn things that are called "Christian" when they are not about Christ. In real Christianity, Jesus Christ is the king. In much of mainstream "Christianity," entrepreneurs have decided to hijack the persona of Jesus Christ as the center of their marketing image, making the Son of God a mere endorser of some bullshit positivity propaganda that is directed by a love of money - not a love for God. "Christianity" where Christ is a sponsor instead of CEO is the kind of "Christianity" that should be rejected. The abnegation of practices of false Christianity is of utmost importance.
The second way I feel this title is properly translated has to do with the immeasurable slew of misguided humans who behave and speak so stupidly concerning their identity as "Christian" that their actions sabotage the very reputation of the Gospel and of Jesus himself. I'm shocked and upset by the people who act profoundly un-Christlike, using their religious affiliation as a license to behave exactly opposite of sensible.
A refreshing palate cleanse can do a lot for a person's spiritual life. You might look at it like rebuilding an engine: you take everything apart; clean, repair, and replace broken and missing parts; and put it back together, making sure that everything is constructed properly. A quote I used to hear a lot is attributed to Socrates, "The unexamined life is not worth living." I suppose I shouldn't be to hard on people who have far more painful experiences to process than I do, where self-examination is prone to be disheartening and bleak. But I wonder what this life is even worth if we don't tackle those tough issues and confusing events, choosing to conquer them rather than constantly fleeing them?
A refreshing palate cleanse can do a lot for a person's spiritual life. You might look at it like rebuilding an engine: you take everything apart; clean, repair, and replace broken and missing parts; and put it back together, making sure that everything is constructed properly. A quote I used to hear a lot is attributed to Socrates, "The unexamined life is not worth living." I suppose I shouldn't be to hard on people who have far more painful experiences to process than I do, where self-examination is prone to be disheartening and bleak. But I wonder what this life is even worth if we don't tackle those tough issues and confusing events, choosing to conquer them rather than constantly fleeing them?
Not another Christian!
I work alongside people everyday who are not Christians. Compared to dwelling in exclusively Christian bubbles, few experiences have been more enlightening to my understanding of God and religion than building close relationships with people who are very disinterested in any sort of religious activity. The deeper I understand people who reject Christianity, the clearer I see why those people do not share my views. My worldview becomes much more enlightened by the process, it helps me focus on what is most important, and it challenges me to be intellectually level-headed.
Still, on a regular basis, I'm seeing people be "that guy" in the name of Christianity. I'm dumbfounded to watch the shameful conduct of supposedly Christian people, pastors even, which defies every principle God's Word was built on. If you think that you are encountering religious persecution because of the fact that countless people cringe at the thought of being around you, consider that the bipartisaned desire to see you flogged, regardless of Christian/non-Christian party lines, might mean that you're loathed for your behavior, not your religious affiliation. Onlookers reason that being a Christian turns you into a total jerk; that is good enough reason to not want to be like you.
One of the biggest overarching objections I've seen against engaging in any religious faith for non-religious people is that adopting a religion means sacrificing freedom. As Christians, we need to understand that Christ did not die to strengthen our chains, but to release us from our slavery to sin. We rejoice that such a restrictive device as the cross, upon which Jesus died, has freed us of the constraint placed on us by the law of sin and death.
Historically, Christianity has been manipulated into fear/guilt-based, bondage whereby our lives are dictated by a system of arbitrary mandates that do no practical good. We're really good at adding things to the rulebook when no evidence can be found that God intended us to be bound to such regulations. I wonder if we're prone to add regulations to Christianity in an attempt to make it more believable or to assimilate it to every other religion that exists. By our doctrinal compromises, we contradict what Paul the apostle said in 1 Corinthians 10:23 and insist that not all things are permissible, fearing that the exhortation that "not all things are beneficial" might not be good enough to keep people from doing stuff that makes us uneasy. If it comforts anyone, I will conclude that though the Gospel doesn't give us license to sin, it gives morality a purpose in our lives. The blood of Christ should never be seen as an excuse for total moral anarchy.
After I had let my dad see the pamphlet that the evangelists had handed me, he very insightfully pointed out some details I hadn't caught before. "See that all of the verse references are in King James?" he asked. "The King James Version is public domain, which means that you don't owe any royalties for quoting that translation if you make money off of it." He then continued to reason that the production and sale of these tracts is extremely low cost and high margin. "Clearly, they're not made for evangelism. The writers of these have no interest in making them understandable. These are made to sell!" Certainly, as I thought about it more, it made sense that only direct scripture quotes were used, which eliminates room for dispute among the wide variety of Bible-believing denominations. Since it only uses direct quotes from the Word of God, it would be chosen for its Biblical "accuracy." Of course, the drawback is that accuracy is irrelevant if it's not presented in a language that can be understood by the people it's supposed to help convert.
My dad was on a roll! He then commented on why Gospel tracts like this are a perfect diversion for Christians who want to feel like they're making a difference. You can hand well-meaning believers a stack of papers and say, "Pass these out to everyone you can find and let the tract do the work." How perfectly efficient! A small group of men and women can split up and blanket neighborhoods, retail stores, and restaurants with thousands of pieces of paper in a single day and feel as though they have made a difference. Despite the absolute ineffectiveness of their labor, they blindly believe that their long day of pamphlet distribution is making a positive difference for the kingdom of God. They can lay their weary heads to rest at night: Spread the Gospel? Check! Keep the churches busy and unproductive and they'll never have the time or energy left to invest the effort to actually love their neighbors. And that's exactly how the devil works most of the time. Sneaky stuff like this is how Satan can cripple entire church organizations without any of them knowing: Making them efficient but ineffective.
As a global Church, we allow this to happen constantly. Although some of us are better than others at recognizing potential threats to our effectiveness as witnesses, the whole world is hurt by this very thing. The enemy's fate is already sealed, but he won't go down without dragging everyone along with him that he can. We make it easy when we perpetuate a culture in our Church that treats science and logic as the antitheses to scriptures and piety. Though God has blessed humankind with amazing brains that are able to discriminate between true and false, many are trained to ignore the parts of their brains that scream, "THIS IS WRONG! THIS SHOULD NOT BE TRUSTED!" The systematic shaming of churchgoers who question authority is the reason Christianity has a bad name today. If you ever wanted to destroy the believability of the greatest truth in the world, make the world's stupidest people its loudest advocates. Just like no fine food is appetizing when surrounded by plates of turds, so is the public appeal of the sweetest of truth destroyed by the endorsement of the blatantly ignorant. If God is truth, then we have nothing to be afraid of. If we adhere to the quest for truth over finding proof of our belief system's validity; then the more we seek truth, the more we'll find God. As advocates of Jesus Christ, we need to realize that the strongest of ignorance will fail long before obvious cited truth has a chance to grow tired.
Historically, Christianity has been manipulated into fear/guilt-based, bondage whereby our lives are dictated by a system of arbitrary mandates that do no practical good. We're really good at adding things to the rulebook when no evidence can be found that God intended us to be bound to such regulations. I wonder if we're prone to add regulations to Christianity in an attempt to make it more believable or to assimilate it to every other religion that exists. By our doctrinal compromises, we contradict what Paul the apostle said in 1 Corinthians 10:23 and insist that not all things are permissible, fearing that the exhortation that "not all things are beneficial" might not be good enough to keep people from doing stuff that makes us uneasy. If it comforts anyone, I will conclude that though the Gospel doesn't give us license to sin, it gives morality a purpose in our lives. The blood of Christ should never be seen as an excuse for total moral anarchy.
Efficient but ineffective
After I had let my dad see the pamphlet that the evangelists had handed me, he very insightfully pointed out some details I hadn't caught before. "See that all of the verse references are in King James?" he asked. "The King James Version is public domain, which means that you don't owe any royalties for quoting that translation if you make money off of it." He then continued to reason that the production and sale of these tracts is extremely low cost and high margin. "Clearly, they're not made for evangelism. The writers of these have no interest in making them understandable. These are made to sell!" Certainly, as I thought about it more, it made sense that only direct scripture quotes were used, which eliminates room for dispute among the wide variety of Bible-believing denominations. Since it only uses direct quotes from the Word of God, it would be chosen for its Biblical "accuracy." Of course, the drawback is that accuracy is irrelevant if it's not presented in a language that can be understood by the people it's supposed to help convert.
My dad was on a roll! He then commented on why Gospel tracts like this are a perfect diversion for Christians who want to feel like they're making a difference. You can hand well-meaning believers a stack of papers and say, "Pass these out to everyone you can find and let the tract do the work." How perfectly efficient! A small group of men and women can split up and blanket neighborhoods, retail stores, and restaurants with thousands of pieces of paper in a single day and feel as though they have made a difference. Despite the absolute ineffectiveness of their labor, they blindly believe that their long day of pamphlet distribution is making a positive difference for the kingdom of God. They can lay their weary heads to rest at night: Spread the Gospel? Check! Keep the churches busy and unproductive and they'll never have the time or energy left to invest the effort to actually love their neighbors. And that's exactly how the devil works most of the time. Sneaky stuff like this is how Satan can cripple entire church organizations without any of them knowing: Making them efficient but ineffective.
As a global Church, we allow this to happen constantly. Although some of us are better than others at recognizing potential threats to our effectiveness as witnesses, the whole world is hurt by this very thing. The enemy's fate is already sealed, but he won't go down without dragging everyone along with him that he can. We make it easy when we perpetuate a culture in our Church that treats science and logic as the antitheses to scriptures and piety. Though God has blessed humankind with amazing brains that are able to discriminate between true and false, many are trained to ignore the parts of their brains that scream, "THIS IS WRONG! THIS SHOULD NOT BE TRUSTED!" The systematic shaming of churchgoers who question authority is the reason Christianity has a bad name today. If you ever wanted to destroy the believability of the greatest truth in the world, make the world's stupidest people its loudest advocates. Just like no fine food is appetizing when surrounded by plates of turds, so is the public appeal of the sweetest of truth destroyed by the endorsement of the blatantly ignorant. If God is truth, then we have nothing to be afraid of. If we adhere to the quest for truth over finding proof of our belief system's validity; then the more we seek truth, the more we'll find God. As advocates of Jesus Christ, we need to realize that the strongest of ignorance will fail long before obvious cited truth has a chance to grow tired.
Final statements
I don't want anyone to stop being a Christian, but I hope that we would all stop being the wrong kinds of Christian. We have the unfortunate tendency to do more harm than good to our cause. Being prudent about how our actions affect the way others see Jesus may lead us to keep our mouths shut more than we've done in the past, preventing damage to the reputation of the Christian community. I can spread the love of God without announcing my religious association and I can hope that my passing role in the lives of strangers may be a little water, fresh air, or sunlight that nurtures the seed that someone else has planted, wherever it is in its development.
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