I find myself wondering increasingly where I stand in terms of orthodoxy and wondering if I really care.
Worship for most of my Christian life has involved standing with my hands in my pockets wondering why I don't get anything out of it while virtually everyone else seems to. Praying quite often has involved saying empty words into the air, wondering if anyone is there to hear.
The Bible has some great stories, but stuff like Judges 19-21 bothers the hell out of me. I find myself wondering how I'm supposed to relate to a story that suggests God is OK with the mass abduction and rape of all these women.
Christianity's got bona fide spiritual roots, and they go deep, but the moral posturing of a lot of Christians, myself included, bothers me. The perversion of faith by evangelicals and fundamentalists to justify their ambition for power and control, to sanctify a desire to crush the spirits and lives of other people, and to grant their hate legitimacy; often makes me feel that we're no better than the radical Islamicists who beat women, strip them of their dignity and fly planes into buildings, all for the glory of God.
It makes me ashamed of the whole damn system, and I wonder why God doesn't just wipe us out. And then I wonder where I get this crazy idea sometimes that I'm fighting depression and
might need help.
I think of Soren Kierkegaard, too, and how he once wrote that faith is greatest when it's accompanied by overwhelming doubt.
Like Thomas Covenant, I don't believe, but I still do.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
"I don't believe, but I still do"... yeah, I worry sometimes about the state of my soul, cause that one sentence there completely sums up the state of my faith right now.
I know I am a crappy friend, but I want to tell you two things...1)I feel you man. and 2)You are on a short list of people that give me hope for the sorry lot of humans on the face of this earth...that's pretty scary,huh? Seriously, you and your better half have kept us hanging onto this gig after we looked around and saw all the BS. You have taught us how to oppose lovingly and challenged us to actually think rather than anesthitize ourselves with the happy clappy lovey schlock that most churches tend to sell. Much of the art I have created and who I am giving myself the freedom to be in Christ had its roots in your example of oddness and faith. You need Jesus to show up and I know he will. Love ya, man.
Post a Comment