I was recently reading an interview with Douglas Todd in the United Church Observer. Todd is the religion reporter for the Vancouver Sun and some of what he had to say articulated well something that has been stewing for me as well:
Q To me, the point of church is that it offers connection with God. You’d think the superficial judgments some people make about the church would be overridden by the stronger desire to have that fundamental hunger met. What’s happened?
A I think people are afraid. You might learn some things about yourself that aren’t super pleasant at church, like maybe you’re imperfect and you’re not that open to things that are real. It’s so easy to be distracted by popular culture and your worries. So I actually find an almost bloody-minded kind of denial in people. They don’t want to know there’s an option.
And further on, he adds:
I’m not totally against simple faith, but I think this God stuff is quite complicated intellectually.
As I have been considering this interview, I was wrestling with my daily UCiM-ism and this was the result:
Spiritual/Religious. Choice/Commitment.
Are these heard as invitation or burden?
The path to relationship with the Holy begins as a Disciple
I was recently invited by some of the Young Adults at UCiM to consider offering a faith exploration opportunity during the summer. Now I’m a busy guy … my hours drop to halftime in the summer owing to the nature of my role in the faith-community and here comes people asking to learn, dig deep and explore their faith. I was not only blown away, I was … well … excited! What was and is exciting is that there is clearly a desire to dig into faith in a way that looks earnestly at a relationship with God, while not falling into the intellectual trap of literalism.
Biblical literacy – it’s lacking folks. Too often this literacy is equated with having to take the Sacred Texts as literally true, as opposed to engaging with them intentionally – seriously. How you hear these words gets to the heart – I think – of Todd’s challenge. For those not engaged in their faith, perhaps for whom the ritual of attendance is more important than the substance of the worship experience or those who have already painted all Christian communities as homophobic, gender-insensitive, judgemental and all around the last place you might actually find love, I’m likely heard as, well, reinforcing the stereotype. If I do not have a relationship with you, then you are going to have to fit me into your story somehow. Christianity has been taking a beating lately, especially for those – for lack of better language – who consider themselves egalitarian, progressive or liberal in respect to our relationship with Jesus.
Now, if I have a relationship with you or you are willing to extend me some trust, what I am trying to say is that without biblical literacy any sense of depth to faith becomes saccharine, watered-down, wishy-washy, happy feel good, cloud in the sky stuff. Jesus with the lollipop or Mary who just wants to hug everyone – imagine the Care Bears and that’s the place we end up. Without a grounding in the paradox, the contradictions, the out-right xenophobia and horrors that make up some of our Sacred Scripture, we have no capacity to offer an alternative voice in our sound-byte crazy, 35 second attention span Google-verse. And, if we do not do that work, follow that path of Discipleship, we get lost. When we finally need someone with whom to go deep, when the proverbial fan gets hit with the reality of the human condition, a Christian community is not going to be where you look for solace …
The rant isn’t that the negative stereotypes about Christian communities are actually wrong – in many (too many) ways they are, most unfortunately, right-on-the-mark. But if those who take this task seriously do not reflect back to those in our own contexts – faith communities, families, outreach ministries, friends – that we need to tread the path of knowing, exploring where we have been, then we simply lack credibility. This work allows us to claim the Christian language as one way through which someone can discuss the Divine. This stuff – life, the journey of knowing, of meeting the Holy in your neighbour – takes work.
If you want some tools and skills to articulate God in a world that hates analysis, critique or reflection, then demand it of those whom you respect. Ask for opportunities to explore your faith. And if you’re in a place, community, context of leadership in which apathy might be present, demand it as well. Discipleship is not a get-out-of-jail free card. It’s a path that leads to awakening, richness, and joy. This path hurts, you get banged up, confront control issues all the time – usually your own – but the other side of it is a discovery of humility. Of being present to the brokenness within and all around and, at the end of days, the possibility to say, ‘that’s okay. Life is a gift and I, for one, have enjoyed every moment of it.’
So … can you hear me now? Does this sound like an invitation or a burden? And, if you’re still reading, maybe – at the very least – you’ll hear it as an honest challenge … choice is yours after all …
A Deacon’s Musing blog
Amen Richard! It’s inspiring to read your honest and challenging words. Thank you for your courage!
Thanks Sita! Do you feel it is something that allows people to imagine sharing the challenge in faith communities?
Hi Richard;
Thanks for this blog. It’s good thought provoking words.
As for the rant, not so for me. But I think it isn’t either/or but both. It is an invitation but when you accept it, you accept the burden that comes with it. That’s what makes be a true follower difficult. And a true follower does more than sit in a pew on Sunday and smile.
Thanks Ken! I like the both/and observation. Something I always try to remind myself of as well! It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on the follow up blog too, Lifelong Learner, as life, time and interest permit!
Well, where does one begin? In general I liked what I think I heard you saying, but (there’s always a but) I wonder if someone might also hear you saying that their journey to understanding must be filled with bangs, bumps and bruises if it is to be of any worth?
Does discipleship include by necessity a difficult diligence, or can it be idyllic, ecstatic, mystic? Does a disciple need to know the intimate details of misogyny; homophobia; patriarchy and racism (to name but a few of the idiosyncratic characteristics of the people who chronicled ethnic cleansing from the perspective of victim and perpetrator)?
In order to walk a path in the Way with Jesus in this time, in her own context, out of her own experience of human society and relationship does the disciple need to become literate about the bible, or would a literacy of loving forgiveness and blessed grace be enough? Should a disciple counter with argument, or show by state of being?
Just ponderin’ my own trail in the desert. Thanks for giving rise to the train of thought. I think I’m coming down somewhere in the middle, depending on circumstance and context…
Hi Keith,
Thanks for taking the time to reflect & challenge!
Not ‘must’ be, but likely will be and how we respond to them is likely one lens through which to examine the degree of intention within our journey.
You asked: Does discipleship include by necessity a difficult diligence, or can it be idyllic, ecstatic, mystic? I guess the reflection form the question is that this seems binary, one or the other. Naming the -isms, does not necessarily mean you will confront them, but it does remind us that the Kingdom is in constant preparation and, as a result, we live in a human world that is broken and often does cause harm.
Biblical literacy is, I believe, key to the Hebrew Scriptures direction to ensure that the next generation is educated in the traditions of the faith. As inheritors of Wesley, one of those traditions is biblical literacy. And, I believe, if acquiesce from that we see the Sacred Texts misused and no one able to reply to those Texts becoming weapons of hate.
Or such is my pondering that arise from your sharing!
Sounds reasonable to me. To be literate, however, requires some degree of study and few scholars (it seems to me) even the feminist/liberationist ones keep a weather eye on their language. So many books, so difficult to penetrate.
One might then be pushed to rely upon an interpretive preacher, thus giving credibility to the pronouncements I hear on the religious channel or read in the sensationalist press. For many the pure struggle for existence is all consumptive of time. It’s from the folk at the food bank and the dinners that I am most likely to hear God described in terms of salvation and threat. I can understand the former (there’s no salvation needed so much as that which cries out from the bottom of the ditch society digs for us) and empathise with the latter (didn’t the psalmists cry out for God’s justice?) but what source can i offer to refute the interpretation than the love of Jesus?
I know he was deeply rooted in faith and scripture (we are told he quoted it often enough) but to offer someone with little time and little formal education a quick survey of the theologians and biblical historians I studied is not really an option. So what then? They come to our church for food for the body, but it’s the flaming pulpit of the sons of retribution that calls them to worship…hellfire and brimstone. I believe i hear a call…
Thanks again Keith,
I am not certain, however, that literacy categorically means the ability to read. Obviously that is a worthy goal and when communities are healthy, they can set that as an objective. I think I mean literacy in a broader sense – perhaps more akin to ‘grounding?’ Grounding allows for a comfort in the nuances of the Sacred Texts and, in turn, hopefully some humility in naming truths and challenging when there is misuse/misrepresentations. Does that make sense?
it does. it requires an oral and lived transmission of meaning. I wonder what forums will present themselves for the purpose. And then there’s the knowledge that each generation seems to provide it’s own definition of misuse. but that’s for another day.
Context has influence on the subject and materials of the artist, as much as it does on the artist themselves. If you look at the writings of various theologians and mystics how they decode what they perceive as God it mirrors or at very least is tempered by that context. So there is coercive thunder god or a transcendent all is one god in battle and conflict, there is legalistic and highly detailed OCD demands god or in the moment flow going god in fear of collapse situations, there is logically assembled by Sherlock Holmes god and mystery in darkness and light in spare time with extra groceries situations. The thing I love about the chosen cluster of texts from a chosen bible is that there is a collection of all these decodings and situations. Pseudopigrapha and apocrypha texts usually are not much different from approved texts except for the mindset tripping of someone’s xeno-ometer
Thanks Keith – and I absolutely affirm the gifts of seeing such diversity in our Sacred Texts! I also recognise that very gift is intricately connected to Biblical Literacy, which takes work. Thanks for sharing just one way we all benefit when such grounding is found!