Breathing Space
A blog about free faith in the spirit of Jesus.
Tuesday, December 14, 2021
Outlandish Virtue: What Would You Name Yourself If You Were a Quaker?
Sunday, June 13, 2021
When the Wrecking Ball Hits Your Faith
"Hello, my name is Kevin Max, and I'm an #exvangelical." That was the tweet from the DC Talk and now independent musician whose Christian music I've listened to since I was a teenager. In Max's debut as an #exvangelical, he announced that he is deconstructing his faith. (Read more in this article from the Christian Post.) In essence, the singer is demolishing what he's always been taught so he can rebuild his faith in a way that makes sense to him. (Cue the gasps from all the Sunday school teachers.)
You might think that deconstructing is the absolute opposite of what a Christian ought to do. I mean, Jesus talked about the wise man building his house on the rock, not tearing it down. But sometimes you've got to deconstruct something that's falling down, in order to build something stronger. In the Christian Post article, Kevin Max discusses what no longer works for him--and the new faith he's found by tearing down what's broken. It seems these days, a lot of people are doing the same thing.
According to a Gallup finding published in March of this year, membership in houses of worship in the United States has now dipped below 50%. The article says, "U.S. church membership was 73% when Gallup first measured it in 1937 and remained near 70% for the next six decades, before beginning a steady decline around the turn of the 21st century." For regular church attenders, this isn't shocking news. We have seen radical decline in our own churches, and blamed everything from Rock and Roll music to baseball. But maybe the change isn't from outside influences. Many are beginning to deconstruct what they've been taught, because they've discovered the foundations are built on sand instead of stone.
"House on the Sand (Matthew :7:24-27) (EXPLORED)" by Redeemed & Forgiven is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 |
As one body, Sunday school teachers clasp their hands to their mouths, aghast that their students may be questioning their catechism and Lifeway lessons. We've been taught not to question, not to challenge what we've been taught--but what if that advice is more for control than anything else? What if they are really just trying to keep you from deconstructing Potemkin's village?
Russian Empress Catherine the Great toured poverty-stricken Crimea in 1787. According to legend, the governor of that region, Grigory Potemkin, erected phony villages along her route, populated with happy, well-fed people who were actually brought in from central Russia. Though this story is dubious, today the term Potemkin village refers to any real or metaphorical facade, meant to deceive people into believing that things are better than they are. When my Sunday school teacher taught me not to question my faith, she was hoping that like Catherine the Great, I would ccontinue to see the shiny facade instead of the crumbling building underneath.
Many Christians never get beyond the "Sunday school answers" that they've been taught. I'm grateful to my seminary professors for encouraging me to think, question, pray, and investigate, rather than blindly accepting everything I learned at church. Because not everything my pastors told me was true. Today, it seems a lot of good folks are questioning religious assumptions they've held for years. They're realizing that they've built their house on sand instead of stone. But instead of waiting for the next storm to blow it down, people like Kevin Max are intentionally deconstructing their faith in order to build something stronger, and on a better foundation.
In Matthew 7:24-27 (NIV), Jesus says:
“...Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
Mostly, I've heard it preached that the sandy ground represents the either doubt, or the unstable things of this world, while the solid foundation is a rock-solid belief system. But Jesus is clear that stability comes from putting into practice his teachings. It's not about adherence to doctrines--it's trying to live and love like Jesus that prevents the crash. Too many church leaders would have you believe that the solid rock is theology, but it's not. It's Jesus himself. Unfortunately, there are a lot of righteous-looking, religious things that feel like bedrock, but are really sand. Sometimes you've got to deconstruct the things that appear solid, in order to find the rot underneath.
"Wrecking Ball" by Editor B is licensed under CC BY 2.0 |
People like Kevin Max are deconstructing things like:
- Original sin;
- The virgin birth;
- Christian exclusivism;
- Miracles (biblical as well as modern);
- The inspiration, inerrancy, or infallibility of Scripture;
- The closed canon of the Protestant or Catholic Bible;
- The existence of a literal hell, and the judgment of God that puts people there;
- Penal substitutionary atonement;
- Conservative teachings on "Biblical understandings on marriage, sexuality, and gender";
- Popular apocalyptic teachings from eschatological writings of the Bible;
- The Church's participation in promoting racism, sexism, patriarchy, capitalism, slavery, genocide, and empire-building;
- The Church's historical role as an exploiter of the environment, rather than a keeper of the earth.
- I'd love to talk with you! Leave a comment, fill in the contact form to the right of this post, or email me at revgregsmith@gmail.com.
- Read authors who represent the Emerging Church, a movement of openness and inclusion that values good questions over having all the right answers. I suggest books by Brian McLaren, Greg Boyd, N.T. Wright, Marcus Borg, Carlton Pearson, Henri Nouwen, Nadia Bolz-Weber, Dan Kimball, Matthew Vines, Andrew Farley, Bruxy Cavey, John Pavlovitz, Doug Hammack, and Richard Rohr.
- Talk with openminded people who will listen nonjudgmentally and encourage your questions. Listen to those who have also deconstructed their faith, and built something stronger when they were done.
- Leave spiritually abusive churches. Spiritually abusive churches and leaders tell you what you MUST believe. They discourage free thought, asking questions, and exploration. For them, it's either their way or the highway. The best thing to do in this case is to choose the highway. Only by hitting the road can you take the journey to find the good foundation where you can build again.
- Be prepared to experience grief. David Hayward offers a course in dealing with the sense of loss associated with changing beliefs, recognizing that while deconstruction is a healthy thing, it is also a painful thing. I hope you'll explore his entire website, as he makes deconstruction his full-time focus..
Thursday, December 24, 2020
"Silent Night, Lonely Night: Christmas in Pandemic"
Saturday, December 19, 2020
"Racism in the White, Southern Church: A Pastor's Confession of Compromise"
"The Color of Compromise is both enlightening and compelling, telling a history we either ignore or just don't know. Equal parts painful and inspirational, it details how the American church has helped create and maintain racist ideas and practices. You will be guided in thinking through concrete solutions for improved race relations and a racially inclusive church....The Color of Compromise is not a call to shame or a platform to blame white evangelical Christians. It is a call from a place of love and desire to fight for a more racially unified church that no longer compromises what the Bible teaches about human dignity and equality."
Jemar Tisby's book is a must-read for all followers of Jesus who want to understand the real history of brutal racism in the American church. The author goes beyond discussing aggressive forms of racism, and tackles the passive-aggressive prejudice that allows racism to exist and thrive. Tisby talks about the "go along to get along" attitude toward racism that does nothing more than perpetuate discrimination, even if motivated by a well-intentioned desire for unity in the church. I hope you'll get a paper copy that you can take notes in, underline, and mark up. It's definitely worth the read!
"Do you really think that's a good idea?" the deacon asked, piercing me with a gaze that said, "You know that you'll be in trouble if you do this, don't you?" That stern look also made me wonder if this deacon might be the source of the trouble, and if this "kind advice" might be more of a threat than a caution.
Bear in mind--I was not a novice pastor at this point in my career. So I knew that in a Baptist church, the pastor doesn't truly call the shots, and lives or dies professionally at the whim of the people. Neither was I a seasoned veteran, full of confidence and able to weather the storms of an angry congregation. So I did the only thing I could think of.
I compromised. Well, to be honest, I lied.
Compromise would imply a give-and-take. But in this case, all I did was take. I took back my promise, and broke my word. Or maybe the compromise wasn't with other people, but with my own beliefs, and my own character. In any case, it was one of the things I'm most ashamed of in my life, and I have told few people about until now.
"I'm sorry," I told my friend, the pastor of the other church. "When I agreed to speak on that date, I forgot that I'd already booked that Sunday off with my family."
I'm sure he could see through my lie, but he also knew that I was so fragile at this moment that he let me get away with it. He simply said, "Well, maybe some other time."
You have to understand the deep-seated racism in the rural South where I served. You have to know that integrated churches in that region are few and far-between. On page 52 of The Color of Compromise, Tisby says:
"Harsh though it may sound, the facts of history nevertheless bear out this truth: there would be no black church without racism in the white church."
Yes, it's true that the African American church was formed by formerly enslaved people who left the Caucasian church of their own accord, to establish for themselves churches and denominations independent of their former enslavers. So it could be said that the segregation of the American church is due to the actions of Black worshipers. Yet, there would have been no need for these believers' mass exodus from white churches, had it not been for the racism of church leaders who forced congregants of color to endure continued submission in church roles. Realizing that segregated worship was the only way to find equality in the church, Black believers had left the white church in droves.
In my time pastoring that little church, I had seen the racism of my own congregants. I had also built (what I believed to be) a friendship with the pastor of the local African American church. I visited them when I could, when their services fell at times when my own church had no meetings. I became known to the people of that congregation, and I felt I knew some of them. So the invitation came naturally, when that church scheduled it's anniversary celebration, marking a benchmark number of years since its founding. "It only makes sense that you speak at our church," the pastor had told me. "Since the ancestors of our church members had been former members of your congregation." I thought it made perfect sense, too, so I had accepted the invitation. But then I had caved, and lied, and damaged a friendship, at the slightest pressure from a racist deacon who may or may not have even been speaking for the others in my church. (And so what, if that deacon had been speaking for all of them?) Yes, the color of my compromise was as yellow as the cowardice in my heart. And I have regretted that decision from that day until now.
Let me emphasize--I knew this decision was cowardly, even before I carried it out. I didn't "slip into sin"--I ran into this lie as if into the arms of a savior that would rescue me from a tight spot. I knew it was wrong, but I didn't see any way out. I thought it was the easiest way to keep my deacon and other church members happy, while saving face with the neighboring church that I had come to love, too. What I didn't realize was the rift that it would create, how guilt would prevent me from entering the doors of that neighboring church for another fifteen years--and how the face I was trying to save had ended up breaking relationships. What I didn't realize was the chasm it would create in my own soul.
Jemar Tisby writes:
[Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech] was August 28, 1963. More than fifty years later, how far has the American church come in terms of race relations? The “Whites Only” and “No Negros Allowed” signs have been taken down, but schools remain segregated. People of color are incarcerated at disproportionally hight rates. Black unemployment remains double that of whites. Most poignantly, churches remain largely segregated. The reluctance to reckon with racism has led to a chasm between black and white Christians in theology, politics, and culture. This chasm only makes it harder to productively communicate and take effective action around racial issues. (Pg. 192)
I was still struggling with this chasm when, a few months later, another opportunity for the church and me to do the right thing emerged. I received a phone call from a bride-to-be who said she was looking for a church building to rent, for their upcoming ceremony. She explained to me that she was a member of a local congregation, but their facility was too small to handle the crowd she expected. "We've always driven by your church and thought how pretty it was, and we're wondering if it's available." I told her that I didn't make those decisions, that we had a committee that handled bookings of our facilities. I told her I'd talk with the committee and have them give her a call. I did just that, and once I had passed the job on to the committee chair, I thought nothing else of it.
Some time later, the chair called me back, her voice quavering anxiously. "Did you know that the couple is Black?"
I was glad that she couldn't see me rolling my eyes through the telephone, but I don't think I disguised my feelings as telegraphed through my own voice. "Well, first of all, you can't see what a person looks like through the telephone, so no, I didn't know that they were Black. But, second, so what if they are Black? Why does that make a difference? This is, after all, the twenty-first century."
That ruffled her. "I...well, I... you don't understand," she said. "We don't rent our building to their kind. The committee is going to tell them no."
That pissed me off. I knew very well that we did not have a discrimination policy, and that it was only the intent of the committee, or perhaps only the chair of the committee, to keep people of color out of our building. So I told her this had to be decided by the church at large.
By the time our church business meeting came up, word had spread through the whole congregation that one of the things on the agenda would be a decision whether or not we would allow this particular couple to rent our building. People came with their proverberial guns loaded for bear. However, as we began to look into the date the couple had requested the use of our building, we discovered that the church already had a major event planned for that entire weekend. So it was decided that we would contact the couple and say that we were sorry, it was nothing personal, but the building simply wasn't available for their wedding.
That pacified a few people, but it just made me even more angry. I had come to the meeting prepared to settle this matter once and for all. Instead, the missed opportunity to decide for inclusion seemed like one more nail in the church's racist coffin. So, at our next business meeting after that, I came to the church with a well-drafted nondiscrimination resolution that I wanted the church to pass. After reading the resolution and allowing time for discussion, I asked for the vote to be by show of hands. And, to my surprise, the resolution passed with only a few dissenting votes. What a cause for celebration!
In The Color of Compromise, Tisby writes:
In the Bible, James 4:17 says, “If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them”…The church today must practice the good that ought to be done. To look at this history and then refuse to act only perpetuates racist patterns. It is time for the church to stand against racism and compromise no longer (Pg 212).
I was so proud that my church had known the good that needed to be done, and then had the courage to act on its convictions. I was so delighted with the decision that I framed the nondiscrimination policy and nailed it to the wall in the sanctuary, in a spot where every passerby would see it. It was only later that I learned that not everybody who had voted for the policy actually agreed with it. When asked why they had supported it, one grumbler stated, "The vote was by show of hands--I wasn't going to be publicly racist."
And isn't that just the thing? The church doesn't want to be publicly racist. That's why the deacon took me aside in private to say I shouldn't preach at the Black church. That's why everyone breathed a sigh of relief when our building just happened to be unavailable for the wedding. That's why the few African Americans who have entered white churches in the South have done so with a sense of dread--not because of what's said to their face, but behind their backs.
Don't get me wrong--overt, malicious racism in the church is rare, in my experience. But I have wondered why do-nothing members were nominated for deacon, when the Black deacon who had joined us from another church was never mentioned. I have had to explain why it's offensive when farmers refer to the migrant workers they employ as "Our Mexicans," (especially when some were from Honduras). And I have heard the loud silent gasps of the congregation when a person of color ascended the pulpit to preach in my place.
Racism has been a pernicious thorn in the flesh of the Southern, white, evangelical church for a long time. I confess that when I was younger, I compromised my own non-racist beliefs to keep the peace. I didn't realize at the time that it's not enough to be non-racist. Only an anti-racist stance from church leadership can break the cycle of overt hatred and violence, as well as covert undercuts and bigotry. Ephesians 2:13-15 says:
But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has torn down the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing in His flesh the law of commandments and decrees. He did this to create in Himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace…
Christians, if we believe that's true, then it's not enough to defend our perceived non-racism by proclaiming that we have Black friends. It's not enough that we try to be fair and equitable by declaring that "all lives matter," rather than singling out the significant pain of one particular group. Instead, we've got to come to terms with the systemic racism present in our society and in our churches. We've got to have courage enough to face our own racism, because it's there, whether we want to believe it or not. We've got to educate ourselves, and gain perspectives we've never had before (Jemar Tisby's book is a good start). And we've got to become proactive rather than reactive.
Remember the old tradition of "testimony night" in many evangelical churches? In the absence of a sermon, church members would get up and tell their own stories of God's goodness. At testiony night, we heard tales of miracles, of broken relationships restored, and of blessings. But the ones that always moved us the most were the confessions. When a brother or sister stood up and said, "This is how I've failed, but this is also where I've learned, where God has given grace, and where I can do better." I think its time that we had testimony night. I've gotten the ball rolling, with my confession. Now, it's your turn.
Saturday, December 12, 2020
"Are You Religious?"
"Are you religious?" he asked me.
"Damn, I hope not," I said--and I meant it. Because religious people are more concerned with the fact that I used that word than the fact that I instantly diffused any tension there might be in the conversation, in order to have a deep conversation about Jesus. But we didn't begin there--we started out talking about tattoos and whiskey, and how I, as a follower of Jesus can enjoy both of those things. He talked about how he'd been hurt by religion, and I assured him that God doesn't want us to be religious, anyway. God just wants our hearts. The problem was, it was an uphill conversation, because the church had convinced him that religion was all about putting on a righteous appearance, and looking down on people who didn't fit the standards of the Christian culture. So I told him a story...
Jesus said, “But what do you think about this? A man with two sons told the older boy, ‘Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.’ The son answered, ‘No, I won’t go,’ but later he changed his mind and went anyway. Then the father told the other son, ‘You go,’ and he said, ‘Yes, sir, I will.’ But he didn’t go. “Which of the two obeyed his father?”They replied, “The first.”
Then Jesus explained his meaning: “I tell you the truth, corrupt tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the Kingdom of God before you do. For John the Baptist came and showed you the right way to live, but you didn’t believe him, while tax collectors and prostitutes did. And even when you saw this happening, you refused to believe him and repent of your sins (Matthew 21.28-32 NLT).
The man shook his head. "Yep, I've known a lot of Christians who said they followed Jesus, but you'd never know it."
"So have I," I said, "And I worked with them for years. I've also known a lot of people who were closer to following Jesus than some church folks were, even though they'd never call themselves Christians."
"That makes sense," he told me. "I've always thought life was about knowing that God is love, and trying to live like God. I never thought it was about going to church and trying to impress people by how good I am. Is that right?" he asked.
Giving him a fist bump, I said, "Damn straight."
Thursday, November 19, 2020
Bloom Where You Are Planted
Trailer in September, just after move-in |
Trailer in November, settling in for the winter |
"Bloom where you are planted" is perhaps the best advice I could receive as a stranger, an alien, a traveler on this earth. If you feel out of place yourself, I'd encourage you to put down roots, even if the soil is temporary. Settle in, and bloom. Because a seed that doesn't grow and bloom remains just a bundle of potential. But when you grow and flower where you're planted, you give life--and you help others smile along the way.
Saturday, November 7, 2020
After the Election - "Now What" for Christians?
I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy. Nothing will harm you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven (Luke 10:18-20).