My own Contribution to the Fractured State of the American Church.

Fractured: Christianity in Corinth. and my own contribution to the fractured state of the American Church

Beautiful Mornings.  Don’t you love them? You wake up early. Hear the birds chirping like they are praising the creator of the universe. You stumble over the pile of clothes, books, and bills at the foot of your bed reaching for the day. You flick the light on in the kitchen, open the fridge and scratch your rear as you smell the creamer that expired two days early. All of this coincides with the inner dialogue you are having with God. You thank him for another morning, confess your deep love and just commune with him in the bliss of your kitchen. The coffee pot beeps letting you know all is perfect in your world. You flip through the pages of your ragged Bible and read something that jars you awake. Something about justice, loving your neighbor, or turning the other cheek. At this you feel inspired and you want to share your profound experience in scripture with the world- on facebook.

And then all Hell breaks loose. Yes, you have just managed to irritate half of the world with a mere statement about Jesus and loving the marginalized. And then the emails begin to flush in. Your blog just got 15 hits by some “heresy hunter” and your Aunt Martha is concerned about your salvation.

The letters always start out the same. They say they love you. They say they care. They say you are going to Hell. You wonder why your world is so fractured. And then you wonder if you are fractured.

You wonder if you are the “prideful idiot” they have called you.

You wonder if you have been rejected because of your heart or because of your choice of words.

Then the super apostles come at you. They send you private messages telling of their great feats and how the “spirit of GAWD” fell in the service last night and how four hundred people accepted Christ as their personal savior. The next letter tells you to “keep up the Good work and to keep focusing on God” even though someone siphoned gas out of the very vehicle with which you minister to the homeless.

Then the text messages start.

“Can you pray for me, my mom told me she hates Gay people, and I think I am a lesbian?”

“ABC church just split up because Pastor Somebody told Bishop So-in-so that he doesn’t believe in the rapture anymore.”

“My medication ran out and I have been having psychotic episodes.”

“My wife is going to leave me because I don’t make enough money.”

Then that one acquaintance from high school you mistakenly gave your cell number to beeps on your phone. You know the one who thinks you are the devil’s advocate. “I hope you turn away from tickling of ears.”

You want to defend yourself to everyone. You want everyone’s life to be better and to get their nose out of your business. After all you are trying to be a pastor and the haters have you locked in their sights! You want to scream bloody hell and murder, call down fire from heaven, and through your credentials out before all these people.

But what good will it does?

Did God not approve you?

Who are these super apostles?

Why are these churches splitting?

Why does everyone use labels to prove their ability to be called pastors and preachers?

And somewhere in the back of your head, you are haunted with your own sense of calling and Pentecostal prophecies from 1999, some random encounter with Jesus Christ and your own talents and skills fractured by your own need for approval and the competition of others in the body of Christ.

Think that sounds crazy? Think it sounds familiar?

This is exactly what Paul would be dealing with in Corinth if it were a modern day city and a modern day church. Paul loved the Church at Corinth so much. But Corinth had its own background that made it a regular “Church of the Misfits.” The four mile thick land mass served as a port and transportation center for the known world. To sail around the jagged rocks of the Mediterranean was to commit suicide. Sailors and pirates alike would dock their ships into port, Lift their goods, or even their ships, onto ancient trailers and pull them across the isthmus back to the Sea.  Rome had indeed conquered the world, but not the cultures. They melted together in Corinth, offering the best delicacies of the world and customs of many tribes to any spectator or participant. Philosophy was in its hay-day. Great orators gathered at auditoriums across the land to entertain the masses with their rhetoric. Bronze smiths casted small idols for the faithful. Stone masons and artisans crafted trinkets for temple worship. In modern excavations of the ancient town of Corinth, carved and chisled body parts were found everywhere. It was a practice of the Roman worshippers to deliver a body part along with meat, food or monetary offerings to plead to the gods for healing. Many different people groups had gathered here in Corinth with some communicating in Latin, Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, various romantic languages, and perhaps even early Germanic tongues and some eastern expressions. The languages of trade and money unified the people, mostly. But still the society seem fractured. In this amazing port city you could find anything that would fulfill your desire. With Epicurean and Hedonistic philosophies abounding, you could go to an all you could eat style buffet. Several times a day if you so desired. Right outside would be public vomitoriums for you to expel the excess. Or you could go get drunk and pray to Bacchus, and hope that he made your vineyards more fertile. Or you could just pop right into any fertility cult celebration and fornicate for favor from the gods. Most of the priests in these temples had been de-sexed, so you could enjoy sexual relations with a “eunuch” or a “woman” for a price. And if religion wasn’t your bag, but you were still horny, you could fetch a young sex slave to be your lover. Children were imported from all over. Even England. Many people suspected the northerners to be angels because of their blond hair and blue eyes. Sexual trafficking was big business. And it was a no rules society. Even Paul questions some of the “korithianzai” behavior in chapter 6. He uses words that suggest many people lived for their loins or stomach instead of for their heart. The words malakoi and arsenakonai are debated hotly by scholars today. The former word, which implied man-boy sexuality, or pederasty, was quite common in the culture. It was considered virtuous to take the innocence from a slave youth. Roman society was patriarchal. Or better said “Males on Top of society.” To be passive receiver sexually was to be weak and reserved for slaves and women. The other word, arsenokoitai shows up little in other Greek Literature. Man-bed, as it is roughly translated could mean a myriad of things. It could mean gigolo or pimp. So Corinth was known for its fascination with pleasure even in the ancient world. And poor Paul, He’s stuck in the middle of this new message of radical grace and the craziness that is human existence.

He gets a letter from one of his elders, Chloe, telling him about the state of the fractured church in Corinth. Not only were there divisions in the Church, power plays, political maneuvering, and contentions, but the church were money hungry, taking one another to court, forgetting the poor, exercising liberty in front of those with weak conscious, having sexual scandals, and caught up in speaking in tongues over acting with mercy, justice, and humility. Sounds like a regular Jerry Springer episode, and a bit too familiar, like our lives today. Paul writes the letter from Ephesus, scholars suggest around the middle 50’s. The Gospels have yet to be written. Paul’s letter would be circulated among many churches, but his audience was Corinth. In researching this letter from Paul, we must remember we only have half of the dialogue so we aren’t really seeing the picture fully, but more like a darkly lit glass or a fogged mirror. One thing we can know for sure is that Paul suspecting the soon return of Jesus Christ. He wrote with this in mind. Scholars argue over some of the letter, and wonder if the second letter to Corinthians contains some of the first letter. Some parts, they even suggest, were added much later to the text during the second century. But most do agree that the main parts of the letter utilize the language and communication style of Paul.

So Paul finds out this information about Corinth from Chloe. Obviously his heart is breaking as he begins the letter in a very humble manner:

Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,

² To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours:

³ Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

⁴ I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. ⁵ For in him you have been enriched in every way—with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge — ⁶ God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you. ⁷ Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. ⁸ He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹ God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Look at Paul. He first prophetically calls the Church at Corinth holy in Christ Jesus.

This doesn’t say they aren’t holy.

It says that they have been made Holy already in Jesus. Despite the fact that their behavior isn’t lining up with their identity, Paul believes that they are holy already. He loves them. He gives thanks for them. He could have come down scathing and reprimanding them immediately for their strife and immorality, but instead he gives an account of their talents, abilities, gifting’s, and beautiful souls.

He chooses to see them as God has seen them, righteous. It seems almost ironic, because although they are completely talented, credentialed, intelligent, and full of supernatural gifts they are using these things to boast instead of the righteousness provided in the blood of Jesus. But Paul, Like Christ decides to walk in grace by viewing Corinth as God’s Holy Church. Perhaps, we could interact with one another like this more often.  He finishes the introduction to his letter, and cuts to the chase:

¹⁰ I appeal to you, brothers and sisters,^[a] in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. ¹¹ My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. ¹² What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas^[b]”; still another, “I follow Christ.”

¹³ Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? ¹⁴ I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, ¹⁵ so no one can say that you were baptized in my name. ¹⁶ (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don’t remember if I baptized anyone else.) ¹⁷ For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

Paul writes to Corinth in humility. He addresses them as brothers and sisters, not as followers of Paul or as children, students, or as a diminutive, but as fellow equals in the Kingdom of God. He asks them to walk in love with one another.

To agree, and to be united.

He doesn’t mean here that everyone should stick to the same perception or experience or definition of things, but he tells them to agree on the Gospel. He doesn’t want them to negate their individuality or their diversity, but he wants them to work together. He wants them to stop running around forming various factions acting like one group is smarter,

Holier,

Better speakers,

More spirit filled

Or more apt to do social justice.

He begs them to stop comparing themselves and fighting like jealous siblings.  It’s almost a flash back to the disciples muscling for rank in the kingdom to come, and Jesus just shaking his head. Are they really this insecure? This immature? I know sometimes I act like a baby. But we, you and I, have already been approved by God to do good works. So why are we using the factions and descriptive titles to differentiate ourselves from one another?  Why do we spend countless hours arguing over Jesus instead of being Jesus?

Several years ago, I read a book called “Unchristian.” It made me not want to be a Christian. I never want to be associated with the religious right, bigotry, fundamentalism, Westboro Baptist Church, the holocaust or the crusades. But who can judge me? Only God. Paul says in Corinthians 4, that he doesn’t even judge himself. That is not to say he never takes an inventory or becomes introspective for a positive change. What it does say is that he doesn’t have to prove to himself. He meets the criteria for a servant of Christ. Human credentials are great, but not a thing to be boasted in. Love is the litmus test for a believer. John 17 says “they will know my disciples for their great love for one another.”

Labels are stupid. We learn in concepts and we are taught early to identify, sort, and store information in categories. At some point and time, we have to let labels fall to the ground, realizing our definitions are not absolute knowledge. Stereotypes defeat true unity, by supporting prejudice.

I carried this kind of pride in my life for so long. I would run around saying “I am not that type of Christian. I am semi-educated. I speak decent for someone from Georgia. I smoke cigars on occasion. I hang out at bars and rock concerts. And I care for the poor.”

Who gives a crap, right?

I was guilty of judging other Christians and trying assert my ability to lead postmodernity to Jesus. I use the word judge here to mean condemn. Not analyze. I think we should observe and analyze our own behavior, the behavior of others, and the behavior of the church, but we should view it through eyes of Love.

Although, I am sad about the state of Christianity in America, and should apologize to everyone I encounter for our mistakes, I am no better of a Christ-follower than any one of my predecessors.

Shame on me.

I can work together with a holiness preacher,

An Episcopalian Bishop,

A Jesuit Priest,

Or a Seventh Day Adventist Elder

To love my homeless neighbors. And I don’t need to argue over ever point of theology to do it. And who cares if I am a decent speaker, does that make me better than Charles Stanly, Greg Boyd, N.T. Wright, or John Shelby Spong? No. I need to forgo all my world-system credentials and humble myself so the power of Christ is evident in my life. And that is what Paul was calling the Corinthians to do: Be unified.

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. ¹⁹ For it is written:

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”^[c]

²⁰ Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? ²¹ For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. ²² Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, ²³ but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, ²⁴ but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

²⁶ Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. ²⁷ But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. ²⁸ God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not —to nullify the things that are, ²⁹ so that no one may boast before him. ³⁰ It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. ³¹ Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”^[d]

Paul starts getting a little more passionate. He suggests that most of us so called intellectuals can’t handle the cross. We are too busy trying to ego-masturbate with our own wisdom. He says that the message of the cross is foolishness to those who know-it-all. He rubs the various ideologies of Gnosticism, rationalism, platonic argumentation, stoicism, logos cult, and Sophia cults into the ground by suggesting that all these things- that supposedly have the market cornered on knowledge- are inadequate. Paul appeals to mystery, love, and faith. We don’t know it all. We shouldn’t revel in our ability to figure out God or stump other believers. God is not an equation and neither is the Gospel a syllogism. It’s great that we have knowledge, but Jesus is what we should be excited about. The mysterious love union with He and the saints should be what we boast in, and the cross that gives us righteousness.  Paul kind of deflates egos in his statements that many of the Christians didn’t have influence, riches, celebrity, or wisdom. But the truth is they all had talents, gift sets, and abilities. Some actually were born into rich families. Some did have a major anointing. Some really did speak well. Some had been great actors and philosophers. But all that stuff was dog-dung to Paul. The mark of a true apostle was humility.

So how should we react to others in the church world? With pure disdain? With labels, dividing us into special categories? With egocentric attempts to inflate ourselves as leaders?

What is the way of Christ? What is unity? What does kenosis mean? Are we not all one?

How can I change my life to be a peace-making glue stick instead of jagged icepick intended to fracture?

Alive: Zombie Jesus or Resurrection and 1 Corinthians 15. Thoughts by Bec

Most of us are familiar with the Christian creedal belief of the resurrection of Christ.  And some of us are not. Many more of us are familiar with zombie movies from 1960. Suddenly death reanimates into life, graves crack open, gates of mortuaries swing and the living dead stagger down black and white country sides eating brains from unsuspecting teenagers.

Another famous resurrection scene from Hollywood is that of “Frankenstein.” The patchwork monster comes alive after lightening surges into Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory. And Igor screams “It’s Alive.” Long before Boris Karloff stained our imaginations with his famous rendition of the creature, the story frightened jolly old England. Mary Shelly began writing the book when she was 18 and finished when she 21.

She sat in parlors throughout Europe, indulging in cultural curiosities with contemporaries like Lord Bryon and other political radicals. The time was peculiar because colonialism continued brewing in a strange concoction with romanticisms, enlightenment thinking, rationalism, the industrial age, and the fascination of the occult. One night after a rather intriguing talk of ghost stories, “galvanization” and other particularities of secret societies and occult alchemists, a wager was placed among the thinkers. “Who can write the perfect horror story?” And so began Shelley’s masterpiece. It was somewhat based on this creepy Italian doctor who performed strange experiments on the dead, and also a bit of a prophetic warning to the industrial and modern eras. Shelly supposed that the modern world with its technology would soon come crashing down if humanity interfered with creation.  She later penned a somewhat apocalyptic piece entitled “The Last Man.” After all, many in the early 1800’s feared that civilization would have its eminent dooms day.  Her story became famous, but it was almost a century and some change before film brought the masterpiece to the eyes of the western world.

People called the story a masterpiece because the motifs, themes, and symbols that wreaked havoc in the hearts of readers, causing them to question their own monstrosities, unnatural pursuit of knowledge, ambition, dismissal of nature, and feelings of helplessness. It wasn’t the first time that an “it’s Alive” moment messed up hearts.

Paul himself has to deal with various versions of “it’s alive” type of hype coming from the amalgamation of personalities in Corinth. The church was new, vibrant, and full of egos attempting to please themselves with intellectual superiority, flashy charismatic powers, oratory spectacles, personal ambition of leadership, and neglect of the poor. Corinth was itself a capital of trade and cultural kaleidoscope not unlike a major city today.  People from the known earth travelled through Corinth, some trying to make a quick buck off of a brazen God, ancient snake oil, a sexual slave boy, tapestries, spices, and rarities. It was like WHOLE FOODS grocery meets one of those shadey PORN SHOPS down at Cheshire Bridge road. You could get gourmet hummus or a case of gonorrhea if you were looking.

Existing Among the plethora of personalities and philosophies, Paul attempted to address were those recently converted from myth cults. These cults or myth religions had deities who also did amazing things. Some of the heroes of these past faiths included Osiris, Baal, and Adonis.  Yet some of the more rational minds in Greek Philosophy at the time of Paul concluded such beliefs were rather ridiculous. Also among those in Corinth, were Jewish persons interested in the faith. Some would have been familiar with the idea of Resurrection, thinking that all persons spent a purgative time in Sheol, and would be raised again with a new body and same soul at the end of the age. Those who were from the Jewish camp of the Sadducees, were kind of sad-you-see, because they laughed at a bodily resurrection. And then those who were influenced heavily by Greek philosophy thought the body or flesh was merely a shell that rotted away, and had no value at all. They believed in more of a spiritual resurrection. A bodily resurrection was odd to them because they believed that disembodied spirits floated about in some pure essential form. This later added to Gnostic thought, or those who denied the bodily resurrection of Christ. This is what years later John would call the spirit of antichrist, those denying a resurrection.

So this was what Paul was up against. Everyone knew everything, and the new Christians were confused as hell about this resurrection. Paul in his somewhat familiar snarky attitude starts in with the readers of his letter about all their arguing on the subject. His point is to unify them on beliefs. So here Paul is, writing to this group of misfits in 1 Corinthians 15.

Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. ² By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

³ For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance^[a]: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ⁴ that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, ⁵ and that he appeared to Cephas,^[b] and then to the Twelve. ⁶ After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. ⁷ Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, ⁸ and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

⁹ For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. ¹⁰ But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them —yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. ¹¹ Whether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.

Paul starts off calling them adelphoi. This word emphatically means brothers and sisters. It does not mean that Paul knows-every-fricking-thing or that he is the “vicar of Christ” but instead he is on their level. Even lower than that,

He is humble,

And he wants to compel them to listen to his words.

He is telling the Corinthians about the oral gospel they had heard. The gospel accounts had not even been penned yet. The Corinthian church based their faith in the Gospel which they had heard. It was that Jesus was doing something new. He had not torn down the law, but he had lifted up the greatest points of the Law for everyone. He became a sacrifice for those who had been in blood-sacrifice religions. He was the final word on their immortal souls, and that word was righteousness.  His blood had paid all the dues that religion was charging them. It was done and he had been resurrected.  Not resuscitated, but set free from the confines of death. Paul urges the Corinthians to understand they had believed this word he preached to them. Others had come along doing signs and wonders in Jesus name. Even Apollos had showed up as a super apostle doing all kinds of miracles. But he didn’t even know the whole story. He had to be taught by a woman and man named Priscilla and Aquila on the parts of the story he didn’t know. Paul was teaching the story he had heard. Paul also saw the Lord. Jesus appeared to him in a vision like state- as a light and a voice- resurrected beyond death. Paul was a witness of the resurrection. He goes on in humility to tell them he was the least of the apostles. He wants them to know he isn’t lording some great information or esoteric crap over their heads for a mere $19.95 but he is delivering this Good News: Jesus is Lord, Caesar or any other ruling empire is not Lord.

Jesus made you free. Free from World Systems.

Jesus paid the price for you to have life full and also made a way for you to escape the clutches of death.

This was the good news.

¹² But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? ¹³ If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. ¹⁴ And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. ¹⁵ More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. ¹⁶ For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. ¹⁷ And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. ¹⁸ Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. ¹⁹ If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

²⁰ But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. ²¹ For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. ²² For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. ²³ But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. ²⁴ Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. ²⁵ For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. ²⁶ The last enemy to be destroyed is death. ²⁷ For he “has put everything under his feet.”^[c] Now when it says that “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. ²⁸ When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.

²⁹ Now if there is no resurrection, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized for them? ³⁰ And as for us, why do we endanger ourselves every hour? ³¹ I face death every day —yes, just as surely as I boast about you in Christ Jesus our Lord. ³² If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus with no more than human hopes, what have I gained? If the dead are not raised,

“Let us eat and drink,
for tomorrow we die.”^[d]

³³ Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.”^{[e] 34} Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning; for there are some who are ignorant of God —I say this to your shame.

So Paul tells them how it is. He makes an emotional case, suggesting that if one doesn’t believe in the resurrection than we have no hope.

Might as well slit our wrists.

Nihilism.

Everything ceases.

No beauty.

No meaning.

Just random blips.

What kind of faith is that, Paul wonders.

Nothing. It would be a sad faith indeed. Humanity means jack crap in the cosmos?

No way, Paul says. We mean something. Our lives are valuable, now especially and we do go on living in a new way.  Paul speaks to those who were familiar with the Jewish faith and the idea of a literal Adam. He recounts the story, suggesting that if you believed Adam brought sin into the world that Now Christ has banished it with one single selfless act.

That’s Jesus. Always taking the high road. Thinking of everyone but himself. And shouldn’t followers of Christ do the same. Paul goes from this point to speak about all the oppressive controlling political regimes. Once again reminding the Jews that their political messiah is Now Already and Not Yet.

They expected a savior to free them from slavery and economic systems of evil. Each empire will bow to the Kingdom of God and ultimately Jesus will be Lord recognized by every soul ever.   Even if a Greek philosopher in all his illusions of being erudite could not wrap his intellect around a resurrection, Paul tells him to believe. Paul doesn’t say how this is done, or what it looked like scientifically- he merely suggests that not believing means all this Christian living is in vain.  Paul starts getting a little snarky here and asking them about their baptism traditions. In fact, some religions like Mormonism continue a practice of baptism for the dead. Early Christian Gnostics such as Marcionites also practiced a baptism for the Dead.  The word baptizein in Hebrew has a wider meaning such as ritual cleansing. Like a woman would wash after a menstrual cycle, or how you would prepare a body for burial, or even as in a ritual bath before a spiritual service.

Then he says basically if Christ didn’t die then why the heck did Paul risk his neck every day of his life. He uses pop culture in his letter, stealing a phrase from the Epicureans, who thought you could just treat the body like a non-stop party. He even quotes a famous book, saying “Don’t be misled.” Paul uses the secular here to demonstrate that God’s truths are beyond religion. And that we shouldn’t over analyze the resurrection, it just freaking happened. Paul addresses those who have been arguing and speculating about resuscitation, reanimation, zombie Jesus, and “Its Alive”…

But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” ³⁶ How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. ³⁷ When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or something else.³⁹ not all flesh is the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. ⁴⁰ There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. ⁴¹ The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.

⁴² So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; ⁴³ it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; ⁴⁴ it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. ⁴⁵ So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”^[f]; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. ⁴⁶ The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. ⁴⁷ The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. ⁴⁸ As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. ⁴⁹ And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we^[g] bear the image of the heavenly man.

⁵⁰ I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. ⁵¹ Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed — ⁵² in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. ⁵³ For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. ⁵⁴ When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”^[h]

⁵⁵ “Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”^[i]

⁵⁶ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the
law. ⁵⁷ But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

⁵⁸ Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

Look at Paul just smashing our intellectual assurance down and implying that some things are a mystery. We don’t have to know exactly what resurrection means to experience it. But so often we, like the Greek Philosophers, want rationalism and modernity to guide our path. After all we have placed Science as God. Science is a good thing. But we will never know anything absolutely until the end of this age and the beginning of the Next. Paul admonishes Corinth to set aside their foolish talking, theological debating, and rationalistic inquiries and except an experience with Christ.

So what does any of this alive hype have to do with 21^st century Atlanta, Georgia? Are we not like Corinth a lot? Haven’t you seen the factions? Those who think they are more progressive than everyone else and carry it around like a badge. Those who think they have the corner on Truth and duel with apologetics and rationalism trying to contend with words? Those who say, “if you don’t believe like me then you are going to hell?”  Those of us who follow some flashy charismatic leader who blows on people and they fall over? Those who think that through their pursuit of knowledge they will obtain power? Those who withhold feasts from the poor? Those who get drunk every night and think that it doesn’t matter what they do to their body? Those who think they can’t eat meat, don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t chew or go with girls that do. Paul would laugh at all of us. We are Corinth. We are all saints, sinners, misfits, full of God’s glory and our own ego.

He calls us to the life of Christ.

He calls us to radical servant hood.

Can I give up my ego?

Can I give up my pride?

Can I give up my credentials as a progressive liberal or a right-wing fundamentalist? Can I give that up for one darn second to be united and agree that Resurrection happened, even if I don’t know what that means? What if we did work together? What if we invited the poor to our celebrations? What if we didn’t spend forty hours speaking in tongues, but cared for our neighbor 39 of those hours? What if we didn’t argue on Facebook pages about the tradition of Christ and him coming to save and we actually helped end hunger? What if we could realize we didn’t know everything and embrace this mystery to which Paul calls us? And I have been guilty. But can I change? Should I really follow Christ?

If one thing Corinth was short on, it was Love. Paul echoed this in chapter 13. It doesn’t matter about anything we do if it isn’t in Love. And nothing matters if we don’t believe in “ALIVE” resurrection.

So, ask yourself.

Can you let go of your “korithianzai” nature to walk in Love and believe in our common hope of Resurrection?   Can I let go of my own ego and do something that says I believe in Jesus life, death, and New Life? Imagine what we could do.

A final note from Peter Rollins “Without equivocation or hesitation I fully and completely admit that I deny the resurrection of Christ. This is something that anyone who knows me could tell you, and I am not afraid to say it publicly, no matter what some people may think…

I deny the resurrection of Christ every time I do not serve at the feet of the oppressed, each day that I turn my back on the poor; I deny the resurrection of Christ when I close my ears to the cries of the downtrodden and lend my support to an unjust and corrupt system…

However there are moments when I affirm that resurrection, few and far between as they are. I affirm it when I stand up for those who are forced to live on their knees, when I speak for those who have had their tongues torn out, when I cry for those who have no more tears left to shed.”

atlanta- august till april

I find my heart pounding. I am in the elevator looking at the stains on the old plastic ceiling and envisioning something marvelous. This random old detention center now refurbished into a hub for homeless programs with its tapioca-tawny walls looks like some kind of Heaven.  I can’t explain it. It is happening.  My eyes droop but still beam with a crazed excitement and expectation. It’s almost a hunger, perhaps something like desire. All over these words “They will look to Atlanta to see Love.” David stood up and said it almost a year ago. His curly gray hair caught my focus and I zoomed in on his crown as he spoke. We had gathered at the Biltmore in the ball room to hear what the next radical had to say. A message of grace had all been planted in us like a splinter. Festering and throbbing at every sighting, every glimpse, of that long anticipated “THY KINGDOM COME.” Various misfits, heretics, radicals, saints, and some grandmothers. We wanted so badly for the prophetic pronouncement to happen.  We were sick of the division. Sick of the injustice. Sick of the legalism that was god in many churches around.

And then life hit hard in August. Worries were inflated. Fear of bills, living, oh and the fear of my reputation entered into play. Sure, the hate mail was no new thing. The daily facebook messages from concerned orthodox gatekeepers kept pouring in after my post about evangelicals loving the LGBT community in my old denomination’s “under 40″ group. I felt buried. We all felt buried. We almost buried the message of “Thy Kingdom come.” We faced a long fall and a long winter. I felt the sting of rejection as I was let go in love from the place I thought I would be built. I spent the next few months frustrated about my church plant, my calling, my cheeto-eating self. My slightly delusional excuse for life. I waited tables. I hated working for tips at the place where the carpet smelled like rotting beer and ranch dressing. Worse, I had to wait on the young adults in the ministry preparation school who I feared all knew that I was no longer in contact with the church, or the denomination. After all, with my theology or lack thereof, I wasn’t good enough to wipe a baby’s rear in the nursery or even pray for people who were sick at the altar and I sure wasn’t on the speaker’s bureau for the next big leadership conference.  Friends left. Political alliances called me Rebel and punk. They saw my reactions to the pain in my life, and instead of sitting with me to grieve, they ran away, afraid I was now Satan’s.  People I had called mothers and fathers of the faith suddenly avoided me like the plague. I tried not to be bitter, and to speak of God’s great move in the denomination and at the church I once called home. But I was hurt. I bitched for a minute on social media, and then realized that facebook and twitter did not replace my intimate raw moments with Yahweh. So I shut up about injustice and stopped raging against the institutional church for a while. 

I gained weight. I nearly shaved my head. Relationships fell apart over my real confessions of theological humility and relationships grew because of the same thing. Favorite professors told me I threw the Bible out like it was garbage and other favorite professors prayed with me. Old friends told me they could no longer support me.  Old roommates deleted me from their life. I fully identified with those loving Jesus but abhorring what Christianity had come to mean within America. Haunted with the eschaton, haunted with Jesus, haunted with social justice, and haunted by my own perceived failures coupled with the “Pentecostal” call experience. (Some giant slightly manic, mystical, visionary, experiential series of events that beckons me to die to self and serve) I had some friends to speak with about my hurt, and work through it as one emergent church folded in Capitol View and another went nomadic in Midtown. I had a lot of support from the emergent community in and around Atlanta as I walked this grieving out. And I had some died in the wool Pentecostals who helped me listen to the spirit’s love and comfort. But I was still fat, making $2.14 an hour, barely paying my bills, and trying to buy homeless people food and have sangria with queers at a bar in Atlanta while talking about Jesus twice a week.  Dark- selfish- thoughts.

 Sometimes I became a perfectionist, and it extended to others. My expectations for myself projected on to Terry especially, and disappointment led to anger. His inability to make the kitchen floor shine, or to remove the laundry from the dryer without prompting aggravated me to verbal abuse. Yes, I screamed and yelled and called him everything in the Bible, plus more.  My levels of frustration were beyond normal.  “Bitch” seemed to be my modus operandi unless I was dealing with someone who had been hurt by the institutional church. Then, I was like a nurturing saint administering sweet honey like soul-salve. Why couldn’t I be nurturing to Terry? Why did I place such standards on him? Dana quickly showed me my dark side, the one that unleashed my inner-hornet.

Finally those dark selfish thoughts culminated in my “WTF God” moment. I locked myself in the bathroom. I starred at the razor protected by the pink pearlescent plastic covering. I then saw my nephews and niece bouncing on me like I was a human trampoline. I did not want my life to end. I wanted God to take away the call he had placed in my life so I could be content working in food services or I wanted change. I then told God he needed to start talking fast because I was going to give up. I cried, screamed, cussed, and throw some tongue talking in until I reached some catharsis. This proceeded for 45 minutes as my strong fiancé, paced the halls of our cluttered home bound up in quiet prayer. God spoke after I waited. No Zen experience, no planetary alignment, no moon ray cast upon me head. Just a sure and quiet voice saying, “Get up, Go to Atlanta.” I was so excited. Finally, God spoke and cracked his silence that had lasted for more than five months. I ran out of the shower, sopping wet, clothes drenched and told Terry to pack the car with bottled water, clothes, emergency food, and anything we might find for our homeless friends. It was almost 1 a.m.  But he agreed to my manic- bipolar crazy rationale or Spirit led word. (Sometimes it’s hard to differentiate)  We set out. I just knew I would have some crazy mystical experience. But nothing happened. We drove around Atlanta and I just felt such compassion on the city. From the good looking men dressed up on juniper, to the women walking the streets on Joseph Lowery, to the guys under the bridge at Whitehall, to the young people shopping on Peachtree, to the elderly smiling at the bus stop in Avondale. I love this city.

That is what God needed to show me. How much I cared for Atlanta. How much love he had deposited in my heart. I never wanted to come back. I at one time was ashamed to say I was eight generations Georgian. But now I held it like a badge. I loved my story. I loved my heritage. I loved my town. Everything the south had meant for negative and harm, God was working to his good purpose. Racism, sexism, religiosity, ethnocentrism had caused pain, and now now now…Love was washing away ignorance, bigotry, hatred, and fear.  

I saw at my new job how churches would set down their theological pride and observational differences to work together to love the poor. I begin to see how interfaith persons, and persons from every color and background set down their differences and selfish strife and worked together for Love. And it was happening every day. I saw a glimpse of “thy kingdom come, thy will be done”… in ATlanta

 

Nanchez. Is that organic or what? Kingdom of God please.

     I think everything is going to be all right. And yeah, I am one of those crazies who thinks we are directly involved with bringing the kingdom of God to earth. Sure its already but not yet. Its a state of mind. Its a mystery. and according to a friend it is like Skittles. and to another its like being drunk and fully alive.  I am ok saying that these days: I feel drunk and fully alive. Blame it on the mania- or call it chemical imbalance, but I say it is awareness that things are changing. changing for Good.

         I spend time seeking God and hearing his/her love. The past few days I have walked the streets of Atlanta and watched the children of God everywhere. Do you strike up conversations with strangers? I do. I think when I see someone coming “look it is Jesus, let me talk to him.” Christ  told the disciples that if they did anything to anyone it was like doing it to him.

 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what’s coming to you in this kingdom. It’s been ready for you since the world’s foundation. And here’s why:
   I was hungry and you fed me,    I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,    I was homeless and you gave me a room,    I was shivering and you gave me clothes,    I was sick and you stopped to visit,    I was in prison and you came to me.’

^37-40“Then those ‘sheep’ are going to say, ‘Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?’ Then the King will say, ‘I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.’

^41-43“Then he will turn to the ‘goats,’ the ones on his left, and say, ‘Get out, worthless goats! You’re good for nothing but the fires of hell. And why? Because—
   I was hungry and you gave me no meal,    I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,    I was homeless and you gave me no bed,    I was shivering and you gave me no clothes,    Sick and in prison, and you never visited.’

⁴⁴“Then those ‘goats’ are going to say, ‘Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or homeless or shivering or sick or in prison and didn’t help?’

⁴⁵“He will answer them, ‘I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you failed to do one of these things to someone who was being overlooked or ignored, that was me—you failed to do it to me.’

So what?

So what? So Nanchez, Jackson, Smith, Kornosky,  Johnson, Miller, Herbowitz, and any other last named person walking the streets of Atlanta are all just Jesus. Are they Organic? Fair Trade? maybe. is it captialism, comunism, ron paul- nah man, its just the Kingdom of God and we are watching it happen.

 

Kill Yourself!!!!! SEIZE THE DAY and Live for others!!!!! * don’t really commit suicide, but have a suicide of selfish-pride

“Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who’s to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid . . .” V for Vendetta

Bam. Gotcha. Quite a dark thought, isn’t it: That we could be conformed and oppressed by media, by the news, by Facebook, by twitter, by a politician. We are subjected every day to philosophies and world systems and perspectives that shape us. Are they shaping us into the servant Christ or are we being conformed by the spirit of the age?

“Well, sister Cranford, CHRISTIANS could never have issues of being conformed to the World.”

Really, what about Germany 1933-1945. We will avert our eyes and stay holy. WE WILL AGREE WITH THE GOVERNMENT. We will play quiet little church and we will stuff our ears to the cries of the oppressed.

The church at Rome faced similar problems. The government wanted citizens to pledge allegiance, even so much as calling Caesar a God, and believing in the nation state as their savior- demanding military service which may or may not have included a little man-boy love for the sake of initiation. The Romans walked down dirty roads full of alluring prostitutes and the opportunity to buy the finest new clothes or coolest imported technology. They could quickly dip into the temple and sacrifice something, ate a little barbeque and have a quickie with the temple hooker if they so desired. They could hang out all night eat everything at New Roma Buffet, get trashed on some good ole Vino and head to the vomitorium before repeating the process. The society of Rome was a party waiting to happen. You could get a little child on the streets- you could have your way and toss them later. And it was all good in the hood, do what you want! It was a society in pursuit of the orgasm, in pursuit of a full belly, in pursuit of all the right people. All the right friends in all the right places oh yeah we’re going down!

It was the society of SELF! The Church at Rome allowed some of this foul stuff to creep into their ranks.  These great Apostles presented themselves, always comparing each other. So called “super holy anointed people” that everyone wanted to chillax with. They were the rock stars of the church. They lauded it about. They carried their gifts like badges of approval from God. They tried to one up each other and call each other sinners. They’d get angry that one apostle had a brew at the pub, while the other apostle prided himself on how pure he’d been with his various abstainence from meat and ritual baths.

“How many demons did you cast out today? 7”

“Well, I healed four blind peeps.”

“well, I have not tasted vino nor eaten meat.”

“eww…”

It was a proverbial pissing contest. Who could outrank one another in God’s House? Who could be the shiz-nit for the whole assembly to see?  Bitterness. Jealousy- the promotion of self. Maybe a little lying was involved, some gossip…

“Oh, brother so and so was down at the vomitorium last night. I saw him eating sacrificed barbeque at the Rib Shacum. He was also with that girl who wears vermillion and saffron and paints her eyes and they were shopping at the secretum victorium, you know the store with the pink bags.”

Oh the church mess. It was only a problem in Rome, huh?

That was what Paul had to deal with.

Paul wrote his letter from Corinth. He had been hearing about all the great things happening in Rome in the church homes, and in the assemblies, but he wasn’t present. So he wrote a little letter, and handed it over to Phoebe to take to Rome.

How could he speak to these people as an authority? They hardly knew him, and they had their own super hero apostles to contend with. He chose a position of humility when he addressed them.

¹Therefore ^(A)I urge you, brethren,

Here Paul addresses Christians- both Jewish and Gentile believers. He had just summed up all the theological doctrinal issues and he was ready to start preaching on their daily practices. But he humbles himself. He urges, he pleads, he…begs… and he calls them affectionately brothers and sisters…

by the mercies of God, to ^(B)present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

The Roman Culture was completely aware of sacrificial systems. If you were a Jew you had previously understood the Temple system- if you were a pagan you understood the temple system of Gentiles. It wasn’t a strange thing to kill animals to please gods (with a little G) to the gentiles. Now, the Roman believers didn’t need to sacrifice to get God’s mercy. They had it before. They were justified by faith.  Yet, Paul was calling them to holy living and a logical service to God. It wasn’t about outward holiness codes. It was about really considering the cost, being a sacrifice. Living a humbled life. It was like- a master’s commission Human Video- Hand, Hand, head. ( Go ahead and act this last sentence out, with one hand being stretched, the other opposite and the head left to fall on the chest…if you were ever in an Assemblies of God Youth Group you’ll recognize it.)

but for realz,

Living each day, taking up your cross, being humble.

 ²And do not ^(C)be conformed to ^(D)this world, but be transformed by the ^(E)renewing of your mind, so that you may ^(F)prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

Paul was not suggesting here that the world or creation was bad, NO God seeks to redeem creation- GO GREEN- he said it was Good in Genesis! The word here is better translated the spirit of this age. The pursuit of happiness. Conservative traditionalists think the whole world is evil and we should make little bubbles of utopian societies. Morally living right, pew sitting- not being salt and light to  a broken world. And the libertine Christians forget that we are strangers and aliens here to teach a different way and to display the Kingdom of God.

The world Paul speaks of is our selfish desires..

Is it wrong to get what you want? Is your basis selfishness? Why did the Romans chase positions of importance in the church? Why did they want the finest clothes, and the coolest gadgets? Is it wrong to have nice things? No. But your life isn’t about all the crap you can collect before you die. I mean, Geez watch hoarders. Dead cats, and beer bottles ring a bell?

That stuff conforms our minds, wraps them up in barb wire cages. We can’t see the eternal because we question if our boobs are big enough, if our wallet is fat enough, if our Iphone has the right apps, if I drink the trendiest vegan water crap, and if we party like a G-6.

How can we not buy into the spirit of this age? The systems of the world? Perhaps we should consult the bible more than we do face book, or Fox News, or NPR, or Vogue, Or comedy central or the apple store. Don’t be legalistic. Media is fun, but it wars for your mind.

 ³For through ^(G)the grace given to me I say to everyone among you ^(H)not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to ^(I)each a measure of faith.

We must take a daily inventory. Not self-condemnation, but a daily dose of Holy Spirit guided introspection. What are my motives? Why do I want to tell Brother Bob he’s going to hell? Why do I want to argue about politics? Why am I trying to get Doctor Wood to eat at Gem of India with me? Is it about me. ME ME ME. Kill yourself. Kill myself. Live for others. I need to see others before I see me. I need to think about the meth-head on Kansas Expressway eating god knows what out of the dumpster. I need to think about sally Sunday school before I rip her a new one because she doesn’t understand eschatology the way my brightly educated pompous self does. I need to think about Uncle Ned and his hunting regiment that happens every deer season before I explode on Facebook about gun rights. Am I promoting me or am I looking after the good of the body. AM I BEING PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE? I am not saying we should never confront or be a prophet, but dang dude, what are we trying to do? Heal or hurt? If you are trying to heal then speak in love, but if you just want to one up another brother in Christ than YOU ARE WRONG.

⁴For ^(J)just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function,

 ⁵so we, ^(K)who are many, are ^(L)one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

There are so many different kinds of peeps in the Body of Christ. There are neo-hippy emergent types, and conservative suit wearing tea party types, and there are bells and smells chicks, and there are jumping Massai warrior holy rollers. There are those of us who listen the Gaither Trio band on Tbn every Sunday night, and there are those of us who like U2. We are all unified under Christ.  Why do we need to argue about styles of music or the color of carpet or liturgy or what car you drive or what shoes you sport or how long your hair is or who drinks beer or who follows the maker’s diet, who keeps kosher, who uses banners in praise and worship, who is an old creationist, and whose a fundi? What does it matter?

And we all have different gifts, not better gifts, not quantitative gifts, no qualitative gifts. Different.

⁶Since we have gifts that ^(M)differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly:

 if ^(N)prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith;

If your gonna prophesy than be expected to have the council of elders question you later. Prophecy, not like the weirdos on TBN telling everyone that they will have a car if people will only give 1500 a month. yikes! Prophecy should be encouraging. It should lift the body up. So if you have faith, then do it!

 ⁷if ^(O)service, in his serving; or he who ^(P)teaches, in his teaching;

 ⁸or he who ^(Q)exhorts, in his exhortation;

Paul is saying do these things if you are called to do them. Service means a myriad of things here: it could be the media crew at a church working with technology, it could mean the Young Man who works on the grass in his John Deere hoodie, maybe it’s the lady who squeezes grape juice into the plastic shot glasses, it could mean the church accountant who works diligently to keep the books balanced. SERVE!!! TEACH!!! EXHORT!!! Do it because God has gifted you, and you are to serve in humility the body of Christ.

he who gives, with ^[a](R)liberality; ^(S)he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with ^(T)cheerfulness.

If you are going sign some big old checks, than do it heartily and happy. Be your church’s Santa Claus, give and enjoy it.

If you are called to lead than work hard! Don’t slack, keep on keeping on!

If you are called to outreach and compassion ministries than smile and don’t gripe about having to do it or the way people smell, or the crack whore with three teeth who always wants you to give here money.

Here’s what Eugene Peterson Paraphrase’s:

^-8If you preach, just preach God’s Message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don’t take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don’t get bossy; if you’re put in charge, don’t manipulate; if you’re called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don’t let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face.

Man. We can’t be conformed any longer to the SELF. We gotta kill ourselves, we gotta live for one another. I need to humbly recognize my peeps in the body and love them. I need to be humble enough to allow for them to bless the church. It’s not about how holy you seem or how big of a role you play on Sunday mornings,

It’s about your dedication to God, and your dedication to the peeps around you,

As a humble

servant leader.

Kill Yourself, Kill your selfish pride, Live in humility, live for others!

Creator and sustainer of the universe,

Have mercy on us! Help us to recognize that we aren’t all that. Help us to sacrifice ourselves daily. Help us not to stomp on other brands of Christianity- or other religions even! Forgive us for our foolish-pride. Forgive us for our know-it-all gotta beat other people up attitude. Help us to get over our need for the spot-light. Forgive us for “networking” for our own selves, may we seek to build others us. Help us to love one another. Help us not to be conformed to the spirit of this age, the spirit of me, the spirit of my wants, the spirit of self-propagation.  Help us to see the eternal!

Help us to see others. Help us to have the eyes of Jesus. Help us to support everyone around us! Empower us to utilize our gifts for your Glory.

And God, humble us.

We pray this in the name of the resurrected Christ.

Amen.

unconditional positive regard, THE RAGAMUFFIN GOSPEL and scriptural mandates

UNCONDITIONAL POSITIVE REGARD AND SCRIPTURAL MANDATES

REBECCA D. CRANFORD

            Imagine interactions with others in which no judgment happened, but only pure care for the person’s wellbeing happened. Although it sounds mythical in a world focused on self-advancement, a type of loving understanding persists in many counseling sessions and should be happening with the Church at large as well. This blog will begin to explore some of the meaning around unconditional positive regard and scriptural mandate. It will incorporate some ideas on the grace of God based from Brennan Manning’s The Ragamuffin Gospel.

UNCONDITIONAL POSITIVE REGARD

Unconditional positive regard refers to a way of being in the doctor client relationship. Carl Rogers first used the term to connote a warm[1], nonjudgmental acceptance of a person “no matter the condition of his behavior or feelings.”[2] The therapist values the client as a separate individual[3], devoid of an “evaluating attitude,”[4] or personal agenda of gain and accepts he/she no regardless if the “attitude”[5] of the client seems positive or negative. The counselor views the client with respect, granting the client “permission to experience their own life”[6] separate from societal norms or the counselor’s own experience.

Carl Rogers theorizes that in this genuine loving atmosphere personal change will happen.[7] Rogers believes that at the time each person becomes self-aware the need for acceptance appears.[8] When a person discloses personal information, feelings, or sacred experiences and it is not received with acceptance or understood the individual suffers a violation which can result in psychosis.[9]  When one practices unconditional positive regard, personal change may occur[10], and a client feels free to move ahead in the process of becoming.[11]Rogers believed in the practice and recommended it to those outside of psychology.[12] The practice benefits pastors, educators, and social workers as well.

SCRIPTURAL MANDATES

               The notion of unconditional positive regard sounds very Christ-like indeed. A type of Namaste proclamation goes from one soul to the other, saying I recognize the God, divine, full-potential, or ultimate good in you while practicing unconditional positive regard. Scripture appears to back up this statement fully, as Jesus Christ said “the Law is summed up in this: Love your God, and Love your neighbor.”[13] Christ also mentioned that humans should not judge one another, but rather judge their own actions, motives, and thoughts.[14] If Jesus is the central figure in Christianity, than why have his words not be considered deeply when practicing interpersonal relationships in the American Church?

Many have wrongly used scripture to butcher other. Well-intending Christians assume that calling out sin or character defects in a brother can be iron sharpening iron. Usually those irons bludgeon eyes out, leaving the supposed sinner in a more wounded and vulnerable state previous to the encounter with the so-called Christian.  Many use scriptures like 1 Corinthians 5 to limit who can be in community. Unfortunately, Christians fail to realize that Paul wrote to a particular church about a specific situation. The same applies for similar verses of rebuke found in the epistles of Paul, John, Jude, Peter and perhaps Priscilla’s letter to the Hebrews.[15] Not every scripture should be applied in the modern context, but rather it should be researched in order to understand its meaning in its historical setting. Brennan Manning notices the incongruence in the message of Grace of Christ’s words and the Church’s refusal to practice it.

“Something is radically wrong when the local church rejects a person accepted by Jesus: When a harsh, judgmental, and unforgiving, sentence is passed on homosexuals, when a divorcee is denied communion, when the child of a prostitute is refused baptism, when an unlarciel priest is forbidden the sacraments.”[16]

Scripture reiterates over fifteen times in the New Testament that judgment is reserved for God alone. Too long the church has looked down the slope of her nose on those she deemed not well enough to enter her ranks. She became a whore, leaving her first loved, and flirted with world systems that set themselves against the love of God that throws down every system of human separation.[17] The best chance the church possesses for being instrumental in evangelizing the world is Love. Brennan Manning said the best possible evangelism to a person “is to say to him or her, you too are loved by God in the Lord Jesus.”[18] Rogers believed that unconditional positive response would facilitate personal change and growth. It is very much like Romans 2[19] in which Paul quotes the prophets about God loving-kindness bringing change. More Christians should read Romans 2 instead of being so fast to quote Romans 1 when encountering the sexuality of another. The church must listen to the god truth found in other streams of study besides theology if she desires to move ahead in her mission to love.

CONCLUSION

 

Who better to emulate than Christ?  Counselors, lay ministers, educators, pastors, social workers, and every person in the community should consider the way of being in interpersonal relationships as presented by Carl Rogers. Unconditional positive regard does not negate scriptural mandates, but rather it fulfills them.

               …having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. ³ Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, ⁴ not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.[20]

 

 

 

               Perhaps Christ followers will love others the same way Christ, and Carl Rogers suggested to do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

Manning, Brennan The Ragamuffin Gospel: Embracing the Unconditional Love of God. Multnomah, Publishers, Inc. Sisters, Oregon, 1990.

Rogers, Carl. On Becoming a Person: A Therapists View of Psychotherapy Boston: Houghton

Mifflin, 1989.

Rogers, Carl Ransom. “The Necessary and Sufficient Conditions of Therapeutic Personality

Change.” Journal of Consulting Psychology 21 (1957): 95-103.
Rogers, Carl Ransom. “A Theory of Therapy, Personality, and Interpersonal Relationships as

Developed in the Client Centered Framework.” In The Carl Rogers Reader, edited by

Vittendersen and H. Kirschenbaum. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1989.

Rogers, Carl Ransom. A Way of Being. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980.

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[1]      Carl Ransom Rogers, “A Theory of Therapy, Personality, and Interpersonal Relationships as

Developed in the Client Centered Framework,” in The Carl Rogers Reader, ed. Vittendersen and H.

Kirschenbaum (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1989), 225.

[2]       Carl Rogers. On Becoming a Person: A Therapists View of Psychotherapy (Boston: HoughtonMifflin, 1989) 34.

[3]       Rogers, “A Theory of Therapy…,” 225.

[4]       Ibid., 225

[5]       Rogers, On Becoming a Person, 34.

[6]       Rogers, “A Theory of Therapy…,” 226.

[7]    Carl Ransom Rogers, “The Necessary and Sufficient Conditions of Therapeutic Personality

Change,” Journal of Consulting Psychology 21 (1957): 95-103.

[8]      Rogers, “A Theory of Therapy…,”239.

[9]      Carl Ransom Rogers, A Way of Being (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980), page #s., 14.

[10]     Rogers, On Becoming a Person, 47.

[11]     Ibid.

[12]     Rogers, A Way of Being, X.

[13]     Luke 10 ²⁷ He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’^[a]; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’^[b]”

[14]     Matthew 7 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. ² For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. ³ “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? ⁴ How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? ⁵ You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

[15]   Scriptures viewed as almost judiazing slant in relation to the grace spoke of in Galatians by Paul:

Hebrews 6: 4 It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, ⁵ who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age ⁶ and who have fallen^[c] away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.

Jude Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about them: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones ¹⁵ to judge everyone, and to convict all of them of all the ungodly acts they have committed in their ungodliness, and of all the defiant words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”^{[e] 16} These people are grumblers and faultfinders; they follow their own evil desires; they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage.

[16] Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel, 30.

[17] Galatians 3:27-28, NIV. shatters the world systems of classification. Social Darwinism, Nationalism, Sexism, Ageism, and any other hierarchy of humanity do not linger in the Kingdom of God.

[18] Brennan Manning, 120.

[19] Romans 2, NIV. You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. ² Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. ³ So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? ⁴ Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?

[20] Phillipians 2, NIV.

SELF-ACTUALIZING: CAN YOU BECOME YOUR TRUEST SELF?

“SELF ACTUALIZING” REFLECTION

BY

REBECCA D. CRANFORD

INTRODUCTION

            What does it mean to become the truest self?  What does it mean to deny self? Is it possible to do both simultaneously? This brief will  explore the psychological concept of self-actualization and its relationship to the practice of self-denial as seen in the Christian metanarrative. The blog will theorize that Jesus Christ existed as a self-actualized human and practiced self-denial.

SELF-ACTUALIZATION IN PSYCHOLOGY

The phrase self-actualizing finds in origins in psychology and became popular in the early nineteen forties by Abraham Maslow. It can mean a myriad of things, but simply put, it is the realization of full potential in an individual or the act of “achievement of one’s full potential through creativity, independence, spontaneity, and a grasp of the real world.”[1]  Maslow talked about the self-actualizer when he introduced his hierarchy of needs. He theorized that each person needs basic things to survive. Once one feels security in the basic needs, i.e., shelter, sex, food, an individual will find freedom to complete needs based on being. He stated these persons were “distinguished far more easily than most[2]” and found “the fresh, concrete, and idiosyncratic”[3] in life rather than dwell on the generic and basic needs of self. Maslow concluded that evil people are exceedingly rare, but people act evil when basic needs are not met. Maslow performed the majority of his research on animals, including primates.

Albert Ellis, a famous humanistic doctor, explores the “self-actualizer,” and suggests along with Jacquelyn Small(the author of Becoming Naturally Therapeutic), that these persons may seek mystical, contemplative, altered states of awareness, or “peak experiences.”[4] Ellis says in order to become better one must face difficulties[5] implying that spiritual trials and tribulations may be the key to becoming fully alive. Small suggests that self-actualized individuals care more about the whole then themselves[6] and naturally move towards service projects and helping careers. Carl Rogers equates the self-actualized person as one who “lives in each moment as if it is new” or one who is fully present in each moment.[7] Jacquelyn Small adds that each individual will experience each moment “more vividly, with full concentration and without self-consciousness.”[8] Much like the notion of emptying self in Buddhism, she suggests that in those moments a clear connection exists, one of complete unity with the other.[9]  These psychologists noted talk in a language different than religious persons but attribute characteristics to self-actualizers that religion would consider as saints, prophets, sages, god-men, or heroes of the faith.

SELF-DENIAL AND SELF-ACTUALIZATION

Self-denial doesn’t necessarily relate to the self flaggulation of the middle ages monastics, nor does it resonate with ascetic attempts to rid one’s self of evil. Fasting for a time, going without sex, and perhaps giving up social media for lent can have lasting spiritual effects. However according to scripture, God is not pleased with a multitude of sacrifices, but rather is pleased in ones relationship to him and to others.[10] Unfortunately the Church in America convoluted the message of Grace and the work of the cross into a warped view of total depravity and a strange brew of Max Webber Capitalism and Ayn Rand’s philosophy. Humanity exists not as worms, completely filthy and disgusting to the Divine and conversely, it is not capable of pulling itself up by its boot-straps without the awareness of the Divine. Somewhere in the mixing, perhaps even lingering in the heresies of Pelagius or in the philosophies of modern mystics lay more questions that ask us if it is possible to be fully human and fully divine, or rather self-actualized and practicing self-denial.

 

Looking into such passages as Philippians chapter two,[11] one can theorize that self-actualization may simultaneously occur with the practice of self-denial. Kenosis comes from the Greek word, Kenton, which means to empty out. In theology it refers to “the doctrine that Christ relinquished His divine attributes so as to experience human suffering.”[12] This idea of Kenosis, prevalent in Pauline scripture, can be found in philosophies and worldviews separate from Christianity. Kenosis within Buddhism means the denial of selfishness in order to become one with others and creation. Christ himself demonstrates his self-actualization knowing he was the son of God and being affirmed in his humanity and divinity in the proclamation of the Holy Spirit after his baptism by John as recorded in the gospels.

This notion of coexistence between self-actualizing and self-denial exemplified in the works of   James Fowler, where he contends that both characteristics manifest in what he labels as the Universalizing Faith[13]or the sixth stage of faith. The universalizer forsakes nationalism, ethnocentrism, and even traditional dogma for the love of humanity. Fowler contends that the universalizer, no longer seeks selfish needs of power or importance, but instead sees the need to act selflessly in order to help others self-actualize.[14] Much like Jacquelyn Small’s account of self-actualizers, Fowler designates Universalizers as “contagious” souls who create spaces of freedom from the “social, political, economic, and ideological shackles” that institutions throw on humanity.[15] He further suggests that most persons who reach stage six are self-actualizers according to definitions made by Carl Rogers or Abraham Maslow.[16] He reasons that stage six persons cannot be perfect, noting Erik Erickson’s critique of Gandhi.

 

CONCLUSION

 

               Through a hermeneutic of love, one can grapple with scriptures and see that being a self-actualized human is the hope of Christ in us, and also that being self-actualized leads to true self-denial. God changes us from glory to glory. As the Apostle Paul said, we do not know what we will be, but we will all be changed. May the kingdom of God be actualized on earth today in each of us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

Ellis, Albert. Art and Science of Rational Eating. Ft. Lee, NJ: Barricade Books, 1992.

Fowler, James. Stages of Faith Development: The Psychology of Human Development and the

          Quest for Meaning. New York: Harper Collins, 1981

Maslow, Abraham. On Dominance, Self-Esteem, and Self-Actualizing: Germain Lectures.  Ann

Capland, 1974, 2006.

Rogers, Carl. On Becoming a Person: A Therapists View of Psychotherapy Boston: Houghton

Mifflin, 1989.

Small, Jacquelyn. Becoming Naturally Therapeutic:  A Return to the True Essence of Helping. New York, Bantam Books, 1990.

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[1]       Dictionary.Com, s.v. “Self-Actualization,” accessed January 3, 2011, last modified 2009.

[2]      Abraham Maslow, On Dominance, Self-Esteem and Self-Actualization: Germain Papers (1974,2006 Ann Capland), 152.

[3]      Ibid.

[4]      Jacquelyn Small, Becoming Naturally Therapeutic: A Return to the True Essence of Helping (New York: Bantam, 1981),139.

[5]      Albert Ellis, Art and Science of Rational Eating  (Ft. Lee, NJ: Barricade Books, 1992), 186.

[6]       Small, 136.

[7]      Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person: A Therapist’s View of Psychotherapy (Boston: Houghton

Mifflin, 1989),  188.

[8]       Small, 137.

[9]       Ibid.

[10]       Micah 6, The New International Version ⁶With what shall I come before the LORD and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? ⁷ Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? ⁸ He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

[11]      Phillipians 2, The New International Version ¹ Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, ² then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. ³ Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, ⁴ not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. ⁵ In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: ⁶ Who, being in very nature^[a] God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; ⁷ rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature^[b] of a servant, being made in human likeness. ⁸ And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! ⁹ Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹ and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

[12]    Dictionary.Com, s.v. “Kenosis,” accessed January 3, 2011, last modified 2009.

[13]   James Fowler, Stages of Faith Development: The Psychology of Human Development and the

Quest for Meaning.  (New York: Harper Collins, 1981), 199.

[14]    Ibid., 200.

[15]    Ibid., 201.

[16]    Ibid., 202.

My collection of OutlawPreachers

As a child I attempted several times to become a collector. My mother worked in the antiques and as she called it, ”junk” business. We would go from the South Georgia Cotton Fields to the Rolling Mountains of Tennessee every other weekend to craft fairs, art shows, and antique shows. My mother tried to get me interested in collecting things. For a while, I was interested in collecting coins. Foreign Coins.  Then it was buttons. Then it was beer steins.  I would always decorate my room as a child with strange things- like steins from Germany, Gi Joe Figures, Stuffed Animals and old coins, old maps, old globes. As an older child, I started collecting James Bond Memorabilia. Then it was the Grateful Dead. And somewhere in my post-adolescence years I told my mother I loved Winnie the Pooh. My collection spawned over night.(she’s a compulsive shopper) I had a Pooh Bear Alarm Clock, a Pooh Blanket, Pooh Socks, Pooh Shoe laces (to go in my Doc Martens)…YOU NAME IT, I had it and it was POOH Bear. Odd, huh. I collected and collected.

My collections started to change sometime after I started Bible classes. I stopped being so occupied with material things and more occupied with what mattered NOW. Don’t get me wrong, I was still a pig eating at the slop trough of consumerism and still give into that evil gluttonous sin occasionally. But, I had a shift of thought.

So I started collecting people. No, Not some weird gross psycho-killer movie kinda stuff. I didn’t have fingers or toes or ears in jars, or around my neck.OR in my freezer. cannibalism never appealed to me. I did however, enjoy collecting interesting people for friends. I felt like this collection of mine was more of a quest. A quest to find the people who would believe in me and I could believe in them.

In December of 2010, I hugged more of my growing collection than ever before. I met many outlawpreachers. It was truly my first large ecumenical and emergent conference ever. I had been searching out voices that sounded like Jesus. Some who were prophets. Some who shared my pain and common rejection from traditional church. Some who loved God but really hated christianity. They were tired of church. Tired of a hierarchy in leadership, where one person (usually a middleaged white man)was the sole interpreter of the Bible, or society, or art, or anything. They longed for an inclusive community. They wanted to share their questions, doubts, and revelations without being marginalized or called HERETIC, ANATHEMA, TICKLING OF EARS, PERVERTS, or FALSE PROPHETS. They wanted  to see social justice happen. They wanted to take care of the poor. So i found another group to collect. They were my #outlawpreachers.

I collected people from every background through the outlawpreachers. Some Lakota medicine men following the way of Christ. Some kids of a televangelist. Some Lesbians letting go of the fundamentalist churches that had hurt them, Some Mainline pastors working to do new outside of the box ministry, Some Goths and Freaks and Hippies who wanted to be Jesus to foreigners, prisoners, farm people, poor people, HIV positive people, oh and even BAR people. Some who shared my love for the Holy Spirit cloaked in celtic worship of God and intrigued by the Christian Mystics, Some tatted up guys doing ministry for every person, some guys who drank white lightning and talked about grace, some guy from Chicago with a heart bigger than a bear, and a guy who gave a damn about the hurting in Alabama. OH and I found a new father, who I called Papa.  He helped me know something- His touch was healing. And through him, I felt as if I was truly born again. That makes no sense, I am sure. But I saw my childhood state in grace, I was something beautiful. no longer the guilty fat boyish child who was dirty and stricken with sexual abuse, BUT a  golden-locked girl with blue eyes, swinging and laughing in the sun knowing God loved me.

So yeah, i will keep on collecting and seeking out these great people. Maybe you should do a little searching of your own! Check out the OutlawPreachers. Or as some would say- the smoking section of the emergent movement.

ORIGINS OF AN OUTLAW part 1

I stepped across the finished concrete and new building. The mega church excited me! All my old friends waited for my return. Our favorite testimony! The punk girl who came off drugs and was living with her atheist boyfriend! But now, I was ready for ministry! or had hoped to minister! I bounced across conversations, shaking hands, and giving hugs. I was so eager to see the “mothers and fathers” of the faith I had left and tell them the many things I had learned while getting my bachelor’s degree in theology.

I was eager to serve, yet my “pentecostal call” haunted me with delusions of big stage ministry and flashy outfits and theatrical effects. I assumed that my years of scrubbing toilets, moving chairs, and setting up tables would benefit me, and I would now be teaching. Until the question came out “Do you believe everything the DENOMINATION teaches in its 16 fundamental truths?”

Man, how to answer that. I mean, I sat under the finest professors. I worked at great churches. I was always treated like an “outreach pastor” or “street minister” or “recovery pastor” at my college because of the tattoos, or the fact I was blunt, maybe because I cussed a little. But I had studied scripture and there were things I no longer knew or felt convicted about. Honestly, I was sure many great men of faith did not speak in tongues and i was even more sure that there was no “rapture.”

So to answer with Integrity. right? So i did. Assumed there would be no big hassle. Pastor polished boots click-clacked down the hallway and grabbed me, shaking in his buckle jeans, and 95 dollar shirt. His blue eyes almost cried as he said, “How can you just throw scripture out like this!” I tried to make sense of the interaction, and told him what I had learned. He would have none of it. He said I was “divisive.” I shared my pain with no one, save my three favorite professors. I wrote an apology letter to the mega church, and asked that the application be removed. I applied and said “NO” when it came to disagreements. I was told by friends and colleagues not to die on mole hills when it came to theological issues. I had a lot of pride in me, but I died to self and let pastor polished shoes and pastor distinguished man know I was not going to tell everyone at Church the rapture wasn’t coming. The next 8 months were horrible. Depression, Depression. I thought I was doing little for God by teaching my Spanish bible study. Afterall, My plan had been rejected to start a Spanish Church at my home church. Some sentiment came down that we “should teach them english” while sister bitterbottom told me I would never be a leader because of my sin-issues. Yes, I had sin issues. And I was honest about them. Perhaps too much so. I asked every christian I knew to pray with me over my addiction to sex. I had walked through some dark days, and came out rather victorious, but they always remembered my sin- and held it against me. Sister bitterbottom always made it a point to put me down. Perhaps she was just jealous that my sin was so passionate and causing me to fight, while she was completely unaware of her sin. I prayed really hard that God would let me forgive her and love her. Sister Bitterbottom just needs love like the rest of us.

The depression continued.  My outlets were unavailable to me. I stayed in the prophets. I read ever Rob Bell book I could. Greg Boyd. anything that had a scholarly slash hip feel to it. The depression clouded me.  I doubted almost everything my tradition handed to me. I went away to seminary. I was excited to escape. The divine discontent. The people there were great, but they didn’t want to think, and thinking only got you in trouble.

I began to really deconstruct my faith and tradition in seminary. You learned who were the safe professors and who were the fundamentalists who spoke in tongues. I really unpacked a lot in my three years in Springfield. I wrote more and more about my views, my obsession with the prophets, my mistrust of the American Church. A man found me named Anthony Wallace, who told me about twitter and outlawpreachers. I had heard about the emergent movement, and was really refreshed by what so many were saying there. I found myself to the left of many political issues or either a-political, almost anarchist. I hated all the nationalism that sprouted up in my denomination- these services in which the worship was for America, not Christ. I hated all the anti-gay rhetoric, and how every earthquake was a judgement from God. I hated the vast stupidity in the pulpit, that got away every sunday preaching the same old crap- but yet I loved everyone of those preachers. I hated topical preaching. I hated legalism.I really disliked how people in my denomination thought so many others were hell-bound. They feared catholics and called them idolators. I would tell them how many awesome catholics I knew. But I was of little effect, after all I was the sinning girl who made any church look credible

“If you can love a girl in green combat boots, Jesus must be there!”

and Jesus was there. God is always there. God is even working in churches with great theology or no theology, where heretics teach or where reformed theologians speak! I did love the church, I was so mad with her, though! I loved feeding the hungry, I loved hanging out with the foreigner, I really was encouraged by those in shut-ins, disabled, elderly, homeless, queer, hookers, punks, those who were outside the box and spoke of God with such “intimate knowledge.”  I questioned scripture. I visited a Buddhist temple and found the spirit of God resting there. No one could help me unpack that. I went into a Mosque and watched a woman fully in love with God worshipping. I made friends with a rabbi who has a mystical step and a knowing eye who talked about the Kingdom of God. I was told by my professors, that there was only one way to God, and these men and women must be possessed with demons. I felt completely unsafe. I was becoming a heretic.

So, I would connect with some outlaw preachers,  Anthony Wallace, John Harrison, Phil and Stephanie Sheperd. Tell them my woes. share my anger. Pray with them, ask that they would help me break my pride. break my rebellion, heal my hurt… and then I heard about an #outlawpreacher reunion…

the teeth, the complaint, oh and the dang horses

The flourescent blinked in and out as I examined my bleeding gums. I patted my wrinkled skin with a dry towel and stretched my mouth wide open…anticipating my teeth would be filled with…rot. everything is rotten. rot, rot, rot. I am depressed.

I am so depressed. Where are You, God? I mean, I listened to You. And everything sucks.

 I listened to the “call of God” and returned back to my home town. A town that has tried to kill me since I was born. I used to drive around its curves and hear the trees cry out for my blood.  I hated this place, but somehow loved it. Wanted it to be saved from religion- saved from the “isms” that separate people. But I didn’t want to come back.  But he told me to Go. I left my money-making job, packed up my books, wrote a church-plant strategic plan, delayed a marriage, and came to Atlanta!!!

 When I had announced to some that I was surely called to go and love on people abandoned by the church they reacted like cows. Bovine emotion. cud chew, cud chew. Many of my friends were ”succeeding” in the world of mega-church grandeur. And I wanted to hang out with hemp smokers, hookers, hipsters, homos, and homeless people.  I looked into their eyes and pleaded my case…the case to love outcasts, especially the “queers.”  Oh, Bec they seemed to say as they chewed their cud, “You just want to be  a rebel”.  No, I want to be like Jesus. I am done with churchianity. I respect it, and I love hymns, and little miss betty, BUT THERE IS A WHOLE BROKEN WORLD SCREAMING FOR LOVE and we argue over theology on facebook, chatter about what the soloist was wearing, and stuff our faces with chick-fil-a while listening to Phillips, Craig, and Dean thinking that we have arrived while we look down our noses at the whitegirl neighbor and her live in black boyfriend who have two children out of wedlock. We don’t see our sin in Christianity, we are too busy judging our neighbor. And we don’t give a CUSS about the world’s problems- after all we tithe regularly and give a small portion to missionary Bob from India and his pretty wife who has big hair and pink dresses.

REALLY GOD< REALLY WHY?

 My dearest dark-eyed prophet friend looked at me when I said I was moving back. She believed me. She said,”Bec, you hear from God. You cuss some. and You are real, but you hear from God.”

And now I am here. Almost six months later. No denominational backing. I am waiting tables. I am nearly 35. I have 490 plus books on theology, missiology, and ministry and what am I doing? I meet with homeless people, lesbian couples, atheists, and social misfits at bars and on the streets of Atlanta. I counsel those kicked out of their church for “falling into sin.” I spend my days, trying to love on the people who have been hurt by church. Oh and then there is my selfishness: My delusions of grandeur that come with a pentecostal call experience. I am not the charismatic evangelist with lights in her face that swings her hand and thousands of people go down under the sway of the Spirit. And that is what I thought ministry was.

And my teeth. They ache. dangle in my skull. The fluorescents pulsate again. I scream at God muffled through my listerine and mouth full of toothpaste. WHAT THE CUSS, GOD! this sucks. this sucks bad. people talk bad about me. Old friends say I am offensive in to traditional christians. I feel I have been abandoned by my old home church, I feel abandoned by the church in general, I feel abandoned by YOU GOD!!!!!!!!!

 SURE, its my fault for POSTING MY FEELINGS ONLINE ABOUT THE CHURCH’S NEGLECT TO LOVE. or purposing that ministry could be done differently than what it has been done like. Or if hell if a literal burning fire, or if adam and eve were real, or if we should really give a dang about people.  Yeah, I am a heretic because half the darn time, I wonder where you are.  I cry out in pain, because I am the rejected. I get mad as hell, because I don’t have all the theological answers. I have no effin clue what most of your “holy scripture means”.  I don’t even know how holy it is! it seems as holy as a poem, as a song, as a painting. It seems as holy as a tree, a creek, a star in the sky and the horizon at dusk. I trust you, but I am mad.

Usually after screaming at our creator, I cry. or listen in silence. But tonight I opened up the bible. yeah, that thing many evangelicals wield as a sword to kill other people instead of lift them up. But i admit it, I love the Bible. I love scripture. I think its phenomenal. I don;t like everyone’s interpretation and yeah, I think I need you and me and that guy down the street to better interpret it. But anyway, I opened it and found a story about a man named Jeremiah who yelled at God. And does God come to his rescue? Let’s look:

 

You are right, O God, and you set things right. I can’t argue with that. But I do have some questions:
Why do bad people have it so good?
   Why do con artists make it big?
You planted them and they put down roots.
   They flourished and produced fruit.
They talk as if they’re old friends with you,
   but they couldn’t care less about you.
Meanwhile, you know me inside and out.
   You don’t let me get by with a thing!
Make them pay for the way they live,
   pay with their lives, like sheep marked for slaughter.
How long do we have to put up with this—
   the country depressed, the farms in ruin—
And all because of wickedness, these wicked lives?
   Even animals and birds are dying off
Because they’ll have nothing to do with God
   and think God has nothing to do with them.

 ^5-6“So, Jeremiah, if you’re worn out in this footrace with men,
   what makes you think you can race against horses?
And if you can’t keep your wits during times of calm,
   what’s going to happen when troubles break loose like the Jordan in flood?
Those closest to you, your own brothers and cousins,
   are working against you.
They’re out to get you. They’ll stop at nothing.
   Don’t trust them, especially when they’re smiling.

 

WHAT GOD, REALLY? You mean things sucked even more and you told Jeremiah to get over it. blah. It sucks God. I know it will get worse. But I also know that You are faithful. A bit of a Madman, and kinda a cosmic jokester- but you haven’t let me down. I know you called me to meet here in Atlanta. with people who are jacked up. people like me. with people who are intellectuals who don’t buy into what old preacher bob has to say. I know you have called me to this. So I will go to my bar, and meet. and talk. and find common hope, knowing that you are in every step of my walk- even the times I think I have stepped into a steaming pile of CUSS. oh and the horses, Maybe  you can give me a break before unleashing them. after all, I do believe in You. I love you. and I am following your call- to the best of my broke-table-waiting-teeth-rotting ability. so heal me. change me. make me less angry. can you help me forget I am the laughing stock of the town? can you make me remember I am your chosen child? can you love me more than the approval i have worshipped like an idol? can you show me Jesus in the face of another homeless man?

Here I am. Your very own outlawpreacher, and I need you more than ever. even though I am mad.

give me a breather. and hold those dang horses for a minute.