Writing and reading all we’ve posted here so far, has got me thinking… why do we persevere with this? What is it for… what are we acheiving, and who is God?
So much of what we do in churches just seems to reflect very average human behaviour and intentions… so what’s the point… what are we doing it for?
After spending most of yesterday loading what could only be described as car offal: oily grimy spare parts for my brother’s drift cars, and spares for his wifes car into trucks and then a storage container in epping, I had a delicious sleep in, and missed church. Regretted being absent only because it means I haven’t checked in lately to continue this conversation… this dialogue between us and the institution that is asking one simple question: Why do we still bother with this relationship? Why do I still come here, when my heart is so weary of it all?
And then, as I was kicking mulch back over the hole in the garden bed where the builder next-door’s truck had once again missed the drive and crushed my little, defenseless plants, (argh!!!) my neighbour wandered past on his way back from church (the same church).
We chatted for a good half hour about his friends and how they are going with drug rehab, and how various individuals at the church have funny reactions to discovering that some of them had ‘got back on’ ie were using drugs again… and I felt excited and empassioned about change, and love, and the idea that there is a God who cares for the weak, the broken, the downtrodden, people with addictions, people with pain. Still, I dispair of the middle class institution that is ‘church’ ever understanding how it could help better, if only it would give up its perceptions of safety, security, structure, and righteousness…
But I have hope… faith… and love… not in the institution or its capacity to create change, but in those sentiments alone… and their power to create change, not in crowds, but in individuals… in this, I see God.
I can’t understand why we get so hung up on whether someone is a lover, or a fudge-packer, or a rug-muncher, or a cross dresser, or a porn addict, as though goshing and gasping at these things makes us righteous. It’s like we have a social obligation to say “Oh my, how could one ever be that” in order to distance ourselves from being assosciated with “those people”.
I’m prejudiced against money-lovers, status-chasers, power-brokers, people with ‘leadership aspirations’ and ‘charismatics’. To me these are the real sins. And all the middle-class christians go “ah he hates Hillsong”. No. But I do hate when people think Hillsong is the national model of what church should be, and I have reason to believe the leadership at Hillsong hate this too… which is an interesting thought.
Why is it so conveninent for churches to discuss current affairs as:
- gay marriage
- atomic (sorry nuclear) family
- political postions that take power from the right-wing
and so difficult for churches to discuss:
- environmental sustainability
- HIV Aids management including contraceptives
- fair-trade, and not just through little church-club mission groups
- environmental sustainability
- sexual abuse and human rights issues in Australia (ie its convenient to pretend it all happens in ‘mission’ places)
- environmental sustainability
It’s as though we are happy to be edgy as long as its safe… and we’re happy to tolerate our young people being edgy and watching nooma videos, as long as they do it in an appropriate context, go about it the right way, and don’t really rock the boat. Lip-service to serious change, but never enough to stem the tide of boring, mainstream mediocrity.
One thing I keep learning whether its improving my rock-climbing skills (currently at an all-time low) or getting a new job, is that its not sufficient just to want change… you have to want it bad enough to do what it takes. I think this is the basic premise that life-coaches use to help people attain things… work on the want!
I want my faith back… I want to believe in a God who doesn’t care about gender or sexuality, but cares desperately about abuse, misuse and addiction, about soulfulness, kindness, and generosity, about beauty and peace and harmony, about decay, germination, and growth. Can this God be found in the bible?
“I want to believe in a God who doesn’t care about gender or sexuality, but cares desperately about abuse, misuse and addiction, about soulfulness, kindness, and generosity, about beauty and peace and harmony, about decay, germination, and growth. Can this God be found in the bible?”
Wow Tim. That is exactly what I want too.
I am starting to think that yes, despite how fucked up Christians are, somewhere beneath all the politics and prejudices and bullshit, there is something there waiting to be discovered.
We had some of those dudes talk at our place the other night about addiction and Jesus helping them.
I have been thinking that alot. And also about how Jesus seems to be saying to me in ways that I cannot ignore,
that he wants to restore people. Not to “pray the gay away”, not to turn us all into right-wing evangelists. To shine a light into all the utter crap and suffering and oppression, whether it’s self-inflicted or stuff others have inflicted on us. Usually the latter comes first, and then we dish it back out.
I don’t think Jesus even cares if we go to Church or not.
He doesn’t care about being politically correct, or about politics full stop. I don’t think he even cares about “sin”, in the way that the Church and Christians care about sin (labeling it, distancing themselves from it, being righteous, blah blah).
I think Jesus is angry – righteously angry, like he was in the temple. I think he’s standing in fierce defense of the oppressed, the sexually, emotionally, physically, mentally abused. And I think he wants us to get angry about it too.
Just my thoughts.
-Heather
You said Environmental Sustainability twice.
from reading this it made me think that you might be thinking about the difference between, religion, church, faith and God….I think there are differences anyway.
Amen Heather!
I dont see why we all have to be right wing to be christians anyway. I think a lot of that stuff ‘religous’ people go on about, is not really the heart of Jesus.
‘oppressed, the sexually, emotionally, physically, mentally abused’ Thats what he was talking about all through the bible….. not just the bitchy stuff..
i think the problem is we have the wrong idea of what salvation is
which is because we have the wrong idea of what sin is
salvation is not ‘jesus died to pay for your sins’ because sin is not ‘stuff you do wrong’…well, not QUITE.*
sin is the self-centredness of the human brain
and salvation is the paradigm shift that frees us from this
and Jesus’ demonstrated this by living a ‘right’ life disinterested in human ideals of success, not avoiding suffering, and nailing it home to us that none of this will matter to us in three million years anyway.
if we understand that
then how could we live any other way?
if the church was a group of people so enlightened
then it woudn’t shun ‘sinners’
*though that gospel message was a good one for the new testament jews, i think we need to change the message today for a culture that has replaced morality with psychology