Existential Punk

Flirting with Faith

Joan Ball’s journey from Atheism to a Christian faith in her first book, "Flirting with Faith" (Howard Books, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.) resonated with me because I have gone through those similar experiences in my past.  It’s just that I am finding myself no longer able to relate much anymore. Today I claim to be an Agnostic Christian who does not believe in many doctrines and interpretations of the Bible that run the gamut in evangelical circles. I am standing on the precipice of A/theism because I am falling out of belief of my human constructs of G-D. Yet, I really enjoyed Joan’s journey, and I will share some of my favorite moments from the book.

 

It is an honest and authentic journey that never bordered on preaching. She always owns her experiences and never tries to say that is how everyone else should believe and/or do things.  Her experience of having her own life and being in control of her own destiny made the leap to belief in G-D all the more compelling.

 

The revealing things about her misery resonated with me as well.  “I had yet to read the clear indications that I was at the root of my own misery.” (p. 63) This gut-level honesty is one of the things I love about Joan! Her child-like faith became a motif throughout her journey. It all started from the beginning of her conversion: “Within weeks of my conversion, my journal was peppered with erratic talk of surrender and repentance and desperate pleas to be changed from the inside out” (p. 81) This continued in decisions from leaving her job and selling the home her and her husband had built together.

 

Joan is a very creative and expressive person. An example of her open and poetic heart is when she said this: “I felt like a human zipper coming undone as God opened me up and showed me the best and the worst of myself through the lens of day-to-day life.” (p. 122) She is also realistic in her approach to faith in Jesus: “Jesus is no genie in a lamp. All the happy thinking in the world will not keep life from being life” (p. 165)

 

There was a terrible church experience that rattled Joan and her family. How they waded through it all and came out on the other side inspired me. Joan says, “I can never be completely sure, but I think that God allowed my comfortable church existence to be shaken up so that I could learn what it means to forgive radically and to love beyond reason, even when dealing with people I would have preferred to hate.” (p. 179)

 

Joan is now a teacher at a university and through her friend, John, learned what teaching is really all about. I loved this as I can see it reaching over to faith as well. John told her, ‘It is not about knowing everything and dispensing wisdom from on high. It is about reaching each student individually, heart to heart. It is about connecting with them as human beings in a way that meets their needs, not your convenience.’ (p. 188) Now, if more people like Joan could enact this in their daily lives when living out their faith we’d be in a much better place spiritually!

 

Now, I admit I am a walking contradiction, and scoffed at a lot of what Joan writes because I have been there, done that with so many similar kinds of stories. I just do not experience G-D in those kinds of ways anymore, let alone sensing the Holy Spirit at work. Maybe I am jaded or maybe it’s a season. For this I do not know, but I find myself slipping from faith to atheism, the reverse order of Joan’s journey. I feel like there is no plan for my life and feel like a waste of space at times. Chronic illness ravages my body. Not sure where I will end up on this odyssey but I want to thank Joan for sharing hers.

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The first TWO commenters can receive a free copy of Joan's book. PLEASE email me your name and address. THANKS!

AIDS Lifecycle - Ride to end AIDS

Katryna, aka wifey, is setting out on an ambitious odyssey NEXT Sunday, June 6, 2010, for a SEVEN day ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles to raise money in support of HIV/AIDS Services! She has to raise $3000.00 dollars and is a little over $500.00 dollars away from her goal. WOULD YOU PLEASE CONSIDER DONATING? You can even set up a payment plan! i have already donated because i believe in her and the cause. Won't you join me? i am so very proud of her and her hard work and dedication! THANK YOU!

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UPDATE: Wifey made her goal of $3000.00 in time. THANK YOU TO ALL WHO DONATED TO THIS WORTHWHILE CAUSE!!!!!

Unorthodox For A Day

My friend, David Henson, over at Unorthodoxology, has been kind enough to invite me to guest post at his blog today. So, i get to be unorthodox for a day! ;)

David is a fantastic writer and very prolific. i appreciate his point of view and respect him greatly! And he used to be a fellow Californian! Hopefully one day we will actually get to meet in person and have a beer or two or three together!

How Christian Music Hates Empowered Women

i'd like to welcome my friend, David Henson, as a guest blogger here at Existential Punk. PLEASE give him a hearty welcome. i really enjoyed the insights he brings to this post!

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I'd like to tell you a little story. It's about a woman who wrote and performed innovative Christian music, becoming arguably the most popular female Christian artist of her time. So successful was she that her songs were even used in hymnals and songbooks across the world.

But a few years after her success, she came out as a lesbian and was buried under a heap of criticism.

Sounds a bit familiar, right?

But this isn't the story of Jennifer Knapp, the popular Christian artist who came out this month as a lesbian. This is the story of Marsha Stevens, the woman who has been called the mother of Contemporary Christian Music. She began her career in the late 1960s and penned the popular song "For Those Tears I Died." But her revelation of her sexuality in 1979 exiled her from mainstream Christian music.

Yes, the woman who birthed CCM was a lesbian.

She was excoriated by the establishment and for two decades, according to the Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music, had her songs ripped from hymnals and mailed to her, a kind of sheet music shunning. Today, she continues to play music, albeit obscurely, for her Florida-based ministry BALM, or Born-Again Lesbian Music.

Sadly, this is a narrative that would resurface time and again in CCM. In fact, the industry's most major scandals seem loosely centered around female sexuality.

Amy Grant's divorce in 1999 sent shockwaves through the CCM world. Once again, Christian music's leading lady had run afoul of sexual norms and the industry made her pay the price. One can't help but wonder, however, if it wasn't her divorce that was so shocking, but that she planned to quickly remarry another man. Whatever the motivation, Christian radio stations took her songs off the air and a number of Christian retailers pulled her albums from their shelves. The darling of the CCM world had become its demon.

Now, Jennifer Knapp, the industry's former darling, has revealed she is a lesbian and in a committed relationship. CCM history is repeating, again, centered around the taboo of empowered female sexuality. No surprise then, that industry backlash again is forming. Already, Knapp has been awarded the dubious honor of a Timmy (the industry's mock awards doled out to the worst of CCM that year) and many Christians and former fans have abandoned her with remarkable vigor.

Knapp's story is more complicated, however, because she has come out on her own terms and is releasing her album on her own terms, outside the power halls of the patriarchal CCM industry. (Other bloggers have commented about Christian reaction, so I'll leave it to folks like Scot McKnight, Chad Holtz and Jonathan Brink to discuss points of theology and culture). Circumventing the CCM industry has already proved possible with people like Derek Webb, formerly of Caedmon's Call, whose new album criticizes conservative Christian response to gays and lesbians.

But I don't think the response here, at least when viewed historically, is primarily about what the CCM and its audience would consider "sexual sin." It's not about sexual identity. It is about women who dare to challenge men at the most fundamental level, sexuality. It is about women bold enough to own their sexuality. In the CCM world, it is enough to be stoned in public eye.

Men are not held to the same standard. For example, when well-known Christian recording artist Michael English and Marabeth Jordan, the married singer of another Christian group, had an affair and Jordan got pregnant, English suffered minimal fallout by comparison. Instead of being exiled, his affair was cast as a lesson of the all-too-real temptations that Christian artist face. Notice, his affair was cast as succumbing to temptation, the temptation of a woman, the temptation of Eve, the ultimate seductress.

Instead of pulling the albums from sales, his records flew off the shelves! And a station that tried to moralistically ban his songs were subject to the angry calls of fans demanding they be played again. And they were.

English even tried to return his Dove Awards (Christian version of the Grammy's). They were sent back, with the explanation that he earned him. What he never received back in the mail, though, were the songs he wrote that were used in hymnals and songbooks around the country. Barely two years after the affair, he was back in the folds of the CCM world, producing awarding-winning gospel albums with The Martins and performing with the renowned Gaithers.

If that wasn't enough, after English did all this, he became addicted to painkillers, convicted on drug charges, accused of abusing a girlfriend and even began dating a stripper, in 2000, the CCM industry tried to relaunch his career!

What of Marabeth Jordan, rising CCM star with whom English had the affair?  She never got a second, third, or fourth chance at a career. She only had a miscarriage.

Even the male stars of the Christian music industry who have come out have faired better, comparatively, to the women. Ray Boltz, Tonex and Azariah Southworth garnered attention, but quickly faded. None were as controversial as Knapp, or even Grant.

So this is the scandal of Jennifer Knapp, Amy Grant and Marsha Stevens and of CCM. It is not about their so-called sins. Rather it is about them standing up as empowered females to the patriarchy endemic in conservative Christianity. It is about three women who refused to know their place because they knew exactly who they were.

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David Henson is a stay-at-home dad, self-consciously heretical blogger and a really bad Episcopalian who wants to be a priest. He also used to work at a Contemporary Christian Music radio station. Now he's ashamed of it. He blogs at unorthodoxology whenever his children nap at the same time.

College Of Pastoral Leaders

i am in Austin, Texas at Austin Seminary for our HCX cohort conference with Drew Tatusko, Ryan Kemp-Pappan and Meredith White-Zeager. We are here hanging out and plotting how to take over the world! :)

Here's the succinct description of Hardcore Xianity for the conference:

Hardcore Xianity is a group of four colleagues who seek to reach out to and reveal G-D's kingdom to those who have been disenfranchised from church and religion in general, and to offer them a medium where they may have a legitimate voice to express themselves. The group will use the stories of the disenfranchised to explore ways to re-imagine what 'church' would look like if it were to open its doors fully and without condition.

The Tao Of Worship

Worship is more than singing sappy love songs to G-D. We each were born with different gifts, desires, talents, etc., and we should be all that we were created to be. This is in itself a form of worship. Worship is more than reading the Bible. It's living out the kingdom of G-D in the here and now. It's being in authentic relationships with others, sharing and doing life together. By being in honest and open relationships with others we build love and trust, thus providing space to point out the good, the bad, and the ugly in our lives. This goes beyond a once-a-week encounter. Authentic relationships allow the space to worship G-D. By using our talents and gifts, we worship G-D. By being ourselves, we worship G-D. Worship is like the Tao, it is a way of life and not an activity done once-a-week. Worship is an embodiment of a mentality that is life-giving and sustaining. 

Even other things of G-D's creation, like animals, insects, mountains, hills and trees, worship G-D simply by doing and being what they were created to do. So, all the more reason why who we are brings worship to the Divine. It is a joy-filled odyssey as we discover our gifts, desires, talents, likes, dislikes, et al, and worship our Creator. Even our doubts, questions and existential angst bring worship to G-D because it is a part of who we are as G-D's creation. Our honesty before G-D is worship.

There's nothing wrong with singing worship songs and reading the Scriptures. Both are important and have their place. It's when that's ALL we focus on i think we miss out on the true nature of worship as a way of life.

What do you think?

 "For you will go out with joy And be led forth with peace; The mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you, And all the trees of the field will clap their hands." Isaiah 55.12 (NAS)

Trapped

Trapped

by Adele Sakler

tumbling along like a tumbleweed

roving over the sun-drenched desert

acting all angry,

peppered with negativity

peppered with negativity,

expecting the worst

days of my life are

buoyant with unsinkable

yelling.

negative thoughts

engulf,

grabbing me and

agitating my

true self until

i no longer

value the truth.

i'm way

too

young to drown in such negativity.

Copyright 2010. All Rights Reserved.

Ripe

Ripe

by Adele Sakler

ripe with drenching blood

engorging my

daily being.

suffocating me with a

haughty laugh and

opening its rage

expecting me to

suffer greatly and deeply.

Copyright 2010. All Rights Reserved.

Odysseys

Odysseys

by Adele Sakler

odysseys

drop

you

squarely,

squarely

evermore

yearning.

Copyright 2010. All Rights Reserved.

Drench The Yawns

Drench The Yawns

by Adele Sakler

open up and 

drench the yawns of

sheer ecstasy,

sheer ecstasy,

everywhere

yelling in sheer ecstasy.

Copyright 2010. All Rights