Existential Punk

Worship Musings

In deconstructing my faith, becoming agnostic in many of the man-made doctrines of my Christian religion, and tired of trite and rote church services, i have been pondering what worship looks like in a 21st Century, postmodern faith that attempts to live in the way of Jesus. For me it comes down to G-D creating us individually with unique gifts, desires, abilities, likes, dislikes, etc. A tree or flower blooming worhips G-D because they are doing what they were created to do. When a squirrel, as much as i despise and hate them and the messes they create, worship G-D when they scurry around collecting nuts for their winter food. They are doing what they simply know to do. They are being who they were created to be. That's worship to me in a nutshell!

So, when someone like Moby is creating the music he does, that is worship to me. When the guy who owns Temple Fine Coffee and Tea is roasting coffee, giving us all a great place to hang out and drink great coffee and tea, that guy is bringing worship to G-D in my opinion. It doesn't have to be in a specific building with music singing how 'Jesus is my homeboy'!

Worship emanates out of who we are, uniquely created individually. Even these gifts touch others in community and that brings worship to G-D! So, i encourage you to not get stuck in a mindset that worship can only occur in a church in a certain way. Remember the trees of the fields clapped their hands! What's your metaphor? What are your thoughts?

It's Really All About G-D

i've started reading Samir Selmanovic's latest book, 'It's Really All About God: Reflections of a Muslim Atheist Jewish Christian' and i am really enjoying it even though i'm only in the middle of chapter 1. i'm posting this video of Samir because i really find what he says about religions enlightening and also being able to see and hear him speak is really cool. Gotta love that Croatian accent! :)

Here are some things he said that really stuck out to me:

'Not a call to one religion for all, but for every religion to find a way that is good for all people. Religions are living things and we can expect them to change. Understanding our faith cannot be done in isolation.'

'We hold our religious identities in isolation . . . Us versus them . . . Religions position themselves as G-D management systems.'

How Dare i!

My dear friend, Peter Walker, posted a poem entitled, 'A Prayer Of Anger', by John Shea that i found to be totally raw, honest and scathing. i resonated with it because of my own struggles with my Lyme Disease and wrestling with all my existential angst as to the seemingly random things that happen in life and wondering where G-D is at in all of this. Is G-D present and involved? Does G-D exist in the midst of all this chaos of life? If so, why do bad things happen? Theodicy, which is the vindication of divine goodness and providence in view of the existence of evil, and it's attempt to answer the problem of evil in the world are topics that have long been discussed and we never seem to get to the bottom of anything. Answers become dogmatic, circular, black and white, inconclusive, boring, old, worn out, shitty, et al. At times i am ok with not having everything neatly tied up and every question answered. Mystery makes for an interesting life. YET, if i am honest with myself, i do want some fucking answers and not having the answers frustrates the snot out of me! i get pissed off, frustrated, enraged, confused, indignant, snappy, defensive, and feeling totally out of control.

Sometimes i just hate life - how i react to people, how other people treat one another with contempt or in inhumane ways, the burdens of the world with all the poor, the human trafficking, corruption, wars, famines, global warming - HELL - FUCKING HUMANITY just plain grates on my nerves!! i grate on my own nerves!! G-D, if G-D does indeed exist, GRATES ON MY NERVES AS WELL! i recognize that i am human, i am depraved, i am failing, i am insecure, i am selfish, i am an asshole, i am deceived at times, i am often wrong, i am arrogant, i am bitchy, i am impatient, i am out of control, i am hateful in many ways, i am decidedly ungenerous to those who are unkind to me.

Is there really a G-D to extend grace and mercy to me or am i to simply rely on the kindness that humans can extol at times? G-D, oh G-D, IF YOU are real and exist in our lives, why do i often find myself having such a difficult time recognizing you? i have struggled with all these things the entirety of my nearly 22 year odyssey with you. i keep hanging on because something i cannot explain draws me, drives me, propels me. Some will say it's blindness and deception due to my being queer. Maybe that's true, but i don't believe so. i think it's a natural part of being human and honest.

That's the problem i see in many churches today and with some of those that i have been a part of in the past. People are so busy running around doing and not taking the time to examine their own lives. The busyness takes the place of honest reflection. Honest reflection and examination is where i believe true transformation takes place. It's important to serve others, but if we don't ever take time to get ourselves in order, then how can we truly be effective in helping others and treating others with the love and kindness that G-D commands of us rather than with contempt or an agenda. Sometimes i just feel stuck and become overwhelmed and paralyzed. Then i end up not accomplishing anything. At times i know this is ok too. It's just the ebb and flow of life.

i feel like lately when i pray it's just gibberish i'm saying and not sure really how to pray when i feel like G-D is so random in how G-D chooses to allow or not allow things to happen. Why did G-D set us up to fail so G-D could so gallantly come to redeem us yet still allow all this fucking shit to happen. Life is hard and there is no magic solution but i desire to see more of G-D at work in our midst. i even wonder if i am a deist, where G-D just created us and then left us to figure everything out because i feel like i am reaching so often in the dark and not knowing what i am reaching for if that makes sense.  i have come to the conclusion that at this point i am a Christian Agnostic because i simply cannot sign on the dotted line anymore at this point and ascribe to all the human created doctrines and long-held man-made traditions of Christendom any longer. i know that i am ranting here but this has been inside me for so long that i felt like a tick filled with blood ready to explode all over the place. i am just writing what is deep inside me. i don't claim to have any answers nor do i expect anyone else to either. There just may simply be no answers. i must come to a place of acceptance of that possible reality and i fight it because i hate and loathe it so much. 

i have rambled A LOT and many of my thoughts may not make sense to you. That's ok because i often write for my own processing, but if something does resonate with you, the reader, then that is awesome. If it angers or worries some, i am sorry, but this is my space to be open and honest with what i am processing in my life. i just needed to vent as this has been a long-time coming and i'm sure more will come.

i so deeply resonated with Shea's poem. Thanks so much, Peter, for sharing this on your blog. Here's the raw and honest poem:

A PRAYER OF ANGER

No hymn of praise today.
No hand-clapping alleluia

For the All-Good God
And his marvelous handiwork.
Lord
A child has been born bad.
He gangles and twitches and shames
The undiscovered galaxies of your creation.
Why could not the hands
that strung the stars
Dip into that womb to bless and heal?
Please no voice from Job's Whirlwind
Saying how dare I. I dare!
Yet I know no answer comes
Save that tears dry up, skin knits,
And humans love broken things.
But to you who are always making pacts
You have my word on this -
On the final day of fire
After You have stripped me
(if there is breath left)
I will subpoena You to the stand
In the court of human pain.

John Shea

So, what do you, the reader, think about all this? i don't look for preaching and answers, just honest conversation. Thanks to my readers for taking the time to read, process and journey with me on this odyssey of life. - Existential Punk

Picking And Choosing

Over at my friend Peter's blog, Emerging Christian, Joan and Jen had this to say in response to this post:

'Here's my challenge - if I start picking and choosing what is and is not okay from the Bible, then I can pick and choose whatever I want from it. Maybe others aren't as prone to scamming themselves, but I have a long history of it that I do my best to battle every day, one day at a time.

For that reason, I tend to be willing to believe and follow any and all of what's in there - even the seemingly archaic stuff - trusting a combination of scripture, conviction, tradition, teaching, etc. as my guide. Why don't I wear a covering on my head when I go to church? Because so far I have not been convicted to do so and tradition seems to have moved away from it. That said, if I woke up tomorrow morning convicted that I should wear a covering on my head or never speak in church again I would do it.

Not saying anyone else has to do it that way, and my approach may change as I continue to wind my way through a life-long spiritual journey, but that's just how I roll. '

    - Joan

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'The challenge Joan put forth about picking and choosing is interesting to me.

Mostly, in a kind of ironic way because the canon itself was “picked” and “chosen” by function of political power. What we accept as the complete canon today is the product of the dominant views of a particular time and culture (often at the expense of the marginalized).

Scripture is both memory (ancient witness) and present word, and the tension between the two can be tricky. Authority is contextual, and what was once understood in ancient communities as the authoritative word of God does not and should not always translate into modern society. It is possible to read the word of God and get it wrong, because Scripture is not meant to be read as timeless, transcultural principles. Divorced from social ethics, theology can be incredibly harmful and traditions of slavery and oppression attest to that truth.

While Scripture is bound to the past it represents – God is not, and one must not confuse the authority of God with the authority of the Bible. Phyllis Bird writes, “The Bible’s authority is intimately connected with its character as a bridge between the past and present activity of God.”

I think the beauty of Scripture is that it has always been meant to be engaged in community. We cannot interpret Scripture outside of the tradition and community that created Scripture, but together we can wrestle with how the written word speaks to a modern context.

I would argue that the foundation of Biblical authority is found in past experiences, which provide insufficient answers for a dynamic present and future. But for me, the importance and value of Scripture revolves around the witness it bears to the Creator – and it is ultimately insufficient in and of itself to represent the truth of God. Interpretation and degree of authority given to this piece of ancient literature must not occur without acknowledging the time and culture (however painful) in which it was written, the agenda of the authors, and the understanding that truth cannot be contained in written word.

Thus, while tradition is intricately linked to understanding Scripture, it does not mean that we should rest on the conclusions of tradition. We must be willing to engage with the authority of a dynamic Creator.'

    -Jen
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i have been mulling ideas around like the ones Jen expressed above for several years now. When the canon came into being, there was a political structure in place that was extremely powerful and into a major power trip. i think power and manipulation played a HUGE part in the formation of the canon. i believe there were other books that possibly should have been included.

To Joan, i responded with this:

'i agree so that is why so many of us advocate doing this together in community through living life together and through prayer and the leading of the Holy Spirit. It's those who hold so tightly on to their beliefs and think anyone who thinks/believes differently from them is wrong and going to hell that i have a problem with personally.

i think blindly following what was written so long ago in a different cultural and historical context without testing, questioning, etc. can be dangerous.'

Joan is a friend of mine and i appreciate her child-like faith. She is so good not to put her fences (convictions) onto others. i think she feels we are each responsible for listening to the Holy Spirit and doing as the Holy Spirit leads us individually and in community. It is not up to us to judge what G-D reveals to each of us. i think if we are convicted of something, then it is our personal responsibility to act. If we are not convicted about something, then we should not worry about it and neither should anyone else. Also, community is the best place to discern the Holy Spirit and where iron sharpens iron. A trusted and deeply connected group of people who have the common goal of bringing about the Kingdom (Love and work) of G-D and being transformed by our Creator is where and when scripture comes alive and we wrestle with it.

What do you think?

Starting With Our Weakness: Peter Walker

STARTING WITH OUR WEAKNESS
BY Peter Walker
www.emergingchristian.com/

(CO-OP BLOG POST PART 1)

I have a lot of weaknesses.  It’s amazing how “okay” you can think you are, until the relationships in your lives (like little mirrors) reveal the truth.  I had no idea how selfish, impatient, emotionally needy, insecure and quick-to-react I was until I got married.  For my friends who tried to tell me beforehand: sorry I wasn’t listening.

As Adele and I approach the subject of being transparent about our weaknesses, there are a lot (I mean a lot) of ways we could go and angles we could approach from.  We’re human; there’s a lot to own up to!

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Peter Rollins said:
“…What I really want to do is to enter into dialogs where I can talk about the weakest part of my argument and you can talk about the weakest part of your argument. and I can accept and celebrate the strongest part of your arguments and visa-versa.”_
_- from a Nick and Josh Podcast interview

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An anonymous blog visitor recently commented:

“You want to cherry pick what you want to believe and then mandate we trust our gut feelings for authority. And you really can't see the inconsistent notions you put forth in the midst of all this. But, I guess in a postmodern worldview you don't really have to worry about those little contradictions.”

 

Good timing Anonymous, because that’s just the sort of thing I want to own up to.  For example, 2 Timothy 3:16 says, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,” but I’m not sure I believe that… unless “useful for teaching” can mean showing some Scriptures as bad and even wrong examples of what God isn’t, and of what isn’t true – perhaps of how wrong well-intentioned, God-fearing people can be.  But objectively true and correctly interpreted by the biblical writers?  I don’t buy Paul’s assertion in 1 Timothy 2:15, that “Women will be saved through childbearing,” or that God would randomly strike folks dead for deceit, as in the Acts 5 story of Ananias and Sapphira.   Just as I’m often accused of picking and choosing “convenient” Scriptures to make my point (oft-lamented proof-testing!) it seems a terrible abuse of Scripture to suggest that God really strikes people dead at random, for the sorts of sins all of us are guilty of, regularly.  Shouldn’t we all be covering our heads and ducking low, every day?  Yeah, probably…

So I don’t really believe a coherent, consistent narrative of God can be easily constructed utilizing the entirety of Scripture.  To really do so, we have to extract what resonates as true, and sort of ignore or gloss over the inconvenient texts that don’t fit our theses.  Proof-texting.  I don’t like it.  Neither should you.  And we’re all guilty of it.  To avoid proof-texting to validate our beliefs, we have to go to a different core/foundational source from the Bible.  I would argue, we have to go to a superior source: the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the helper sent from God, through Christ, who is God, who is Christ – each equal and co-existent in the Trinity.  The weakness of this belief, is that we cannot prove the truth or validity of the Spirit’s work in us.  I cannot convince you of what the Spirit has told me.  And if I’m really honest, I can’t entirely convince myself.  There will always be that spec of doubt.  This is where faith is a necessity that carries me beyond certainty.  This sort of ambiguity is terrifying for folks who are used to concrete answers.  And I am ideologically and theologically weak, because I am ill equipped to answer many of the questions and protests from those who see such ambiguity and relativism in themselves as weakness, heresy, immaturity, rebelliousness, or foolishness.

I am weak because I have begun to open my hands from the fists they were clenched in.  Those fists were clenched to certainty and “Evangelical orthodoxy.”  By following what I believe to be the Holy Spirit, I am in danger of simply following my heart.  And my heart may be wrong.  And I understand the risk…

As I said before, I am selfish, impatient, emotionally needy, insecure and quick-to-react.  I am also arrogant and sometimes angry.  When people disagree with me, my first gut-response is anger: “How dare you question my opinions!”  Then it’s insecurity: “What if people think I’m a fool?”  Then it’s insolence: “I’ll SHOW them!”  Then, hopefully, Christ breaks through all of the ego, and I can say: “I am sorry.  I am weak.”

I want to grow.  I want to be more like Jesus Christ.  I’m less interested in thinking correctly.  I want to be.  I want my very instincts to be conformed to the selfless goodness, love, peace and faithfulness of Christ.  I have to start this process by telling you all that I am weak.  If I had a better argument, if I had a quicker wit, if I had a PhD, I might be able to convince you otherwise.  Thank God I cannot.  I am weak.  Adele, I am weak. 

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Peter Walker is an M.Div student at George Fox Seminary & a freelance writer (his day job is finance). He is a contributing writer in several books: Out of the OOZE through NavPress, & Church of the Perfect Storm through Abingdon Press.  He lives in the Portland area with his wife Jen a theological student at GFS.

Starting With Our WEAKNESS. . .

My good friend Peter (www.emergingchristian.com) and i are beginning a cooperative blog series of posts writing about what it means to argue from a position of weakness. We resonated deeply with and were inspired from my dear friend, author/thinker/lecturer/philosopher, Pete Rollins:

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What we tend to do is… whenever we are in an argument I will argue from the place of strength, the strongest part of my argument, and direct is at the weakest part of your argument. And you will in turn take the strongest part of your argument and attack the weakest part of my argument. And what I really want to do is to enter into dialogs where I can talk about the weakest part of my argument and you can talk about the weakest part of your argument. and I can accept and celebrate the strongest part of your arguments and visa-versa.

Peter Rollins, from a Nick and Josh Podcast Interview

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i think Rollins hits the nail on the head. We like to hammer people with our insights, revelations, and opinions without really listening to the other person(s) even though we say we are listening. Thus, we end up being narcissistically focused on our own strengths and relish in the weaknesses of others we are in conversation/dialogue with at the moment. i agree with Peter when he says, 'This is probably less about egotism, and more about the brokenness and insecurity of most people. We protect “our weak” by overemphasizing “our strong.” And in doing so, we’re not being entirely honest, are we?' That is what narcissism is, being broken and insecure, which as imperfect human beings, is a big part of our DNA.

i am like Peter and definitely have weaknesses built into me. i tire of inauthenticity and hiding, even though at times that is easier and are masks i will put on to protect myself. Yet, because i am tired of hiding my weaknesses, i'd like to share them with you. As Peter says, 'This demands a difficult level of vulnerability and transparency. It means you’ll have an opportunity to attack where I’m least “defended.'" ' So, we have decided to take the leap and reveal and share our weaknesses with you for the sake of open dialogue/conversation.

i quote what Peter says so eloquently:

'In turn, you have strengths that may frustrate me, confound me, or directly refute something about my beliefs! But they are strengths, nonetheless. And by ignoring or underestimating them, I don’t just weaken my particular “position” (we must get beyond these adversarial identifiers) but I also underestimate and even undervalue your worth, and the complexity of your experiences that have led you to where you are.'

Over the next couple of weeks, Peter and i will be co-op blogging on our own weaknesses, on the strengths we find in opposing DIFFERING viewpoints and belief systems, and we will be reflecting on why this is such a radically different way of dialoguing!

YOU are invited to join us at either...

* www.ExistentialPunk.com OR
* www.EmergingChristian.com