For those of us who hate reading the Bible

For those of you (us) who hate reading the Bible...

For those of you (us) who have secretly never been able to reconcile a violent god...

For people like you (me) who are tired of worshiping a so-called god who destroys cities

and kills the innocent

and orchestrates war

and floods the whole world

and tells a dad to kill his son on a mountaintop

There is--finally--a coherent, down-to-earth, as-close-to-conslusive-as-it-can-be source for what the Bible really is, what God (or god or GOD) is actually doing, and how the Bible communicates it.

It is here: Rob Bell's blog series What Is The Bible? 

I don't know why Bell is writing this as a blog, because it should be a book.  Maybe it will be some day.  (Or maybe there's no difference? Whoa...)  Either way, you can (should) read it now.

I promise, if you struggle with the violent god of the Bible, this will change your life.

And if you don't... carry on, nothing to see here.

Why People Go to Church and Why People Drink

I'll never forget something my pastor said during a sermon when I was just a little kid.  While pointing out the need for relevance, he explained that the church needs to be a welcoming place for people to come just as they are.  But, he argued, church wasn't fulfilling that role.  He was particularly disturbed that the culture at large finds more solace in going to a bar than going to church, using the popular sitcom "Cheers" as an illustration.  He quoted the show's theme:

Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got.
Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.

Wouldn't you like to get away?

Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name,
and they're always glad you came.

"The church," he said, with index finger pointed horizontally, "should be the place where everybody knows your name.  Not a bar!" (Paraphrased.)

Ok, so he wanted the church to grow.  But I sense a little jealousy.  (Que the obligatory "seeker-service" of the 90's!)

This sermon stuck with me.  For some reason, the pastor's words have continued to brew in the back of my mind since I heard them in elementary school.

This memory was brought back to the forefront of my cortex recently, when I heard author/speaker Peter Rollins compare churches to bars.  He said there are 2 reasons people go to church, and 2 reasons people go to bars.  And they're the same 2 reasons.

First, people go to bars to escape life and forget their troubles.  The bar offers a place where real life is circumnavigated and worries are forgotten, albeit temporarily.  By ordering a few drinks, and then a few more, you can teleport into an alternate universe that requires no forethought other than bringing some cash and arranging a designated driver.  Much fun is had by all.  Good memories are made (and possibly forgotten), and the night is usually followed up with a Facebook post containing the word "epic" in a last-ditch effort to relive the past.

But of course, you're left with waking up the next day to real life once again.  The pain was never dealt with.  Life's worries were not relieved in the slightest.  So, one must do it all over again next weekend.

So it is, all too often, with church.  Doubt is suppressed and replaced with ignorant happiness: You come to church, you sing songs, you feel good, you leave.  But then the buzz wears off, and you have to do it all over again next week to get another hit.  The pain is never dealt with.  Ironically, if you want your church to grow in today's culture, this is actually the model to strive for.  And the vast majority of churches do.  It plays right into our consumerist narrative.

But there's a second reason people go to bars: To actually confront life and deal with their issues.  A table is filled with friends, a few points are ordered, and the longings of souls present are shared.  Life's circumstances are not suppressed, but brought out into the open.  Vulnerability is offered at a costly price by all present.  There may or may not be dancing, but there will definitely by dialoguing.  It's not a drink-fest, but there are drinks.  It's not a party, but it is therapeutic.

This is what Cheers represented.

For the church to point their finger at Borrowed Buck's is very naive.  Instead of condemning bars, perhaps the church should learn from them.

After all, at least barkeep's aren't pretending they have one foot in the Holy of Holies.

New Gregory Boyd Book: Benefit of the Doubt

One of my favorite authors and speakers Gregory Boyd just released a new book.  Judging by the title, I hope it's as good as Peter Rollins' Insurrection, which I reviewed here.

If nothing else, it's just good to see the word "doubt" on the cover of another book.  Certainty, satisfaction, and self-aggrandizing belief systems are definitely idols.

Quit Calling Me An Artist

Everybody, please:  Quit calling me an artist.

Nothing I've ever done makes me any more an artist than you are.  Not even playing music.  Not even being skinny.

Rather, I believe that everybody is an artist. 

I'll say that again:  Everybody is an artist.

So what exactly is art?  I take my definition from guitarist Frank Zappa: "Art is creating something from nothing, and selling it."

Part 1: Creating something from nothing...

A painting, a song, a service, an invention, a job well done.  These are all concrete things and experiences that can be brought into existence that did not exist prior to a human being (artist) making it so.

Part 2: ...and selling it...

This part is crucial.  It MUST be sold, published, shared, offered for hire, or otherwise made public in order to make its creator vulnerable.  Without this step, it is nothing more than a hobby.

I would add a third component to Zappa's definition.

Part 3: ...because it gives you joy.

Creating art is hard work.  And if your art doesn't happen to be an in-demand product or service, it might be a total bust financially.  So it doesn't make much sense to create something you don't care about.


A plumber is an artist, provided she offers an honest service for a respectable price, and gets joy from doing it.  A secretary is an artist, provided he finds joy in welcoming people into the building that represents an organization he cares about.  A contractor is an artist, provided she completes projects in a timely matter, within an honest bid, and, above all, for the sense of joy it gives her.

Of course, the common thread in all of these examples is the word "joy".  As I've said before, your joy makes the world a better place.  And that better place didn't exist prior to you making it.

So please, stop calling me an artist.  And start calling yourself one.


*****

Appendix A
Worship leaders: Please STOP calling yourselves artists.  It is condescending to those in your congregation.   Your job is to help others discover their art, not point out your own.

On Joy and Social Justice

The absolute BEST thing a person can do for this world is to live one's own life to its fullest potential.  This means loving others, but also knowing when to say "no" for the betterment of oneself.  When helping somebody else is wrought with obligation, nobody is being helped.  What good would it be to light another's candle if it only makes your own go out, or burn a little dimmer?

Never sacrifice your joy*.  The world needs people who are living a joyful life.  Making the world a better place isn't epitomized by serving at the soup kitchen or giving money to starving kids in Africa.  No, the best thing anybody can do for the world is live out their own joy, in their own life, everyday.

What does living out your joy mean?  For some, it could be the examples I used above--what we might call the usual suspects of serving others and working for social justice.  But there's so much emphasis on social justice in the church today, it has become scewed into more of a token gesture for many people.  If your Tuesday-night-service-activity is simply a "release valve"** to help you cope with the built up pressure of a day-to-day life full of slaving over a job you hate or making a living through shady business deals or working for a larger company with questionable ethical practices, the "good work" of "serving" is actually the very thing that perpetuates your erroneous lifestyle.  The presence of the release valve actually allows the bigger problem to persist.

Batman did a lot of token gestures, namely fighting crime.  But what did Bruce Wayne do by day?  He ran a greedy corporation and hoarded the money for himself--allegedly for the "good work" of keeping his crime-fighting operation going--all the while making himself richer and the poor of Gotham City poorer.  What Bruce Wayne failed to realize is that he was actually creating the very poverty that caused the crime that gave him something to fight.  Why was he so blind to all this?  Because fighting crime by night made him feel better.  He was unable to see (or neglected to acknowledge) that his daily life was causing it all.

Bruce Wayne lacked joy.  And his "token gestures" (e.g., service projects) kept him from seeing that.

Rob Bell put it nicely on Aaron Niequist's blog:

Your body is the medium, your essence the conduit, your flesh and blood the signal – the more clear and whole and healthy and thriving you are – from nutrition to sleep to brain waves to worry to bitterness to thriving marriages – the more you will radiate the kind of love and energy and presence and grace that people are needing. Who you are matters.

Who you are matters, and what you do everyday in your mundane, daily life matters.  THAT is where joy begins.  This world is broken, but sacrificing your own joy will not help it one bit.

Imagine a world where everybody did what they loved.

*Don't confuse the word "joy" with "happiness".  Happiness is circumstantial, joy is not.
**The "release valve" analogy is courtesy of Peter Rollins.

Insurrection: The Almost-Final Installment

I should have written the final installment of my review of Peter Rollins' book Insurrection 11 months ago.  I know what it will look like--Long ago I wrote it in my head and scribbled notes on paper.  But I'm scared to finally write it here.  There's only one way to honestly apply this book in my life, and publishing it is apparently something I'm not prepared to do.  Hopefully it will find its way to these pages soon.

Hymns and the Anti-Genre

Last Sunday at Hillcrest I decided to use all hymns for the music portion of our worship service, at the suggestion of an elderly lady in our congregation.  I was happy to oblige, not just because it was a great idea, but because I was thrilled that somebody actually had an idea/suggestion/input regarding their worship service.  (In over a year of doing this, this is the first time anybody has suggested anything.)

In short, it was really good.  The songs were more-or-less traditional arrangements with an acoustic guitar, piano, bass, and a female lead vocalist.  People were singing (which is a pretty big deal here at Hillcrest!), clapping, and smiling.  I had fun playing the music, as well as preparing it during the week.

This whole experience got me thinking, What exactly is a hymn, anyway?  Why is it that we can automatically differentiate a song as being either hymn or not a hymn?  And why does EVERYBODY have an opinion regarding hymns?

According to Wikipedia the definition of the word "hymn" can vary depending on the time period and/or religion one is referring to.  But when I boil it down, I would define a hymn as basically any liturgical music written before the 1960's.  Before this time, what we know as "hymns" was all that existed as far as liturgical music goes.  With the rise of rock 'n roll in the 50's people started writing their own music, and in the case of the Jesus Movement of the 60's, their own liturgical music.

As a gross generalization, people (especially Americans) are afraid of change.  This was the first strike against non-hymns: People simply weren't used to them.  Silly?  Yes.  But this fear still lingers in people alive today who were raised in that time period.

During the 1960's new "praise choruses" were introduced via the Jesus Movement, which borrowed tones and stylistic cues from the supposedly devil-inspired rock 'n roll music.  This was the second strike against non-hymns, albeit a subjective one.

The last strike against non-hymns, however, is a legitimate one: At the time of their inception, the lyrics were largely shallow, offering little more than a feel-good experience of happy praise.

Although they may have been flawed in their infancy, I feel that post-hymn* music has come a long way since the 60's, both in style and lyrical depth.  There's no reason to dismiss all non-hymns as being shallow anymore.  There are definitely specific songs that are worthy of such criticism, but as a generalization it just doesn't apply anymore.

At the same time, many hymns are very appropriate to use today, and in fact would be sorely missed by myself and others if they were disregarded simply because of their difference to modern music.  In fact, most hymns, when you strip them down to their most basic chords and rhythms, are ripe for rearranging and bringing to new life.  (Just because the old lady playing the organ at your Grandma's church doesn't know how to make Just As I Am sound good doesn't mean that the song itself isn't good!)

For worship leaders, there's a lot of music to pick from these days, but there is simply no way to please everybody.  So quit trying.  Choose songs that are appropriate for your congregation and your situation.  If you like the lyrics of a certain hymn, but don't know how to make it sound good, there are plenty of artists out there who will let you copy them--I do it all the time!  Or, if you think a certain song is shallow and lacking lyrical substance, simply don't use it.  But don't say that such-and-such style is all bad, or such-and-such time period is irrelevant.

In short, look for your anti-genre.  Strive for lyrics that are honest and a sound that transcends style, rather than caters to one.

*See what I did there?  I made myself look smart buy putting the prefix "post-" onto something church-related.  Boom roasted.

Life of the eternal

People (Christians) talk a lot about "eternal life".  Some think that it means the literal English definition: never-ending.   Others talk about it as being outside of the space-time continuum: Something beyond never-ending and more like transcending time.  Either way, it usually is described as something that happens in the future, someday, after death... then.

I don't care about life after death.  I care about life now, because Jesus cared about life now.  The phrase "eternal life" as used all throughout the Bible did not mean never-ending, as in a distance of time with no beginning and no end.  As Pope Benedict XVI described, that would be quite miserable.  The prophets, Jesus, and the disciples talked about a better way of life in this world.  There's the way things are now, and the way things are going to be.  There's this age, and the age to come.  There is pain, and there is redemption.  There is death, and there is life.

But even more convincing to me than all this rhetoric is what we can actually experience as little glimpses of "life of the eternal":

That feeling of losing track of time when you're doing something you enjoy.

The total loss of physiological awareness when you're immersed in something you're passionate about. 

Those moments when you just know that the thing you're doing is so right that you feel outside of your body, unaware of hunger, thirst, time, or that pile of bills on the kitchen table.

Some people call it "being in the zone".

I call it eternal life.

Too Difficult to Copy

In the age of paperless social networking, the value of ideas is taking over the value of tangible goods.  A book is no longer a paper book, it's a file on your Kindle.  An album is no longer a CD, it's an mp3 file.  I like to compare these "idea-products" to wind--they definitely exist, but have no tangible manifestation except in the minds of their creator(s).  And if they do happen to have a tangible manifestation (i.e., a book) it's the idea within the writing that people care about, not the paper and ink. 

In the past, it was easy to seemingly regulate the "ownership" of ideas, because ideas weren't recognized as existing until they were converted from "idea-form" into "tangible-form".  Hence, copy-write laws were born, and they were easy to enforce.  If you're a car company, you can't name your car a Camry.  If your a musician, you can't cover somebody else's song and call it your own.

The fashion industry, however, has always been in a different boat regarding copy write laws.  A precedent was set in the courts long ago that said articles of clothing cannot be copy-written (except for their logos) because articles of clothing are too "utilitarian" to copy-write, meaning that they purely serve a funtion, not an expression of an idea (other than the idea of not being naked all the time).

Of course, we all know this is not true.  Clothing is an expression of one's self.  Nonetheless, the precedent was set and never overturned.

In her TED talk, culture- and media-guru Johanna Blakley argues that the fashion industry's lack of copy-write protection (which you don't necessarilly need to invest the 20 minutes in to get my point), is actually a good thing in terms of creative work:


The point of copy write laws is to protect people from having their ideas stolen, and--here is where copy write laws fail tremendously--to supposedly increase creative processes in the free market by way of "not allowing" people to copy each other.  However, three problem arise:

• 1.  It doesn't work.  The beauracracy necessary is totally unmanagable.  It is impossible to capture the wind.  Which brings me to...
• 2.  It's not possible.  The nature of an idea is such that it is impossible to own*, yet parodoxically it is incredibally easy to trace its origin.  To deny the knowledge of an idea's origin is always a lie.  Therefore...
• 3.  It is simply not necessary to protect ideas.  Ideas protect themselves.  If somebody copies somebody else, everybody knows it.

This is proven in the fashion industry.  Top designers' designs are always being knocked-off (they're actually called knock-offs!), but the catch is that the people who buy the $20 knock-off shoes never would have bought the original $500 shoes in the first place, so nobody is losing anything.

"But what about the designer recieving credit for their designs?" you might ask.  The designer does recieve credit--where it matters.  Among the culture of people who buy the $500 orignals, and the stores that sell them, they definately get credit, not to mention money.  Do they really care if the consumer who bought the knock-offs knows they're buying knock-offs?  No, because they wouldn't have bought the original anyway.  If anything, the existance of the knock-off is good for the designer.

"But don't copy write laws cause designers, artists, etc. to strive to create better, more original ideas?"  No.  When imitation is allowed, as is proven in the fashion industry, it forces you to create something that is, in Blakely's words, "too difficult to copy".  Take TV's The Office for example.  You can walk around all day acting like Micheal Scott, or looking at an imaginary camera every time somebody does something stupid like Jim Halpert, or ironically re-inventing yourself like Ryan Howard... You're not going to be funny.  The brilliance of a show like The Office is that its humor only works in the context of The Office.  It cannot be copied.

The same could be said about music:  I could rip off so-and-so's guitar riff, melody, and drum beat and put it in a song, but everybody is going to know it.  Actually, people do this all the time!  They write dime-a-dozen pop songs and follow the same formula that every song that's ever been loved by non-music-lovers has ever followed--and they might even get airplay on radio, a top-40 hit, etc.  But it won't have lasting success, nor will it have a substantial impact on anybody.  It's just going to come and go.  It's not going to be loved by music lovers--it's just going to be "loved" by people who aren't paying attention to it, and people who can make a profit from it.

Copywrite laws, contrary to popular belief, are a hindrance to creative thinking.  They inhibit trends, and therefore possibilities. All creative processes can benefit from people copying one another.


*Did you know that Subway actually tried to copy-write the word "footlong"?

The Cross: Cause and Effect

I still have one more installment of my review of Peter Rollins' Insurrection in the works, but in the meantime, here's a little change of pace.

In light of the approaching Good Friday, and planning the special Good Friday worship service at Hillcrest, I have been thinking (a little more than usual) about the crucifixion, resurrection, redemption, and what these things really mean.  But rather than finding any sort of meaning--which, if you've been reading here for any amount of time, shouldn't surprise you--it seems that in every season of life, the redemption story evolves rather than resolves.  As usual, its essence morphs into something new, fresh, and full of even more life (rather than "meaning") than previously realized.  It truly is a living, breathing narrative.

A few months ago I read Richard Rohr's The Naked Now.  Then, a couple weeks later, I read it again, and have since started reading his blog.  This post about the crucifixion goes right in line with The Naked Now in offering a different way to see the Crucifixion (and the redemption narrative) much like Peter Rollins' Insurrection.

Our Western minds want to view everything in a strict "cause and effect" mindset, also known as "instrumental thinking."  In terms of understanding the crucifixion, we want there to be a cause and effect for Christ's death.  Then, we want that effect to become a cause for some other effect.  The spiral (if we're honest) goes something like this:

Cause:  I sin.
Effect:  Christ dies.
Cause:  Christ dies.
Effect:  I am forgiven (but I still feel guilty).
Cause:  I am obligated to be grateful.
Effect:  Nothing really changes.

I believe that the all-too-common phrase "Christ died for our sins" is a big cause (eh hem) of this efficient causation mindset.  What if we changed the word "for" with the word "with"?

Christ died with our sin.

Now, I am part of the crucifixion.  All of myself, including my shadow-self, is participating in the redemption narrative.  As Rohr says, "now life and death are both good."

Insurrection Ch. 5 & 6: Participation Creates Reality

This is my continuing "review" of Peter Rollins' book Insurrection, although I'm really writing with a mixture of review, summation, and personal reflection. In short, these writings are more a way for myself to work through what this all means, rather than a "review" per say, or my trying to convince anyone else of these ideas. Additionally, please note that my beliefs expressed here may not necessarily coincide perfectly with Rollins'.  You can view the previous installments in previous posts below.

Beliefs are important, but the comforting powers of beliefs need to be rejected.  Those comforting powers lie in the way that beliefs ease our anxieties, i.e., the way they satisfy our psychological need for God to exist.

The real event of the cross is not that some great injustice was done, or that an innocent man was killed, but rather that God as a psychological crutch dies.  There's more than just a feeling of God not being present--God actually is not present.  There is forsakenness of any divine figure, and then nothingness.  Every sense of certainty, identity, and order are drained of all operative power, and we are left naked.  There is an experienced loss of all meaning (existential atheism); the very foundation we've built our lives on is ripped away.

"The cross is the moment when we join with Christ in crying out, 'Why have you forsaken me?'" (p. 82.)  Religion is buried.


Anxieties are different than fear, in that fear has an object, but anxiety does not.  Fear is being scared of something, e.g., spiders.  Anxiety, however, has no object.  It is "a response to the foreboding shadow of nothingness itself."  (p. 83.)  As creatures who have a hardwired psychological need to believe, nothingness is the worst thing of all.  That's what makes Crucifixion so hard to truly participate in.  Anxiety is pure despair, with nothing but nothingness looking back at us.

Religion is what happens when we abuse our psychological need for God--when we believe in a constructed God in order to get relief from these anxieties.  The anxiety of death is avoided by believing in eternal life.  The anxiety of meaninglessness is avoided by believing that God is in control of, or at least aware of, everything.  And the anxiety of guilt is overcome by constructing and embracing a narrative of one's "personal life" to represent the truth of who a person really is, as opposed to the desires that drive one's actions.

That last part--the gap between our personal lives and true selves--is the majority of Chapter 5.  Rollins explores how we like to think that our personal lives (beliefs) are what really matter, and that we compensate for this shortcoming by trying to make our actions live up to our beliefs, i.e., "live out" our faith.  But the problem here is that our actions don't fall short of our beliefs--they ARE our beliefs.

Rollins' example of Hitler is a succinct way to describe this.  Hitler had an immaculate personal life--one that many of us would find admirable.  He didn't touch alcohol, he loves children, he was an aficionado of the arts and culture.  But the funny thing is, this narrative of personal piety that Hitler wrote into his life scares us, because it reveals to us that our own highly-prized personal lives can't possibly reflect the truth of who we are, since we know that this is not the truth of who Hitler was.

Furthermore, it is made clear that attempting to extinguish this gap between our beliefs (personal life) and actions (public life) only serves to affirm it.  The gap itself doesn't actually exist--we only tell ourselves that it exists, because then we can say that we at least have a good belief system, no matter how often our actions fail to "live up" to it, as if our actions are subject to something other than our beliefs.  In reality, however, our practices do not fall short of our beliefs, but our practices are our beliefs.

Christianity by-and-large has become a mode for us to both exacerbate this gap and avoid our anxieties of death, meaninglessness, and guilt.  Intellectual affirmation has been prized over life itself, convincing us that we are what we believe, and that our actions are somehow separate from those beliefs.  "The life of faith becomes a crutch," Rollins says, "and the Crucifixion becomes nothing more than a mythology we pay lip service to."  (p. 107.)  There's not an "outer world" that needs to be brought in line with some "inner world," for the very act of trying to align these "worlds" acts as a barrier to real, radical transformation.

But there's good news too.  The Crucifixion is where we actually confront our anxieties.  Then, resurrection can happen.  But Resurrection is not an "answer" or a "solution" to crucifixion--To truly live in a state of Resurrection means to be willing to undergo Crucifixion again, and again, and again.  This willingness is called Incarnation:  A way of living called Love (or God) in which we experience the world as worth living for.  It is an embrace of humanity, rather than a God "up there."

We don't live this way because God loves the world... We live this way, and that is God loving the world.  (How's that for a theological understanding of God?)  The highest truth is not to be loved, or give love, but love itself.  Belief in God, then, has nothing to do with a supreme being, but rather an embrace of humanity.

True affirmation of God is the material practice of love.  We become creators of destiny, rather than slaves to the idea that "everything happens for a reason" (deus ex machina).  We participate in the creation of the eternal itself.  Participation creates reality.

Insurrection: Chapters 3 & 4: A monologue

This is my continuing "review" of Peter Rollins' book Insurrection, although I'm really writing with a mixture of review, summation, and personal reflection. In short, these writings are more a way for myself to work through what this all means, rather than a "review" per say, or my trying to convince anyone else of these ideas. Additionally, please note that my beliefs expressed here may not necessarily coincide perfectly with Rollins'. View the first installment here and the second here.

In reading chapters 3 and 4 of Peter Rollins' Insurrection, I feel like I'm finally getting to what might be considered a thesis statement for the first half of this book, entitled Part 1: Crucifixion:

"It is possible for people to believe there is an ultimate meaning in the universe without being religious at all--that is, people do not use this belief in order to avoid a full confrontation with their humanity. It is a belief that they can calmly discuss over a drink and which they are happy to rethink. Such people have a reasoned and healthy belief that does not need to be passionately defended against those who disagree." (pp.61-62, emphasis added.)

In an attempt to describe the means by which this thesis was arrived (whereby I wrote in the margins of my copy, "THE POINT!"), I have written an internal monologue that could be used to describe the ironic methods by which many Christians today arrive at a place of "rejecting religion":

"I'm not religious, I just follow God, which offers me the psychological benefits of religion while still allowing me to play the part of rejecting religion. I intellectually affirm the crucifixion, but I don't want to bear the wounds that it leaves. My relationship with God takes the place of my honest confrontation of life.

"I intellectually affirm Christ's forsakenness on the Cross, but I still want sermons that give me answers, songs that give me peace-of-mind, and prayers that tell me it's all going to be OK. That certainty is more important to me than the possibility that that universe might be random and there's not a goddamn thing I can do about it. Even though I say God is not a cosmic vending machine of peace and love and happiness, I want the church to treat God like a machine so that I can use it as a security blanket, allowing me to accept the circumstances that should beget suffering instead of allowing those circumstance to cause me to suffer.

"I affirm doubt and uncertainty as a part of faith... So long as I know with absolute certainty that God is bigger than my doubts. Then I can doubt with absolute certainty."

That's the funny thing about the essence of religion. It's seemingly unavoidable. It's a "psychological phenomenon" (p. 61). Religion is not, and never has been, and never will be, on the decline. It's just doing what it always has done: Taking on a new shape to make it harder to identify, akin to a flu virus.

So what's the point of it all then? Why go to church? Why be a Christian? Is it even possible for these things to be good, or at least honest?

Yes, I believe it is. The essence of Christianity is in the experience of suffering. The essence of religion is the avoidance of suffering.

If it's all about experience, then are beliefs futile? No, as long as they are not a crutch to prevent embracing the world (suffering), and as long as they are not a security blanket (a structure of certainty).

Christ affirmed his belief in God. But he also experienced the loss of his belief's comforting power.

Insurrection: When Crucifixion Became a Myth

This is my continuing "review" of Peter Rollins' book Insurrection, although I'm really writing with a mixture of review, summation, and personal reflection. In short, these writings are more a way for myself to work through what this all means, rather than a "review" per say, or my trying to convince anyone else of these ideas. Additionally, please note that my beliefs expressed here may not necessarily coincide perfectly with Rollins'. View the first installment here.

Belief in God is perfectly human--life is hard, full of suffering and bitterness, and we have a natural desire to bring to it order, meaning, and something other than randomness. This is the essence of our psychological need for God to exist. However, religion today is most commonly understood with a deus ex machina mindset: It is the affirmation of a constructed source of explanation, meaningfulness, and solutions to our problems--a.k.a. God.

By rejecting God, one is usually labeled an atheist. But can you really blame a person for being an atheist? Doesn't a God who only exists to satisfy me sound a little feeble? Yes, it does. But that doesn't make me an atheist. In fact, Rollins is going so far as to say that accepting atheism is the only way one is able to participate in Crucifixion. And I agree.

So, the questions now are "What is crucifixion?" and "What is atheism?"

Is crucifixion God sacrificing His son for us? Is it reconciliation for our sins? Does it put us in good standing with God? Is it something that was done for us by which we define ourselves, rather than defining ourselves by what we do?

Is atheism the intellectual denial of the existence of God?

Defining both of them is the only way to define either of them, because experiencing both of them is the only way to experience either of them: Crucifixion is existential atheism--a real, experienced, and felt loss of God. It is undeniable. It is the sacrifice of everything that satisfies our psychological need for God, which is, of course, God.

When religions talk about giving up false gods, they usually mean giving up anything that one worships other than God (e.g., money, cars, Xbox). But what about worshiping dues ex machina? Isn't this "God of the machine" just replacing these (equally) false gods?

In fact, religion usually tells us to give up false gods so that we can find true meaning, purpose, security, and ultimate reality in God-with-a-capital-G. But what about giving up false gods by engaging in existential atheism--In other words, giving up everything that satisfies our desire for God? What about giving up everything including God? What about giving up everything that comes after the phrase "so that"? No one ever talks about giving up that God.

But giving up this God is what Crucifixion truly is.

The church has domesticated the crucifixion into a mythology--a story that brings meaning into meaninglessness. Yes, we affirm that it actually historically happened. But we also look at it with a dirty lens muddied up by the "what does it mean for me?" mindset. Therefore, no sacrifice was actually made. Again, it is simply a deus ex machina.

This is why Christ's words "Why have You forsaken me?" are so wrought with meaning, and yet meaninglessness. Contrary to popular belief, he wasn't crying out to God in the midst of suffering--No, he was suffering in the midst of his utter loss of God.

And the beauty, as well as the horror, of it is that we can participate in it too. We no longer are a slave to our psychological need for God. We can simply enjoy the grace that is the fact that our need exists, much like our taste buds make our need for food enjoyable.

"When we truly participate in the event of the Cross, we are forsaken by ourselves--We are cut off from the system that we construct and which constructs us." (p. 35) There is nothing but our naked self. Nothing but pure purity.

Edited on 2/17/12 at 3:28pm.

Insurrection: God as deus ex machina, or, The Need to Need God

In my proceeding reviews of Peter Rollins' book Insurrection, I will be writing with a mixture of review, summation, and personal reflection. In short, these writings are more a way for myself to work through what this all means, rather than a "review" per se, or my trying to convince anyone else of these ideas. Additionally, please note that my beliefs expressed here may not necessarily coincide perfectly with Rollins'. And lastly, I fully understand that my having a blog does NOT automatically make me a writer. (You know who you are.) Ok, here we go...

Shane Hipps once humorously described the human taste buds as one of the greatest forms of grace: We need to eat to survive, and we have been graced with the fact that eating is an enjoyable endeavor... Hallelujah! Funny as it is, this alliteration of grace should be taken very seriously: We have a psychological desire to eat, which is the reflection of our need to eat, which is an evolutionary advantage to the continuation of our species.

I was reminded of this while reading the first chapter of Peter Rollins' book Insurrection, entitled I'm a Christian! I'm a Christian! Rollins starts off this book by quite simply rejecting the notion of God as we know it. And I don't mean the easy-to-reject notions of God, such as the 'reject religion, embrace Jesus' kind of stuff, but actually reducing our claimed existence of God to a psychological need.

C.S. Lewis made famous his argument for the existence of God by saying that we could no more invent or imagine God than we could invent a new color. On the other hand, Voltaire said, "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."

I used to cling to Lewis' idea. But now, I'm with Voltaire.

Rollins opens with a description of our human psychological need for others. In short, we don't simply desire others, but we desire others to desire us. This results in relationships.

Duh.

But on a more subtle level, it also results in an imagined desire of others for us. This manifests in the form of fantasies. In our world of internal monologue, we are never alone--someone is always watching us. When we "dance like nobody's watching" we're really imagining people watching us, or for that matter, literally dancing in front of other people. When I'm working on my motorcycle and solving a mechanical problem, I'm imagining my dad watching me (and being impressed!). We are always "being watched." Even our fantasies involve relationships

So it is clear that we desire love from others, with evidence of this both in our tangible experiences and our fantasies. But unfortunately, our fantasies quickly become unsatisfying, and our relationships ultimately prove imperfect and conditional. Sadly, our needs are never really met. So what happens now?

The solution is to construct a source of unconditional love and desire. This is what we call God.

The next step is to convince ourselves and others that God was not constructed by us: a process commonly known as evangelism. There's basically three ways to do this:

1. Physical force. Examples are the Inquisition, the Crusades, etc. Not much of this really exists in the developed world anymore.
2. Psychological coercion. This is when a person is made to verbally admit their need for God, although no actual belief exists, such as people who "accept Christ" to avoid going to hell. Again, this doesn't really happen anymore, accept maybe with small children.
3. Rationalization. This is what does happen in churches today. Rationalization simply means to convince oneself of a belief one already holds, or to look for evidence supporting a belief that has already been accepted without evidence. Knowing that people (perhaps unknowingly) already have the aforementioned psychological need for God, preachers simply remind congregants of their desire for unconditional love and for their life not to be meaningless, and then offer a solution via God. Now, the potential convert has found the evidence they were sub-consciously searching for, and convinces them self (i.e., rationalizes) that God exists and desires a relationship with humans offering unconditional love.

Therefore, getting people to believe in God is very easy. In fact, it is no different than getting a child to believe in Santa Claus. And getting others to believe creates community, relationships, and love, so not only does God solve our psychological need for God, God also solves our need for others.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer called this the deus ex machina--God out of the machine--a term that was coined by critics of ancient Greek theater to describe terrible playwrights who used God as a character to divinely make the plot do whatever they wanted. (We see this today in TV where characters are "killed off" because the actor is leaving.) God is a way to solve a problem.

Today, we call this philosophy. Philosophy, when honestly evaluated, is the necessary search for evidence of God because we have already decided to believe that he exists due our psychological need. At the pinnacle of this discipline are questions like "Why does God allow suffering and evil in the world?" and other irrelevant theodicy. It's just a feeble attempt to help us cope with life--a solution to a problem, but not a means of changing the world.

So it seems that rejecting our psychological need for God--much like rejecting one's taste buds and therefore avoiding junk food--is the only honest way to live a happy and healthy life. Our psychological need for God is an immature emotion that needs to be dealt with and overcome.

Yikes. Is this atheism?

Sounds more like Crucifixion to me.

Insurrection

Having just read Peter Rollins' book Insurrection, I don't even know where to begin in trying to express how this book has affected my beliefs and, hopefully, my actions as a human being. There are so many ideas that I want to throw out right now, but I believe a more methodical approach may be required, as the various ideas in the book build upon each other.

As Rob Bell said so accurately, the book "pushes you off a cliff," and although I do feel like I'm flying more than falling, I still feel the need to re-read this book and record my thoughts chapter by chapter in an effort to more perfectly shape my wings.

I first witnessed the antics of Peter Rollins in the summer of 2009 at a conference hosted by Mars Hill Bible Church (a.k.a. "the Mars Hill in Michigan") called Poets, Prophets, and Preachers, and later in various podcasts, and more recently with his books. He has been saying things that resonate with my soul at a frequency I didn't know how to hear before.

But this book took it to another level. Subsequent posts will be chapter-by-chapter synopses, thoughts, reactions, and feeble attempts to get my guts back into my torso.

A Parable, 2

There was a well-known pastor who frequently asked his church members, "Did you pray today?" Knowing this question was coming, the church members always made sure they had said a prayer on days they would be seeing their pastor.

"Yes!" they would say. "Today I prayed for so-and-so to come to know Christ!" Or, "Yes! Today I prayed for my brother, who is recovering from surgery in the hospital!"

One Sunday morning, a homeless man wondered into the church. The pastor, seeing the homeless man from across the room, was quick to take the opportunity to welcome him into his church--especially since all the churchgoers were watching.

After saying hello and introducing himself, the pastor leaned in close and asked the homeless man, "Did you pray today?"

The homeless man leaned in even closer. "Prayer happened," he whispered, "and I was there."

***

Inspired by Richard Rohr's The Naked Now.

A Parable

There was once an elderly man who loved bird-watching. He knew every bird he happened upon, and he had an ongoing checklist of birds he wanted to see before he died. He never went anywhere without his binoculars, bird-watching field-guide, and a meticulous itinerary of birds he wanted to see. He was a member of a local birdwatching club, as well as a national association of bird-watchers. He went to conventions. He started sticky-threads on bird-watching forums.

One day, the man wanted to take his 8-year-old grandson out into the field with him. He longed to share his experience with his grandson, hoping his grandson would enjoy it. Also, he hoped to spot one of the seasonal species and he had read about being seen recently in this area.

While carousing the field with his grandson, the man went on and on about his knowledge of birds, talking about all the birds he had seen in his life, what kind of birds they can expect to see today, and what times of the year are best to see particular species of birds. But as the minutes turned into ours, the man secretly became frustrated at his lack of a sighting.

Then the boy said, "Look Grandpa, there's a bird!" as he pointed up towards the top of a tree.

"Oh, that's just a crow," said the man. "That doesn't really count as a bird sighting. They're much too common."

"Well," said the boy, "I think its beautiful."

The man stood stunned at what his boy had just said.

After a minute of silence as they both stood watching the crow, the boy said, "Thanks for taking me bird-watching, Grandpa."

World, meet June Embers

No, it's not the name of old lady. Or an Adele protege trying to come up with the newest nonchalant stage name. It's my new band, and we can be listened to here:




(Or here, if you insist: June Embers)

You can download it for free. Just do us a favor and come to a show. :)

A devotional for people who don't like devotionals

If your looking for a great, inspirational, and practical book to read in little pieces every day (i.e., a "devotional"), check out End Malaria. It's a compilation of 2- and 3-page blurbs from successful business guru types on how to be successful, relevant, and most importantly joyful in our post-industrial world of work.

And best of all, you don't have to be a business guru or entrepreneur to enjoy these little blurbs of wisdom. You just have to apply it to whatever it is that you do--work or hobby. (Unless you do something that you don't care about.)

As an added bonus, when you buy the paperback for $25, 20 of those dollars go the Malaria No More. When you buy the Kindle edition for $20, 100% of that goes to Malaria No More.

Check it out.

Cogs

At the turn of the 20th century, the economy was built on buildings. The more stuff we built, the better off we were.

In light of this, by the middle of century, we began valuing security more than anything. The mantra for the middle-class was work for GM as a button-pusher or a knob-turner, and you'll be set for life. For the elitists, it was climb the corporate ladder and the farther up you get, the less hard you have to work, and the more money you make. And finally, for the education system, the goal became to teach kids to be compliant so that we can objectively measure your intellectual growth, and the system can keep being fed. (And maybe if you're lucky, you'll end up with the white-collar mantra.)

Now, things are changing. Our economy is no longer built on concrete, but on ideas. And thanks to the internet, ideas spread--instantly. Which means individuals have more power than ever... You don't need a publishing company to be a writer anymore. You don't need to live in Silicon Valley to invent something.

There's a story in the book of John about a time when Jesus broke the rules. And that made the high-and-mighty religious leaders angry. (Or maybe jealous.) And like all anger, it was fueled by fear; namely, the fear of their carefully constructed system being torn down, along with the security it provided for the elite.

Jesus understood that for real change to happen, someone had to break the rules and deny the elite their comfortable status.

(Side note: There’s a great book by business writer Seth Godin called Lynchpin which explains how being a cog in a system is no way to go about business, work, or life in general. It’s a great read for anybody wanting to break the mold.)

Jesus demonstrated that we shouldn't be weaving baskets in a world that doesn't need baskets.