This video reminds me why I hate theology, why I hate ministry and why I want to burn everything I have ever written and just take a vow of silence until the day I die.
Okay maybe that is a bit dramatic but I lost my patience when it comes to dealing with this stuff years ago.
I don't have anything again people who are Calvinists, who use systematic theology or enjoy reading reformed theology. My problem begins when it seems that that particular interpretation becomes the center of a person's everything.
It's like the notion of a different interpenetration is in and of itself heretical.
Excuse me for being willing to question the potentially flawed thoughts of another flawed human being.
I understand people want to have a neat little package to put Jesus in and then tie it up with bows and stash it on some self to collect dust...but that is such crap. If that is all Jesus is to someone then what is the point?
If this is just for my benefit why am I doing this? Why bother write? Why question? Why try to understand?
If I can show up and have someone hand me a sticker book with all the proper outlines to fill in why even bother think anymore?
I find more spiritual significance in the lyrics of Joe Strummer then I do in the seemingly mindless reiterating circles I seem to find so many 'theologians' in. Is this why music and the visual arts have been suppressed and ridiculed by the church for so many years? Because free thought is 'dangerous'?
Please.
Maybe if someone is so secure in their theological meanderings that they can say that God only loves 'the elect' that they can afford to be a sarcastic ninny with no regard for whom they may be pushing away from God. Sure, if God already knows who is going to save why not? Why not be sarcastic and shut as many doors as possible? The good doctor is right, why stop halfway? Just pick up a sign and go join Westboro baptist church.
If I sound angry it is because I am.
I don't jump at a chance to get behind a pulpit because of how serious I take my Jesus and how people see Him. It's not my responsibility to find people and shove a Bible down their throat, my 'job' is to make friends and love people in the same way Jesus loves me. This isn't a job, it is my life and who I am.
I'm a broken human that is loved and that is all I can and will ever be.
In ministry there is no room for arrogance, for being a self indulgent jerk and there is no excuse for not questioning everything everyday because God made us with brains that we do not use.
I understand Rob Bell enrages a lot of people off and why? The most common complaint I've heard is because he asks questions and doesn't give answers. The message of what Christian people call 'the gospel' is in his books, is it just because he doesn't cater to a certain sect or group think mentality that he is somehow 'bad'?
Loving Jesus should give you more answers than questions. When I tell people that I am in love with God I feel like I sound insane and for good reason! How often have people murdered in the name of God? I don't want to be associated with the crazy fundies who strap bombs to themselves and murder innocent people.
I want to be associated with Jesus who is Love.
That Love should burn, stir and cause a heart to awaken to its original intent.
I cannot speak for everyone but part of that is asking questions about everything. Every fundamental we take for granted. The only things I can know for sure are the ones I have experienced first hand...and that includes this love that has set my heart on fire and makes my bones burn when I do not share. It's sort of what the prophet Jeremiah wrote:
"You pushed me into this, God, and I let you do it.
You were too much for me.
And now I'm a public joke.
They all poke fun at me.
Every time I open my mouth
I'm shouting, "Murder!" or "Rape!"
And all I get for my God-warnings
are insults and contempt.
But if I say, "Forget it!
No more God-Messages from me!"
The words are fire in my belly,
a burning in my bones.
I'm worn out trying to hold it in.
I can't do it any longer!
Then I hear whispering behind my back:
"There goes old 'Danger-Everywhere.' Shut him up! Report him!"
Old friends watch, hoping I'll fall flat on my face:
"One misstep and we'll have him. We'll get rid of him for good!""
-Jeremiah 20:7-10
I don't like disagreeing with people but this has come up so many times over the past few years that I have had to write this before I explode. I don't hate people who are different, I relish the different thoughts and opinions...it's just I have heard this view dogmatically defended so many times that I am only a half step away from having an aneurysm.
Am I being too accepting of the 'bad' people?
Am I just being accommodating of 'sinner's?
I have a wide spectrum of friends with various beliefs, alternative lifestyles, odd tastes in music and ideas of theology that make me blush. What does this mean? What does my own personal inefficient hypocrisy mean?
I ask myself these questions all the time and the only answer I have found that makes sense is that "Jesus loves me/this I know."
I want to spread love, hope and truth. I don't want to be a conduit for something as ugly as so many churches are today; this toxic sludge pouring from a jaded heart that has no concern for anyone.
Is there a middle ground between Jesus and religion?
Love and dogma?
Truth and personal biases?
I don't want to sidetrack or knock anyone off of their path but I just have to speak. How much of this conversation is in fact a conversation? How can perpetuating an endless cycle of never asking 'why' help us? Help any of us? How does this factor into the BIG picture of love and the Kingdom?
I'm not trying to somehow expand my image or about how 'great' I am but about how confused and sick of empty religious exercises I am. Back in school I got so sick of studying theology because it felt like we were being told what truth was instead of trying to understand and live it.
It's the real difference between being told Jesus loves you and seeing that Jesus loves you.
Am I the only one seeing this? Feeling this way?
Am I just jaded and burned out?
So sick of being sick that I am in fact making myself sick?
I know what I have seen and experienced.
I'm just not exactly sure what to do next.
It feels like every time I *know* what to do something else happens.
The one thing I am certain of is that:
"Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incomplete will be canceled."
-1 Corinthians 13:8-10
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