Christianity is interesting that way. The mantra “hate the
sin; love the sinner” sounds good when you're the one doing the hating and the loving. But when you're the sinner (in my case, a sinner who questions much of the doctrine she once embraced that saved her from sin), it feels like a dividing line. If your identity is based upon what you do...and what you do is sin, then the concept of others hating your sin but loving you is chock-full of conflict. As blogger Austin Cline put it: “any time people zealously pursue one idea against another, they run the risk of dropping the distinction between ideas and the people who hold them.” Since becoming a heretic, when I hear people say they hate the sin but love the sinner, I am keenly aware of the unspoken reality that I fall into the sinner category as a heretic. I have become the one needing to be converted (or re-converted, depending upon whether or not you believe I ever was a *true* believer). If Christians are on God’s team, and being a Christian means embracing everything you are told to embrace, then whose team are you on if you become a heretic?
This is the dilemma I faced recently. In the last several days, three of the people closest to me each engaged in separate, one-on-one conversations with me about Christianity, bringing to light a growing divergence between our positions. It started with my dad late last week when he asked me how my spiritual life was. I responded with one word: “Curious.” Though caught off guard by his question, my response was a thoughtful and well-considered one. Having recently listened to Seth Godin’s audio book Tribes, my mind quickly referred back to a section in his book about curious people – a passage that spoke to me when I heard it, specifically addressing the metamorphosis I have experienced in recent years. Seth said:
A fundamentalist is a person who considers whether a fact is acceptable to his religion before he explores it, as opposed to a curious person who explores first and then considers whether or not he wants to accept the ramifications. A curious person embraces the tension between his religion and something new, wrestles with it and through it, and then decides whether to embrace the new idea or reject it. Curious is the key word…it has to do with the desire to understand…It’s easy to underestimate how difficult it is for someone to become curious…Once recognized, the quiet, yet persistent voice of curiosity doesn’t go away…ever. And perhaps, it’s such curiosity that will lead us to distinguish our own greatness from the mediocrity that stares us in the face. What we’re seeing is that fundamentalism really has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with your outlook, regardless of what your religion is.
I was a fundamentalist (religiously) for many years. Now I am curious (spiritually). Being curious led me down the path that Seth Godin describes. Being curious made me a heretic. This last weekend I actually wished I could go back to the safe (but intellectually dishonest) framework of a fundamentalist. It seems life would be so much easier. I don't want to be a heretic. It's a very lonely place where heretics are discouraged. At the same time, I have no choice. There's no going back once you start questioning. Though many would argue I chose it, I can see now that it was only a matter of time before my curiosity overcame my fundamentalism. I am a curious person, and I would never have lasted long-term conforming without questioning. So now, I question.
I have questions that remain unanswered and doctrine I reject; therefore I can not tell the people in my life what they want to hear…or at least not do so and be honest. Instead, I must confess, I am a heretic. A heretic who believes in God, loves God and feels God’s love right back. Beyond that, I remain curious. And I’m ok with that. The question is, can everyone else live with that?
Photo credit: *jude*
As I began reading this blog post, the 1st thing I noticed is the tendancy so many of us have to categorize, including the author.
ReplyDeleteThe insinuation is that the "believer" or "christian" if you prefer, seperates those who appear to choose sin over salvation. I agree that there are some (many would categorize as fundamentalist, which I personally think is labeling & don't agree w/) that may choose to isolate those who don't believe what they believe, however there is a large part of the "Christian Body" that accepts & lives through a desire to love all, recognizing many are @ different places in their walk & that many are confused, perhaps lost @ this particular time in their life, this includes professed believers.
This understanding or even belief if you will, is very relevant in the discussion between Jesus, the pharisee, Simon & the prostitute when he tells her "Your sins are forgiven, Go in peace" (Luke 7:36-50). Jesus was being criticized for his interaction w/ someone perceived as a "sinner" who was also perceived as an underling @ a certain socioeconomic level. He could have just as easily, condemned her & struck her dead there as she stood, but he chose not to, he chose to love her.
As far as the above comments regarding conforming; I will leave this passage to ponder "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test & approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing & perfect will (Romans 12:2).
I would argue that the perception
that "Christians desire for "sinners" to conform to their "Theology" or "Worldview" as stated above is as relevant as "This Chaotic World" influences us all to conform to it's chaos.
Two Primary Thoughts:
ReplyDelete1. Many Christians find themselves in a similar position of not agreeing with all of the doctrines of their church. If we are to be completely honest with this definition of "heretic" the mass majority of Christians have fallen under this category ever since literacy became prevalent.
2. This leads to the second thought that because many people find themselves in the same position I believe much of your "exclusion" is a perceived exclusion. While few Christians are capable of the "hate sin/love sinner" paradigm that is often because they don't understand the true nature of love. But that isn't a Christian problem, that is a people problem known as "human nature". The only person to understand the true nature of love was Christ himself and in his day he was considered a heretic himself accused multiple times of blasphemy.
Anonymous and Micah - Thank you both for taking the time to comment on this. I really appreciate the thoughtful insight and perspective. You've both provoked me to think more deeply about this...which will inevitably be the material of another post. (I may have opened a Pandora's Box here, but sometimes that can be a good thing. Better to confront and wrestle through than ignore and sweep under the rug.)
ReplyDeleteI will be digesting these comments and following up to them, probably in another post. For now, I just want to thank you both and tell you that it means a lot that you would share your thoughts. I pour myself out in often open and raw ways (as I felt I did in this post - fighting fear of rejection from close family members and friends - in pursuit of dialogue and collaborative efforts to learn from each other and grow in our journeys. There's only one thing I can say for sure: I don't have the answers. The rest is curiosity.
Thanks again for sharing your thoughts! :)
Allison
Hi Allison,
ReplyDeleteFirst off, thanks for being curious about my thoughts. I admire the way you candidly speak of your faith and your honesty, something that was not easy as you said. It is very much lacking in our day and something we need more of. A lot of believers simply accept what they are told without examining the claims.
Your unwillingness to accept church tradition *just* because it was the way you were brought up is actually what the Bible shows us to do. It is not sin to doubt nor should you feel like a "heretic".
"The Bereans... received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." ~Acts 17:11
Only by doubting what we believe can we become convinced of truth. You and I know there are vast differences in denominational beliefs, unfortunately. But without getting into all of that, I think you identify with a growing number of believers who have turned away from religiosity and the stigma that comes with “churchy” people.
Christianity is not intellectual suicide; it must make sense first in our mind before it can sink in the heart.
Staying curious and being a skeptic will lead you to seek certainty for something that could serve as a foundation for more. That certainty is the existence of God. Once we’ve understood that, we have believed. And what does the word say to those who have believed? “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that those who believe in him, shall not perish but have eternal life.” Oh gosh, yeah, I can’t believe I just quoted John 3:16 to you. A verse so overused it has become trite, but it’s true regardless of what we’ve made of it.
It is only after we’ve believed and repented that we began to understand what God requires of us.
So let’s talk about sin, fun stuff I know. It doesn’t mean to do something “bad” in the sense that there is a list of things we should not do and God is a kill-joy waiting for us to do one of those things on the list so he can beat us with a stick. Sin, in the Biblical sense, means to “miss the mark”. And we’ve all missed it. There is not one righteous, not even one (Romans 3:9). If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8).
The cliché a lot of Christians use, “Hate the sin, love the sinner”, has nothing to do with Christianity or church doctrine. It was something Ghandi must have said while having a bad day. Ha. We tend to make our hate convenient to our personal likings, and our love doesn’t even come close to the love of God.
So you can’t separate the two. God desires to save the sinner from his sin through forgiveness manifested by the sacrifice of his son Jesus Christ. That is love. And even then, the Christian is still flawed, faultless because of forgiveness, but still flawed. But at that point, our desire is to please him so we began to turn away from those things that once seemed impossible.
When overcome by doubt, search diligently for principles that are certain. Build upon the foundation of what is sure. Ultimately, we must realize that faith is a gift, not something we muster up within ourselves. Faith comes by hearing the word of God. And there is no better place to hear than the local church, inperfect as it may be. On that note, I pray that you find a place that preaches the glorious gospel and leans heavily on discipleship and not tradition. A place where you fit in.
Here’s a good video and site that may help you find that place, http://media.9marks.org/video/9Mvideo.php
I realize I may have totally missed your point, but thank you nonetheless. Praying for you, as I am sure your family and loved ones are as well.
Alex
This is an interesting post.
ReplyDeleteI was raised Catholic, even attending Catholic parochial school for all 13 years of my primary and secondary education. I was taught to be open minded, though, so many things began to strike me as contradictory, or just plain contrived.
I began to examine the Bible critically, as a scientist, mainly because it is presented as a factual document. I realized, very quickly though, that it's more akin to mythology. The parallels are actually quite staggering. aside from the clearly fantastic nature of many of the stories in the Bible, many of them also have analogs in the mytholgies of other peoples. This is, in part, do to the fact that the Europeans came from the Middle East, and despite Semitic languages dominating the region today, in the past, Indo-European languages were equally prevalent in the region in the ancient past.
It seems to me that at some point, the Hebrews simply forgot that they believed there were other gods. You see, the Hebrews never called God by his name. You know "hallowed be thy name?" They took that seriously. They didn't even read it. When they saw God's name in print (called the Tetragammicon), they said something else, usually "Elohim" (which means God of gods) or El Shaddai (which means God of the Mountain). Later texts use the word "Adonai" which means simply Lord. By the time of Christ, the Hebrews were trying hard to differentiate themselves from their oppressors, and having one God, instead of dozens, seems a good way to do it.
That's just one thing, though.
It also bothers me that so much weight is put into the writing of Paul, a man who never even met Jesus (whose real name was Joshua, by the way... big miss on our part). It also bothered me that the message changed dramatically near the end of Jesus' life. He became suddenly very focused on laying the foundations of a new religion when in fact, we're taught that he came to act as the final sacrifice to God. Nothing he was teaching was inherently against what the Hebrews were supposed to be doing anyway.
But think about it for a moment. Here you are, a follower of a man who was just crucified for being a blasphemer and "rebel", and everyone knows you and he were bosom buddies. What would you do? I think I would tell people that he put me in charge and that me and my buddies will recruit more people and if you help me, I can forgive your sins and you can go to heaven.
It took over 300 years to get any real traction, and even then, they were just starting to decide what they actually believed. 300 YEARS! We can't even get Martin Luther King's message right and he hasn't even been gone 50.
To me, the summation of Christ's teachings are this:
Love God above all
Treat other people the way you want to be treated.
It's that simple. Everything else is unnecessary ritualistic garbage.