May we have hope in the days ahead.

Having grown up in conservative evangelical culture, I became well acquainted long ago with the forecasts of doom & gloom & judgment that accompanied every.single.Democratic.presidency.  Such forecasts have been cluttering my Facebook news feed for weeks on end leading up to this year's election despite the fact it hadn't even been decided yet.  For much of my life I bought into this despair-oriented groupthink, but I began to realize a few years ago it was nonsense.

My husband & I both have had the label "Democrat" dismissively slapped on us in recent weeks despite the fact we consider ourselves nonpartisan and will examine every candidate before making a decision about who we're supporting.  I've come to understand that every candidate from every party is complex.  Each one represents some things I believe in as a follower of Jesus, and each one represents other things that make me cringe as a follower of Jesus.  And in this election, like it or not, Hillary Clinton made the Christ-follower in me cringe way less than Donald Trump did.

As my journey of faith has progressed in recent years, I've become increasingly aware that my understanding of what it means to be a Christian and to follow Jesus is fundamentally different from the understanding held by many modern American evangelicals.  I recently read a statement from someone claiming that individuals being held accountable for their own actions, "reaping individual rewards when they make good individual choices and paying the costs when they make bad individual choices" is the reason for "American greatness," and that "the Christian way" is "individualism, individual responsibility and individual accountability."

I'm not sure if I could possibly disagree more.

This notion first of all defies the reality, both presented in Scripture (hello there, Job) and evident in the world around us, that our circumstances are not an indicator of our righteousness or lack thereof.  On the contrary, as verbally illustrated by Jesus Himself, the rain falls & the sun rises on the righteous & unrighteous alike.  "American greatness" as described here is nothing more than a depiction of karmic belief.

This supposedly "Christian" way also completely ignores the central Christian concepts of grace & mercy -- receiving good things we don't deserve and being spared bad things we do deserve.  "American greatness" can build itself on individual responsibility if it wants to, but there's no way to mistake it for anything remotely like the Christian way, not when the latter is modeled after Someone who demonstrated selfless sacrifice on behalf of those who neither earned nor deserved anything whatsoever.  

And yet this theme of personal responsibility is what many American evangelicals have come to understand as Christianity.  We are too busy relying on ourselves and pointing fingers at others to realize we're dismissing Jesus by not simply and humbly relying on Him.  And so it begins to make sense to ostracize Muslims for choosing a "violent" religion.  It begins to make sense to build a wall to keep out neighboring folks who might take jobs we have a right to since we were born in this country and they weren't.  It begins to make sense to cling to our guns because someone might threaten us and, well, then they deserve the bullet that's coming to them.  It begins to make sense to vote for Donald Trump and his platform of self-preservation.

Nothing in this reflects the Jesus I read about in Scripture.  But sometimes we forget that Jesus is the clearest picture of God we've ever been given, and we opt for other versions of God that justify our attempts at self-preservation.  We let fear, rather than love, drive our thinking and our actions.

And then people think you're out of your mind for seeing any merit in Democratic social policies that call for those of us who have more to share what we have with those who have less.

But alas, I do.

No candidate is ever going to be a savior figure for America, despite the fact that each candidate will be championed as such by some of his or her supporters.  I never thought Hillary Clinton was the answer to all of America's problems, and I sure as heck don't believe Donald Trump is.  I do have fears about what the future could hold under his leadership.  But I also refuse to do what I've watched conservative evangelicals do for years...I won't offer my own forecast of gloom & doom & judgment for America just because a candidate I believe to be ill-equipped for the presidency is the candidate that won.

What I will do instead is give credit to many of my friends who have supported Clinton, some with hesitation but others with great enthusiasm, because your responses to what I know has been an incredibly disappointing night for you have been overwhelmingly gracious and even hopeful.  You have expressed sadness, shock, and fear, but you have not been hateful or judgmental.  You have continued to express love toward your fellow man.  And it has moved me.  I hope & pray you will continue to love others in the face of such hardships & disappointments, because I truly believe that kind of stubborn love, far more than any elected president, is what will shape the future for the world around us and continue to bend that long moral arc toward justice.

May you, and may we all, see beyond ourselves in order to love others, and may we continue to have hope in the days ahead.

{Blogger} Dashboard Confessional

image from Andrew Beierle

Sometimes I wonder if it seems as though I'm always pointing out and criticizing loveless behavior in others, particularly those in the church culture I grew up in, while remaining silent about my own faults.  The sad truth is I've been plenty guilty of loveless behavior myself, and it grieves me to remember certain episodes in my life that were marked by it.  There are many things I wish I'd said or done differently throughout my lifetime.  As Josh Garrels sings, "I'm holding on to hope that one day this could be made right..."  I can't go back and change the past, but to acknowledge some of these times when I failed to love seems to me as though it would be a step toward healing...


To my parents:
I am sorry for all the times I wasn't grateful for the countless ways you took care of our family through the years.  I remember complaining as a kid when we wouldn't go out to eat with other families on Sunday nights after church, not recognizing how hard it sometimes was just to put food on our table at home.  It serves as one small example of a million ways in which I have failed to appreciate you both.  But in my heart I have never stopped being thankful that you're my parents, or that you were the first people to lead me toward Jesus, and I'm sorry for the times I haven't shown that.

To my grandparents:
I am sorry for that time I stupidly listened to my Whiteheart cassette tape on headphones while we hiked the beautiful trails at Mt. Rogers instead of simply enjoying your company.  I'm sure it wasn't the only time I failed to show appreciation for the many wonderful experiences you made possible for me and Cassidy growing up.  So many of my favorite memories now are of times spent hiking or camping or boating or playing tennis or going on picnics with you, but I wonder how many times you had to drag me along, how many times I complained or, as in this instance, tried to tune out the experience just because it wasn't what I would have chosen to do at that moment.  I'm sorry for not savoring those times with two of my favorite people in the world.

To the young gay man who joined the singing ensemble I was part of in high school:
I am so sorry for how I looked down on you, joining in the jokes that were made behind your back about the stage name you supposedly used at some gay bar where you allegedly performed.  Is that even something someone young enough to be in high school would have been legally permitted to do?  Probably not, yet the rumors flew, and few (if any) of us bothered to ask such questions, opting instead to laugh at you with condescension.  Now, granted, you were never very friendly to us, either, but who knows how much mistreatment you had already faced before you ever met any of us that might have led you to hold yourself aloof?  It doesn't excuse my attitude toward you, and I'm sorry.

To the young girl in a youth group I used to work with in Tennessee:
I am so sorry for the time I chastised you for being excited about an upcoming youth convention, reminding you that not all of the Christian life is a mountaintop experience and we would be wrong to count on those high times to get us through the low ones -- as if God doesn't graciously give us all moments of relief and refreshment that do, indeed, help sustain us through life's hardships.  Why did I feel it so necessary to burst your bubble?  Your excitement was not a flaw, and I'm sorry for acting as though it was.

To my friend I once called out for including the word "ass" in a photo caption on Facebook:
I am so sorry for my self-righteous compulsion to make a mountain out of a very meaningless molehill.  I made you feel small and inadequate (and this was certainly not the only time), as though your choice of words somehow overshadowed the many wonderful things about you, like your love for Jesus and your deep compassion for others and the beautiful, creative soul He made you to be.  I'm so sorry for choosing to focus on the one thing I disapproved of at the time instead of shifting my thoughts to all the things I love about you.

To Adam Lambert (and to any fans of his or anyone who related to him in any way):
I am so sorry for condemning you during your time on American Idol because I didn't approve of your lifestyle or appreciate your often-dark musical choices.  I'm sorry for all the ridiculous things I posted on Facebook during those months, many of which I mercifully no longer remember, but the tone of which I recall being incredibly negative and judgmental.  I do remember once asking people to pray for three of your fellow contestants, as though you weren't good enough to be prayed for.  I'm so sorry for not simply seeing you through eyes of grace as a person with a soul and a lifetime of experiences I know nothing about.

To the one I tried so hard to control a few years ago (and honestly, this could be extended to many of my friends, though I have one particular person in mind at the moment):
I am so sorry for not trusting God to guide your decisions.  There had been a time when I was a major source of encouragement in your life, but as the months went on I felt more and more confident that I knew better than you did what you ought to pursue with the years that lay ahead of you, and I made it increasingly clear how much I disapproved of your desires.  I even threatened to distance myself -- empty threats, because the truth was I didn't want distance, I just wanted to manipulate your choices.  The deepest regrets of my life came during this period, and even now I fear you might be experiencing residual effects of how I treated you.  (And truthfully, I fear this for each person I'm addressing here, and probably for others I haven't thought of during this writing.)  I hope and pray God has relieved any of the burdens I helped to fashion in your life.  I pray you find freedom and beauty and life.  And I'm so sorry for working against these things, the very things Jesus came to bring us.

This post hardly even begins to scratch the surface of ways I've stripped my fellow humans of their God-given dignity as His image-bearers throughout my lifetime, but they are some of the moments that haunt me, even if I've accepted forgiveness for them and moved on.  Loveless behavior has not been a problem in church culture alone.  It has been a problem in me.

image from sallydell

These are some of the reasons I've come to cling so tightly over the past few years to Christ's call to love.  We're told in Scripture that love is greater than hope or even faith.  We're told it drives out fear and covers a multitude of sins.  We're told it is the singular thing that fulfills all of God's law.

I've spent too much of my life ignoring these facts, minimizing love's importance, attempting to redefine it in ways that allow me to see myself as better than others.  But increasingly my desire is to let go of my pride in order to love people well.

Jesus was full of love for souls wounded by the passions of men; he loved to bind up their wounds and to find in those very wounds the balm which should heal them.  Thus he said to the Magdalen:  "Much shall be forgiven thee because thou hast loved much," a sublimity of pardon which can only have called forth a sublime faith.  Why do we make ourselves more strict than Christ?  Why, holding obstinately to the opinions of the world, which hardens itself in order that it may be thought strong, do we reject, as it rejects, souls bleeding at wounds by which, like a sick man's bad blood, the evil of their past may be healed, if only a friendly hand is stretched out to lave them and set them in the convalescence of the heart?
-Alexandre Dumas-fils

I'm publicly repenting of the times I've tried to be "more strict than Christ."  I want the rest of my life to be led by His example of humility and marked by love.  Not control.  Not selfishness.  Not arrogance.  Not self-righteousness.  Love.

Beyond Knowing It All

image from madmick99

"What Plato and Aristotle recognize is that a fulfilling life requires something beyond having our material needs met and enjoying healthy human relationships.  In their view the only thing that can truly fulfill us is being able to spend our life contemplating that which is higher than ourselves, attempting to understand it but never fully being able to...  Since we can never fully know it, it cannot be fully explained...  Since this is transcendent, theologians might refer to it as God.  For Plato and Aristotle, contemplation of that which is beyond us is foundational for the best life possible. 

To the contemporary world, which is so fixated on activity to the exclusion of the contemplative, such a statement sounds like abject nonsense.  Yet Plato and Aristotle believe that the only thing that can truly satisfy us is to engage in a pursuit we can never finish because it is the only pursuit with which we will never grow bored.  It is in this quest that human fulfillment is complete.  In the [traditional world], the happiest life requires that we be philosophical or theological (seeking to know that which is beyond us), and as we find fulfillment in that pursuit, we can find fulfillment in all our relationships.  The best life possible comprises all these elements." 

-Dale S. Kuehne, Sex and the iWorld

As I read these words one week ago today, I thought about a paper I wrote for my Psychology 101 class in 2013 about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.  Later in life he had added "Transcendence" as a level of human fulfillment even higher than the previously designated highest level of "Self-Actualization."  As someone who has been a believer in God for as long as I can remember, this made sense to me even then, but it makes even more sense now as I reflect upon this old idea that the only thing that can truly satisfy is a pursuit that we cannot finish.

A little over a year ago, a handful of people in the church where I worked became very vocal about their displeasure with the direction in which they felt our church was headed.  Kuehne's thoughts on contemplation brought this to mind because I specifically remember these folks railing against all things related to "contemplation" or "mystery" or "spiritual formation."  Their relentless insistence upon addressing and demonizing things like this eventually led to a truly massive implosion in our church family from which emotional and relational debris is still being cleaned up.

*WEARY SIGH*

The sad truth is I was not far from this kind of dogmatism in the past.  The subculture in which I've spent much of my life -- "Amerivangelistianity" as one of my friends has dubbed it -- often acts as though it has cornered the market on theology and holds most, if not all, of the answers.  Oh, it might not describe itself that way, but the dismissive nature that plagues so many branches of this subculture toward people who hold alternate views betrays any claims to the contrary.  I bought into this in the past and found security in my "right-ness."

Considering this tendency toward overconfidence and a demonstrable fear of the unknown, Kuehne's words made me wonder how we can possibly be surprised that so many people in the U.S., even within the walls of the church, seem so marked by disillusionment.  We act as though we've found the end of the road (or perhaps the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow) in our Calvinism or our Dispensationalism or whatever sacred cow appeals to any particular group.

We strip all sense of mystery from the Christian life, leaving no room for awe or wonder or exploration, believing the boxes we've created (or subscribed to) are sufficient display cases for the "awesome God" we seek to worship and serve.

No wonder people in America are bored with Christianity.  And no wonder even in the church (perhaps especially so), relationships suffer great brokenness.  We prefer knowledge to relationship and embrace the illusion of certainty over a humility that would enable us to love.  The journey into which we invite people is not compelling, and our overblown sense of confidence in our own knowledge leaves little room for the complexities inherent in humanity.

At Q Boston, Jefferson Bethke spoke of our need to give people a better "yes" instead of simply telling them "no" all the time.  What if, rather than shaming those who don't meet our expectations, we actually lived lives of love for God and others -- not some mere obligatory, duty-driven sense of "love" but one that actually delights in God and others?  What if we actually learned to enjoy people for who they are -- as they are -- and truly trusted God's Spirit to lead them into greater depths of grace and truth, transforming them in His way and His timing, as He sees fit, instead of imposing our own particular set of convictions on all those we meet?

Surely a world in which we are not seeking to control everything and everyone but instead are constantly seeking reasons to rejoice and ways to love people would offer people a better "yes."  Surely a world in which we stop trying to dominate and instead pursue peace would be one people might actually be drawn to join.  Surely it would more clearly reflect the Kingdom Jesus began to build as He challenged the religious structures that heaped burdens on people in His culture and as He embraced the outcasts and failures.

Can we lay down our self-righteous sacrifice for the sake of mercy?
Can we lay down our pride for the sake of humility?
Can we lay down our dogma for the sake of a little mystery?
Can we lay down our fear for the sake of love?
Can we lay down our sense of doom and judgment for the sake of hope?

As I said earlier, I've been the self-righteous, prideful, dogmatic, fearful, judgmental person in the past.  To be sure, I'm not fully cured of it.  But I began to learn a few years ago that it was just about the most invigorating thing in the world to allow my thinking to be challenged (often by the life and words of Jesus, no less)!  Being willing to consider things beyond what I currently believe to be true at any given moment has yet to cause me to lose my faith.  On the contrary, it has strengthened my faith exponentially to see that God is not as small and powerless and, most importantly, uncaring as we often make Him out to be.  Spend some hours soaking in the life and ministry of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels, and I can almost guarantee you will walk away with less certainty and more questions but also with greater hope in a God who doesn't seek to shame or despise or reject but who comforts the shamed, loves the despised, and identifies with the rejected.

I realize that I can convince absolutely no one of anything I'm saying.  One must be open to the possibility that God is more complex than we've understood Him to be.  But I can say with confidence that given a true chance, He will happily shatter many of the boxes to which you've believed Him to be confined, and allowing Him to do that will be the start of perhaps the most life-giving, joyful, sometimes scary but ultimately freeing journey of your life.