Living in the Tension and Wrestling with Faith

(You know what’s fun? When we pretend I haven’t taken a 4-5 month hiatus from blogging, only to post a random entry that has nothing to do with my previous entries. Just go with it.)

The thoughts contained in this post aren’t necessarily new or recent – they’ve been swirling around in my head for a while – but the decision to go ahead and articulate them and post them was largely precipitated by a recent post on Rachel Held Evans’ blog. I would suggest reading that before checking my post out.

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Earlier this year – and it’s not a coincidence that 2012 is an election year – I had a bit of a realization. I can no longer describe myself as an “evangelical” Christian. Now, lest my mom read this and begin to pray for my soul (hi, Mom!) I still very much count myself as an “orthodox” believer: I believe and affirm Christianity as defined biblically (and historically), can totally sign off on the Nicene Creed, and consider that I’m theologically in line with much of what traditional Christianity has always considered to be vital to faith.

But.

I can’t pretend anymore that I fit in with how the American (Southern? WASP-y? Conservative? I don’t know) church seems to define being a Christian. I have no idea how “evangelical” stopped being a theological term and started being a political one. I get vaguely nauseated by the tagline for the local (and terrible) Christian radio station: “Safe for the Whole Family.” We’re living in a time and place where Christians seem to be defined more by their hate than their love – maybe that’s not new, but it sure is starting to feel personal – and where “Christian” itself is a label that has no inherent meaning. And I am puzzled, looking around, to see brothers and sisters who are more concerned with getting other Christians to agree with them on political issues instead of living out the transforming power of the Gospel.

I’m digressing. Oh, gosh, I see another series of posts coming on. I really wasn’t planning that!

Let’s focus this one, ok? For this one, what I really want to say is that I have come to grow increasingly distrustful of easy, pat answers. I have a deep appreciation and love for the faith tradition in which I grew up, but looking back I have to acknowledge that there was a lot of legalism going on - and, for the record,  I was absolutely, positively fine with that. After all, rule-following is WAY easier than prayer and trust. It’s always going to be simpler to tell your youth group members not to drink rather than explaining the complicated biblical truth that God created wine to “gladden the hearts of men” (Psalm 104) but that the Bible condemns drunkenness (not to mention that we’re called to obey the law). It’s always going to be easier to tell dating couples to “leave room for the Holy Spirit” or have random hand checks on youth group bus trips, instead of explaining acknowledging that chastity is one of those most difficult things that they will ever do, but it’s a spiritual call that’s worth it.

As I get older, though, these checklists of laws become less and less clear because my spiritual walk stopped being about the fear of breaking a rule and more about the intention of my heart. I find that there are more gray areas in my life now, not fewer. And it’s discouraging to me that any public acknowledgment of these things seems to send some Christians to a place of immediate judgment: If you’ve stopped thinking that faith and church and fellowship have to look a certain way, you must be perilously close to heresy, runs their thoughts. But see, I don’t think I am. And in any case, I don’t think the best response to that is to try and force me back into that old mold of churchiness, but instead to have a gracious, loving, and occasionally provocative conversation about what 21^st century faith needs to look like. (Some of you are rolling your eyes at that, or thinking “Faith is faith is faith!” But nope, sorry, it isn’t. Worship and doctrine are expressed differently through history and it’s silly to pretend otherwise.)

This post has gone on a ridiculously long time and I’ve barely scratched the surface of what I wanted to say. A series it will be! I’m sure most of you can’t wait . . . all three of you. In the meantime, I’d love to hear your comments and reactions either here, or on Facebook, or in person.