Treasures of Darkness

I finished reading “Is God to Blame” by Gregory A. Boyd. And I really enjoyed it. It was like he somehow took all the things that I thought were wrong with Christianity, and showed me why. I was impressed enough that I am starting another book by him “Letters from a Sceptic”.

I am really intrigued by his concept of open theism.

For the first time Post-UPC, I feel like maybe something can be salvaged from Christianity after all.

Mr. Boyd’s Blog can be found at http://www.gregboyd.blogspot.com/

The Knowledge of Good & Evil. What does that mean? What the implications of the fruit?

Whatever they are, it is a curse that we have never gotten past. Humankind is still obssessed with judging the morality of each others behavior. We look at another’s actions, we hear their words and we think “They are a bad person”, or they are a “sinner”.

But only God knows our heart. He looks past our actions to our true motivations, and he hears the emotions that lie under the surface of the words we speak. So why do we continually try to sit in judgement on others, when we are so uninformed??

Lately I been feeling somewhat melancholy. I’m often hit with a sense of nostalgia for the days when ‘God was in His heaven, and all was right with the world’.

Somedays I wonder if there is a middle ground. A place between the extremes of what I was and what I have become.

The problem, as always, is my brain! Back then, I thought too little, and now I think too much.

I hate it when people think they have the right to pass judgement on me. When they think that they know me, or know about my life, and can truly understand why I make the decisions that I do.

Or when they think that they know everything about me, based on only my actions.

There is nothing in the world more frustrating!

So you would think that knowing that, I would someone be immune from doing the same thing to others.

It hit me today like a slap in the face.

I thought I knew someone. That I knew enough about them based on a few of their actions, and a couple things they said, to judgement their entire character.

This is the first time, in a long time, that I have been glad to learn a lesson the hard way. Maybe it will stick around in my thick head for longer than a day or two, and I will actually be less likely to do it again in the future.

One can hope anyway.

I’ve never considered myself the type of person to have “enemies”, well, not since I was a teenager anyway. Oh sure, there are people that I don’t particularly care for, and even a few that I would go so far as to say I dislike, but enemies?

I was thinking about this recently, along with Jesus’ lovely little command to love our enemies. Something that I always thought I would be able to do. (It’s pretty easy to believe you can do something, when you don’t think you’ll ever need to!)

See, the problem is that I have this sister. She’s 4 years older than I am, and she has pretty much hated me from the moment my parents brought me home from the hospital.

For many years I have known that I dislike her. I don’t think she’s a good person, and she is not the type of person that I would have any interest in spending any time with. But it is only recently that I have begun to understand the true depth of my feelings towards her.

Despise….loath….abhor…..these are the words that come to mind when I think of my sister. She is the only person in the universe that I can think very very mean thoughts about, and feel absolutely no guilt.

I can understand that God being a God of absolute love, is capable of loving theives, and rapists, and even serial killers. But when I think of him loving my sister….I find myself thinking…how could He? She’s such a bitch!!!

So I realize that if my feelings for her are really that bad, that she must be the person I need to think of when the Bible talks about enemies. But pray for her (and all the times she spitefully used me??? ) Right there is where my spirituality fails!

My friend Lois recently made a comment in response to my recent musings about the Bible. She said “Also, consider that you may have had warnings during your UPC days. I know I did and either didn’t recognize them or ignored/rationalized them.”

I decided that it would be interesting to look back on my UPC days to determine if there really were any warnings.

The most obvious would be my little “Freak out” that I had a few months after I started attending. I very much questioned the doctrine. How much of it was realizing there was a problem, and how much of it was wanting it to be wrong? I went through the usual, “what about Grandma”? difficulties.

My sister had started attending a church at the same time, a non-denominational, of the very non-pentecostal kind. I struggled with that, because I really believed that the manifestations that I witnessed were real.

I remember reading, and really searching out the different camps; trinitarian & oneness, the 3-steps and the sinner’s prayer. I stopped attending the UPC for a few months, and tried an AOG church a few times.

It really came down to two conflicting desires. On the one hand I wanted to be a Christian, but thought I might prefer to be a socially acceptable one (non-UPC), but on the other hand, there was something that I felt/experienced in that little UPC church that I didn’t experience at the AOG church.

Looking back, I think it may have been my tendency towards extremes that got me into trouble. Just like I once read that you could either accept the Bible completely, or you must reject all of it; (a concept I adopted with ease), I think I believed that if what I felt in that UPC church was real/true, that therefore everything about the UPC was real/true.

And the more that things they told me proved to be accurate; Jesus is real (he is), He wants a relationship with you (he did), you can find forgiveness for your sins (I could, you can be filled with the spirit of God (I was); the more I was willing to believe them in everything.

Was it just my personality? Was it just a relative immaturity? In some ways finding out that nothing is ever simply black and white, but a great mix of complications is an inevitable part of growing up?

And the truth was, I truly wanted everything that I could get from God, unfortunately life had taught me that love must be earned, and always had numerous conditions.

Romans 10:2 (New International Version)

2For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge.

I was thinking about the Bible this morning.    The problem is that I just don’t know what to do with it.  It’s not like I think that it’s totally worthless and just want to completely throw it out.  And yet, I just can’t accept that it is the ultimate, infallible, authoritative WORD OF GOD, either.

 People always imply that God had his hand on the canonization and translation of the books that make up our modern Bible.  That He protected it from containing any errors.

It’s not like I believe that he’s not able to do those things.  But I do really question whether or not he would.  After all, God could have protected me from being deceived into believing the false gospel that was preached to me.  He could have supernaturally have spoken to me and said “Don’t believe it! They’re full of crap!!  Run Away, Run Away!!!”

Not to mention, another realization that I had this morning.   Back in the day, when I believed the Bible was the ultimate answer book / life manual / instrustruction guide, I had a tendency to turn to it in times of trouble.  And I muchprefered it to seeking God in prayer.  After all, the Bible would give it to me in black and white, concrete proof of what I should do.  And all prayer would give me was a feeling or an impression.

Looking back on it now, I really think that what I felt about the Bible bordered on idolatry.  I served it, and its written pages.  I worshipped its wisdom, and bowed before its rules.

So how exactly am I supposed to treat the Bible in reference to my relationship with God?  Well, I haven’t figured that out yet.

I remember when I was a little kid and I would occasionally get in a horrible fight with my “best friend” du jour.  I would get so mad that I wouldn’t talk to them for days, sometimes even weeks (which is FOREVER in little kid time!)  And every time I thought about them I would get mad all over again.  Sometimes they would try to make up before I was ready.  But I was much too stubborn for that, and very good at holding a grudge!

 But sometimes out of the blue, I would realize that not only was I not mad at them anymore, but in fact I couldn’t even remember what had caused the fight in the first place.

This actually happened to me recently.  Only it didn’t involve a friend, or a co-worker, or my husband. 

For the last 6 months, give or take, I have been very angry at God.  I seethed with anger at the very thought of him.  Anger becomes a part of you and grows overtime as it feeds itself.

 So last week, I’m driving home from work, minding my own business, not thinking about God in the slightest.  I’m passing Bank of America, and just about to make a left turn at the Post office, when I the realization that I am angry at God floats to the surface of my consciousness.  Followed, a few seconds later by, “wait. why?”  And then nothing.

 As I continued to drive, I tried to prod myself.  “You’re really angry with God…..He makes you so mad you could scream…..He’s a horrible horrible person…..He does awful things and makes you suffer…..”  But all to no avail.  I could have been saying “The Pope eats purple pepperoni pizza in Paris” for all the emotional response it caused.

It was just gone.  Whatever the cause of the anger, whatever crime that I found Him guilty of, has been completely erased from my memory.

I came across this in a book that I was reading called “Finding Faith” by Brian McLaren, and I thought it was good.  Some people might have issues with his criteria as they don’t really touch on the concepts of theology or doctrinal truth.  Those issues not being of particular importance to me right now, I thought that this would make an interesting discussion, to contrast when I was in the UPC, versus where I am now.

Four Screening Tools to Apply to your search for Faith:

1.  Does the Belief make Sense?  Does it possess internal intellectual integrity and coherence?  Does it fit reality as I know it?  As a system of belief does it hold water?  Can I believe it, not just as comforting and pleasant or helpful, but more, as probable, as convincing, as believable?

UPC:  Most of the stuff I was taught in the UPC DIDN’t make sense, though they often twisted it until it appeared at first glance to be perfectly logical.  Most of us remember a time when it suddenly all began to unravel, eventually, you come to a place where you look back at the things you used to believe, and can’t understand why in the world you ever thought it made sense.

Now:  The only core belief that I can claim with any certainty at the present time, is that: God Is.  To me, that makes sense.  I believe our world is too complex to be adequately explained by science or evolution, I believe that there has to be some sort of intelligent design.  As an extension of that, it seems logical that the designer would have some interest in his creation.

2.  Is the belief workable and livable?  If everyone on earth held this belief, would the results be good?  Does the belief lead to health and life and hope, or would it lead to self-destruction and despair?

UPC: I think I can safely say that this gets a big fat No!  I tried as hard as I could, and no matter how hard I WANTED it too, it just didn’t work.  If everyone on the earth were UPC, the world would be one big holiness contest, with everyone judging everyone else by their adherence to unbiblical rules.  In addition women would be oppressed, and a few powerful leaders would run the world (Dictatorial theocracy!)  Everyone would be tormented constantly with fear of hell, and fear of not living up to the expectations.  I think Depresssion would run rampant.

Now:  Is the belief that there is a God livable and workable? Definately.  If everyone believed that there was a God, I think as a whole there would be less evil in the world, and people would care more about the plight of their fellow man.  I also think that belief in God is a comfort to people in times of suffering.

3.  Do I want to associate with the people who profess this belief?  Does the quality of their community life tend to authenticate or undermine their message?  Does their belief produce good fruit in their lives as individuals and as a community?  Here I don’t expect perfection, but I do expect honesty, forgiveness, love, unselfishness, acceptance and vitality.

UPC:  It’s not so much that I don’t want to associate with them, as I don’t as a whole, trust them.  As a community they tend to breed self-righteousness, judgementalism, and phariseeism.  Though they were the “holiest” people that I knew, they were also the most unaccepting, backbiting, exclusive, know-it-all, hypocritcal people that I knew.

Now:  I still struggle with wanting to associate with people of any flavor of Christianity.  The ones that I tend to spend most of my time with, are others like me.  I do like to spend time with those who admit their own ignorance and short-comings, are open and honest, and are sincere seekers.

4.  If I affiliated with this group, would I feel comfortable bringing an interested friend to visit?  I expect healthy faith to be contagious, so I expect that I will have friends who want to visit whatever faith community I am apart of - if it is indeed nurturing a healthy faith in me.  Would they, whereever they’re coming from, be as welcome as I am there?  Would I be ashamed to bring them there, knowing the experience there would be for them incomprehensible, unwelcoming, offensive or irrelevant?

UPC:  This was always something I struggled with when I was UPC.  Bringing people to church.  I wanted them to be saved, but I didn’t want them to think that I was some kind of freak.  I guess even then I knew that some things seemed crazy from the outside looking in.

Now:  This doesn’t really apply as I am not currently attending a church anywhere.  But it is definately be an important criteria when and if I ever decided to attend church again.

Once upon a time, I thought the world was evil, corrupt, dirty and filled with pain.  And then I thought I found something different, something pure and good and true.

But after all this time, I have to admit that my understanding leaves a lot to be desired.  I used to be amazed, when someone who claimed to be a follower of Jesus, did something wrong, or treated someone badly, or acted selfish and prideful.  And I was likewise amazed when a so-called “worldly” unbeliever acted in a loving or kind manner.

I think I really believed it when I was taught that the “church” is different.  All that talk about being the “salt of the earth” or being a “light” to the world.

And yet for all that, it has continually been those who claim to be follower’s of Jesus that have acted the most cruel to me and to my family.  And there are many who have shown me so much love, that make no claims to christianity at all.

I have noticed particularly of late that this lack of love in Christians, is not limited to my former denomination, but seems to hang on to those who likewise left it behind.

I try so hard to hold on to a small speck of faith, to believe that Jesus is real, and good, and he cares and loves unconditionally.  But how can I when those “closest” to him, act in opposition?

Even those who once claimed to care, have now either cut off communication, or at best treat me with complete apathy.  I guess it’s really no wonder, I can’t believe that God cares either.