There seems to be an implication in the writings of both Luther and Calvin that to be fully Christian is to be fully sinless? And therefore, complete Christianity is not attainable until physical death? I don’t think I agree…perhaps to be fully Christian is to be fully faithful? But then, is that possible? Perhaps to be fully Christian is to be fully assured of God’s faithfulness through Christ…

I’ve spent a year or so in this valley of burnout and bitterness. It isn’t fun, and I’m not going to lie and say that I’m somewhere else just yet.

But this morning  I woke up and I cared a little bit more  than has become usual. I read the Bible and when I was done with today’s passage, I thought to myself that it was interesting, not that I was perplexed.

Oddly enough, that passage was Psalm 13, 1-5;

How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

2How long must I wrestle with my thoughts

and every day have sorrow in my heart?

How long will my enemy triumph over me?

3Look on me and answer, O LORD my God.

Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death;

4my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”

and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

5But I trust in your unfailing love;

my heart rejoices in your salvation.

All I can say to that is that I certainly hope so!!

Anyway–anybody else seeing the end of a difficult situation coming up ahead? Anybody still in the valley? (If you are, I seem to have lost my toothbrush somewhere. If you see a pink one with yellow bristles, rinse it off and pass it this way.) Anybody have no idea what I’m talking about and wishing I would write about something interesting?

Can anyone honestly, seriously, explain this way of thinking to me?

It just seems like an unnecessarily extreme response.

So here’s the old thought…

…a relationship with Christ is individual, but church is not, and it is a vital part of maintaining and practicing that relationship with Christ. I think that it’s all too easy for vital, aware, spiritually-centered Christians to cop out and say, “oh well, really this is an individual thing” when they see things going wrong or badly focused in church. I did this for years myself. There is such a serious lack of accountability in many church bodies now, and I believe that it’s an individualistic, me-centered cultural attitude transposed onto otherwise vital, healthy Christ-centered living that enables it.
Our purpose and calling is never to be independent of other believers…I believe.  If the groups we belong to and the people leading those groups are janky–then I think it’s our responsibility to hold those groups and people accountable. But it seems like the fashion is to be complicit instead of counter-cultural.

Pros;

-I have an actual, personal relationship with Divinity. He’s bigger than me, he’s smarter than me, and gosh darnit, he really likes me.
-I have a frame of reference outside of the natural, visual world that I can use to understand life and how I relate to it.
-I have freedom to do whatever I want, and the freedom to NOT do whatever I want. Think on that one. It’s important.
-Because of my relationship with God through Christ, I have a capacity to love and honor others in a very daring, effective way that wouldn’t occur to me in that natural frame of reference.
-We stole Christmas, Easter, Fourth of July and renamed Halloween so our kids could still eat themselves sick on candy. And what!?

Cons;
-The people. Overwhelmingly white and middle class, or aspiring to be so.
-The social stratification, and self-righteous tendency in Christians to think we have a monopoly on morals and character. Not so. If anything, we have a lot more to learn.
-The lack of focus on actual character and maturity in most charismatic evangelical churches. I have never met so many shallow backstabbing people in my life who think because they prophesy, praise dance, and get married at 21, nobody’s gonna call them out to their face for being a stone cold dyed in the wool BITCH…grrr. You don’t get to treat people badly behind their backs just cause you do church stuff.
-The lack of out-of-the-box thinking…HELLO! We’re loving GOD here people, not your mother-in-law who always changes your cabinets around when she comes to visit…can we act like we like it, at least?
-Too culturally driven, not enough basis in spirituality OR reality…Christian culture and Christian belief are often two separate things…and never the two shall meet.
-Lack of connection, for many people, between the spiritual life as a Christian and the physical life. To me that’s a huge gap that needs to be breached.
-Personally, this ish has ruined my life. Had I known what I was getting myself into at 15, I would have found myself a goat to sacrifice to Bastardamus posthaste<—jokes! But Christianity has gotten me into FAR more than I bargained for, and most of it hasn’t been good. If it wasn’t for the underlying beauty of the relationship I have with God, I’d have quit looooooong ago. And even so, I think about quitting a lot now and just…not being a part of all this madness. Just retreating and living my faith personally…it’s the corporate stuff that’s killing me.
-We stole Christmas, Easter, Fourth of July and renamed Halloween so our kids could still eat themselves sick on candy. And what!?

I’m sure I’ll write more about what that means later…

Specifically, I feel like I should repent of having been a missionary. Of the arrogance of believing that I could be God’s instrument of  change in a place, a people, a time. I feel like I should repent of my idealism.

I don’t know that this desire for repentance is because idealism, mission, and the belief in change is wrong. In many people, they’re great. In me, however, they’re not. And not because they’re wrong…but because they’re useless.

Of course there’s more to the story, but I’ll tell it later…

Something must have gone very wrong….