Balanced, Not Superstitous

I’m sure this post will earn some guffaws and maybe some blow-back from my loyal readers who happen to be atheists or semi-militant agnostics, but here goes…

My belief in God, and Jesus for that matter, is not a sign of any of the following:

• Fear of death
• Insecurity
• Superstition
• Desire to belong to a group
• An aching emptiness inside that I wanted to fill
• Delusion
• Idiocy
• Lack of scientific awareness
• Immaturity

In fact, I see a lot of maturity and balance in my worldview. And that is because I deny neither the scientific nor the spiritual. I’m not saying I have all the answers in life, but what I do have is a lot of internal security and well-being.

I don’t understand when entirely secular folks insist that to be fully mature, I must deny my belief in, and search for, spiritual meaning. Just as I don’t understand religious people who insist on ignoring science and reason.

Humans have sought spiritual discernment for a long time, and for quite a number of centuries (in fact, a couple millennia at least), it hasn’t been about explaining why it rains or how the sun moves across the sky or anything like that. It’s been about a deeper kind of meaning. People who dismiss religion as an artifact of ignorant ancient goat herders is doing a disservice to goat herders (many of whom, I am sure, had deeper thoughts than screwing their herd-stock and picking at their asses) and a disservice to spiritual seekers.

Yes, there was a time when religion was all about explaining worldly things. But as people have advanced, so has the depth and maturity of spiritual seeking. Sure, there are plenty of idiots in the world who follow religion and religious leaders blindly and skim only the surface of religious precepts, but most people seem to prefer following someone than thinking for themselves.

Funny thing is, spiritual seeking, while it cannot follow the scientific method, does still follow the same general progression as science. That is, as humans have advanced, so has the study. Science was once a pretty pathetically ignorant, simplistic and sketchy affair, just like religion.

The problem is that the more we figure out about the world, the more full of ourselves and our intelligence we become, and the more we think we don’t need God. We are not slowly disproving God, but simply pushing him aside unnecessarily.

If more believers would be mature about their spiritual seeking, and more non-believers would stop ridiculing those who are trying to find spiritual meaning, maybe religion wouldn’t be the mess it has become these days. Now, both sides, secular and religious, essentially call the other side a bunch of heretics, which solves nothing.

I can already see one retort coming.

But science is rational. Science doesn’t lead to oppression or wars!

Wrong.

Maybe it doesn’t have the same track record right now, but religion had a hell of a head start. People can blindly follow a scientific theory or finding as much as a biblical principle. Science and research can be twisted, skewed and misrepresented.

Hmmmm. Just like religion.

The Nazis based their genocidal campaign in World War II based on “science” that showed Aryans were superior. Noted intellects justified slavery by “proving” that Blacks weren’t as evolved or even as human as Whites. Medical science can downplay the horrors of abortion, even as it can also be used to overplay them. Research shows us that it isn’t cost-effective or “useful” to pay for certain types of medical screening or healthcare, and so insurance companies and hospital executives can oppress us to sickness or even death. Religious groups can call homosexuals deviant because they can point to a  lack of scientific proof that same-sex desires are inherited rather than learned or chosen. Need I go on?

Science is on pace to do everything that religion did and more. It can bring us together in understanding and truth and good guidance. And it can tear us apart.

Science is not the be-all and end-all of human experience, and it never will be. Nor shall religion or any kind of spiritual pursuit. I maintain that both are entirely necessary to being mature humans.

An Itinerant Deacon?

So, I find myself wondering: Am I am itinerant deacon in some strange sense?

What I mean is that nearly a decade ago now, I was ordained a deacon by my father-in-law, who at the time was also my pastor. The church was small. Very small. Which I actually think was a plus, as we could have discussions and Bible teaching/debate as often as sermons—and sometimes both in the same hour to hour-and-a-half sermon.

So, I didn’t have a lot of duties, really. It wasn’t like doing the Lord’s Supper (communion) was all that taxing, even though I had to serve the entire congregation myself. I said it was small, right? I didn’t have a lot of greeting to do at the door. But I helped. And when I wasn’t helping during services, I was a sounding board for my father-in-law, and I did other support duties for him, like trying to set up a rudimentary online ministry, editing religious writings he was doing, and things like that. Even after I moved hundred upon hundreds of miles away to relocate in New England, I have done things like transcribe tapes of a book he was writing about the role and nature of Satan.

Since coming out here more than seven years ago, I haven’t really served much as a deacon. Part of that has been the lack of a church home for much of that time. We would find a church to attend, and find it reasonably tolerable or even promising, and then after some weeks or months, we would find some fatal flaw in regard to staying there (crazy heretical things cropping up, people treating our multicultural family with the cold shoulder, sexism or homophobia, etc.). Wisely, I haven’t made a point of mentioning my deacon work in the past when I have entered a church, not wanting to be put to work and getting sucked in when I’m not even sure it’s a church I want to join.

At one church, I did make my deacon past known, and it was a small church of size similar to my father-in-law’s, and I helped with communion there a couple times and some other stuff, but then the pastor started getting a prophet complex, started preaching a lot of prosperity/name-it-and-claim-it stuff, and started preaching about how if you weren’t speaking in tongues, you weren’t born again. I clammed up about being a former deacon at the next several churches we tried after that.

For almost a year now, we’ve been members of a church. It’s a fairly big church (for this area, that is), and it’s involved in the community a lot and people are pretty nice. The sermons can be a bit light sometimes, but the liberal bent is more in line with the views of myself and my wife, since the more conservative churches seem to like to campaign against legalizing same sex marriage, stomping on women’s right, and wonderful things like that. I’d rather have a church that errs on the side of equality and human rights and kindness, rather than one that preaches nasty attitudes.

The pastor hasn’t really called on me to serve, and it doesn’t look like there’s much need for me anyway.

So, what is my role? Am I really a deacon?

I like to think that I am, and that is where the whole itinerant deacon concept cropped up in my mind. Itinerant preachers are those who travel, and don’t really set up shop in a particular town or church. I think that’s what I am, because of the Internet presence I’ve created for myself. I talk about spiritual and religious matters (among other things), and having a blog that can be read by anyone in the world, I “travel” in a way. But am I serving as a deacon? I think so. I am lifting up Jesus and serving church needs, in the global sense of the church of Christ. I sometimes find inspiration in posts from sermons that my current pastor gives, and so at times I am helping him get his words out there, however indirectly.

So, I am a helper, and a representative. I guide people where I can to examine scripture and to look for answers and spiritual growth, and those seems to me to be very deacon-like things.

So, I’m ordained, but not called to a specific place. I am no Bible scholar, but I believe I have deep enough spiritual discernment to be of help in presenting Christianity, the Bible and Christ in a good light.

I am, in the end, a servant. Albeit a servant who sometimes cusses and sometimes is irreverent. But you know, Jesus had a sense of humor and sometimes a short temper, too. So I’m in good company there.

And so, for now, I remain your humble itinerant deacon.

Getting Off Track, Part 1

So, a couple days back in “Journeying Toward God,” I said I’d have some follow-up points on Christians and non-Christians and where I notice they can really get off track. Well, first, the Christian folk.

I see in too many Chrisitians the kind of legalism that Jesus railed against when he was arguing with priests and scribes back in the day.

It’s not that Jesus didn’t believe in the law. He did. It’s not that he didn’t follow the law. He did (and was one of the precious few people in existence who ever did). But as he point out on more than one occasion, the spirit of the law was the critical thing, and not the literal letter of the law.

What good is a sabbath day where you don’t work, but you’ll let someone suffer because to help them is to “work?” What good is paying tithes if you go through your day with no kindness or mercy? What good is praying if you do it in public just so people can know you’re really doing it, when you might not even be feeling it?

I see a lot of Christians around me, whether literally or on TV and in books who are all too willing to spout the Word of God and tell us why we must follow it, but who don’t get the larger points of salvation, mercy, love and the rest.

I have, for example, slammed the Duggar family many a time for their beliefs as part of the quiverful movement. They focus on the relatively few Bible passages that talk about the blessings of a large family, and make like that means we should just keep spitting kids out as fast as we can. But that’s not what the Bible tells us. In Bible times, for one thing, people didn’t live very long on average compared to today. They worked the land or sea in many cases, and needed children to carry out the family work. In some cases, God wanted the Hebrews to have many children so that there would be plenty of Hebrews to carry out His plans and his works and set the path and eventual stage for Jesus.

We don’t live in a world where having tons of kids is good idea for most people (at least speaking from someone in an industrialized nation). In fact, it would be a back-breaking financial burden for 90% of families to simply just keep spitting out kids. And yet there are people like the Duggars who will hold it up as doctrine that we should be doing this because that’s what the Bible says.

Children are still a blessing, and we should have them for many reasons. But within reason.

Chrisitian will rail against homosexual marriage in society, when the only thing they should care about is whether their church is actually marrying gays and lesbians. On a societal basis, it isn’t any business of the Christians whether the government and the people as a whole want to let homosexuals marry. I don’t think it should be something that churches are forced or expected to do, given the biblical prohibitions. And yet Christians will lose their damned minds over this issue and start thumping the Bible in front of everyone to say it’s a societal evil that should be prevented or purged. But the Bible wasn’t written to build a society. God wanted it to provide a spiritual path.

I could go on with other examples. Prosperity ministries. Speaking in tongues. Killing abortion providers.

The journey to be in synch with God from a Christian perspective relies on an understanding of the Bible. But that understanding is not gained by compiling a list of do’s and do not’s. It is gained by understanding why we need to seek God and by recognizing the larger scheme of thing. It’s about opening our hearts to heaven and at the same time to those around us.

If we do those things, we will act in line with biblical precepts much of the time.

If we’re just following a rulebook, we’ll get off track every time, just like the priests and scribes Jesus criticized.

Drive-by Scripture, Acts 4:31-37

After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need. Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means Son of Encouragement), old a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles’ feet. (Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 4, verses 31-37, New International Version)

I would like every Christian fundamentalist who goes on and on about the evils of social service programs, the peril of socialized medicine and the like to read the above passage and then kindly, shut the hell up.

I find it incredibly annoying how many Christians will say, “But that’s not the government doing that in the Bible. It was Christians. I’m all for Christians and churches giving out help, but not the government with my taxes!”

And yet, two things are so abudantly clear.

First, churches are generally unable, and often unwilling, to help at the kind of levels needed to ensure that families have healthcare and other basic necessities when they can’t afford them (and who can these days?). Individual Christians, too, often the very ones who spout the rhetoric I just exemplified above, also don’t provide the necessary levels of support to do these things.

Second, these are often the very same Christians who have no problem with our tax dollars being spent to wage war on nations for no particularly good reason, and to occupy them for years after the original conflict has ended. These are often also the people who call upon government to craft laws in line with the Bible.

Because, you know, government should enforce God’s will when it’s punitive or to rein in our behaviors, but Heaven forbid that it should get involved with the more important Christian principles of mercy, love, comfort and help.

Standing Out by Miz Pink

Sometimes being different is not such a comfy thing ya know?

I’m a liberal. Very liberal. I’m a Christian. As in, I really believe Jesus is the true way to God.

This poses problems.

Nah…not with my personal faith or the way I conduct life but with the people around me.

When liberal friends (most of them pretty much not churchgoing types) find out I’m a Christian and a bible reader they kind of go all googly eyed and such and don’t know what to make of me anymore. I suddenly become the village idiot who used to be cool but now isn’t because she believes in the flying spaghetti monster in the sky.

When Christian friends find out my political leanings it’s like I’m suddenly branded a heretic who doesn’t REALLY believe in the bible I guess. No matter how much I point out how much things shifted from the old to the new testament and how even religion is an evolving entity as people and societies changes…I get looked at like a traitor who doesn’t deserve the Lord’s Supper anymore.

So what’s the answer? Do I have to hide my faith from my liberal friends? That’s not cool because Jesus wants us to be open about our faith. Do I nod when my Christian friends go off on a Obama-as-antichrist rant and act like it doesn’t faze me? That’s dishonest and I should call them on self righteous bull dookie.

I don’t have any answer to the quandry. I guess I’m just glad that Sir Pink is liberal enough that we agree on most politics and religious enough that he’ll tolerate going to church on the regular.

Random Thoughts

First, if anyone sees Miz Pink, tell her to put down that new baby and get back here to do some posting. I don’t care how sweet her breath is or how nice it feels to cuddle her. Slap on a sling and get to typing, woman. (Deac gets ready to dodge incoming virtual projectiles.)

Second, after promisinng to try to get back to daily posting, I’ve already missed a day this week. No time for massive posts, so a couple random thoughts.

Change Happens

I see two powerful and equally untenable schools of thought in my travels through the blogosphere and personal interactions. There are those who advocate that all religious insitutions and traditions should be brought crashing down and either tossed aside entirely or rebuilt into something entirely new and all-embracing.

I also see those who argue that tradition is not just habit but evidence of such fundamental truth that it must not be touched. That the institutions and traditions we have had through the centuries must remain as they are, because their endurance is proof that they are right.

Both camps are dead wrong. Change must always occur, but that doesn’t mean we destroy all cherished traditions or decree that if God remains invisible to our eyes, He is either nonexistent or dead. Likewise, the fact that we hold to traditions doesn’t make them right. For a long time, slavery was quite the tradition, wasn’t it? Or conquering other lands for personal gain. We tend to frown on such things now, and rightly so. The fact is that many traditions do come from habit, and also from enduring misinterpretations of the Word of God. Let’s not forget that even the apostles had some disagreements on points of doctrine back in the earliest days of the church. That has never changed, and remains the best proof that we must always be open to change, though we must also remain guided by the Holy Spirit as much as possible in such things.

No, no….YOU sing!

This thought comes courtesy of Mrs. Blue:

If you have enough people with voice talent to have a choir in your church, they should do the singing. Oh sure, I don’t mind us in the congregation doing our share too. Community and fellowship do suggest that we should sing a couple hymns together and all that.

But I am tired of going to churches where we are expected to stand and sing WITH the choir most of the service. If they have talent, we’re doing nothing but ruining their good work. Trust me. Deacon Blue’s voice is awful in song, and mine isn’t all that great either unless I’m in the shower.

Bad enough to go to a church where there is no choir and we are FORCED to rely on the whole out of tune congregation for uplifting music. But if you have a choir, let them lift up our spirits for most of the songs. Everyone will be happier…well most of them anyway. TRUST ME!

Fellowship Via the Stomach

Consider this a shared thought of me and Mrs. Blue:

More churches should have a little coffee and snack fellowship time right after services. Really, it’s a nice way to get people to stick around and connect over more than hymnals, collection plates, and sermons. Church is about edification about the Word and bringing our spirits closer to God as a group, but it’s also about people with a common connection getting together. Let’s not get so caught up in the spirit that we forget entirely about fostering community.

Waggling Our Tongues…

Well, I’m not feeling very inspired today, and I don’t know how many of you check out the “Recent Comments” menu in my sidebar, but since a visitor decided to comment on one of my older posts, let me point you toward that thread, with her comment and mine of course being at the very end of things. And, I’ll have a couple quick things to say below after you’re done.

The Tongue Is a Consuming Fire

I’ve mostly said what I wanted to in my comment to christina. But, I can add a couple things.

First, I’m not going to ever hesitate to criticize a fellow Christian, or a branch of Christianity, if I feel the need. The Word of Faith movement, in particular, troubles me with it’s credo that faith will bring prosperity meme. Because the flip side of that is that if you suffer or lack, you have failed God in some way. That God is making you poor or you are keeping yourself poor because you just don’t pray hard enough. That’s such a dangerous attitude, and an arrogant one…and so out of line with the Word of God that I think it borders on heresy.

I am not shy about admitting my own failings, which are many and frequent. And I also won’t hesitate to point fingers when I see supposed Christian brethren leading people astray or doing harm to the psyches of those whom they case aside or essentially ridicule for not being good enough because they aren’t successful enough.

Anyone who acts like they have all the answers to all the questions is arrogant. And when they lift up worldly things as evidence of God’s favor…and have us chasing after such things instead of cleaving closer to God’s Word with actions and concerns outside of our wants and desires…that’s just wrong.

Forbidden Fruit

So, with Maine’s governor having signed a same-sex marriage bill into law (yes, legislation that actually gives gays and lesbians the ability to get married and not have to register for some parallel domestic partner registry that grants them fewer marriage rights), I’m sure the religious right is in a tizzy.

Not that I’d know how much of a tizzy, really, because I’ve been too busy to keep up with the news lately.

I’m not going to simply rehash the reasons I’ve already outlined as to why I think opposition to same-sex marriage is silly. Besides, I’ve already been accused of being a “radical liberal” (despite being against PeTA on more causes than not, and for capital punishment in some cases) and a “false Christian” (guess I’ll be joining some of you in Hell despite having accepted Jesus…who knew?) for my views on this.

What I want to address though, is the militant fascination so many on the Christian side of things have with stamping out the same-sex marriage thing. Why?

Because too many of them feel threatened by it. They fear that giving some 10% of the population the same marriage benefits as themselves will somehow give the homosexual community some unassailable power base from which to dismantle the Christian establishment. Never mind that plenty of atheists, agnostics, Jews, neo-Nazis and others can get married already, and doing so hasn’t destroyed Chrsitians.

Also, I think that the big-time Christian opposition is insecure in its own marriages overall, feeling somehow that allowing other consenting adults the same institution will diminish their own marriages. What they fail to realize is that the only thing that can truly diminish the value of their marriages is how they themselves treat them. Which is, too often, quite badly.

Opponents of same-sex marriage truly see it as some kind of demonic, destructive force that will rip a huge chunk out of the foundation of civilization itself. It is a notion that is so overblown in its assumptions that my mind reels. Frankly, I’m more disturbed that we allow minors to get married in some states than I am that two grown adults that share the same sexual parts will.

Finally, I think the opponents fear that somehow, same-sex marriage will normalize homosexuality to the extent that it will gain the same prominence as heterosexuality. I think this is where the deepest fears lie. They fear that same-sex marriage will convince their own children that homosexuality is just the same as heterosexuality. They fear that this is somehow a huge step on the path of converting their children to same-sex relations, paying no mind to the fact that sexual orientation is not established (much less changed) so easily. That by and large, overwhelmingly, people want to be with people of the opposite gender.

It has nothing to do with souls or salvation, because these opponents, if they cared about souls, would be trying to convince same-sex couple to find Jesus. But they aren’t trying to help them find anything. They are trying to oppress them and they are treating them as enemies. And they are treating the effort to prevent legalization of same-sex marriage as a war.

But there is no bright and shining goal at the end; merely a goal of preventing other adults from pledging their lives to each other. There is nothing here but an attempt to hold onto something that doesn’t even belong to Christianity alone. Marriage wasn’t created by God. It’s a societal creation, and thus one whose rules must be decided by the society in which it exists. And in a country like ours, that means the rules sometimes change, and often with a vote involved in that change.

There is no honor in this battle against same-sex marriage.

It’s driven by fear, pure and simple. And God never told us to operate from a position of fear. Nor one in which we force the rules of the Bible onto anyone.

Light Weight

In various things I’ve been reading on some of the blogs I frequent, and in just assessing myself and my approach to both the physical and the spiritual world, I’ve been thinking a lot about the whole “light of Christ” and “light of God” thing.

That is, as a Christian, I should be a reflection, as much as possible, of my savior and my father in Heaven. Their light, via the Holy Spirit, should shine through me. Ideally, in promoting the gospel, I will be both a beacon to draw people into discussions about faith and salvation, and a lighthouse to help point them in the right direction. Or a candle to help them study something and understand it as it relates to the Word of God.

But it occurs to me that this is a much heavier burden and responsibility than it might at first seem. It’s already daunting enough to try to be the best person I can be and to sometimes stop thinking of my wants so that my duty to God can be carried out.

What is more daunting is to realize that light isn’t always a good thing. We are supposed to be lights for God and Jesus, but sometimes, we don’t illuminate but rather blind people.

Shining a flashlight into a person’s eyes is not generally something that person will desire. It will make them look away, and it might evoke a nasty response if the flashlight is held there long enough. Going overboard and saying too much, too fast to someone about Christianity can be so generally blinding as to make it impossible to see the core truths and foundational things a person needs to start with before they dive deeply into a faith walk.

And, well, the military and special forces police officers sometimes uses flash grenades to stun and disorient people. That’s essentially light as a weapon.

I try to be light in this blog. And I don’t refrain from being snarky and even obnoxious at times. I don’t know that any of that will change any time soon, but I wonder if it must one day. Do the words and attitudes I throw out help to guide people in to learn more?

Or are the words I use (foul or otherwise) actually flash grenades that will do nothing but harm?

I don’t have answers. But it does bear examination.

And, hopefully, personal illumination.

Two-fer Tuesday: Marriage by Deacon Blue

I don’t know how many among my readers are against the idea of legalizing same-sex marriage. But if there are any of you out there, with strongly held opinions that you can argue well, would you please tell me something?

What the hell is so wrong about legalizing same-sex marriages?

Please don’t give me biblical arguments, though, despite the fact I expound and ramble about spiritual issues around here a lot. Because frankly, marriage is a civil union, ultimately. That license comes from the state, the recognition of your rights as a married couple and the status of your inheritance, custody, etc. are defined by the state. You might get married in a church and say your vows to God, but the institution of marriage is not a religious or spiritual thing inherently.

So, again, what is wrong with same-sex marriage? How is it going to lead to the downfall of the family? How does it fly in the face of honest, wholesome values? What apocalyptic thing is it going to unleashed societally?

Two of my best friends where I live right now are a gay couple. They are raising a little girl. They raise her as well as the traditional married couples whom I count among my real friends. They raise her better than average married couples based on married folks with kids whom I’ve encountered. In every way, the model nuclear family.

Opposite-sex couples separate and divorce and remmary at alarming rates.

Same-sex couples pay the same taxes the rest of us do and follow the same laws and are equal citizens, so why are they denied—or why should they be denied—the right to get hitched?

I really want to know. I really want to see some defensible argument. Because so far, all I see among the people who protest against this and rail against the idea is a bunch of mean-hearted, closed-minded, ill-informed religious folks who are trying to bolster a civil debate using biblical arguments.