My Crisis of Faith

In “The Ragamuffin Gospel” Brennan Manning calls it a “Crisis of Faith.” It’s sort of a mid-life-crisis but instead of concerning your age, it concerns your Christianity. I never thought I’d have one…but I’m having one.

I became a Christian at the tender age of nine, after Sunday School one morning at the Baptist church of my childhood. I was convinced of my need for a Savior, and I asked Jesus to become that for me.

But even before that...I loved God. I attribute this to the godly grandmother who really raised me until I was five and my mother got married. My mother worked and we lived with my grandparents, and my grandmother really was more like my mom. She was a devout, wonderful, saintly woman of immense prayer and wisdom. The first songs I sang were Sunday School tunes. I remember bedtime prayers being among the first words I spoke.

I recall trying to read the Bible when I was maybe six or seven years old. The KJV was too dry for a little boy, but I really wanted to read that book. My mom came to Christ when I was nine, after a small earthquake in the middle of the night shook her to her core.  We went to church the very next Sunday, and I’ve been going ever since.

I went to a Christian high school and a Christian college. I can’t recall a time when the Bible didn’t fascinate me, when reading it and studying it didn’t bring me immense joy, when teaching it to a group or sharing it one on one wasn’t a burning passion.

When I rediscovered my talent for writing, I also discovered how much I enjoyed writing about my Faith, and how good I was at it. Not that I broke new theological ground, but that I had a true gift for explaining timeless truths. I am good at word-pictures and this is useful in writing about the Faith.

In my life, I have wanted to pursue only a few differing passions as a vocation. I wanted to play hockey for the longest time. I love the game but I was realistic about my abilities. I satisfied myself with a couple of seasons at the collegiate level and that was that. I wanted to build a construction business and did that for a while. It pacified my creativity but it’s a tough racket. I succeeded in the mortgage business, mostly by default. I was very good at it, but it wasn’t my passion.

No matter what I was pursuing vocationally, there remained beneath the surface a deep desire to have some sort of ministry. I’d always thought –since I was a teenager—that, given my talents and gifts, I would be in ministry full time. That was always my goal and I have wrestled, for forty years now, with the feeling of shame, disappointment, and failure, that I never did achieve this goal.

I feel like I’ve failed God somehow, even though I’ve always been willing, and I have literally failed to achieve all that I might have in my other pursuits, because part of my heart was always looking for this phantom ministry opportunity.

For the past couple of months, I’ve been trying to put this to bed once and for all. I think I finally have. I have, and it’s caused this Crisis of Faith I now find myself mired in. I’ve accepted the fact that there is no ministry door opening for me. Not full-time anyway. But it’s more than that. I’ve watched, especially over the last four years, as the Evangelical world of which I was a part, has become increasingly liberal, increasingly more godless, more commercially driven, more man-glorifying and Jesus ignoring. Oh, they’ll tell you they love Jesus, alright. But not the Jesus of the bible. He’s the Jesus of their own creation. The social justice warrior Jesus who’s only attribute is love. (at the expense of all other attributes of God…holiness, righteousness, etc.) Jesus is just a slightly better version of all of them, now. He’s no longer the holy son of God, who demands a pure, righteous life as a result of the salvation He bestows. Jesus wears skinny jeans. Jesus doesn’t believe in sin anymore. Jesus doesn’t demand change. Jesus confronts nobody about anything…except for capitalists. Neo-Jesus hates capitalists and wealthy people. He hates America and commands American Christians to walk around in sackcloth and apologies for being Americans. He hates Donald Trump and his followers had better not have voted for Trump or else they can just stop following right now.

Skinny-jeans Jesus wears trendy clothes, because otherwise He wouldn’t be relevant. He has a stupid, hipster beard because He isn’t sure whether he’s a man or not. In fact, nobody ever explained to him what manliness was, so he grew that beard because biologically, men can grow beards and so if he grows one, it must mean He’s a man. Neo-Jesus thinks homosexuality is okay. Not that He loves gay people…because all Christians do that, (the real ones at least) no…He literally thinks it’s okay. He thinks the Bible is wrong on the matter. He feels abortion is a matter of “deep personal conviction” (Neo-Jesus’ buddy Carl Lentz told us this so it has to be true) not murder, like Traditional Jesus said.

I’ve watched as we’ve created a star-making system within Christendom. If a “pastor” draws big numbers it HAS to be because he’s “anointed.” (A word so dreadfully overused, but poorly understood as to almost be criminal) If he tells great stories, and makes us feel warm and gooey inside, like a delicious gluten-free, vegan, Tollhouse cookie that our non-gender-specific parent baked or us when we were kids…they tell us he’s a great preacher. He lives in an enormous house, drives an expensive car, dresses like he’s twenty-five (even though he’s forty-five) and uses cool words. He’s known on all the social media outlets, but anonymous in Hell. He’ll greet you warmly if you’re famous, but ignore you if you’re everyman. He says less and less about the Gospel, salvation, sin, virtue, circumspect living, and anxious, desperate prayer…and more and more about success, blessings, prosperity, “love” (as he defines it) and social justice.

He’s never experienced a hardship and yet he is an expert on enduring them. He’s never spent an entire night in prayer, but he writes books on the matter. He can’t wait to drop the name of the entertainment idol who goes to his church, or the other famous Flockstars with whom he associates, but he couldn’t tell you anything at all about the guy who cleans the church during the week, or the kid who cuts his grass.

These people own the Christian media outlets and they have no need for guys like me with dirt under our fingernails, spit in our speech, and mud on our shoes. We wear regular Levis, construction boots that have actually seen a job site, and we’re man enough to not need a beard. (My bearded friends who sport them because they like them, notwithstanding) We’ve been broken and bent. We’ve cried out in the wolf hour and waited for an answer, and when no answers came, we soldiered on because we know Whom we have believed. We didn’t lick our wounds. We didn’t cry like woman and ask lisping existential questions of ourselves. We didn’t get a stress puppy or a facial. We sucked it up, got up off the ground, trusted that God was Who he said He was and we kept going. Our stories are born in actual life experience…not second-hand observation. We grant fame and honor to those worthy of it…not to some sawed-off pop singer who acts like a boorish frat boy but suddenly wants to “just love everyone” and call that Christianity. (COUGH Justin Beiber COUGH) We aren’t enamored with the famous, but the faithful.

There is no place left for guys like me. Not really. We’re offensive. We’re too rigid about things like truth, righteousness, holiness, purity. We’re too patriotic, too American, too conservative. The Neo-Jesus says we can’t be followers if we’re those things.

Well…Neo-Jesus wins. I can’t walk this world with this battle in my soul anymore. I can’t look at the state of Christianity as it is currently constructed, and see any place at all where I fit. Everywhere I look, I see the same faces clawing and grasping for power. Demanding that their opinion be adhered to. Not just heard…followed. Demanding that to be a Christian (as they define it) you must vote this way, act this way, listen to this music, read this book, (not the Bible of course) participate in this social cause, eat no meat, fell no trees, burn no fossil fuels…

I can’t stand the internal battle. So…I surrender. I’m not giving up my Faith, I never could. Jesus is no mere historical figure to me. He is everything. But these people have ruined it for me and I want no more to do with them. There is no place for me in their world, and so be it. I fear more and more real Christians will begin coming to this conclusion. Once the power brokers within modern evangelicalism realized they could actually steer their culture…they headed right for the rocks. I’m jumping ship.

I wanted to write faith-based books, and speak to churches and Christian organizations. But now I see that only as futility. It ain’t gonna happen and I’m not going to try any more. Neo-Jesus and his followers win. I surrender.

I feel better already. Not really, but I’ll keep telling myself that until it’s true.

Why I don't go to church on Easter Weekend...

I'm uncharacteristically quiet on Easter weekend. Starting Maundy Thursday I get very introspective and I internalize the events, mostly in silence. I appreciate that others post things about the cross and the empty tomb, but somehow for me...I can't. I went to a small Christian High School and we had a Good Friday service each year, and seven "Preacher Boys" would deliver a short, 5 minute sermon, each of us taking one of the final words of Christ. As an adult, I got in the habit of going to the Good Friday service at the church I attended, more out of habit, and maybe some guilt if I thought about doing anything else.
As I grew older and became a little more of a contemplative, I gravitated toward isolation on Easter weekend, especially Good Friday. It became more necessary for me to be by myself in order to stop the sounds of the world intruding on my desire to gaze at the viciousness of the cross, unobstructed, and remember what Jesus did for me. But I'd go to the Good Friday services at whatever church I was attending at that stage of my life because I still felt obligated. I stopped several years ago after the pastor of the church I attended at the time decided that the best day of the entire year to collect a gigantic, one-time offering for a new building project was the day Jesus was slaughtered on a cross. The entire service turned into a horrible (for me at least) attempt at solemnifying this vision for a new addition, and the emotionally burdensome twisting of the Crucifixion in order to squeeze the bucks from the faithful. ( "In light of Jesus' ultimate sacrifice on the Cross, we'll honor that by sacrificing for a beautiful new wing so we can spread the Gospel...")
After that day, I promised to never step foot in a church on Good Friday again. That is NOT to say that any other churches do things like this, or that it's wrong to have a Good Friday service at all. I just decided that for me...I'm going to listen to my heart on this and go it alone. For a while, I'd take communion by myself. But as years rolled on and I contemplated the Last Supper and the Cross more and more, I couldn't bring myself to break bread in remembrance. Not on that day.
Easter Sunday is the same for me. Let me repeat there is NOTHING wrong with Easter services. I just find that for me, personally, everything I'm supposed to be thinking about and celebrating gets lost in the mass of humanity. Easter Sunday is really like New Years Day for believers. I remember that He is risen. His new life means I have new life. Today it begins once again. I won't be in church on Sunday. Not because I think it's wrong. I love my church and my pastor. But I find that as each year rolls by, I connect less and less to the real significance of this weekend. Christmas and Easter are our center, as Christians. Without these two events, we have nothing. Routine has sapped the meaning from them and as a Believer, if I don't have that...I have lost my way.
That's why I don't post "He is Risen" memes or go to church on Good Friday. I am REALLY glad others do. I didn't write this to chastise or question anyone. I guess I wrote it in case any of you have a contemplative in your life and can't figure out why they don't get as demonstrative at the holiday as you do. I suppose I also wrote it to challenge us all to make sure we're considering what it is we're remembering.God bless. Happy Easter. He is risen!

Organized Religion, and why people hate it

In recent weeks, the term “Organized Religion” has been thrown around. It’s been spoken with anger and bile by Christians and non-Christians alike. It’s been spit out by those who were on the winning side of the Gay marriage ruling. Now that some court clerks and officials have been forced to take a stand on their Faith, and defy the ruling and not perform marriages, those who wanted the gay marriage ruling have turned their anger from the lack of ability to get married, to those who disagree and won’t perform the service.

They blame “Organized Religion” a boogeyman, a farcical specter that provides a convenient point of focus for the hate they feel. They don’t want to have any resistance at all on this point so they turn their hatred toward anyone who disagrees with them. Simply winning the right to marry wasn’t enough…they insist that everyone else like the idea.  

Okay, I understand that to an extent. They feel they’ve been repressed for years and they need to gloat and make someone pay for having had to live in the shadows. I suppose I get that too. It’s human nature to want to gloat when you’ve been hiding for so long.

But they point their blame at “Organized Religion.”

The other trend these days is the growing cacophony of Believers who also attack the phantom of “Organized Religion.” They have grown bored with their church. Or they got their feelings hurt by someone in the Sunday School class. Or their kid didn’t get picked to sing in the kid’s choir.

Most likely, they heard something from the pulpit and it made them feel uncomfortable. Convicted. Challenged. They instantly rebelled against the Spirit of God and decided that this was all because the church holds to outdated teachings or old-school standards. The Bible demands real change in our hearts, and sometimes we hear a sermon that forces us to examine something about our lives and the next thing you know, we’re comparing it to the Inquisition, and demanding a new version of the Bible be written to eliminate the offending rule.

But to me, there is something very special about “Organized Religion.”

I grew up a fundamentalist Baptist. Not a Southern Baptist, but a fundamentalist. There were rules on top of rules and it choked my image of God. It caused damage. It did harm.

But that is not the fault of Baptist doctrine. 

That can’t be laid at the feet of Hubmaier. Or Billy Graham, or Jerry Falwell.

I have friends who were molested by Catholic priests. I have friends who were raised Catholic and after half a lifetime, were ground to a nub by the rules and regulations and the meatless Fridays. 

But that is not a blanket accusation of the Catholic Church.

“Organized Religion” is what my grandparents brought with them from Italy and from the Ukraine. It was, quite literally, all they had to their names. It gave them courage when they were at sea for weeks, heading to a country they had only heard of, and a life they could only dream about.

It gave them hope. It gave them a foundation. It was their compass. Their prayers and liturgy were the only things that made them feel as though God was along on this journey with them.

When they arrived here, the first thing they sought out was a church, where they knew they would find others who had the same ethnic background and similar heritage. On that boat, in the middle of the Atlantic, they were nameless, faceless, human cargo. But when they walked into the local Cathedral for the first time, they found a home. There were people who spoke the language, and they recognized the liturgy and there was a calming, peaceful, foundation to their world again. The came from halfway across the globe, and everything else was different, but inside the walls of the local church, the priest carried out the Mass in the same fashion as the priest did back in Italy.

My paternal grandfather was Ukrainian, raised Baptist. His family were Baptists in an overwhelmingly Orthodox country. They settled in the Rose Hill area of Chester among other Ukraine and Russian Baptists and it was their Organized Religion that tied the loose ends of the ropes back together. Monday through Saturday might have been frightening and desperate, but Sunday was familiar…because of that Organized Religion.

Germans found the strength to resist Hitler and the Nazis –albeit in small numbers- because of their Organized Religion. Bonhoeffer was one such man and his Faith drove him to protest the Nazi madness and eventually give his life.

Martin Luther King was an ordained Baptist Minister, and accomplished everything he accomplished because of the strength of his Organized Religion.

Last month, when a crazy, hate-fueled young man gunned down nine worshipers, their families response left the world scratching its collective head. They forgave. They could only do that, because of that Organized Religion they so deeply believe in.

There are those, even among believers, who say we need to do away with church. That meeting at home is what God intended and coming together is unnecessary. They cite the early church or the persecuted church. In both cases, meeting in homes was necessitated by persecution. Ideally, they would have done both, met in homes and come together on the Sabbath to celebrate as one.

But we have people who know better than the church fathers did. People without any formal training, who claim to have an insight that Paul, or Peter, or Jerome, or Justin Martyr never did. They had decided that they don’t like church anymore and rather than just own their rebellion, they claim a new revelation.

They forget that the history of this Faith of ours is written in the blood of those who met in public as a body, with one purpose and goal. They forget that Paul commands it. They disregard –or don’t know in the first place- the roots of the Church go directly to public, large group gathering. The early church was born in the synagogue and the Temple. Not in someone's living room.

(I am not against small groups, by the way. I am against them replacing the church body)

I have watched as Organized Religion has become the catch phrase for anyone who bears witness of their faith and who disagrees with anything anyone else might do, because of that Faith.

Gently, lovingly refuse to bake a wedding cake and it’s because of hateful Organized Religion. Speak out about adultery or drunkenness, and you adhere to Organized Religion and its antiquated ways.

I suppose I am guilty as charged. I hold tightly to Organized Religion. I trust it. Someone had to do the Organizing, and if you know history, it was the very men who walked with Jesus. They were the ones who set about codifying what we believe. They repeated to us, very carefully, what Jesus Himself had told them. They had an insight we could not. I trust them.

I hold tightly because I know what my faith has meant in my life. Even now, as I am struggling terribly with internal battles and doubts and problems for which there seems to be no solutions. But I have walked this road for over forty years now and I “know Whom I have believed.”

I find myself in another dark desert, calling out as I grope along, like a man feeling his way along the wall of a dark cave. “God…are you there?” I know He is. I know He is because He always has been. My not “sensing” him means not a whit. He is there nonetheless. I know this because I have experienced Him…and because I have experienced Organized Religion. I have experienced what lies underneath it. I know it’s Power. When my steps are slow and heavy and my prayers stick to the roof of my mouth, it is the foundation of Organized Religion that keeps me going. The base that makes up the liturgy and the sacraments. The written prayers and creeds and hymns connect me with the very first Christians. I take the same communion that Paul took. I speak the same Lord’s Prayer that Peter recited. And Jerome. And Francis. And my grandmother.

I read the same Bible that Wyckliffe died to reproduce. I am connected all the way back to the Cross of Jesus, because of Organized Religion.

More personally, it saved my life, long after it saved my soul. When I was living in the home of my grandparents, the son of an unmarried 20 year old woman and a 21 year old Army grunt in Vietnam, it was the Faith of my grandmother that I recall being the first love I ever felt.

It was Faith that walked me through difficult times year after year. Faith that brought me through the devastation of divorce, and the collapse of my career, and homelessness, and the painfully slow rebuilding process since then. It was the echo of the prayers of the saints who have gone on ahead, that whispered in my ear every time I fell and didn’t think I could get up again. It was the power of the words…the unchanging, timeless, hope-filled words of the Bible...that worked in my soul and re-created who I was time and again. A timeless book, thousands of years old, without contradiction or error. As old as history and as new and fresh as my next breath. This book is so living, so moving and so wonderful and maybe the best thing about it is that you are not obligated to believe it, or live by it. But please, don’t attempt to discount it, simply because you disagree with it. It has meant far too much to far too many people for far too many years. Hate it if you must. But recognize its legitimacy. 

At least be that honest.

This faith…this Organized Religion gave me a home when I was a boy trying to fit in. It gave me a home again, when it worked in the hearts of a family who recognized my loneliness and made me one of them. It gave me Faith –sometimes abundant, overwhelming faith, and sometimes just enough to survive one more long wearisome day- when I had crashed and burned after my divorce, and again when I was homeless.

This Faith saved my life. It’s saved countless lives. I’m sorry that sometimes there are people who do things and say things in the name of this Faith, which actually contradict that Faith. God is patient and He permits fools. We won’t see the score until the match is over. I’m sorry that this Faith stands in opposition to your life. It stood in opposition to mine as well, and so I fell on the Cornerstone of that Faith…Jesus. I fell on Him because He gave me that option. Because eventually, He will fall on those who have not fallen on Him. Falling on Him breaks you. It broke me. But when that stone falls on you…you are crushed. 

One is definitely better than the other.

This faith saved my life, and it saves it daily. It’s literally all I have. When my prayers return unanswered, it is the promise of that Faith that gives me enough hope to pray yet again. Because time has beaten on this Organized Religion, but has never beaten it. Centuries have come and gone and still this Faith remains. Powerful men have tried to destroy it, or silence it with ridicule. And still it brings new life.

Organized Religion -the saving Faith of Jesus Christ- is woven through the tapestry of the last 2000 years. Christmas is Organized Religion. Easter is Organized Religion. The faithful prayers of old ladies praying for their children and grandchildren is Organized Religion.

The Cross is Organized Religion at its headwaters, and it has made all the difference in my life.

It still does. I would die for it. I may have to if society continues on its spiral.

I will go out, with the prayers of the early fathers on my lips. Unashamedly holding on for life

…to my Organized Religion.