Reflecting on Morality and Religious Pressure

Why do my fellow Christians fight me on the elements of my personality which Christ cultivated? Within me there are countless, large imperfections about which they could warn me, but they concentrate their efforts to destroy those parts in me which express Love to the poor and marginalized; the parts of me which seek to deny myself to lift up the powerless. It seems like they seek to make me the Pharisees against whom Jesus spoke throughout the Gospels–the hypocrites who appear to have cleansed themselves of external sins while taking great care to nurture and grow their internal ones. My soul cries out to my brothers, “get behind me Satan! I’m doing my Father’s work!” and it shouts this not out of anger but out of love. Are we so blind that we’ve tricked ourselves into thinking that our evil desires (though cloaked in religion and twisted to look like truth) are in fact pleasing to God? It didn’t work for the religious elite then, so what makes us think that God will favor the religious elite now?

The Spirit in me and the scriptures both testify that God will always, ALWAYS favor the poor and the broken and the powerless over those who appear to be “correct” and “powerful”. Even if my brain can’t find an adequate answer to their twisted logic, God’s truth appeals to my heart–telling me that I may not understand exactly why, but their ways are dark. So it is and will be: I follow God even when the people who’ve taken claim to his name take a different path. I will follow God into the dark places to rescue his precious people even if it means that many of the Christians call me a glutton and a drunk and kick me out of their churches. After all, Jesus endured that first.

On the subject of morality, it seems that there are people who see two kinds of people in the world: those who seek to uphold morality and those who are trying to “lower the moral bar” so to speak. The problem I see is that people with this viewpoint tend to define moral behavior as behavior exclusive of external sins, but the term doesn’t speak to the presence of internal sins. Internal sins (conditions of the heart: jealousy, self-righteousness, judgmentality, etc) get downplayed for the sake of lifting ourselves over those who suffer from external sins (sins identifiable by actions: sexual sins, drunkeness, etc). In this way, we trick ourselves into thinking that we are justified in denouncing the evils of liberalism and homosexuality and alcohol consumption and partying when we have darker sins clouding our vision. We seek to remove sawdust from our neighbor’s eye without first removing the boards from our own. We take great care to wash the outside of our cups, but the insides are filthy. We love to call people out on their mistakes, because it feeds the lie that we’re better than we are–that we do, in fact, deserve love (which stares right in the face of the Cross and the Gospel of Grace). This self-righteousness seems to plague the church, so if someone is truly concerned about upholding morality in our culture, perhaps we should look first at ourselves and then at everyone else. Furthermore, when we stop viewing the world this way, we realize that if our “morality” is only a product of social pressure, then it is empty and worthless. In this way, we are locked in a pointless battle of who’s definition of morality is correct, ours or theirs? When we are freed from this, we realize the only universal morality isn’t measured by actions, but by the motivations which drive our actions (namely the presence of Love or lackthereof). The issue isn’t where the moral bar should be set or whose moral bar should be used; the issue revolves directly around our own loving and hateful desires. The battle isn’t between us and them, the battle is within each of us, cliché though that may sound. We are our own enemies. We are the primary opposition to the cross–not the muslims or the liberals or the homosexuals. Let’s stop scapegoating and own up to our own failures. Let’s really die to ourselves.

Ugly People

So I have a problem with my local church. My problem is that I’m one of the ugliest people who go there. And it’s a biiigg church. This is problematic primarily because there are plenty of ugly people in the area and they aren’t proportionally represented in our local church. If we really accept all people the way we say we do (that being without regard for how much or little value the World puts on them) then I think ugly people would feel just as welcome as anyone.

And understand that I don’t mean to say that any church verbally rejects people based on physical appearance (although other terms of worldly value, like sinfulness, may cause you to be rejected from churches); however, nonverbal cues comprise some 90% of our communication so even if we don’t tell people, “get out, you don’t look good enough” in those words, verbatim, we may be saying the same thing via our dishonest politeness (we ugly people are good at detecting rejection or reluctant acceptance, even when cleverly disguised).

All of this is a problem. The other problem is the misconception that we shouldn’t call people ugly. If a person is physically ugly and we tell them they’re not, we are liars. Plain and simple. The problem isn’t that they’re ugly–the problem is that we don’t accept ugly people. The problem isn’t that we tell them they’re not attractive. It’s that we tell them they’re not attractive enough.

If we tell an ugly person they’re pretty, we’ve given them something other than God and themselves in which they can put their identity. They’re putting their identity in a lie. They think they can be loved for something or someone that they are not. This is known as flattery and for all practical purposes I would think it would apply to non-ugly people as well. They think their reason for being loved is that they look a certain way.

Perhaps it would be more appropriate to let a person think that they’re physically unattractive and show that we love them anyways. That they don’t have to look a certain way to fit in. Could you imagine? Perhaps ugliness isn’t as insulting as our society has made it out to be? Perhaps physical attractiveness, like wealth, intelligence, or any other concept that leads us to believe we have power in our world and control over our reality is all a lie. Maybe we’re not the gods we think we are over our little realms? Perhaps this is the same lie that the snake told the first people in the garden: “Eat of this fruit and you will be like gods.”

Perhaps the first people were terrified that God wouldn’t love them if he saw that they had failed to earn God’s love for the first time. Perhaps that’s why they hid themselves. “Who told you that you weren’t good enough for my Love?” Is that what God’s asking us?

All I know is that since the beginning of time people have prided themselves on how much they have and what they’re capable of, as if this is why they should be loved and respected. And since the beginning of time, God has favored the weak who have nothing to pride themselves in, as if to show humanity that he loves our non-fake bad parts infinitely more than he loves our fake good parts. We can’t earn this love by being good enough, strong enough, etc. We are what we are and that’s all it takes for God to love us (of course, he loves us too much to let us stay that way so he encourages us to grow but doesn’t make it a requirement for His Love).

Sometime I’ll tell you the tale of how I came to concretely realize this, but for now it’s time for work!

Think about this stuff. Srsly. And read the beattitudes for a glimpse of who has power in God’s Kingdom.

Conviction. Compassion. Jesus screwing up my life. Again.

Crap. I hate stuff like this because it makes me aware that I have not arrived. That there is more to do still. I’m in a state of conviction (not to be confused with guilt, which is conviction’s ugly cousin) about this and about poverty in general. This just makes it feel more real and urgent. It speaks out against the lie that there is plenty of time to deal with that later (preferably when I’m rich). What if Church was like this? What if we lived like this? What if we loved like this?

I was scanning through some older posts and came across this video. This is the link to the original post that I made about it if you are interested in reading my thoughts on the matter. If not, I don’t blame you.

PS: Theresa from next door told me last night that I should change my major to French. I’m a junior and that notion is terrifying. I just might do it. If only I had courage…

Church

In America, Christianity is the dominating system of belief. We go to church. I feel like we are content with Church. I feel like we are satisfied with what church is in our culture today. I realized I have no idea what Church is for.

I used to believe that Church was just a pointless, mandatory thing God makes us do in order to get to heaven. It didn’t have purpose for me. Then, someone told me church was about fellowship–uniting together in the name of Christ. However, until very recently, I had yet to go to a service and feel real fellowship.

That very recent incidence occurred at the Catholic Worker House in Waterloo. About once a month they have a Mass in which a local priest comes in with some wine in a water bottle and some communion bread. Previously, I had always disliked Mass because it felt like dry religion. This was an exception. Prior to the service, we had fed some fifty to seventy people–the kind that Jesus said were the most blessed. It was an honor. Then we started the service singing a song that I recognized from my middle school days (“The Song of the Body of Christ”) which I never much cared about. I’ve never cared much about that song before it came alive that night. Then we prayed for our local and global community. And finally, we broke bread. Broken people breaking bread.

Very rarely do I feel alive at church. And I’ve been to many churches. I think the difference lies in that we really were the Body of Christ that night. We became his hands and feet and we reached out to a hungry community. To a rejected community. To beautiful, broken people. In church we talk about what Jesus would do. When we are Church we do what Jesus would do. More importantly, we do it out of Love and not to feel like we’re “more religious” than someone else or to fulfill some absurd religious obligation. Real Church is organic. Real Church is humble.

That was also the first Church I’ve been a part of where Jesus would have unquestionably fit in, rags, homelessness, and all.

At Real Church I met a few guys from Kentucky who were contracted to come up to Iowa to help with the rebuilding after the floods. Many of them got in bar fights and sent to jail and were unable to pay their ways home.

At Real Church I met the craziest looking man I’ve seen in a long time. He was wearing clothes that transcended scruffiness and had the craziest beard I’ve ever seen. All of which sharply contrasted with his new, bright orange NASCAR hat which was pretty awesome. I found out that he was there to serve and not be served, which surprised the Hell out of me. Literally. Then I found out that this man went to Berkley (an Ivy League school, if I recall correctly) and has been to all sorts of cool places including France and knows all sorts of stuff about what’s going on in Africa between dictators, rebels, etc.

At Real Church I met a woman a few generations older than myself who, along with her husband, felt hypocritical living the “normal life” or the “American dream” or whatever you want to call it whilst there were people cold, hungry, and alone. These people sold their house and came to live and “work” in the Worker House.

As a disclaimer, this place wasn’t Real Church because it’s backed by Catholic doctrine or because it’s ministry is better than that of other churches or anything else. Actually this place wasn’t Church at all. We were Church. And we were Church because we became the living Body of Christ–his hands and feet–who humbly reached out to a broken people whom society condemns. We were Church because we did all of this not so we could feel good about ourselves for fulfilling a sickly religious requirement or to appear more religious than the Jones’, but because we conquered ourselves. We saw a broken people and we couldn’t help but love them. We witnessed the love of God directed our way though we didn’t deserve it and we had to reflect it to other broken people. This is the nature of Love.

Here is more about Real Church: A Call to The Church. (this is the link for the following vid):