Some Thoughts On Blasphemy Day

So today is September 30–happy Blasphemy Day. If you’ve done any poking around my site, it will be painfully obvious that I’m not an atheist or agnostic, but I do have hope for today. First, some background.

I’m ill-educated on the matter, but from what I understand, the purpose of B-day is to strike out against social norms and national laws which prohibit speaking negatively against religions. And to do so, the organizers encourage acts of sacrilege in public arenas.

I can’t help but think they’re trying to make change by offending their opposition. As a matter of fact, I read that that was the goal. I can’t see any other purpose for such acts, nor can I see how this is going to actually make change. I think it’s going to cause a lot of hurt for people on every side of the issue.

As a follower, however, I’m excited because it is an opportunity to choose to Love those who don’t love me back, rather than loving my pride. Pride is among my biggest weaknesses (if there are weaknesses that aren’t rooted in pride).

Frankly, if they want to hate on Christianity (while B-day isn’t explicitly anti-Christian in nature, that’s certainly the flavor it seems to have in many places in the US), I say let them. I’ll support the repeal of those laws (if there are any in the United States).

I read today some commentary about why we shouldn’t be offended. Mostly because Jesus was “despised and rejected among men” and we aren’t called to defend His honor, but to share in His scorn. It’s beautiful because it’s hard and it can’t be done apart from Love. This strategy benefits absolutely everyone and the only reason we seem to suffer is because we are prideful and this is a lesson in humility and Love.

The opportunities for cheek-turning and cloak-giving and two-mile-walks abound. Not to mention the many truly humble prayers and blessings for our “enemies”.

Have a great Blasphemy Day.

Sincerely, Craig

PS: Some other thoughts: this compels me to revisit the notion of laying down our rights because Christ lay down His for us. Central in our acceptance of Christ is the idea (read: fact) that all we have is a gift–we forsook our rights to demand rights at the foot of the cross–something my lovely friend Bethany reminded me of a week ago (in fewer, better words, of course).

I’m right, right?

It’s better to become right than to be right. When you become right, you seek to change your views to accommodate the truth. When you try to BE right, you try to change the truth to accommodate your views. This is one of the differences between humility and pride.

How the Hell should I title this?

Ugh… Will I ever conquer myself? I made great strides tonight (I’m writing this at 5AM)… I laid down pieces of me, confessing some of the deepest parts of my being to people and putting myself totally on the line. I mean these are parts of my depravity that I rarely let myself see, much less God, much less other human beings. The Truth kicks my ass. A lot. I’m totally vulnerable, but after having worked through it, I’m at peace with even the worst possible reactions to these confessions. I’m confident in myself again. I have some measure of my security and self identity in God where it needs to be and not in my masculinity, fake-spirituality/religiousness, or even my “normality”. I’ve allowed the Truth to wittle me down to a very little man, but a little man who can only rely on God for his identity.

Cliche as that sounds, it’s a great place to be, methinks. Blessed are the poor in spirit and stuff, right? I’m starting to understand why the first are last and the last are first. I’m starting to realize why there aren’t losers when Jesus wins, because Jesus makes himself a loser so we can win. I’m starting to realize that that’s how we are to live. Submissive to others. Vulnerable. I’m re-understanding this death-to-ourselves concept about which Paul spoke so passionately. I’m a little, itty-bitty man who thinks I’m a lot bigger with a lot more power, influence, and control than I really have. I can say that now. And I don’t give a damn if other people think that’s a handicap.

I’m secure, healthy, whole, mature as my heavenly Father is mature, at least for the time being. Depravity will probably seep in and mess with me for a while, but for now I’m resting in God. And there is peace.

Blessings,

Craig

Christian Pride

I think a lot of people are proud to be Christians. Like Christianity is our sports team and we must defend it against fans of a rival sports team or something. I mean, we really seem to enjoy “sticking it to the non-Christians”. I feel like we all celebrate when we’ve overpowered and humiliated the group of people who haven’t discovered what we’ve discovered. I think we try to laugh and celebrate when “Christian” legislation gets passed or when some anti-Christian activist gets “what’s coming to him”. We really view this thing as a culture war.

I got an email from my mom earlier this week (it was a forward) in which the original author (Jim Neugent) says (I don’t know if it’s true or not, I certainly hope it isn’t) that he was watching a TV show that was supportive of homosexuality and so he emailed the broadcasting company chewing them out for their lack of support for Christian morals. He got back a tersely worded response from an employee, who was later fired for responding impolitely. The rest of the email celebrates “the triumph of the Christian over the non-Christian”. One of my favorite parts is in the middle of the argument when Jim says this: “Thanks for your reply. From your harsh reply, evidently I hit a nerve. I will share it with all with whom I come in contact. Hopefully, the ArkansasDemocrat Newspaper will include it in one of their columns and I will be praying for you.“

Go Christians! Fight for Jesus!

Do we believe that the reason God died on a cross was because he forgot that he was almighty and could force us to be “good little Christians”? I think we, like Jim, pretend that the Bible doesn’t have passages like The Parable of The Pharisee and The Tax Collector so that we can feel more superior than these “sinners” (or “let the sinless throw the first stone” or “the first will be last and the last will be first” or “love your enemies” or “remove the plank from your own eye” or a host of other things Jesus said). I’m not a pastor or anything, but I can’t think of a single time where Jesus sided with the religious folks over the “sinners” when the two groups came into conflict. I think he still operates the same today. It’s just that the “religous folks” who are trying to speak for Him have a different label: Christian. And the more we try to speak for God without a loving, humble heart, the more we will be sticking our “Christian” feet in our “Christian” mouths, I’m quite convinced. Jesus is very inconvenient for us self-righteous religious folks.

Even when we Christians win an argument, we still lose. That’s the nature of the Gospel. The only way to win in God’s economy, is to make sure that you lose to your opponent. To put them before yourself. To Love them as Jesus Loves us.

I think if I elaborate more on this I’ll just be rambling. So go and think about this if you haven’t already. Maybe read the Bible and look at how very often this notion is supported, especially by Jesus.

I’ll pray for you self-righteous Christians. Haha, just kidding.

EDIT: A few hours after having finished this, I’m reading Blue Like Jazz (for the second time around–I’m reading Emily’s copy and I’m using more ink underlining stuff than the publisher did printing the words themselves). I just got to this part I’d like to share with you:

Context: Donald Miller is recollecting a time in his college where him and his Christian friends were going to set up a confession booth in the middle of their very anti-Christian campus. The catch is that they aren’t accepting confessions, but confessing. Confessing to the campus all the ways that we Christians screw things up. He writes this about himself, but I feel it is a good summary of what I spent some four paragraphs trying to get across:

For so much of my life I had been defending Christianity because I thought to admit that we had done any wrong was to discredit the religious system as a whole, but it isn’t a religious system, it is people following Christ; and the important thing to do, the right thing to do, was to apologize for getting in the way of Jesus.

He also writes this, which I agree with 200%:

Tony the Beat Poet says the church is like a wounded animal these days. He says we used to have power and incluence, but now we don’t, and so many of our leaders are upset about this and acting like spoiled children, mad because we they can’t have their way. They disguise their actions to look as though they are standing on principle, but it isn’t that, Tony says, it’s bitterness. They want to take their ball and go home because they have to sit the bench. Tony and I agreed that what God wants us to do is sit the bench in humility and turn the other cheek like Gandhi, like Jesus. We decided that the correct place to share our faith was from a place of humility and love, not from a desire for power.

I freaking love this book. Damn.

What I learned this Thanksgiving:

I was reflecting on one of my favorite relationships earlier today and this is what I learned from it:

It occurs to me that God’s love for us is very much like a man’s love for a very pretty, yet high-maintenance [read "prideful" or "a little full of herself"] woman. On the surface, it would appear that the woman is using the man to feed her ego–as if the lies of her superior value have tricked him into respecting her. But no–the man is fully aware that the qualities that make the woman think she has value (the things she prides herself in) are in fact thte things that enslave her. Because of his love for her, he pities her for these things instead of loving her for them. He loves her in SPITE of these things. He knows the miserable existence her own arrogance creates for her and his love seeks to free her from it.

Jesus doesn’t love us for how religious we think we are. We haven’t fooled him into thinking we’re good or worthy people. He looks through these lies and sees the scared, pathetic creatures that we really are and loves us for that alone (as opposed for the lies we create to trick him into loving us). He loves us in spite of the lies we tell him about how attractive, cool, religious, or smart we are. We can’t convince him that we have value. At least beyond what he already sees. God is okay with how we are. We needn’t do anything more to earn his love. He doesn’t care that we’re broken (I mean, he cares, but it doesn’t stop him from loving us). We can’t earn it. We can’t even explain it. Period.