My friend Bartholomew came over last night. His name isn't really Batholomew but I don't feel like telling you his real name, so as far as you know, his name is Batholomew. He was my roommate in college at Western State. This last year we parted ways as he went to Africa to study abroad and I moved to Denver to help start a church. He traveled around Europe for awhile after the semester was over and did all the usual boring stuff like couch surf at Sorority girls' houses in Scotland and party in the streets of Madrid, you know real drab, dull stuff I'm glad I wasn't there for. As our house got back from the new Indian Jones movie, he pulled in our driveway. We hung out for awhile and then he began to describe to me and my friend Mike his relationship with a particular girl. The conversation moved from this to talking about God and church.
Batholomew is a Christian, he believes in God, he believes in Jesus. But he has kept his distance. Why, you may ask? Well, another long story short, he fears God. Not the healthy sort of fear that is born from a legitimate danger like holding a metal pole in a lightning storm, but the sort of fear that turns into ignorance, into misunderstandings and dissonant distance. He felt that God was angry with him. That everything he wanted to do God disapproved of and everything he didn't want to do, God held over his head like a pissed off loan shark. Batholomew had no concept of a loving God, the only God he knew was angry and full of wrath. A God who desired morality over relationship and righteousness over faith.
I think a lot of people have this twisted, gnarled view of who God is. The God I hear about from non-Christians is a scary thing. The God I see on T.V. and on picket signs is a scary thing. I had a a Philosophy of Religion class this last semester and this guy named Spinoza said that the two main purposes of Christianity were Justice and Charity, and for most people, this is what the bible is to them, a book of moral teachings, of do's and do not's. If this is all people know about God, no wonder no one wants to believe in him. I wouldn't either. Why would I follow a religion based on guilt, shame and self-degradation? Why would I follow a set of rules that make absolutely no sense. Why would I follow a system of beliefs that had absolutely nothing to say about who I am as a person or what I am here for, but has everything to say about what I should and shouldn't do. If God is this transcendent being of merciless power and judgment; honestly, what's the point of believing in Christianity at all. If my life is only lived from a fear of incomprehensible eternity, from an obligation, than seriously, why am I a Christian? Why would I want to follow a system that deprives me of my very nature and then demands homage when I indulge in it. This was Bartholomew's question.
I sincerely believe, that like the Catholic church in the 16th century, so is the American church today. A church, a religion, a system gone wrong. An institution that cares more about people's money and behaviors than it does about people themselves. A Christianity that is exterior based, and interior ignorant. We have made God detached, unavailable to the common people, a God who worries more about your sex life and drinking habits than about your soul. The Gospel of good news has become the Gospel of bad news. The teachings of Jesus are boiled down to moral life enhancers and products, indulgences, to be sold.
Was Bartholomew to talk to the average pastor or churchgoer he would face a barrage of criticism and judgment for the choices he has made. He would be told to get things right, to repent of his sin, to live morally and then, only then, would he be acceptable to God, only then would he be "worthy" of grace. However, we at the Journey are not average Christians. I'm barely a Christian myself and most of our group will probably be convicted of heresy someday by some self-righteous zealots. So, Mike, the pastor, but more than that my friend, explained to Bartholomew that more than anything else God cared about him, that he was always there and would always love him no matter what he did. That God, in all reality, cared more about Bartholomew as a person, than He did about how moral Bartholomew was living. Bartholomew had never heard this before, and I was very sad.
I believe that God cares more about knowing us and us knowing him, than he does about our behavior. I believe that the bible has more to teach us than just justice and charity. Christianity has put the cart before the horse and said: "First, morality. Next, God." I believe this is wrong, that it keeps people from knowing God and keeps people obeying a system of religion that has nothing to do with the way of Jesus. I believe in relationship, not religion.
I follow Jesus, not Christianity, not America, not some moral system of religion, but the Nazarene carpenter, who preached that God is love and that He un-encompassingly, limitlessly, unconditionally loves us first. And, if we can accept this, than the other things will soon follow. My friend left that night still confused, but free. Free from the idea of a cruel God, free from a meaningless system of morality, and he left in search of what it meant to honestly, truthfully know God.
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