You're about to help us figure that out.
In 6 EASY questions.
You're about to help us figure that out.
In 6 EASY questions.
We are born innocent. But then many of us are told we’re born guilty – accountable to some choice we didn’t make, but should definitely suffer for anyway. That framework of belief weighs heavily on Christians. Those of us raised in religious environments grew up exposed to this idea of a universal condemnation, where the only way out seemed to be when the proper formulas were adhered to: the right boxes checked and the right beliefs claimed. Arbitrary technicalities of escape to match the arbitrary judgment... All of it lacking humanity and compassion.
It's awkward to realize you struggle with the sort of faith you've been handed while you're actively and vocationally leading a ministry. And it’s awkward on many levels – practical, personal, not to mention spiritual. There are consequences to administering a certain worldview, and shaping people's beliefs and religious practices. And there are consequences to stepping away from those things and leaving that life behind.
Within the church, many women learn from the earliest age to deny themselves space, a voice, their own power, etc. The narratives surrounding women are strong, and can convince even the abused that their abuse is somehow justified, natural, fitting... even necessary. Fighting those narratives is costly – and yet essential – to those who suffer because of them.
A "still, small voice." So they used to say. And whatever we call that voice – whether "spirit" or "body" or "gut" – it's there. An intuition. Giving us a greater sense of... something. And for those raised in church especially, it can be incredibly easy to second guess ourselves, which can then make it even harder to act on that something. But that something carries with it our integrity.
The defiant act of demanding to be whole and known in our fulness is one of the most essential, healing things we can do. The pain of this disruption and redefinition is inevitable. But "the art of life is choosing the pain that brings life and love and truth rather than the pain that brings death."
Silence. Loss. Addiction. Pain. The alienation of repression. The forced-feeding of narratives which foster our unhealthy reliance on an "Other." These are all things that can distance us... from ourselves. All things that can leave us feeling disembodied from who we are and who we wish to be. But the most important journey home is to ourselves.
It’s harder to see honestly in the distance when we’ve had such a culture of blindness up close. When it comes to love and justice, a people who run from it in their own home are not going to be well-equipped to perceive it in some far off country. The church culture most of us come from has been very slow to recognize its complicity in racial oppression in America… so it would stand to reason that the same culture is not coming to grips with its complicity in distant lands either. But there’s hope… It’s just going to take a lot more than just Christians or just non-Christians to move forward as humanity in any meaningful sense.
From the experiences common to so many of us, to the experiences of others that we're just now coming to understand... we are surrounded by opportunities to imagine everything differently.
In our insistence on oversimplification, we do not preserve an honest view of the core of things. In fact, we fail to recognize essential depth. Fail to appreciate nuance and diversity. Fail to comfort with any real traction. This avoidance of anything that isn't "simple" creates distance. We become two dimensional beings in a multi-dimensional world, offering false hope that does not ultimately satisfy. Trivial explanations and empty engagements fall flat. Our lives carry the pretense of having the answers for everyone, even as we remain in the shallows. And as clichés fail to provide any real comfort, many people have been sacrificed on the altar of our need for “simple” – their identities abused and their hearts left adrift, offered up to a hollow god.