A Generous Idolatry

Worship Me!

I have been thinking about Idols a lot recently (not the Paula Abdul kind).  The second commandment says you shall not make carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven or above.

If you go with the narrowest interpretation of the commandment, it would be pretty easy to keep.  I do not routinely carve anything, so I should be off the hook.  Check.  Done.

But what if you take the bigger picture?  I may not carve images of Moloch, but I do a heck of a job creating images of God with my words and writings.  Why is this a big deal?  I think the real intent of the second commandment is not to put God in a box.  Don’t think you have it all figured out, because you don’t and you never will.  The minute you say God is, you are limiting him.  I don’t think the graven image thing is the real problem here.  It is thinking that you have captured the essence of God and you worship that single aspect.

Religious art is ubiquitous in our world.  Is that idolatry?  Our Islamic friends might say, yes.  Me personally, I am not bothered by religious art or even icons, so long as it is used as a metaphor.  There is a big difference, in my mind, between saying God IS and God IS Like.  One is trying to convey an idea; the other is saying it is the truth.

So why bring it up?  Why does this bother me?  Here is the thing.  I am really struggling with what I see as modern religious idolatry.  I see this present in every faith tradition I explore, but I will focus this entry on what I see as Christian idolatry.  And it centers around three words: cannon, theology and orthodoxy.

I am not tempted to worship and golden cow.  But what the golden cow represents is as much a problem for me as it was for those desert wanderers some 3 thousand years ago.  The image limits what in truth is limitless.  No one is making golden cows these days.  But limiting God with words is ramped.

The Christian church, both Catholic and protestant have agreed with some variation, that the cannon or sacred texts have all been written.  Everything we need to know about God is in the Bible and the Bible cannot change.   …so, everything we need to know about an infinitely complex God is contained in a finite book?  Nothing in the last 1700 years is worth writing about?  Changes in science and culture do not warrant new metaphors and new inspired works?  God is no longer allowed to give insight or inspiration to today’s seekers.  If we venerate this book as the end all be all, we are putting God in a box.  That meets my definition of idolatry.

Theology is the study of God.  This in and of itself is not a bad thing.  But theology runs aground when paired with the cannon of scripture.  We have decided that the Bible is “done.”  But clearly people still have questions.  So the theologians try and infer from the finite scriptures the answers to an infinite number of questions.  These inferences vary greatly depending on how you prioritize conflicting passages of scripture.  You can end up with a theology, like Calvinism, where humans are almost robotic and salvation is completely out of our hands.  Or using the same source texts, you can end up with a theology of God as clockmaker who is not really in control of things once the universe was set in motion.  These ideas, in and of themselves, are not bad.  They are ideas.  But when I go to religious discussion groups, these schools of thought are vehemently defended by their disciples as “the truth.” The minute a theological concept is said to be “true,”  it is putting God in a box.  That meets my definition of idolatry.

Orthodoxy or right thinking makes a mess of everything.  There are countless denominations and sects of Christianity.  Each of them claims to have special understanding of what God is or how God operates.  Having preferences is no vice in my mind.  But the second your orthodoxy excludes or diminishes another group of people, it is putting God in a box.  That meets my definition of idolatry.

Idolatry has its advantages.  It puts a neat bow on the world.  Idols are objective.  They can be studied.  They can be measured.  They can be held up against a set of standards.  But they are not God.

I just need to constantly remind myself that I am a seeker.  Once I think I have arrived, my destination is an idol.  I will probably spend much of my remaining years trying to tear down the idols in my life and refocusing my attention on seeking.  The truth may be out there, but I don’t think I will ever fully comprehend it.

Veal or Chicken?

“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

–Proverbs 22:6

When I was a kid, much of my free time was devoted to church and church activities.  If there was an event that included my age group, I had to attend or be very ill.  My parents really took Proverbs 22:6 to heart.  And had I died by age 35, they would have been extremely successful.  But alas, things change.  Interpretations change.  Who is to say that I am not going, “the way < I > should go.”

I don’t mean to knock my upbringing.  My parents did what they thought was right and I admire them for that.  But looking back, I was force fed a steady stream of religious dogma from about age 3.  I was Assemblies of God Veal until I was 21.

Now as a parent, I am on the other side of the equation.  My son attends church with me.  He participates in the occasional church activity.  He played Christian sports.  He has had exposure to most things Christian, but by no means would his upbringing compare to either my wife’s or my own.  He has had very little exposure to other faith traditions, but he attends a very multicultural school, so I am sure it has come up.  He is more of a religious free range chicken.

Which is right, veal or chicken?  I am somewhat tormented by this question.  I by no means want to replicate my upbringing.  But how much is too much or too little?  It is one thing to risk my “eternal” soul exploring the religious landscape.  It is another thing entirely to risk someone else’s.

Sorry…Stolen from a friends blog

A friend of mine (Brian , who will remain safely anonymous…ooops) wrote recently about an apology he heard at work.  I am shamelessly stealing this theme.  To paraphrase, one of the things he said was that good apologies feel like you are ripping something out of your chest.  Agreed!

A former friend of mine was a pastor and a tremendous preacher.  When he first became the pastor of the church I attended, I used to marvel at how well he connected with the audience.  I just could not put my finger on what it was he did so well.  It took a couple of years, but then I figured it out.  When he gave a good sermon, it usually started with an amusing anecdote of where he did something stupid and then was forced to apologize.  Occasionally, he would give an outstanding; knock it out of the park sermon, where he would recount a major failure in his life, how it wrecked him for awhile and then the long road of redemption that he undertook.  These sermons would stick with me for weeks, sometimes months.

I was a lay speaker at the time and on a couple of occasions, he let me preach.  The first couple of times I did the anecdote formula with decent results.  The last time I preached, I did a “dig deep”, tear part of my guts out confession and sure enough, I hit one out of the park.  I am still proud of that sermon.

Now when I started this post, I was going to comment on how a lot of times when I hear preachers on TV, they spend too much time on extolling the greatness of their righteous decisions.  And because of that, much of what they say hits the floor with a thud.  And while I have said that, it is no longer the theme of this post.

I am not sure you noticed at the beginning of this post that it says former friend.  I cannot very well use him as an example of great preaching because of his apologies if I do not explain why we are no longer friends.

There are basically two reasons.  The first is it was a rather lopsided friendship.  I was friends with him, because it was a rough time in my life and I needed someone to give me honest feedback.  He was a friend to me because I was one of the few people in his life that did not hold him up as a saint.  I saw him as a regular smart guy who was very good at doing his “thing.”   Because I had “figured him out,” I did not see him as being especially righteous.  It freed us both to be ourselves around each other, without being hypocritical, which is an easy trap in a church environment.  But to be clear, I needed him more than he needed me.  He was buddies with dozens of guys at church.  He had fishing buddies, mission trip buddies…you name it, and he had a buddy for it.

We were friends for many years and he was really there for me when my son was gravely ill.  But then as often happens in relationships, we had a falling out.  Perhaps I should say that I had a falling out, because at first, he did not realize that he had hurt me.  But the damage was done.  After much conversation, he said he was sorry and I accepted his apology.  But because of what had happened our lives took us in different directions.  We saw each other less and less until we did not see each other at all.

Years later, he presided over the funeral of a mutual friend.  We were both in terrible grief over the friend’s death, but I don’t think we ever spoke.

Looking back, I am not sure what went wrong.  We both said the right things.  And I think we meant them sincerely at the time.  But I wonder if timing is an important element in forgiveness.  I wonder if it was too late or too soon.  Or maybe we needed to spend more time together.  Sadly our falling out coincided with , my wife taking another job and we no longer went to the same church.

Since that time, both of our lives have become more hectic.  We don’t run in the same circles and it was less of a “big deal” for him than for me.  His brief friendship vacuum was easily filled by one of his many parishioners.  Because we left the church, I lost not only him, but a dozen other friends, leaving a gaping hole.  There was no crisis of friendship on the others, but we just drifted apart when we no longer met on common ground.

In the movie Shadowlands, CS Lewis laments that grief is the price we pay for the love that lights up our lives.  I think that regret is the price we pay for lost friendship.  I have a long list of close friends that I have had over the course of my life.  All but two of them were diminished by distance.  Two ended abruptly.  In neither case was a simple apology enough to bridge the gap.

And we sit here in our storm and drink a toast

To the slim chance of love’s recovery.

–The Indigo Girls

Vergence, Part 3, the Practice

I start this entry by describing the best class of my undergraduate years.  It was my final semester and I was taking 19.5 units.  By that time, I had completed all my religious studies and I had only upper division psychology classes, including my thesis left.  Oh, and one pesky general ed. class.  I needed at least one fluff class that did not require much work.  Theory of drama filled the ticket nicely.  As described by my fellow undergraduates, you could take the class for pass/fail, you watch 1 movie a week at the professor’s house and then you had to make one intelligent comment about the movie, piece of cake.

This description had to be a load of crap.  Nothing could be that easy.  But it was.  And it was one of the most transformative experiences of my life.

Now I had always been a movie buff.  I never missed an opportunity to see movies when I was a kid.  Once I could drive, I routinely saw a couple of movies or more a week.  And that continued right into college.  But like most things American, I was a super consumer of movies, quantity not quality.  Actually the class’s professor was the “superest” of super consumers.  The walls of his house were covered with cinderblock shelves of VHS tapes, at least a thousand tapes with 3 movies a piece…but I digress.

Don, the professor, showed the movie and would ask people what they thought.  Here is a typical exchange:

Don:  What did you like?

Student:  I liked the character Eliza.

Don:  Really, what did you like about her?

Student:  She wanted something better.

Don:  Yes, she did.  And did she get it?

Student:  Well not exactly.

Don:  How so?

Student:  Well she ended up getting more than she could ever dream of.

Don:  I see.  Well that was nice.  Then she could go back to her normal life.

Student:  Well not exactly?

Don:  Oh?  Why not?

Student: Well, she had been transformed.

Don:  And have you ever experienced that?  Wanting something small and getting way more than you bargained for and in the process being transformed into something completely different?

Student:  Well, now that you mention it…

This exchange would commonly turn into a tearful gestalt effect where the kid’s whole life was transformed.

Don:  Who else?

Student2:  Well I liked the lighting.

Don:  Oh?…

I bring this up because memory up because as I try and incorporate my past with my future, this class serves as one possible model.

Much in the same way I consumed movies, in bulk, I think a lot of people are experiencing bulk lives.  They work too many hours, they traipse around the cities to attend their children’s activities, they eat out, they may go to church, they watch some TV, they listen to the radio, and they do lots and lots of stuff.  To use an old joke, I think most people hope that in the middle of all this shit, there has got to be a pony.

Church, Religion and spirituality is just one of the many things that we do, like going to the movies.  We go to these tightly scripted services and hope to be transformed.  But 55 minutes into it, we are already thinking about what comes next. “Where should we have lunch?  I hope it is good.”  Well it is never going to be good.  It is just going to OK at best and intolerable at worst.  But wait, in 45 minutes we are going shopping.  I hope we will find something good.

What would happen if after church the following dialogue took place?

Seeker 1:  Did you enjoy church?

Seeker 2:  No, I was bored.

Seeker 1:  Oh, why did you think it was boring?

Seeker 2:  The room was felt like a conference room.  The music sounded like pop music from the radio.  There were announcements like the local news.  And the sermon was an old rerun on TV.

Seeker 1:  Wow, that is a lot of stuff.  It sounds like what you do all week.

Seeker 2:  Exactly!

Seeker 1:  Sounds like you have a pretty mundane life.  What do you wish your life was like?

Seeker 1:  I…I…I don’t know.

Seeker 2:  Now we are getting somewhere…

For many of us Church is one of the many things we do.  It is a habit carried through childhood.  Or it might have been an authentic transformational force in our lives.  But as is often the case with transformational experiences, once the transformation is done, habit kicks in.  If you remain on the consumer side of the equation, it gets stale and becomes just one of the many things you do.

Is that the churches fault?  Maybe.  I thought so in an earlier draft/rant.  But having given it a bit more thought, I am not so sure.  I have known people transformed by Quakers and people transformed by rock concerts.  Different strokes for different folks.  Is one inherently better than the other?

Back to the movies, is the “Elephant Man” better than “My Fair Lady?”  (side note:  My wife would have a definite opinion on that statement.  I get a very different reaction when I say, “Papaplethed to meech chu your majusty” than when I sing The Rain in Spain.)  They are two very different movies with very different views of the world.  Yet both of those movies were in the class that I loved.

What made both of them great movies was dissecting them both and then reintegrating them into our own lives, using conversation.  Now in my class there were a couple of luddites who made consistently stupid comments and there were definitely movies like “Honky Tonk Freeway” that would never make the Theory of Drama Class.  But when quality movies met quality conversation, it was magic.

For the longest time, I was spiritually adrift.  I never missed more than a week of church.  I showed up and good things were happening all around me.  But showing up is not being present.  I sat off to the side.  I only spoke during the greeting time and I departed like a bat out of hell when it was over.  I got exactly what I put into it which was really nothing at all.  I was caustic and sarcastic and basically unreachable while sitting in the sanctuary.

Then one day, over one cup of coffee, I bitched for an hour about god, spirituality and the dismal state of “the church.”  The person listening said, “Your right, now let me show you how to change it.”  That conversation led to another, and another, and another.  Bit by bit, story by story, spirituality has worked its way back into my life.

I am not sure I will ever fit back into the mold of classic Christianity.  During the church services, I still rarely if ever participate beyond going through the motions.  I have become so insulated that very little gets through anymore.  But put me in a room with a dozen people who start telling stories about their lives and I will not shut up.

Maybe my life was too much “Just do it.” And not enough of “Just do it…and then talk about it with others.”  Naw, really it was more like, “Stew about it,” alone and in complete misery.

1200 words and going nowhere fast.  Say goodnight, Benji.

Goodnight!

Vergence, Part2, My Faith

So I am culturally a Christian, but pluralistic in practice.  Can I say I believe anything?  Dogmatically, no.  But here is my best attempt at explaining what it is I believe and how that fits into a Christian context.

There is a force, a wind, the spirit that is the energy at the core of all that is.  At least once and probably countless times, the spirit coalesced around a quantum singularity and it exploded into what we now call a universe.  Entropy was (and is) suspended by the spirit and things instead of becoming less complex, became more complex.  Atoms became stars.  Stars gave light.  At the end of their life, some stars collapsed into black holes that later became the center of galaxies.  Vast unfathomable numbers of galaxies contained vast unfathomable numbers of stars.  Around these stars, discarded bits of matter coalesced into planets.  And on at least one of these countless planets, circling an average star in the outer spiral arms of an average galaxy, the spirit coalesced around a set of complex chemical soup and a new type of energy formed: life.  For countless ages, life existed in the simplest of forms.  Until one day, the spirit coalesced around a specific cell and complexity burst onto the scene.  The planet bloomed into varied and beautiful forms of life.  Over the millennia life was almost destroyed by cataclysmic events.  But after each event, it came back stronger and more complex than ever.

Many of the animals that evolved over time had specific organs used to sense the world around them.  Over time, an organ evolved to regulate these senses called the brain.  And for some species brains evolved to the point that they could communicate and sense the spirit itself.  I am a descendant of one of these species called human.

Though the spirit could be sensed by many animals, humans became especially attuned to its existence and its mission:  loving and nurturing life.  But the fruit of this knowledge was extremely dangerous.  By tapping into the power of the spirit, man learned that he could love and nurture life in all of its complexity.  But if manipulated and twisted for individual gain, the spirit could be used bring about great destruction and even death the very opposite of complexity.

All over the world, people gave spirit names and developed practices to reflect the goodness of the spirit.  Sadly one of the problems with a name was that it was a manipulation of the spirit, which was used to war against those people who gave the spirit another name and again became very destructive.

From time to time, the spirit coalesced around a given person, who was given unusual insight into the very nature of the spirit.  These individuals would gather disciples and religions were born.  If the religion on the whole stayed in tune with the basic intent of the spirit, it, like life itself, thrived and was passed down from generation to generation.

One of these religions was Judaism.  Its basic tenant was to love the spirit and love justice.  Two thousand years ago, the spirit coalesced around one of Judaism’s followers.  His name was Jesus.  Jesus became an outspoken critic of how faith in the spirit had been twisted into a very narrow interpretation of laws originally written to help Jews to live in harmony with the spirit.  But it had devolved into a clannish cult of rules.

Jesus loved the spirit and saw the spirit in all the people he encountered.  He boiled down all the laws and regulations of Judaism into two statements.  Love god (the spirit) and love your neighbor (all life).  So powerful were his words, that upon his death, when the spirit within him was released, his words radiated out and took on a life or their own.  Those words even now can bring peace, love and justice to those who choose to follow them.

Sadly too many individuals chose to turn his words into more laws and sank back into the cult that Jesus so strongly fought against.

Christianity, the religion that formed around Jesus’ teachings, is at its best when his followers love the spirit and love each other with all of their energy.  And I will leave it at that.

Happy Easter

…coming soon, Vergence, Part 3, My Expression

Vergence, Part one, the Journey

So what the heck DO I believe in?  Since joining Imagine about a year and a half ago, I have gone from an ice cold stage, through a period of complete disorientation and now at long last, I think I am emerging into a new spring renewal of spirituality.  But what of faith?  My personal definition is: believing in that which cannot be proven (it really annoys me that there is no good antonym for provable).  Do I have faith?  Yes and no.

While there are vestigial parts of my childhood faith, the faith that I now carry would be unrecognizable to my family.  But really, isn’t that the point of evolution, to use something that severed another purpose in a whole new way?

But I digress.

My childhood faith is traditional Christianity.  Specifically:  conservative, Pentecostal, Assemblies of God.  I have written enough about what and why I no longer follow that path, I will not repeat it here.  Suffice to say, I am no longer a part of that particular set persuasions.

But what am I?

What am I?

I have been struggling to say what I am for months now.  I know what resonates with me, but have been tongue tied when trying to explain it.  But this morning I think I may have stumbled onto of conveying what I do believe and why I have been hesitant to expound on it until now.  The language I use is the language of our greatest modern myth, Star Wars.

I believe in “a” force.  The article of speech I choose is specific in this instance.  I do not believe in “the” force as in The Force as laid out in the Star Wars universe.  My reluctance to use this word is that it carries just as much if not more baggage as the word god.

I have faith that I am not a just a singular entity named Ben.  I believe I am connected to a powerful force that is in all, has always been and ever will be (at least in our universe…don’t get me started).

There is a material point of view that people are individual creatures.  And while they gain energy and sustenance from other living beings, there is nothing more, ”to it” than that simple electrochemical exchange.  When you die, you are consumed and that is the end of you.  I don’t subscribe to that point of view.

I feel that I am connected.  And while I fully understand that it may be a figment of my imagination, I choose to believe it anyway.  I believe that all life is plugged in at some level to a spiritual dimension and that whether voluntarily or unconsciously, we are part of a greater whole.  The purpose of that whole is to love and nurture all that lives.

Now to my real purpose of writing today’s entry:  Where do I express this faith?  Well in my readings and explorations of the last couple of years, two things have become clear.  One, I do not want to create my own religion.  At best that makes me a nut and at worst people will be killing each other in my name 1000s of years from now (but a man can dream…shut up Ben).  Two, buying into another religion (Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, or Flying Spaghetti Monster) is just taking on someone else’s baggage.

So where does that leave me?  Do I “worship” (another loaded word) by myself?  What a better way to recognize the unity and connection of the universe, than to “do it” all by myself.  Nope.  No spiritual masturbation for me.

What I have heard over and over, but could not “fit” into was the idea of finding the mystical elements of my cultural faith; utilize its spiritual practices while rejecting the dogmatic elements of its particular persuasion.

Luckily, I find myself in a pluralistic church where the word “both” is held in special reverence.  I can speak with total frankness and candor with my fellow Imagine peeps and I can participate in a worship service that is not unlike many other modern non-denominational churches (although it is part of one).

End of part one

Now is the winter of our…

Discontent

For those of you who have followed by blog over the years, I sincerely apologize if I have caused you metaphysical whiplash.  But here I go again.

I have been thinking a lot about the book Naked Spirituality again, specifically winter.  I won’t bore you with my substandard summary.  But I will say that McLaren in his book is describing a state where your spirituality has been stripped bare and you are left in a wide open landscape.

Having obliterated most of the remnants of my religious upbringing, I find myself looking at a barren landscape.  But least you think this is an uncomfortable locale, let me assure you this is a happy space.

Human: Individuals or Organelles?

When I was in High School, I worked summers at a day camp.  Most days we went on a field trip of some sort.  On one particular day, we went to a local park.  We started to play kickball and all of the counselors participated.   It was a particularly hot day, so I kicked off my shoes, while we played in the grass.  The grass was freshly watered and it felt cool beneath my feet.

It was good to be out in the sun.  I was not aware of any one part of my body.  I just felt a sense of wholeness and wellbeing.

When it was my turn at the plate, I decided I was going to make the kids run for it.  I was going to send that soccer ball to the other end of the field.  The ball rolled towards me and I kicked with everything I had.  My foot connected, but not with the ball.  My bare foot connected with a sprinkler head that had not fully retracted.  My toe, of which I had been blissfully unaware, suddenly gained sentience. It communicated a singular thought: I hurt!

From being just one of many parts, for days my toe became the center of my being.

I bring up this story to illustrate a thought that has been churning in my head lately.

My toe is connected to my brain via a complex network of nerves and chemicals.  It operates fairly independently (though not consciously), until there is a problem.  Then it has the potential to be the center of my consciousness.  Well what if I extend the metaphor for a moment.  We human beings more or less operate individually.  But we are intricately connected to each other by a myriad of sound, smell and visual cues.

Here is my convoluted point.  The toe and the brain are indirectly connected and yet we consider them part of one organism.  But our connection to each other, to the environment and other living organisms is no less complex.  For that matter Jesus said that the church is his body.  If Jesus in Christian theology God and *we* are Christ’s body, then it is not a huge synergistic leap to say that we are part of a much larger organism called God.

Now let me be clear:  I find Christian theology to be way too confining.  I do not in any sense believe there is a bearded white guy in the clouds dispensing cosmic justice.  But the idea that living creatures are part of a greater whole is not a novel idea.  If there is a greater whole, does *it* have a personality?  Tough to say.  But if there is consciousness that extends beyond the individual, then certainly it would have a sense of self preservation.  When threatened by the actions of any particular part, then consciously or unconsciously *it* would act.  Those actions would impact our actions, changing our behavior.  We see this kind of group think on a small scale in everyday life.

This I think is the agnostic god.  It is the simple acceptance that there is some connection that all living creatures share and that the sum of life *might* be greater than the sum of the individual parts (of which I am one).

OK, my head hurts now.  I think I need a cookie.  If this thought survives the next couple of days, perhaps I will follow up on agnostic eternal life.  But let’s face it, I am a flake.

Afterlife Lotto

I admit it.  I bought 4 Mega Millions tickets.  I got 2 for the Wednesday drawing and 2 for the Friday.  “But Ben, why would you throw away 4 perfectly good dollars.”  Two reasons:

1. There is not much risk on the front end.  I will not miss $4.

2. The potential rewards are freakishly out of proportion to the risk.

The equation is slightly altered if there is an office pool.  The basic math is the same, but there is an additional component of pain avoidance.  Nobody wants to be the poor sucker left to manage the office after the pool of recipients has quit without notice.

I know that the odds are astronomical that my $4 will have any impact.  But my lizard brain tells me, “Go for it.”

I wonder if this scenario has application in the religious realm.  Specifically, I wonder how many people cling to a faith, not because they believe it, but because the potential rewards/punishments are also “freakishly out of proportion to the risk.”

I could easily turn the question back on myself.  Am I taking a huge risk by not towing the evangelical line my four score and seven?  I am laughing to myself as I write this.  Because while the odds are astronomical, I believe there IS a lottery.  I can make no such claim on any of many religious lines.

Hmmmmmm…

95 Feces

I was listening to one of my favorite punk groups, The Violent Femmes.  They have a song called “Kiss Off,” that is presumably about O.D.’ing.  At one point the writer lists his grievances as he pops pills (presumably).

I take one one one cause you left me and
Two two two for my family and
3 3 3 for my heartache and
4 4 4 for my headaches and
5 5 5 for my lonely and
6 6 6 for my sorrow and
7 7 for no tomorrow and
8 8 I forget what 8 was for and
9 9 9 for a lost god and
10 10 10 10 for everything everything everything everything

–Violent Femmes, 1983

At the point in the song, the artist definitely has the WTF attitude.  I am bobbing my head along to each of the lyrics. 1 1 1…2 2 2…blah blah…and then 9 9 9 for a lost god.  And I make an odd mental connection.  The song becomes the background music to Martin Luther nailing the 95 theses to the door of Wittenberg.  I take one one one for indulgences…

Welcome to my brain.  It is a disjointed mess of goo.

So I start thinking about what pisses me off about “the church.”  (in the macro general sense…not a specific worshiping body)

I think wow, I wonder if I could come up with 95 beefs with the modern church.  Snort!  Yeah, I am Martin Luther…not!  But I did rather quickly come up with a list of 10 things I hate about the 21^st century church.  For now it is just a list.  If I am ambitious, I may blog on each topic.  But for now it is just a list for the virtual door.

1. Hell…the idea that anyone could deserve eternal punishment.
2. Rapture…F’ off world, I am out of here!
3. Devil…Really?  There is a being that would rival an all powerful God.
4. Politics…Jesus is not a republican
5. Prosperity…I love you Joel Olstein
6. When bad things happen to good people it is a test or because of unconfessed sin…man, I must be a real asshole.
7. The doctrine of the Trinity…OMG could there be a more disjointed theological cluster fuck?  Did anyone proof read this doctrine?  I think they were smoking pot…so he is totally god and totally human…drag…like…like an egg
8. The cannon should be reevaluated…Yeah, um Joshua…not a big fan.  Leviticus really???  I am sooooo going to get stoned.
9. Christianity is the only true religion…God is a trademarked entity of the Jesus corporations.  All violators will be prosecuted and persecuted…void in Wisconsin…damn Lutherans.
10. Mega churches…take 2 cups Jesus…some spotlights…an orchestra…some slick marketing…presto…salvation baby!  See also #5

Interesting…there are dark clouds forming over my head.