TheoSpora

Not too long ago, I took the “theological worldview” quiz and came out evenly split between classic liberal and emergent/postmodern (with a healthy dose of modern liberal thrown in to make things interesting). As a result Tod asked the following question: “So, how do you plan to use this information Jason?”

Just so you know, Tod is a member of the congregation that has endured my preaching on various Sundays throughout the past two years. I often see him hanging out in the choir loft, peering around the lights that block the view of the pulpit. Tod has been a fairly constant source of challenge and encouragement as I have grown into my robe over these past few years; for that I am thankful. As to how I will use this quiz, here are some thoughts…

I value experience. I value hope. I value love. I value service and justice and peace. I value the ability to converse without judgment or the need to prove one’s opinions. I value worship and music and song and prayer. I value the creative expressions of creation, the humor of the human condition, and the idiosyncrasies of the individual. I value the communities of care and service that God creates, and their mission to bring about the kingdom of God on earth. I value health and depth and growth and nurture amidst the shallow, broken, stunted world in which we live.

I value labels and the ability to transcend them.

I believe in the subjectivity of reality. I believe that the poor have no use for classical theology because they are too busy living it. I believe that education can be the beginning and end of innocence. I believe that if we are going to make it in this world there can be no aisles that divide people, denominations, religions, countries. I believe that world does not need to have “American values” to be a better place. I believe that corporations do not have the interest and well-being of the “little person” at heart, nor do I ever believe they will. I believe that people, who don’t like others for various reasons, really don’t like themselves a whole lot either.

I believe that the common bond of our creation is the single greatest unifying force in this world.

I like the words of Buechner and Tillich and Niebuhr. I like it that Martin Luther King, Jr. fought for what he believed in and that southern states were forced to recognize the error of their ways. I like to throw the Frisbee for hours at a time. I like getting lost in a game of spider solitaire. I like being around my wife and talking to her because she is a really neat person and she makes me laugh. I like a good stout or better yet a black and tan (with just a little tan). I like being able to cook and be creative in the kitchen. I like not labeling my CDs so that I never know what song is next.

I like the fact that I am not content with who I am, but would rather spend a lifetime growing into my skin.

I am postmodern, modern, traditional, contemporary, hopeful, despondent, loving, loathing, sarcastic and serious. I read voraciously and remember sparingly. I am my past and I am my present. I have no idea about the future.

This quiz does nothing but confirm what I know, what I value, what I believe and like. If I were raised a Muslim, a Hindu or a Buddhist, it would make little sense to me. However, I was not raised in those traditions, and yet it still means little to me.

Yes, it describes a Polaroid picture taken of me in that particular frame of mind on that particular day. Tomorrow it might be different, most likely it will not. So I guess my thoughts about it come to this: it doesn’t really matter what I do with this test.

What matters is this: what are you going to do with it? I did the only thing I could with it, I shared it. I let you know a little about me in the hopes that some of you might reciprocate. That is point of this endeavor, to lay oneself out there, to open the dialogue between my heart and mind and soul and yours. It is to take the journey of the darkest valleys together and hopefully come out in one piece in the end. It is to enter the mist of those hazy lazy days and talk about the shapes of the clouds and the meaning of love and hope for peace in our time. It is celebrate the wanderings into the green pastures of life, where we can lie down at the top of the hill and roll until we reach the bottom.

Every post I write, every post I read is a journey into the soul, both mine and yours. In there, I hope for the common ground to find our footing and walk together…

Apparently blogger is having some difficulty translating new posts into a format that is visually appealing. All of the spaces at the end of this post (and at the end of all of the previous "top" posts) were not my design, but instead how blogger translated the post. Sorry about any difficulties with scrolling to comment. Take care...

grace and peace

A green leaf floats through the spring air
Winding, blowing, moving toward the rapidly approaching ground
Too soon, I cry, protesting its lot in life.
It is not the Fall; its brothers and sisters still suckle from branches.
Why have you abandoned it!

The landing is soft, but my movement continues
The wind bellows,
my barely three-dimensional shell is hurled into the air once again.
Twirling under the gale force breeze I am propelled further from home.
I cannot see my comfort any longer,
Alone, abandoned, I hope for security, long for peace.

Where are you?
The voice cries out in the wilderness.
Where am I?
Tears run hot down weathered cheeks
Only an echo returns, hollow and vacant
There is no flesh behind the words
All seems lost, there is no peace, no security.

And yet,
In my falling, rushing, twirling life,
There is hope.
The ground that held me briefly was soft and I was not broken,
The wind that carries me does not tear me apart,
And the distance from brother and sister is the journey I know I must take.

And so, the wind carries me from life to death
This barely three-dimensional shell will fail someday,
The life will cease to run warmly through thin veins,
Someday I will feed the earth, but until that time
I choose to hope the world into new growth.

A green leaf floats through the spring air
curling, bending, looping in the wind trying to stay afloat
aloft it sees river and raven and mountain.
Creation screams and waves as it floats by spurred on by the breeze
Buffeted by the wind it journeys to new places,
not secure
not peaceful
but hopeful, because there is no alone any longer.

You know what God,

I’m done lying, not that it did any good anyway;
I might as well tell the truth…

I did it.

There was no accomplice,
no mischievous accessory;
It was all me, there was no “serpent made me do it.”

I wanted to be like you, to create like you;
birds would glide above my head, rising and falling in the wind,
deer would run like raging rivers, like packs of thunder on the earth,
Life teemed around me and I want to create,
to make these swirling, whirling creatures
I just wanted to be like you,

Instead, I found myself embarrassed, hurt, afraid;
So I pointed a finger and cursed your creation.

I looked deep within and found darkness that I could not explain,
So I blamed others, and when no one was around I blamed anything I could, except myself.
I made up fanciful stories of possession that were no more than projections.
I could not believe that this darkness resided within,
That you would allow us to live and treat each other like this,
That you would allow me to treat others like this;

You sent that man into my life,
I thought he smelled bad
He talked funny, low, incoherent, different
I sent him away.

Then I went to teach and cry out for justice.

A woman came with a problem,
My mind drifted as the melodies of her words carried it away.
“I wonder what I will eat.”
“Is that a siren I hear?”
“What’s on television tonight?”

Then I told her how to mend her relationships and be present with one another.

That child just wanted to show me something.
A bug, a cookie, a sticker,
I’ll never know.
Just a pat on the head, and a contrived dismissal,
“I’m too tired, gotta get home and rest, show me later.”

Then I went and told them how children are important and should be seen and heard.

I don’t want to be like this,
I wanted to create heaven, to bring about the kingdom of God on earth,
Instead there is only hell, only darkness, only selfish acts.

I wonder what would happen if I searched the darkness,
Accepted it as my own, my albatross,
If I was aware of its power over me;
Would my eyes adjust to the dimness, find the light hiding in the shadows?

If I searched, I fear that I would no longer find a Satan or devil,
That when my eyes adjusted,
I would only see myself, dimly and afraid, lost and lonely.

What if the only devil out there is one inside here?

In solemn days and dark nights
We cry out for a sign, a mark, a signal
That you are with us.
When the darkness comes and we are afraid,
When troubles surround us and our will begins to fade,
We tremble knowing where we have tread,
O Lord, our strength and resolve,
Awaken us from our slumber!
Grant peace to the anxious
Rest for the weary
Hope for those who have given up.

In the midst of your mystery,
We raise our arms to the heavens
In the hope that you will embrace us
Despite the people we have become.
While the world crumbles,
Wars rage,
People starve,
We cry out for a light that will bathe the darkness we have created.

Out of our brokenness we hope to begin anew
Seeking a different way to live out your desires for us,
Like a sword you sent your son to remove us from our comforts
To place us in the wilderness so that we might wander and wonder
Give us the strength for the journey ahead.
So that we might do what little we can in order to further your kingdom here on earth,
One where justice rolls down like a mighty river,
And peace flows like an ever-present stream…

Lost
By David Wagoner

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here.
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

From where we stood, the kiosks loomed large throughout the store. It was like wandering through a human-made forest, our eyes taking in the multitude of colors and shapes as we searched for a new comforter. We circled kiosk after kiosk on our great department store adventure, cycling through neatly ordered stacks of sheets and duvet covers. We were modern day explorers in a modern day jungle.

We rounded the corner of one kiosk and stopped in our tracks. She stood there and it was apparent that we were not the people she wished to see. I would imagine that to her, this suburban jungle was a frightening maze of obstructions and impediments.

The look of panic on her face told me that, it also told me that she was lost. She was probably four or five years old, and had just wandered or played herself away from her mother. My wife and I could see her mom across the aisle just out of eyesight and so we approached her cautiously and asked if she was lost. The large eyes just stared back at us as her head slowly nodded.

My wife took her hand and led her through a winding trail of pillows, beds and sheets, until she could just see her mother. At that point, she broke into a run and crashed into the arms of her waiting mother. We watched as the mother knelt and looked her daughter in the eyes, instantly comforting away her panic and reassuring her that she was safe…

Hagar was probably somewhere between fourteen to seventeen years old. She had nothing except the clothes on her back, a days worth of food and water, and oh yeah, a roughly two-year-old child in her arms. She was let loose from the only home she had ever known, not even really understanding why, other than someone could no longer stand the sight of her.

She might have been lonely, afraid, probably panicked and maybe even angry. All that she had ever done was what they had asked of her, and now she was put out to die.

In that age, safety was found in numbers, anyone alone was a target for robbers, thieves or bandits. She would have been easy prey. There was nothing left in her life that was familiar. Her family was gone, her friends, her home, her safety, all gone never to return. So she did what so many of us do when times are tough, when panic sets in, when there is no hope to be seen, she gave up.

Being lost is an act of violence. It is the rending of one’s body from the very comforts that it has come to expect. But being lost is not just a physical thing. It is an emotional and mental and spiritual thing as well.

Lost means wandering aimlessly in real and proverbial deserts, with your water running low, your safety ripped from your life, your peace replaced with doubt. It is confronting the unknown in life. Stepping out into areas where we cannot see what the future holds.

When we are lost there is little that can comfort us, little that can bring us hope, sometimes even our ideas of God become impediments in our lives. This Great Comforter can feel strange and distant, and the ways we grew up believing hold little promise for helping us find our way home again.

Sometimes, lost means accepting the state of being that we find ourselves in, sometimes it even means giving up.

Today, I think we live in a very “found” society. We live in a day and age where answers are readily available. We know more about the Bible, about the culture of its authors, about the daily activities of those who live in the first and second centuries.

Information is at our fingertips through the internet and television; we can research our maladies, our homework, our bosses, our friends. We can print out maps that take us from door to door. Read books that will help calm our weary souls. Talk and write to friends instantaneously. It is difficult to get lost in today’s world. Between cell phones, beepers, tracking devices, and GPS, most of us couldn’t even get lost if we tried.

But if that is truth, then why do I have this feeling that I sometimes live amongst the lost, amongst a people who wander aimlessly? Why do I question the direction our society is taking, one that leads to rampant consumerism, a search for the next shiny new object, and a lack of depth? Why does our world toady seem less peaceful, compassionate, empathetic?

For all of our intelligence and information, there seems to be a lack of wisdom, common sense, and meaning. Maybe being found isn’t such a good thing. Maybe there is more to life than knowing, than doing.

The message in our gospel lesson doesn’t bring much comfort at first glance. "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

Hagar certainly experienced this sword of Jesus. She experienced the violence that occurs when a sword cuts through the life you have known leaving you in a freefall from all of the things that kept you on solid ground. In one fell swoop she went from a moderately peaceful existence to one of great uncertainty. She went from found to profound lost-ness.

And yet, she was never alone even though it felt that way. When life seemed most frantic, she suddenly found herself found by a Creator that loved and heard the frantic cries ringing out across the desert. When all seemed lost, when she had given up, it was then that she was able to be found again.

Sometimes we need to be lost. We need to have our safety stripped from us. To have a sword cut through the delicate webs we weave that insulate us from the world. Sometimes we need to be restless. We need to step away from our peaceful existence and grapple with the issues of the world around us.

Whether it is genocide, poverty, education, starvation, AIDS, war, or murder we need to walk out without a net and live in the world we have borne. We can only do that when we are lost.

When we find ourselves found, there is too much safety in our lives, too much that is comfortable. And when we are comfortable, there is no reason to change, to trust, to grow. By relying on our found-ness we lose the opportunity to dwell in the mysteries of life.

For me, being lost is not the end; it is merely a new beginning. In fact, I don’t think we can begin anew without first being lost. Every movement in life requires a step into the unknown, a leap of faith into the void that can only be filled by the Creator.

As Presbyterians, we believe that there is nowhere in this world that we can go without God. That doesn’t mean that we will always feel God’s presence, nor will we always understand the things that happen around us. Sometimes there is no answer for the experiences of our lives. Being lost or being found includes no guarantees of happiness or stability.

Really I can only guarantee one thing; there is no way we can be found, if we are not lost in the first place. So I will tell you today, one thing that I think ministers sometimes want to tell their congregations:

Get lost…

I took this test that I found on someone's website somewhere. The biggest surprise is that I wasn't more liberal. I guess I will have to deal with about a two-thirds majority. The link is below if you want to take it for yourself.

Surprise number two is the high score on the postmodern/emergent scale...

What is not a surprise is the bottom three...

Classical Liberal 61% Emergent/Postmodern 61% Modern Liberal 57% Roman Catholic 50% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 46% Neo orthodox 43% Reformed Evangelical 36% Charismatic/Pentecostal 25% Fundamentalist 0% What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

grace and peace

For one of the first times in recent memory, I am ahead of the curve. I have finished my sermon for June 19th, a whole week in advance. Therefore, I have decided to put it out there before it is actually preached and ask for your help.

Should you feel up to it, please feel free to comment, critique, or question what I have written. The texts come from the lectionary lessons on June 19th. They are Genesis 21:8-21 and Matthew 10:24-39. Please read them before you comment so that this is in its proper context. Also, please realize that sermons are meant for ears not eyes and forgive anything that seems grammatically odd. I will be out of town for a couple of days and won't be able to respond until the 18th, but rest assured I will read your musings before the sermon is preached on the 19th.

Most of all, have fun with it. That is my goal at least...


Lost
By David Wagoner

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here.
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

From where we stood, the kiosks loomed large throughout the store. It was like wandering through an orderly forest, our eyes taking in the multitude of colors and shapes as we searched for a new comforter. We circled kiosk after kiosk on our great department store adventure, cycling through neatly ordered stacks of sheets and duvet covers. We were modern day explorers in a modern day jungle.

We rounded the corner of one kiosk and stopped in our tracks. She stood there and it was apparent that we were not the people she wished to see. I would imagine that to her, this suburban jungle was a frightening maze of obstructions and impediments. The look of panic on her face told me that, it also told me that she was lost. She was probably four or five years, and had just wandered or played herself away from her mother.

My wife and I could see her mom across the aisle just out of eyesight and so we approached her cautiously and asked if she was lost. The large tear-filled eyes just stared back at us as her head slowly nodded. My wife gently took her hand and led her through a winding trail of pillows, beds and sheets, until she could just see her mother. At that point, she broke into a run and crashed into the arms of her waiting mother. We watched as the mother knelt and looked her daughter in the eyes, instantly comforting away her panic and reassuring her that she was safe…

She was probably somewhere between fourteen to seventeen years old. She had nothing except the clothes on her back, a days worth of food and water, and oh yeah, a roughly two-year-old child in her arms. She was let loose from the only home she had ever known, not even really understanding why, other than someone could no longer stand the sight of her.

She could have been lonely, afraid, probably panicked and maybe even angry. All that she had ever done was what they had asked of her, and now she was put out to die. At that time, safety was found in numbers, anyone alone was a target for robbers, thieves or bandits. She would have been easy prey.

There was nothing left in her life that was familiar. Her family was gone, her friends, her home, her safety, all gone never to return. So she did what so many of us do when times are tough, when panic sets in, when there is no hope to be seen, she gave up. She accepted and believed in her lost-ness and so she sat down and gave up.

Being lost is an act of violence. It is the rending of one’s body from the very comforts that it has come to expect. But being lost is not just a physical thing. It is an emotional and mental and spiritual thing as well. It is wandering aimlessly in real and proverbial deserts, with your water running low, your safety ripped from your life, your peace replaced with doubt. It is confronting the unknowns in life; stepping out into areas where we cannot see what the future holds. Lost means that we accept our present state of being; and sometimes it even means giving up.

On the other hand, I think we live in a very “found” society today. We live in a day and age where answers are readily available. We know more about the Bible, about the culture of its authors, about the daily activities of those who live in the first and second centuries.

Information is at our fingertips through the internet; we can research our maladies, our homework, our bosses, our friends. We can print out maps that take us from door to door. Read books that will help calm our weary souls. Talk and write to friends instantaneously. It is difficult to get lost in today’s world. Between cell phones, beepers, tracking devices, and GPS we can’t even get lost if we tried.

But if that is truth, then why do I have this feeling that I sometimes live amongst the lost? Why do I question direction our society is taking, one that leads to rampant consumerism and a lack of depth? Why do things seem less peaceful, compassionate, empathetic?

For all of our intelligence and information, there seems to be a lack of wisdom and meaning. Maybe being found isn’t such a good thing. Maybe there is more to life than knowing, than doing.

"Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

Hagar certainly experienced this message. She experienced the violence that occurs when a sword cuts through the life you have known leaving you in a freefall from all of the things that kept you on solid. In one fell swoop she went from a peaceful existence to one of great uncertainty.

She went from found to profound lost-ness. And yet, she was never really alone even though it felt that way. When she feared the next steps in life, she suddenly found herself found by a Creator that loved and heard the frantic cries ringing out across the desert. When all seemed lost, when she had given up, it was then that she was able to be found again.

Maybe, just sometimes we need to be lost. We need to have our safety stripped from us. To have a sword cut through the delicate webs we weave that insulate us from the world. Sometimes we need to be restless. We need to step away from our peaceful existence and grapple with the issues of the world around us.

Whether genocide, poverty, education, starvation, AIDS, war, murder we need to walk out without a net and live in the world we have borne. We can only do that when we are lost. There is too much safety in being found. There is no reason to change, to trust, to grow when we believe we know everything. By relying on our found-ness we lose the opportunity to dwell in the mystery of life.

You see, being lost is not the end; it is merely a new beginning. In fact, we cannot begin anew without first being lost. Every movement in life requires a step into the unknown, a leap of faith into the void that can only be filled by the Creator.

As violent as Hagar’s lost-ness seems, I am beginning to think that she wasn’t ever lost to begin with. There is nowhere in this world that we can go without God. That doesn’t mean that we will always feel God’s presence, nor will we always understand the things that happen around us. Sometimes there is no answer for the experiences of our lives. Being lost or being found includes no guarantees of happiness or stability. But I can guarantee one thing; there is no way we can be found by God, if we are not lost in the first place…

Sometimes they come back, those irrepressible demons of my youth...

I write my sermons on my laptop and then email them to my work computer to print out. About every third or fourth sermon, the emails end with a statement that says something like “don’t forget to do X… you moron.” Moron, idiot, and dumb-ass are my favorites, or at least the ones I use most often when I write a note to myself.

They are the private words I use when I talk to myself. These words come automatically, my fingers reaching deep into my unconscious and ripping them from the dark places they inhabit. Before I know it they are tapped out on the keyboard; before I can change it, the message is traveling down the cyber-highway waiting to meet me again on early Sunday mornings.

I reasoned that if no one likes me then I must be stupid, I must be who they say I am. It was middle school, the first time I ever understood, felt loneliness. I remember withdrawing, pulling every thought, every feeling inside. It wasn’t a careful act; it was violent, intentional, calculated. If they were going to make fun of who I was, then I was going to be nothing. Day after day we would attend classes together, sometimes we would gather to play together after school. Every moment was one of panic; constantly scrutinizing my actions, wondering if I gave them anything, if any movement or addition to the conversation could be used against me the next morning. My goal was to deprive the fire of oxygen so that it might die out on its own. If they couldn't get to me, then there was nothing to feed on.

But they did get to me, there were times when I wept out of loneliness, sadness, or anger, but never in front of them. That would have given them more fuel, would have fed their comments and remarks. Each morning I would don a pock-marked and ragtag suit of armor that had seen too many battles; from inside I could hear their words echoing inside my steel cage and I could refrain from fighting back; Each swing of the sword would glance off of that tough exterior and inside I would grow more cold, logical, cynical. With each battle, I became more like a museum piece, solid, stoic, nice to look at but increasingly empty on the inside.

All the while I internalized their messages; told myself that if they said it, it must be true. My world grew smaller and smaller, my younger brother became my cohort. I lost the ability, the desire to communicate with others. Hell, I didn’t even like talking to myself anymore, so I quit. What little social abilities I had withered like a weed with a fresh coat of Round-Up. What was left was a monosyllabic teenager, who could only answer the questions asked of him. I could not offer information because that could be used against me. I feared betrayal above all else, sometimes I still do…

Sometimes these are the last words I read before printing out my sermon. I try and laugh them off, calling myself stupid for writing that I am a moron.

recognition
becomes reinforcement
becomes belief

Shrugging them off only makes them stronger, only makes them more real. With each smile I choose to let them grow, and I cement them into the reality of my mind. That is why they are automatic; I let them in one time and refused to believe that they weren’t true.

I am beginning to know that these words are not who I am any longer. I can mediate and medicate their presence. I know myself better now; for the most part, I have stopped being a wounded and broody fourteen-year-old. I talk; I share stories; I even laugh at myself now.

But sometimes, sometimes the ghosts of my past haunt me again. Sometimes the nightmares return and I forget who I am; I forget about how others who care about me see me. Sometimes I can’t help but be fourteen again, to be frightened, to be lonely, to be angry. It is then that I remind myself about my failures, my irresponsibility, my lack of discipline. I pull out my armor piece by piece and battle myself, batter myself.

What I am beginning to realize is that this rusted beaten suit of armor doesn’t fit so well anymore. I am not ready to give it up yet, but it just feels too small. In these epic battles of the self, joints and muscles are now exposed to sword, and the wounds I inflict are no longer shielded by the ragged metal that clings to my flesh. As sword cuts through sinew and tissue, I feel the pain of my self-loathing, but strangely absent is the fear of these woundings. I know that they must happen, that these battles must be fought. By opening these wounds, I give them air, I make them visible so that they may be tended, so that someday they might heal…

grace and peace

I remember back sometime in the 1980’s when Coke lost a couple of percentage points of cola domination to Pepsi. The people at Coke were afraid and decided to tweak the almost 100 year old recipe so that its flavor would more closely mimic that of a Pepsi/Coke hybrid. “New Coke” with its flashy label and multi-million dollar marketing campaign became one of the biggest busts in Coca-Cola history. People were outraged that they changed the flavor. So much so that Coca-Cola was forced to reintroduce the old formula as Coca-Cola Classic. It also got a new label and multi-million marketing campaign much to the delight of millions of satisfied caffeinated people.

Coke, New Coke, or Coca-Cola Classic, they are all a mix of sugar, carbonated water, artificial and natural flavors and colors, and caffeine. Sure their formulas have been tweaked a little here or there so that a minute difference might be perceived by the tongues that lap up the fizzy goodness. But when it comes down to their chemical make-up, truth be told, they are all the same. They all have their roots in the same pharmacy with the same creator. The only thing that is different today is the marketing scheme and the scale on which they are created. The same goes for Christianity in this day and age.

I have read about the current emergent culture, it roots in postmodernism and its desire to deconstruct modern Christianity and return to the roots the movement perceives as most valuable. There is a great deal of value in returning to simplicity, but it has been done before. Think about the desert mothers and fathers, the early monastic cultures, the house churches sharing meals and singing hymns. From my current vantage point, the emergent culture is nothing more than old wine in new wineskins.

In fact, I have to wonder if it is nothing more than the newest phase, much like the mega-church movement, the community church movement, contemporary worship, great awakenings, the social gospel movement, and so on. I have nothing against this particular way of doing things. In fact, there are several things that I admire about it (the community, openness, etc.). However, there is one thing that has bugged me from the beginning, the lack of definition.

As a counselor I see numerous people who lack definition in their lives. They have grown up not knowing who they are, not accepting who they have been created to be, not listening to their gifts, their shortcomings, their calling. These people often appear hazy to me, wandering aimlessly through life seeking the next great stimulation so that they might feel alive for a moment or two. These people often grow up in homes where they were not taught to be who they are, and instead have defined themselves by what they are not.

Simply put, you cannot define something (or someone) by what it is not. Several authors make this point when they discuss how men are raised (see Terrence Real I Don’t Want to Talk About it or Lynch and Kilmartin The Pain Behind the Mask). In these works the authors often discuss the idea that men are raised to be “not like mom.” They aren’t raised to be like their dads or other male role models, just not to be like their mothers. This leaves an incredible gap in their lives because there is no definition for who they should be, only who they shouldn’t be.

If I say to you, “I am not American Indian; I am not an engineer; I am not a table; I am not seven years old,” does that tell you anything meaningful about who I am? No. The result of these statements does not create authenticity or build on a relationship. Instead, it leads only to a sense of separation and vagueness which can cause relationships to flounder from a lack of intimacy and frustrate those involved. Authenticity can only be created when we can define and share who we are. The same is true for communities of faith in general and the Christian church specifically. This poses a problem for post-modern deconstructionist Christianity.

When we define who we are and state that authentically, then we defeat the purpose of deconstruction. By defining ourselves, a meta-narrative is created, a great truth is expounded, and the community is bound to that truth.

Coke, New Coke, and Coca-Cola Classic are all bound by the chemicals that make them a reality. They are defined by the specific proportions of their ingredients, which creates a different flavor for different palates. The reality, though, is that they are all the same, and that is not a bad thing.

Authenticity begins with who/what we are. If New Coke was marketed as not tasting like airplane fuel, does that tell you what it does taste like? Well, isn’t the same thing true for churches, for communities of faith? Telling me that “we are not like another denomination” or “this is not your parents’ church” or “we are not limited by labels” doesn’t tell who you are, and that is what I care about, that is what I think God cares about.

Moreover, being bound by a definition does not mean that we are restricted to viewing something from that perspective only. The purpose of empathy and compassion is to allow us to be open to our experiences that may bind us, and give us the ability to curiously look at the experiences of others. Defining oneself is the pinnacle of openness, because in doing so we are allowed the opportunity to see the image of God in ourselves and in others from a grounded position in our own life. We can only accept who others are, when we know and accept who we are. Without that, all we are defined by is a marketing campaign and fancy new label…

grace and peace