huh?

I am currently reading Mark Batterson’s latest book, “Primal: A Quest for the Lost Soul of  Christianity.”  Let me just say this: you should put Primal at the top of your reading list for 2010.Batterson combines a conversational/storytelling style with hard hard hitting truths.  His premise is simple: we need to rediscover the raw, potent, and passionate roots of OUR faith.  There are many Christian writers that spend an awful lot of time addressing the problems of today’s church, Batterson does just the opposite.  He provides answers and solutions to some of the big questions plaguing Christianity today.Primal is also a sort of “call to arms” in that Batterson not only provokes thought and faith, but that his words seem to push us towards action.While I am familiar with Batterson’s other books, this is the first one that I have read, and I will say, I am VERY glad to be reading it.  Please pick up a copy of primal TODAY!  You won’t regret it!

I went to Santa Maria for Thanksgiving last week.  It was a lot of fun.  I was able to spend time with family members that I don’t get to see nearly enough.  Something caught my eye as I was driving to Santa Maria though, it was a bumper sticker that I had seen numerous times before.

I’m not much of one for bumper stickers, that is to say, I have never put one on my car.  I don’t necessarily like to use the cleverly phrased puns of others to expound upon my thoughts, so before I say much more, it is perhaps wise to realize that I’m not a “bumper sticker fanatic.”

The car that I saw had the “Coexist” bumper sticker on it, and beneath this bumper sticker was a homemade sign that read, “God is too big for one religion.”  Now, I would LIKE TO ASSUME that the good folks that make the “Coexist” bumper sticker do not wish to imply that all religions are the same and that they are trying to build bridges between people groups, but clearly, the driver of this vehicle was expounding a religious pluralism that I found to be very ego-centric.

Let me explain:

1) The various religious symbols that comprise the “Coexist” sticker come from faiths that ALL proclaim that there is only ONE way to connect with God.  I bring this up because the driver of this car very clearly had no clue what ANY of these religions believe.  None of these religions even come close to a pluralist view of God.  In fact, I would argue that the thing that has made these religions lasting belief systems is their distinct affirmations of their unique beliefs.

2) There is a major flaw in the logic that states, “God is too big for one religion.”  God is big, of this there is no doubt.  But He is not just big in the sense that He has a large size.  Acknowledging God’s “bigness” is an inadequate way of saying that He is greater than our ability to understand Him; this comes from His nature, His very specific, personified nature.  To try and make the statement that, “All religions are true,” encapsulates God in a very narrow way of thinking.

 This very narrow way of thinking states that God doesn’t really have any opinions, that He is incapable of communicating to mankind how He wants to be worshipped, and that whatever we want to think about God is okay with Him.  

Do you see the problem here?  Pluralism is just a form of agnosticism.

If you Google ”Define: Agnostic” the first definition that you will receive is this one:

“someone who is doubtful or noncommittal about something”

Pluralism and Agnosticism share the same major problem: Pluralists and Agnostics don’t have any clue what they actually believe.  I’ll be the first to admit that due to God’s “bigness” I don’t know everything about Him, but I can know what He wants me to know about Him.  Just because I can’t comprehend all that He is does not mean that I cannot comprehend some of who He is.  As an example, I know that in order for my car to run, it needs gasoline, and that a spark plug ignites that gasoline to drive a piston, and that piston in turn makes other parts move which makes the wheels turn and gives me the ability to drive forward.  I do not, however, know EXACTLY how all of this works, or what combinations of reactions and moving parts are completely necessary to push my VW onward.  I just know a little bit, and that’s all that I need to know.

God is much more complex than a car, in fact God possesses the complexities of personality.  He exhibits emotions, He is a creator, He is full of Joy and Love and can be incited to Anger.  God has a specific personality, He has opinions-and because of His “bigness” those opinions should be revered above all others.

Have you ever had someone make a false assumption about you or about something that you did?  How did it make you feel?

We must be cautious about making false assumptions about God and about what God does.  We try continually to fit God into our own ways of thinking and in so doing end up creating an idea of God instead of actually knowing God.  If I want to know you, I can’t try and make you fit into my desired perception of you; it may feel good to me, but it would be very rude to you.  In turn, if I want to know God,  I must cease from trying to build a theology that feels good and instead believe a theology that challenges me.

This is one of the major reasons that I am a Christian.  It would be easy for me to build a religious worldview that simply felt good to me, but the fact is, that if I wish to be honest, then I can’t claim to worship God when really I would only be worshipping myself.  Jesus is the embodiment of the personality of God, He is the litmus for measuring what is true and divine and what is not.  To try and say that other beliefs are equally valid would be foolish because I would be voiding all belief systems-including my own-in so doing.

So, when it comes to coexisting, I wish to make my aim Coexistence with God.  I want to understand how I can relate to Him and worship Him and not how I can try to make Him make sense.  That’s what love does (because after all, isn’t love what this whole “Coexist” thing is supposedly about?) love ceases from trying to make everyone else more like me and accepts them as they are.  If I am to truly love God, then I must stop trying to make Him something He is not and learn to love Him, even if a part of me doesn’t want to agree with Him.  And as I see God for who He is, it will force me to see who I really am, and the realization of who I am will cause me to change, because it will make me realize that I am inadequate to love God as I am.  There is hope though; He loves me in spite of me.

And that’s what I call coexistence.

It’s no mystery that I enjoy writing.  In fact, I think it is also common knowledge that I-like most bloggers-desire to be published some day.  Writing is more than just something that I enjoy doing, it is also a dream.  And dreams are difficult for me.

I am certain I am not the only person that has ever felt some big dream in the depths of their soul and at the same time that they were filled with the excitement of watching the dream unfold, were also filled with such anxiety over the idea that it might not happen that they were paralyzed, unable to make a move towards their dream.

Yeah, this is probably very common.

There are 6.775 billion people on the planet, there are an infinite number of ideas that have yet to be made manifest bouncing around in those 6.775 billion heads, in fact, I’m of the opinion that there is a very small percentage of the 6.775 billion that will ever fully express themselves and their dreams.

Why would I even begin to think that I could contribute something to this great mass of humanity that is worth contributing?  Wouldn’t anything that I say or do just be a bunch of white noise in the already too noisy world?  Who told me that I was so special that my words and thoughts would matter to anyone else?

And now we scratch at the surface of the issue:

Does anyone really care?

I am not a psychologist, not by any means, but I do find it interesting that we will make subconscious connections between our fears and seemingly disparate other parts of our lives.  If I keep asking the right questions, I will usually realize that my issues are rooted somewhere other than where they spring up, that fear, anxiety, trauma, anger, and all of those “negative” emotions that we feel are like an ivy plant: you may be looking at it here because a vine has crawled this way, but really, it is rooted way over there and if you want to kill it, you can’t cut it off here, but rather, you have to kill the root over there.  And the opposite is true of the other “positive” emotions, emotions like joy, peace, happiness, love, contentment, these emotions are more like trees, they spring up from one place, and we can see clearly where they start.

It is easy to know why one is happy, for the source of their happiness must be nearby.  It can be difficult to know why one is fearful, for the root of their fear may be located elsewhere, and the vine of fear that has grown in them has spread itself far and wide.

And I think this brings us to an interesting insight: the emotions that we would associate with the good are rooted in some sort of a concrete truth while the emotions that we would associate with the bad have roots that are hidden behind a series of confused lies; lies about their very nature.  It is as though the “bad” emotions and behaviors that we develop have a self defense mechanism, they wish to preserve themselves while our other, “good” emotions just sort of give themselves away freely and we are typically not afraid to share them.

The truth gives us a freedom that permits us to be fully human.

Lies build in us a destructive vein of perplexity that can cripple our ability to dream.

I love to write.  I have a few book ideas that I return to on occasion, but I have not done any writing for several months now, and I have attributed my cessation of writing on a bit of writer’s block.  And to an extent this has been true, but there is another reason.

If I get to the root of the issue, there is a part of me that is scared that I would never be able to produce any material good enough to be accepted by others.  And the reason that this scares me is because there is apparently a part of me that very much wants to be accepted by people.  And I want to be accepted by people because I want to know that in some way I am special, maybe even better.  And I want to know that I’m special because I have a need to be loved.  And I have a need to be loved because I am a human, and humans are supposed to be loved.

Somewhere deep down, a fundamental part of my nature, a part of me that should not be anything to be afraid of, has gone wrong, and I’m scared, vulnerable, broken.

I have to find a truth build from, and if I build from that truth, I can find a better end of things.

I am human, and humans are supposed to be loved.  Humans are loved by a God that loves us far beyond our finite abilities to comprehend love.  I am loved by God.  I am special because He has made me unique.  I am accepted by God.  I can produce [insert dream here] that is worth something because God has made me worth something.

I don’t get my identity from my fears, for my fears are built upon lies.  I get my identity from truth, and truth makes me free.

The truth is, there are 6.775 billion unique, beautiful people on this planet and I am one of them.  So are you.  Each one of us is loved.  Each one of us is unique.  Each one of us has the choice to identify ourselves with a series of lies, or to identify ourselves with a concrete truth, the truth that we were made by, and loved by a God that is present, a God that is with us.  Our hearts and minds are filled with dreams and hopes, these are good things, good things that can be built on the same truth.

May you find your fears and anxieties vanish like shadows exposed in the light of the truth that there is a God that loves you, just the way you are.

Grace.

Peace.

-m