There comes a time, every so often, when wrestling with what I truly believe, don't believe, and want to believe comes to a head. As my word this year is "Faith," 2016 is one of those times. Over the past 23 years, I have discovered one simple truth - for every well thought-out, researched, and staunchly believed religious tenet, there is an opposing side that is just as well thought-out, researched, and staunchly believed. It is true what they say, "Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one!"
At present, I feel the need to just write. Write what's coherent. Write what's incoherent. Pen down my anger and frustration. And write whatever else is on my heart and mind. As Shrek once said, "There's more room out than in."
This post is part struggle, part rant, part getting it out - making room, part brain-dump, and just part "UGH"!
I am purposefully making no attempt at trying to be spiritually enlightened in this post, just spiritual and honestly frustrated. I guess, one could say, it's the wrestling that leads to the light.
In The Beginning...
The road of faith is wrought with many dangers, tricks, and snares. One slight move in any one direction over a period of time and you might find yourself exactly where I am, or worse - questioning the very God you've been told to trust most of your life.
I came into the fold of Christianity in the summer of 1993 during a Vacation Bible School at March AFB in Moreno Valley, California. I was 11 years old. I was scared into it. I was scared into accepting Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior*. I had recently started realizing my same-sex attraction and I knew that the Bible was very clear on how sinful it was. I did not want to go to hell. So I accepted Jesus as my sure-fire way of avoiding that fate!
What I didn't know was that neither Jesus the Son nor God the Father would readily deliver* me from these attractions. I remember praying nightly for God to save* me. These prayers became far more frequent between the years of 1994-1996 upon moving back to my birth-town in Warner Robins, GA - red state and bible-belt central.
Upon entering 8th grade in 1995 my disdain for reading was enveloped by a voracious appetite for Biblical prophecy. Between the years of 1995 and 2001 my appetite became insatiable. Hours were spent reading Biblical prophecy from Genesis to Revelation, cross-referencing passages with concordances, dictionaries, maps, charts, and any other prophetic reference I could get my hands on. Copious notes were taken and then I was introduced to Tim Lahaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, co-authors of the International best-selling book series Left Behind. I was hooked - like a moth to a flame.
The Left Behind series coupled with copious amounts of sermons, teachings, and Bible studies on God's judgement, sin, hell, and the end times, I see now, did more damage than had I not believed at all and found God on my own terms rather than from Christian teaching. Is it not better to have a plain open field with nothing on it than a plain open field that you've constructed a monstrous and fearful prison on, that you have to later spend years trying to dismantle?
This is where I am!
I spent more years learning about sin, the judgment of God, hell, the rapture, the tribulation, the Antichrist, and one world governments, the Second Coming of Christ, and the battle of Armageddon than I ever did about God's love, peace, joy, and friendship. I vividly remember sitting in church listening to sermons about God's judgment and hell and coming away with a ready and present fear. The prayers for God to make me heterosexual never ceased.
FEAR OF GOD IS NOT THE SAME AS LOVE FOR GOD!
I was taught, inadvertently, NOT to trust my own plans nor to trust my own feelings and desires for "The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?" (Jeremiah 17:9) Scriptures such as "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths" (Proverbs 3:5-6) were bastions of doubt for me. My own desires could not be trusted. My own understanding and plans could not be reliable because, I was taught that "All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away" (Isaiah 64:6) and that "all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God." (Romans 3:23)
I could go on and on, but suffice it to say, my ability to trust myself let alone God had been tarnished. These, and other scriptures, were used to meticulously and mindlessly teach me how wicked and evil I was, only deserving NOT of the love and compassion of God but of his pity and 11th hour saving, because I was totally inept and incapable of doing anything worthy or good on my own and even what I considered good deeds were meaningless. I was taught about God's judgments from the story of Adam and Eve and the garden of Eden, to Noah and the flood, to the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, Moses and Egypt, Joshua and the land of Canaan, David and his many wars, Elijah and the prophets of Baal, Israel and their exiles, all the way through to John's Revelation and the judgements of Middle Eastern dominions.
All these scriptures coupled with my own same-sex attraction and the passages to exile me to a fiery pit, only helped to solidify in me doubt concerning whether or not God really could be trusted. After-all, I was one of those "abominations" worthy of nothing more than the judgement of God and hell-fire! And there were no shortage of Christians to remind me of that fact.
For me, over time, even Jesus' death and resurrection became not a celebratory event but an event that altogether proved my own fallibility, weakness, lostness, and utter wickedness. Jesus, the "Son of God" (or God Himself) had to come and suffer an excruciating death for my sins. How in the world is that at ALL celebratory?! God kills the good son because the bad sons can't seem to stop misbehaving? No wonder the majority of Christmas music, Hymns, and modern Contemporary Christian songs are sad minor-keyed melodies that promote more of a feeling of slitting your wrists in a bathtub than celebrating any new life Jesus' sacrifice was supposed to offer. Talk about eternal guilt! And I've seen this guilt and fear used again and again to convert folks to Christianity. So we continue to have our altar calls where we fall face forward with hands lifted in the air, tears streaming down our face, for the sacrifice that Jesus made because we were too fucking pitiful to do anything right! We thank Him for his sacrifice while daily attempting not to feel sorry for ourselves because we are "lowly sinners" and we continuously pump out song after song after song bemoaning our plight.
The Roots are Poisoned
Over the past couple of months, thanks to a dear friend of mine, I have come to understand that these beliefs, tendrils, and logical conclusions are the foundations of Calvinism's "Total Depravity" tenet. However, knowing this doesn't retroactively eliminate the psychological and emotional (heart) damage done. And it's easy to control folks who already think they are nothing and capable of nothing good. We are literally slaves to the cross. And a slave to the cross is still a slave.
For a great list of damning verses pointing towards man's "Total Depravity" visit this link - Total Depravity Verse List!
Although intellectually I can make the logical jump that perhaps God truly indeed is love, but these damning scriptures are like hooks inside of my heart, tethering me to beliefs that no longer comfort me nor serve me, yet are truly difficult to rid myself of. I've likened it to being imprisoned in a large cold stone room where all the exits are blocked by some restrictive scripture. And immediately the thought occurs to me, "Well Jesus came to save you from wrath and give you life." This and like thoughts no longer comfort me because the truth underlying it is that I'm nothing more than a piece of shit without this gift*. That does nothing for my morale. 'Cause blood covered shit is still blood covered shit.
How, so many worldwide are content in believing that they are inherently ruined is beyond me. Is it necessary for me to first be nothing before I can be "something?" I know I'm asking questions that the religious, spiritual, philosophical, and common man have been asking for generations! And what should I truly make of a God who's love for Mankind is so beautifully exposed in the book The Song of Solomon and yet that section is book-ended with a whole lot of hell and fire raining down from heaven!
If I can forgive a person freely without some person or animal being sacrificed, then why in the world can't God?
(The story continues...)
*These are the various terms used by Evangelical, Charismatic, and Pentecostal Christians so flippantly that their meaning, over time, loses its luster, especially in the face and context of other doctrines and teachings such as sin, judgment, and hell. These latter terms seem to be given greater credence.