What is Christianity Supposed to Look Like??

I was thinking the other day about what Christianity is and what it looks like. It got me thinking about how Christianity looks in the lives of some of my friends/family/acquaintances. Here are some of the different outlooks people seem to have on Christianity:

-   God is always out to bless me, he’s my own personal genie in a bottle, and being part of the “Christian” club is all about exclusivity; God’s blessings are only for those who belong to the club and the blessings only really go to those who are extra holy and deserving, as a result: I read the Bible and pray every day, witness to everyone who isn’t a believer, and go to church at least 3 times a week.

-   Being a Christian doesn’t really mean that I have to make any changes to my everyday life or do anything different than non-Christians. It’s ok to have premarital sex, get drunk, smoke weed, and go to parties.

-   Because I’m a Christian, I am not allowed to go to the doctor because God alone is my healer. In fact, I will never admit to anyone (not even myself) when I am sick or have a disease, because doing so would be a disgrace to God, it would show him that I don’t trust him or believe him when he tells me I am whole. (I won’t ever openly admit to this, but…I am kooky and extremist in my beliefs.)

-   We as humans are bad, evil, wretched creations. We should restrict ourselves and our desires and we should berate ourselves for any minor infraction. Christianity is about shame and deprivation.

-   Christianity is real and it’s relevant to me. I go to church on Sundays, but I don’t really think about God any other day of the week.

-   I am a Christian and that is why I dress up and go to church on Easter and Christmas.

-   I may be a Christian, but I’m also really good at lying and manipulating other people. I cheat and I’m a hypocrite, but nobody in my church family would ever believe this about me because I’m really good at covering up my tracks and avoiding questions that might lead someone to my true identity.

None of those depictions seem like the right fit for me. How can Christianity look so different in the lives of different people? I’m still trying to figure out what I think Christianity should look like. More importantly though…DO I even get to choose? It doesn’t seem like I should be able to…(seems like it would leave to much room for error)

How do I believe in ONE way, ONE truth, ONE morality, and NOT become legalistic?

Whenever I hear a Christian talk about…

how gay people are going to hell and shouldn’t be able to get married

or how abortion is always wrong in every circumstance

or how REAL Christians don’t drink, smoke, or have sex

or how looking a certain way, or acting a certain way is sinful

I can’t help but be thankful that I’m not one of them anymore. There was a time when I thought those very same thoughts (and really believed them with conviction).

I’m ashamed of that now.

And I’m scared that it’s not going to be possible to make my way back to faith without becoming that same person again – someone stuck in their ways – someone who’s “always right” (or at least thinks she is) and never opens up to another point of view – someone who is judgmental and rigid.

I don’t ever want to be that person again.

I don’t want to be squeaky clean…

Even though I do often find myself wanting so very badly to get back to a place of faith, I’m conflicted because I don’t want it back in quite the same way.

I don’t want polished and fake.  I want dirty and real. I’m still attracted to cuss words, not following the rules, and marijuana.

And I don't want to have to squeeze myself back inside that small box I used to be in, I want room to stretch out, to grow, to change, and to discover.

Does going back to Christianity mean that I can never again utter a swear word under my breath (or scream them out real loud) when I stub my toe, am really angry, or miss a really great chance at scoring a goal during a soccer game?

Does it mean that I can’t smoke weed anymore and I always have to follow the rules?

Does being a Christian mean that I always have to color inside the lines?

Fast Forward to the Present...

Alcohol loses its appeal…

After reading a blog about alcohol on Like a Child’s blog, I was inspired to write my own (pretty much taken straight off of a comment I left on her blog) which reflects my current views on the topic…

As I was growing up in the church I equated drinking (along with sex, drugs, and parties) as being something that only "non-Christians" do, and while going through high school where everyone was doing all of that stuff, I was proudly declaring that, "I was NEVER going to drink alcohol."

That mentality lasted only as long as my faith did. Once that went out the door, I decided I needed to try a lot of things that I had never allowed myself to try (most of which were not good for me).

It really hasn't been that long but I think I'm pretty much over it. I went out for a friend's birthday this past weekend where I decided not to drink. It was a miserable night. Everyone was nagging on me the whole night to drink and everyone who was drunk was acting like a fool. Turns out: getting drinks spilled on my sandaled feet every 5 seconds, having loud music blaring in my ears and smoke machines burning my eyes along with all types of nasty guys groping, fondling, and grinding on me without my permission is just NOT MY CUP OF TEA afterall.

I've come to the conclusion that drinking is just not for me.

NONE of it tastes good to me. It almost always is equated with staying up way past my bedtime, leaves me feeling sick and tired the next morning and usually leads to a day of laying around doing nothing until I start to feel better...or until it's time to go to bed again. It's a waste of money and a waste of time. I have things to do, places to go, and people to see. I'd like to be awake and feeling good for it all.

Once again, I'm finding that I'm not much of a fan of alcohol...and this time it has nothing to do with Christianity.

SYMPTOMS OF A FAITH LOST - PART 14

Into the Abyss...

As my time away from Christianity lengthens, my desire to do all the things I never did before increases. I start to add late night clubbing and smoking marijuana to the list of things I think I should do.

For a while after drinking so much to the point of blacking out, I couldn’t get near a glass of alcohol. I would nearly vomit at the smell of it and had no desire whatsoever to ever have another drop of it again…that lasted for about a year. And then it was gone. I started drinking again and this time I was a little better at it. I never blacked out again and rarely woke up sick the next morning.

I’m kind of enjoying being the “one who rebels”, the “one who doesn’t believe”, the “one who goes against”, the “one who doesn’t accept”. I would dress up, go out to the club, down shots, laugh my ass off, and rub body parts with faceless dudes who didn’t mean a thing to me. And, while I didn’t gain anything lasting or of true value during all of this, I sure did have a hell of a lot of fun.

I got high for the first time on a kayak in the middle of a lake. All of my senses were heightened, like I could feel things with my eyes, not just see them. It was like I could feel things with my ears, not just hear them. And it was like everything was connected. I felt intricately connected to the trees, the water, the waves, and the animals. I could feel the wind brush over my skin and watch the waves ripple – it was like I could feel the waves ripple. Everything slowed down and I was completely content. I slowed down and just kind of let the waves take me when I spotted two loon’s on the water near me. I felt like I was a loon in my kayak, watching them float over the water as the waves tossed them about, as I was also being tossed about by the waves. Once I was high it was like I had completely new senses and could really zone into certain things. I would forget things and lose my train of thought. It was kind of like it emptied my mind of all the thoughts and worries and extra stuff that’s in there usually, I was able to just BE, and be present where I was and to take in the stimulus (sights, sounds, and sensations) around me. The water was really tripping me out though, many times while I was kayaking I would stop and just stare at the water and watch it as it moved and changed. It was absolutely fascinating to me. And if it wasn't for things like the law, jobs, and obligitory drug tests, I would probably make it a more frequent habit.

SYMPTOMS OF A FAITH LOST - PART 13

It's time to get away...

The following summer I head off to the woods of the east coast for some much needed SPACE from all they pain and frustration I’ve been feeling. I work with a large group of 20 something’s with psychology backgrounds at a residential treatment facility for kids. The days are long and hard and leave little room for me to wallow in anger or sadness or worry about my crisis of faith.

It’s exactly the change of scenery that I needed. And although 90% of my coworkers are NOT Christian, I come to discover that these are some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. Everybody is welcome and fits in. It doesn’t matter what you look like, what your into, or what your beliefs are because everyone is accepted and everyone is working together towards a common goal. People are always offering their help and picking up somebody else’s slack when necessary. Even though I’ve grown up in the church I come to realize that not once before this summer have I ever felt so accepted, safe, and unconditionally loved as I do in this place…which only strengthens my resolve to stay away from the church and it’s backstabbing people.

Why was Jesus so confusing?

And why in the heck did Jesus speak in parables anyway? Why didn’t he just speak plainly? Why did he leave SO MUCH to our understanding, our interpretation, our imagination? Assuming that what he was teaching was relevant to us and important for us to know…WHY did he leave so much ROOM for ERROR? Why does he allow us to get it wrong and fight with each other over who’s interpreting his stories in the most accurate way?

Pick a Little Here…Choose a Little There

So often I’ve seen and heard people in the church “pick and choose” what to believe/endorse/enforce from the Bible. Walking down the halls of a Christian University sixty years ago you would have never seen a young man with hair past his chin, a girl with ear and/or facial piercings, or the multiple tattoos on the arms and legs and toes of passerby. Nowadays it’s commonplace. We all believe that killing is wrong…but we would never dare to put ourselves in the same category as a killer when we tell a little lie or secretly want to catch that married man’s eye. All three actions go against the 10 commandments, but they carry different weight…WHY? And who decided?

The church highlights and underlines in red anything that has to do with gay/lesbian relations as something of the Devil…something to be delivered from but within those same churches come the straight men who sleep around and cheat on their wives, within those same churches come the ladies who gather in groups to gossip about “so-and-so” and “what’s his name” and how they’re going to go to hell for this, that, or the other thing. What is the difference??

Is all of the Bible 100% true, to be taken at its word exactly as it is written? Was the great flood an actual event that really took place or is it simply a symbolic story told to teach a lesson or prove a point? And if it really did happen, how do you account for the fact that a very similar flood story is found in other literature? Who copied who? Or could they possibly be referencing the same event? Did God really allow for Job to be tortured by the Devil? Did the crucifixion actually happen?

And each church/individual seems to take their own (unique and different) experiences into account as they look for ways to synthesis the words/parables/stories of the Bible into everyday circumstances in the attempt to make them easier to understand in our context. It’s only natural that people do this – but when we do, we cannot possibly ALL be right…..can we even be sure that ANY of us is right? I’ve heard too many different interpretations on the same piece of scripture – seen a single piece of scripture pulled and torn and twisted until it fit somebody’s justification for this action or that belief and at the same time seen it pulled and torn and twisted in a different direction in order to fit somebody else’s agenda. We can't possibly all have the right answer.

No more answers to life’s big questions…

The moment I decided to jump over to the other side of the fence my world immediately crashed down around me. Christianity had told me where I came from, who I was, why I was here, and where I was going. I had no answers for these questions anymore.

It got me thinking…what if Christianity is nothing more than a confused man’s (or many men’s) effort to produce some answers for himself?

Christianity is the only thing that explains...

"Christianity is the only thing that explains how that tree got there, why my body works, or how my body was healed..."

I can understand this line of thought.

There are a lot of unexplainable things in this world.

But should I believe in Christianity just because I can't think of anything else that can explain the mysteries and miracles of life?

Where would I be without God???

Someone once challenged me to consider where I would be if it wasn’t for this whole “Christianity” thing…as if it’s real and valid BECAUSE it can save us from bad things or wrong choices.

I wasn’t buying it.

A good healthy conscience and a sense of wrong and right (along with a little luck) can also keep us from bad things, and I’m pretty sure you don’t have to be a Christian to have either.

In fact, I would challenge that Christians may not really have a lot of either of those things either…what they really have is guilt. They feel guilty about doing (or wanting to do) everything that the Bible tells them not to…and guilty about all the things they don’t do that the Bible tells them they should. How do I know?? Because I once was one! (And just to be fair…let me clarify that I do realize that my story is not everybody’s story and that not every Christian walks around with guilt hanging from their neck…but from experience I can say that a lot of them do)

What do you think? Is the fact that Christianity can keep us from bad things and bad choices enough to prove that it’s real? Is it enough reason to believe?