ONE

I have been looking for a new church in the area that I just moved into, and this morning I was contemplating the differences between denominations. As I was contemplating this, I started wondering why there are so many different denominations and what happened in our history to bring about our current state. Sure I learned about the reformation in history classes, but it obviously didn’t stop there and in fact is still continuing today. Seems like every time I turn around some new denomination has popped up. Hell, even “non-denominational” is becoming a denomination of its own. So while I was thinking on all this, a little rant started bubbling up in my head and I thought I ought to put it down on paper (well… computer really… but it’s a figure of speech). So here goes:

Disclaimer: I do not fancy myself a biblical scholar or a theologian. There are simply my own opinions. And I certainly don’t claim to be some sort of prophet with a message from God… (yet I don’t think He would necessarily disagree with me).

God knew what He was doing when he inspired men to write the bible (He’s God… He’s no dummy). Therefore the way it’s written must have been intentional. What I mean is that the things that are clear cut are clear cut on purpose, and the things that are ambiguous are so because He intended them to be. The bible leaves no room for error on things that are central to our salvation, for example: Jesus is the only way to salvation. The bible says over and over, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” There is no confusion here. However there are other topics that are less clear. On one page it will give the clear impression that we choose Christ for ourselves and on the next it will say “In love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ.” Or even more confounding, “And those He predestined, He also called.” Wait… doesn’t ‘called’ kind of imply a need to answer, and isn’t answering something we do of our own prerogative? How can we be predestined and called at the same time? What?!

Here’s my take on all this: God didn’t want to just spoon feed us everything like we’re babies. Sure when we start our walk down this path called Christianity we are like infants, not knowing anything and needing to be carried and nursed. And God does that. He makes plain the things we most desperately need to learn and understand at that stage. He spoon feeds us just enough to make us strong enough to stand on our own two theological feet, then He sets us down and lets us teeter away on our wobbly little toddler legs. As we grow in our faith and become stronger He wants us to stretch and use our brains. That’s why I think He built some ambiguity into the bible. He wanted to leave some mystery to it. If it were all plain we could read it once and know everything there is to know about God and faith and life, and then we would never read it again and become bored and stagnant in our faith (which needless to say would not be good). God made some things a mystery to encourage us to search and question and debate and wonder and just generally do things that involve thinking about Him. Hmmm… God wants us to occupy our minds with His word… go figure.

So where does this fit in with all these splits in the church, with these schisms? Here’s what I think is going on: different people within a church interpret what I will call ‘the ambiguous doctrines’ (predestination, infant baptism, etc.) differently. Instead of allowing this to foster lively discussion and study of the word, people are arrogant. The leaders of the church insist that since they are leaders they must be right and if anyone does not agree they must be blasphemers! Those who disagree with the leaders insist that they are right, the leaders must be corrupt, and they go off and start their own church. Now that of course is my much shortened, slightly dramatized version… but you get the picture. But here’s the rub: there are so many nuances and mysteries woven into the bible, that when it comes down to it, it may be hard to find more that three educated people who agree on absolutely everything. So this group that has just split off will find a new topic that they can’t agree on and will split again, and so on until we are nothing more than a bunch of individuals, each with ever so slightly different doctrines.

This scenario may be dark and may be far fetched but it doesn’t have to go that far to be a problem. I believe that it already is a problem within the global church. While we spend our time worrying and splitting up over ambiguous doctrines that we may not find the true answer to this side of heaven, one more thing that the bible is perfectly clear on is the importance and necessity of the church. We are to be ONE church, ONE body united with Christ as the head. How have we come so far from that image? Look how we have let the devil tear us apart and tear us down.

This is my plea to all who call themselves Christians: Do not be so vain as to think that you and you alone know and understand the entire bible. Do not presume to know the depths of the mystery of God. Do not close your eyes and close the door on your brother when he does not agree with you. Do not give the devil a foothold.

Letter to the Editor

Caitlin Scuderi ends her opinion piece “Religion shouldn’t define who you are; too many contradictions, too much controversy” (SN 5/25) by saying that “by stirring controversy, ‘The Da Vinci Code’ has shown that we should always actively question what defines us,” and I agree. Someone once wrote, “a faith unquestioned is no faith at all.” If a person is unwilling to ask the tough questions about their faith, they must be afraid that what they believe in won’t stand up to questioning, in which case do they really believe?
However I disagree with the statement that “we should never define ourselves by our religion.” There are a lot of things that make me who I am, I am a daughter and a sister and a student. I am also an avid reader and I thought the Da Vinci Code was an incredibly well written book, and if it causes people to ask questions about Christianity, all the better. But first and foremost, I am a Christian. I’ve had doubts, I’ve asked questions, and my faith has weathered the storm, and now I find that were I not a Christian, I would be a different person altogether. I would be a different daughter, a different sister, a different student.
When I read “My name is Caitlin, I am 20 and I am a Christian. But I like to party, I have a tattoo – so am I really a Christian?” I recognized that I’ve asked the same question at times. My name is Rebecca, I turn 21 in 7 days, sometimes I drink too much, sometimes I curse like a sailor, I have a tattoo of the word beautiful across the top of my foot, and I KNOW that I am a Christian. The tattoo was inspired by Isaiah 52:7 which says, “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news.” The good news? That Christianity is not about trying to be perfect. In fact it recognizes that no one is perfect and, through Jesus Christ, we’ve been given an avenue to have a relationship with a God who is perfect, despite our imperfections. But don’t take my word for it. Ask the questions.

Faith in Sense

Faith in Sense

The more I think about it some days, the more life doesn’t seem to make any sense. It’s completely random and uncertain. At any given moment the unexpected can happen and the next moment it can happen again and turn every thing inside out.  The moment you give up on something you’ve been longing for and waiting for is the moment it happens.  
The day you get arrested for driving under-age and under-the-influence is the same day your sister has her first baby girl.
Months after you break off an almost two year relationship because neither one of you are “phone people” and you’ve just stopped talking, you start having casual half hour to forty-five minute phone conversations.
When you realize that every penny you have in the world you owe to someone else, the woman who’s classified ad for a dog sitter you answered months ago emails you out of the blue to say that she’s going out of town and her regular sitter is gone and to ask if you can do it –and offers you 20 bucks a night to sleep in her house and play with her dogs. When you see life as a series of events like these, life is crazy and sporadic and has no rhyme or reason to it.

But if life isn’t just a series of events maybe it makes a bit more sense after all.  The arrest, though suck-tastic, was probably under the least painful circumstances that such a thing could happen and makes a pretty good kick in the butt to get you back on the right path. When you’re sitting in a cell, knowing that your mother will undoubtedly let you rot there, you pray for your pregnant sister to go into labor so that she will have to come get you and you won’t have to spend 24 hours in jail.  Then she does go into labor… early, and you know that it’s not coincidence, it is a miracle and a blessing. You know that the whole crazy night was all God’s doing.
While lying on your couch watching Sex in the City, you realize that “phone boy” is your Mr. Big, that one guy that you can’t seem to make things work with but who, in spite of yourself, you can’t stop loving, you get the point finally.  Things may not work now but the future is big and full of time.  You may end up in Paris with Mr. Big, and then again you may not.  But the long distance and anti-phoneness of now won’t last forever and it is not the end of all things.
You’re nearly in over your head in debt and you get thrown a rope out of nowhere, but you know who’s holding the other end.  He’s been there all along and knows what you need and will provide it for you. He only let you struggle a while to teach you to have a little faith.
I heard someone say once that faith is believing in advance what only makes sense in reverse.  Life makes absolutely no sense when you’re sitting right in the middle of it.  But once you get on the other side of the situation and look back, you’ll see the sense. In the mean time you just have to have faith that it’s there.

The Leak is Sprung

The Leak is Sprung

I don’t like the word “crying.” I think “leaking” would be a more appropriate term.  “Crying” sounds like something a baby or a little girl does. It sounds childish and really quite pitiful. Definitely not something a self-respecting woman would want to be caught dead doing.  
I can’t speak for all women but I know that when I cry, it’s most certainly not done voluntarily.  It just happens. And once it starts it’s damn near impossible to stop.  It’s an uncontrollable force of nature like gravity pulling water through a hole in the bottom of a bucket. Some days my bucket is the size of a shot glass, and sometimes it’s a swimming pool, but no matter how much water is there to begin with, once the leak is sprung, it’s not stopping until there’s nothing left to leak.  
Leaking is more than just crying; it’s more than just tears.  I don’t just leak from my eyes; I leak from my entire face. I’ve got the tears flowing, the nose running through every Kleenex I can find, and then there’s the drooling. It’s not that I become a human shaped Saint Bernard, slobbering all over myself, but there’s a definite increase in saliva that easily qualifies as a “leak.”
I feel much better about myself when I’m leaking than when I’m crying.  Leaking feels less childish and gets you off the hook a bit since it’s involuntary and all. And most importantly, it makes crying kind of funny…and if you can still find the ability to laugh at yourself, maybe you’re not so pitiful after all.