Rebuilding Our House of Faith
Hi! And thanks for coming back. Last week’s “Essay Against Evangelism” was one of the most popular I’ve released and garnered an unfortunately large number of messages from people sharing their own personal stories of pain. I hope you get to read it if you haven’t (read it here). I desire to help people feel less alone in their struggle to make sense of their faith in an ever-increasingly complex church (and political) culture. While last week’s post might have been the most controversial, I hope this week’s is the most hope-inspiring, positive-vision-casting essay.
In Case You’re Thinking I’m Anti-Church
Just in case you’re thinking I’m anti-church (based on some of the honesty in my writings), I can also admit a lot of really good stuff came out of all of the hours I have spent in the pews. Growing up in the church has given me a beautiful foundation to learn about life lived for and with other people. It has taught me a great deal about how our lives are drenched with meaning and purpose, rather than the chaos and turmoil that threaten to define our days. I am grateful for all the love and encouragement I’ve received. Some of my closest friends have come out of my church experiences. Not to mention the incredible wisdom found in the teachings of many pastors, Sunday School teachers, and youth group leaders. I learned about the Bible and how it’s God’s love letter to us. It’s also worth mentioning that the Church is one of the largest sources of help and resources for people in need all over the world.
But…And It’s Not A Small One
Through all that I do I want to find a way to reframe some of the teachings that may have been twisted into untruths and have had a negative effect on me, and maybe you, too. It’s not worth it to throw the baby Jesus out with the bathwater.
The Church is the most relevant when it magnifies the glorious truths of Scripture, the unfathomable love of God for his creation, and presents sin as a construct of consequence and disconnect, rather than shame and punishment.
(share tweet by clicking below!)
This would be a great discussion over coffee, right? This way of looking at sin is less about declaring that we are innately horrible, worthless, and helpless to do anything about it, and more about viewing sin as the things we do that create disconnect between us, others, and God. Our “punishment” is the separation we experience.
John 17:21 says that Jesus came to show us that unity with God, self, and others is our sole purpose. But it’s like we’ve missed his point of creating unity, instead settling for either/or, black and white, dualistic thinking that builds giant walls between us and other people who aren’t doing life (and their faith) “correctly.” Time to take a sledgehammer to those walls, don’t you think? Moving in the direction of unity is going to take some reconstruction—building our house of faith in a different way.
How To Build A New House of Faith
One good way to start is by learning how to get rid of dualistic thinking. Dualistic thinking says there are two players at war. You’re dealing in black or white concreteness, the answer is either yes or no, things are either good or evil, pretty or ugly, smart or stupid, Democratic or Republican, Us vs. Them. Of course, we are always the Us, and those people over there, who are wrong, are Them. It feeds our ego with the comfort that we’re on the right team. It also ignores the fact that between the two sides there is usually a wide spectrum of thoughts and beliefs, gray areas, if you will, where most people live. None of us can ever strictly be labeled as one thing. Additionally, dualistic thinking does nothing to help us understand God, or the concepts of grace, love, death, sexuality, suffering, mystery, or infinity—extremely significant ideas that can’t be concretely defined. Life isn’t black and white.
Dualistic thinking also doesn’t take into account that there are two opposing sides inside ourselves (and maybe even more!): “It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge” (Romans 7:22-23 MSG). The only valid finger pointing that can be done is by those who are perfect.
Part of “dying to self” (like I mentioned in last week’s post) is letting go of this kind of thinking. When you let go of dualistic thinking you start saying more things like, “We’re all in this together,” instead of, “If those people would just wake up and do it my way.” Or, “I might not have the whole picture, I’m open to hearing your thoughts.” Non-dual thinking refuses to call someone evil, writing them off with a brushstroke. Yes, people can do incredibly evil things, but a person isn’t evil. It also lets go of judgment as a means of empowering your side and chooses the humble position of “I might be wrong.”
This will feel like death to people who consider themselves driven by doing right and being good, because it suddenly says that someone who we have considered wrong previously may actually not be wrong, and might even have something of value they can offer me.
“But Mark,” you may be saying to yourself, “isn’t our faith all about knowing the truth, and then that truth will set us free? (John 8:32) Doesn’t that mean some people won’t know the truth, but will be touting lies and evil?” (2 Thess. 2:11-12)
I’m glad you asked! Yes, what you asked is exactly true. But learning how to die to dualistic thinking starts by saying that we haven’t been exactly perfect on how we’ve lived or communicated the truth. In fact, some of what we’ve been espousing has been hurtful and evil, causing pain and division instead of creating communities defined by the unifying love of God.
As someone who has been in church my whole life, striving to be the best kind of Christian I could possibly be, it’s been super difficult for me to admit that I’ve been wrong about some things, but mostly wrong about how I lived out the truth. But if we want to find a way to step outside the confines of the expectations and instruction we’ve had ingrained our whole lives, getting rid of dualistic thinking is a necessary step.
It’s as if we’ve become such well-intentioned learners of what to believe that the concept of how to let our faith and beliefs be lived out has been lost in a tangle of worship and sin management.
We might have well-defined checklists of what to do and what not to do, but few of us have any idea how a relationship with God can transform our perspective on all of life, or how a nuts-and-bolts kind of faith is actually what we need to get through these difficult, messy-as-all-get-out days. Not just to survive, but to thrive and flourish, and help other people do the same! We might believe these ideas in concept and post regularly about them on social media. But if someone could look inside of us they would see we are living more from a perspective of discontent and lack; constantly wishing God would change us or our circumstances.
Let’s decide to find a better way to use our energy than judging, protecting our side, or condemning others. Instead of living out of fear and shame, let’s explore a more life-giving way of looking at ourselves, others, and God.
Making It Practical
1. What does it mean to “die to yourself?”
2. In what way have you tried to control God?
3. What role has the church played in your life?
4. How do you see dualistic thinking prevalent in society?
5. Who have been some of the people you’ve built walls between because they have different beliefs or lifestyles? How could you tear them down?
I’d love to hear from you!
Hey Mark, can you explain your inclusion of worship in that paragraph with the blue line on the left? I’m not sure how you see worship as being problematic (like “sin management”) and would like to understand.