Interactions of my sexuality (and other parts) with objective truth, honest truth and The Truth (further reflections on chapter 1 of a New Kind of Christian)

One of the Qs from chapter 1 of a new kind of christian, that we discussed in our group exploration this week was a question about why if modernity was partly about the quest for pure truth(s) why do (some) modern christians find it hard to be honest.

I found this a particularly engaging question as I was one of those modern christians who whilst engaging in defending and protecting the 'truths' of my faith was chronically unable to be honest with my feelings, confusions, fears etc.  It seemed to be that there was a polarisation between honesty, which meant a confession of why aren't these truths working harder to pure truth - which if I could grasp would transform me. 

Maybe I was just a classic example of faking it until I could make it but for the rest of this post I'd like to explore a little about truth and not least, where I believe the Truth resides, in communal, self disclosing relationship with Jesus (Truth) and with those who follow him.

Where is truth?

One of the things that has struck me looking back was my thinking that, to quote the X-files, the truth was out there.  The search for pure, objective truth meant for me that truth needed to be disected, held in sterile conditions in case it was contaminated, examined, studied, refined and defined.  It was something that I did to truth in the hope that by being able to express truth it would in turn express me.

To some extent it did express me, I knew what me christian identity was by the collective understanding of the objective truths that we found to be self evident i.e. to be a evengelical meant that I believed in xyz doctrines/practices as the truth.  This meant that those traditions who held different self evident truths to me were therefore at best less than me and at worst they were heretics - usually it was worse...

One thing I knew was that truth could not possiblt reside in me - in other words I was aware that I was not the key to unlocking truth - not least as I could see that in some areas there was an ever growing gap between the truths that I held to be self evident and the evidence of those truths as expressed in me.  In fact I knew I wasn't the source of truth as this was something that I did not want to face - self criticism, self reflection, honesty even with myself was not something that I really expressed.  Instead I opted to project an image of the truths I believed and ignored the reality of this truth gap.

Torn between two truths?

This did not mean that  I was not looking for 'the truth' of who I was - I was very interested in self actualised truth - a truth that would unlock and explain me.  One of the defining issues I had at the time was in trying to reconcile my sexual identity between what felt to be true, what I knew was objectively true per my understanding of truth. 

I was in my private nature very controlling, never admitted that I was wrong, was dominant and thought that any such admission of being wrong was weakness.  In my life as you can imagine this was a pretty destructive pattern of behaviour as I could not treat people as equals, I always had to be the superior onr.  This also of course meant admiting I when I was wrong to myself as well.  I thought I found a truth that explained why the way I was - I came across BDSM (sexual domination) which to me made me feel ok that I was dominant, it explained who I was.  It also tapped into a growing hunger of honesty within me - to me the BDSM lifestyle was one of self honesty, of a desire to know and be known, it involved significant honesty and trust about the most intimate aspects of life, entrusting the life of one to another. 

I felt conflicted however as I still subsribed to the objective truths of my faith, not least that being a christian was a relationship defined by equality.  I also was constricted by the model of service that was expressed in the new testament.  Conflicted for awhile that I gave up reading the bible and praying privately and instead devoted myself to the new insights of BDSM.

Of course there was a third stream of truth at work on me as well, which was how those I knew best lived their life.  On the other hand I also admired and hungered for the truth that others seemed to have, I wished that I did not struggle with my sexual identity and I envied their wholeness.  Knowing christians who were sexually in the light acted to slow me down, did i want to abandon my faith for this new identity truth?  As much as it seemed to explain me why did i look at the light that these others projected and feel that they had something better - i both loved and hated that light and felt so torn by conflicting desires, conflicting senses of the truth.

Implosian, The Truth and a new way...

All of this was a private struggle, I do not anyone realised the depth of it as I felt unable to explain myself to anyone else.  I felt like i was living 2 lies, a lie about who I was in my faith and a lie about who I was as a person.  If both were lies which was the truth?  Well as it turns out much to my surprise...neither! 

The first big surprise however was sharing a bus journey across Africa, sitting next to a senior pastor who cheerfully expressed his weaknesses and struggles as we chatted.  Such openess and honesty was mindblowing for my world view - especially from a snr pastor, the top of the christian strong looking tree.  That honesty touched something in me, the hunger that had been tapped by BDSM into being known suddenly felt possible in my faith, something that seemed revolutionary and yet elusive.  Later that week I felt that I could no longer go on, to quote Jerry Maguire: "break down, no - break through."  The courage of someone being honest with me inspired courage in me to be honest and I asked for prayer - beginning with lust that I was feeling at that time and then it came tumbling out, issue by issue, like words appearing in my head and a dynamic liberating encounter with The Truth, Jesus.  Each sin confessed, repented, prayed for, darkness and dark forces released, light, liberation and an uncovering of me rushing in.  I was honest with my self, with God and with a bunch of guys who followed Jesus and who committed to praying with me and for me - it was an amazing moment of love, acceptance and grace. 

During prayer one of the things that I remembered and had forgotten was a vow I had taken as a child that I would never be weak like my dad (my mum is quite a dominating force!) - it suddenly became clear to me that the whole domination 'truth' of me was based on the seed of this vow, it had shaped me and formed me, shaping my sexuality as well as many other areas of my life, like my inability to admit when I was wrong.  Repenting of this vow was the beginning of undoing what had been done - of discovering that this was not the identity Jesus had for me and who he saw me to be and how he wanted me to express that.  I had encountered the The Truth and it had set me free, more than that it was the beginning of a realisation that truth was not isolated, objective but expressed relationally.

A relational truth

I have come to realise that most everyone has weakness and struggle in their life, I thought that was a shameful thing to be hidden away, that to admit weakness was to deny my faith somehow, to deny the self evident truths i subscribed to as they would no longer be evident, at least from my self.  Now I feel that weak is the new strong, that to confess weakness, need, help is actually to be encountering truth, be in relationship with it.  That truth is a relationship with Jesus and the community of his followers  not a doctrine that is ott ther but a life that overlaps in and out.

I also realised from that point that I needed a new way of engaging - I needed to start being honest - rather than deny my weaknesses or attempt to lose myself in objectivity and better doctrine I needed to continue in my questioning honesty, in my seeking and doing so in relationship.  Having been inspired by the courage of someone being honest I sought to be more honest myself.

In fact it means admitting that my sexual idenitiy is still imprinted from many years of nurturing and developing it - I may be more liberated and able to see that is not the truth about me but it also means that I am learning to be honest about the ongoing impact of that in me.

What began as an exercise in honesty about my character and nature  - made me consider how I had got where I had got?  I looked at myself and my church environment and wondered about why people struggled to be honest - what sort of faith was this where everyone wanted us to be strong, to look good, to act the part in order to prove what - that christians were on a linear, or even exponential moral/emotional/spiritual growth curve?  What did it say about a faith where the divorce rate was no lower than the rest of the world, not that many people would know that marriages were imploding behind the fixed grins - heck my marriage was fast sinking and to the world around me the best they would have seem was me arranging faith chairs on the deck of the titantic - a little tired this week, work busy, pray for my cold etc?  I don't mean to rant here, just confess i was self disclosing about trival matters, the gnats of my life, whislt whole camel trains of me were dying.  I was like the emperor - no clothes but all projection and it worked too, for a long, long time!

Truth is not just discovered relationally its how its expressed too

So that for me was the beginning,  it was no longer what is truth, but now what is the truth that works.  Truth has to not only be acknoweledges and subscribed to, be found relationally but expressed relationally as well.  For instance, rather than a pattern of domination in lifeI have discoverd a path of liberation, of love being about giving rather than taking, about empowering people rather than taking power, about serving rather than expecting service. 

I am by no means a perfect person but at least I have a truth which seems gritty, honest, challenging, confronting, liberating and revolutionary - more than that it is a truth where I need The Truth, I need Jesus to continue to empower and liberate me, to continue to infill, indwell and inspire me.  It is a truth that makes me more dependent on him but it also makes me need to express it relationally.  Mainly it means learning to share and express that truth with those I am doing life with, to experience it together but also to ask for help and even to reach out and offer to help others. 

Summing up -the dynamic truth dwells in the midst of us

Exploring what a new kind of christian is to me then is fundamentally linked with honesty and a relationship with the The Truth - who is a person who offers a self disclosing and supporting relationship/experience of truth.  For me Jesus provides me with a model of being interdependent, of asking for help as well as offering it, of accepting people who struggle and more standing with them and being there as they do - in that shared relationship, that dynamic of sharing life together, my life with Jesus and then my life with others, some of whom have their own relationship with Jesus, that I hope we all experience more of Jesus.

In the sense of Jesus words, that when 2 or 3 are gathered together in his name he is there in the midst - truth is not just in me or you but filling the space between us, like a vend diagram, truth overlaps us, interconnects us.

More than that, the truth Jesus leads us to express that truth of him with others, inspired by him we seek to express the truths of that relationship honestly, our inward relationship journey expreed outwardly - and in turn we encounter Jesus in relationship already out in the world inviting us into new relationships, new ways of finding him expressed as well as expressing him as we know him...

Comments

[molly]

WOW. Thanks for having the guts to share all of that, first of all. Man, oh man, I wish I could meet your wife! She sounds like she would be so much fun to get to know... (If you're reading this, Hi, Debby!). :) Anyways, thanks for being open and candid and so powerfully honest. Not many of us do that, but it's so encouraging and refreshingly REAL when we do.

[Paul]

Hi Molls, well thought it would make a change from what colour is my belly button fluff today (blue if you are interested - it's always blue!!!:).

Debs is awesome - as they say behind every funny man there is a great woman rolling her eyes - well that's my debs, but she does it very well :).

I hear you on the honesty front - for years I felt that I could not be honest without letting the side down, now I feel if I'm not honest i'm, well, letting the side down, lol.

Somewhere, somehow something has gone wrong when we create this expectation of glorious pefect living and bury our brokeness under 6ft of smiley cement with a few nice daises arranged on top. I feel heart broken for Ted Haggard for instance who is as much a victim of a system that grinds honesty out of us, we all our sinners/broken/hurting and he like me needs God.

In my heart I feel honesty like mine should not be surprising it should be the norm - ok thank goodness we don't all struggle with our sexuality but when we do have questions, struggles, difficulties, fears etc can we be open and honest, will people care enough to listen, will I care enough to not only ask but to offer to help?

[molly]

I totally agree with you on Haggard... It's not to excuse what he did/has done, but it's just...this whole system we've constructed does NOT allow for imperfection, ESPECIALLY and PARTICULARLY if you are in a leadership position. To admit weakness is to ask for your walking papers, you know? Though I'm not sure how it *should* look...

I mean, when I ask myself the hard questions on the other side, I know it can get sticky...being honest means that certain doors might be closed...that I don't want someone struggling with child molestation issues going and teaching my children from the Bible. I just don't.

I want to provide an environment where we can be honest, yet at the same time, it's not cool to just ignore someone's issues when they might, if the person is struggling with them, cause some serious damage. So how to provide an environment of honesty and yet also HELP eachother by lifting eachtoher up, providing accountability, offering a warm hug just because, etc...

I dunno... How does it work, how does it look... ???

[Paul]

Hi Molls, I also wonder how should it look - so I've turned my wonderings into a post exploring this over at Jason's site:
http://www.jasonclark.ws/2006/11/07/what-sort-of-church-am-i-projectingperpetuatingparticipating-in-reflections-on-ted-haggard-me-and-all-of-our-church-families/

[John Smulo]

Paul,

This is the most refreshing, open, honest, helpful posts I've read in a looooooong time. I really like what you have to say here, it's really helpful for me in my thinking through church and how tired I am of us not allowing ourselves to be who we are, good and bad. It also keeps provoking me to be more honest myself, and as a result part of the solution not the problem.

[Paul]

Thanks John, it's been something that I have been thinking of writing for a long time - just never sure of whacking it on the blog. I think engaging honestly and being honest has set me on a new course and I am grateful for that - altho i think i could be more honest more often, sometimes i feel it gets a little tiresome, lol.

I appreciate your encouragement in getting me to write this with some helpful hints and nudges - you a great pastor you know :)

[sally]

You are a brave man to share your thoughts and struggles, you have highlighted the need for honesty and integrity.
Thank you

[Dawn C]

Found my way here via John's blog - Paul, what a gift you have given to many people with this blog.

We went through something very similar in our marriage, when pornography had a huge hold on it. The most INCREDIBLE gift my husband gave to us was when he stopped trying to pretend that it didn't exist and simply got real...with me and with other men who were also struggling.

With that sharing came freedom. It was only in the willingness to allow the Light into the dark that he was able to find his way out. AND with that light came others who were able to confess their struggle as well.

Although I ache for the Haggard family, I rejoice for them even more. For now, as the sin has come to light this Brother can find TRUE freedom, not the prison that not being found out has had him in. What kindness of Father to allow him to be "found out."

Funny thing about sin in our lives.... we somehow think no one else can see it. Any more I figure I'm the only one that *can't* see it, so I might as well talk about it anyway, because it seems visible to everyone else.

Sorry for highjacking your blog. All that to say, thank you for sharing - enter into the joy of our Lord!

[Paul]

Thank you Dawn. Yes and I know all about that one and I haven't even mentioned my own struggles with addiction to porn. That has been something of continual confession and letting the light in - porn is such a seductive thang and so easy as well which I think is why it was for me so easy to get hooked on.

It is weird that secret/hiding away nature of some sin which we find shameful but also how so many sins we just keep on flaunting because we see nothing wrong with it - i think of me and my pride, my greed, my selfishness and self interest, protecting my rights at any cost- and find these are much more insiduous. It's easy in some ways to think porn = sin altho to know its a sin and to change from sin patterns is a real journey.

Thank you for sharing and thank you for hanging on in there with your husband - I know that these sins don't just affect me but debs as well and I am real grateful for her continued sexual light in our relationship, modelling a much more healthier way :)