I was nominated by emerging grace to take part in the 3 things –tive and 1 thing +ive about Christians meme.
I found this quite a challenging meme to be involved with – not least because I feel that as soon as I start pointing towards a faceless group of Christians out there I start feeling morally superior and that I am no longer part of the problem (if only these other nameless/faceless Christians would be like me!). So true to form I have personalised it – here are 3 -tives about me as a Christian and 1 +ive too…
Negatives:
1. So often I miss the friend in my enemy: I struggle to listen to anyone else who is different from me. I do this with the people I am closest too, not that Debs is an enemy but I really struggle to listen and understand where she is coming from, so often we seem to be looking at exactly the same issue and seeing it in 2 completely different ways.
The same is true with my faith – i move in a broad clique of mutually reinforcing blogs, books, personalities and struggle with any form of critique/criticism of that which I hold dear. I have deliberately kept the challenges small and the challengers few to my own faith. Rather than welcoming the critique of an view the opposite of mine or the struggle to love in a way that costs – that makes me lay down my right – i instead get cranky, frustrated, afraid.
I miss the friend in my enemy and instead emphasise what makes us different rather than what we have in common. In doing so I miss the wonderful opportunity for my character to grow, for my faith to grow and for true community to grow – and that frustrates me!
It also scares me! I think the answer is not merely believe harder, pray more often, be more missional even but to follow Jesus. Following Jesus in his radical mission to include those that I would exclude from God's love. If that wasn't hard enough the scary part is that Jesus was even being prepared to die for their right to be included - am I?
2. Lock in/Lock out – I am also aware that I am still very much embedded in a culture of dualisms, where the position I chose is one where an opposite point of view can be argued against it. However being locked in too one mind set means that I lock out these other view points. I am often frustrated by how much this makes me equally guilty of those who irk my “righteous” anger and frustration – my actions therefore often are no different in practice from those who I disagree with. Despite the best of my intentions I am often still more concerned with being right than being good!
I am also locked in to my own postmodern [which is still heavily modern influenced] cultural narrative – as such I am often a cultural collaborator – constantly collapsing my faith into a world where I am king, consumer and the self centre! This means I often operate in ways that are no different to the rest of the first world in seeking for my will to be done in my own way for my happiness and contentment – a full separation of faith and my state of affairs!
3. Comfortably zoned – I am noticing how often I stay in my comfort zone. Which makes for a comfortable life but not one that is maybe of less honesty and limited creativity as a result. For example: one of the questions that bugs me the most theologically is the question of universal salvation – I’ve come to an accommodation with it which removes the tension and allows me to get on with life. I don’t find it satisfactory but then again I don’t find any of the other positions that satisfying either. So I leave it alone [along with other such struggles like sexuality; atonement etc].
Maybe I should engage and pursue this further – maybe that would help me with the struggle/frustration I expressed in 1 and 2 – maybe the fact that there is no easy answer would help engage with God and others and wrestle in an open community way? Maybe the act of love and giving is not the ability to give an answer but to struggle to be present with people who are asking difficult challenging questions who I can’t readily connect with? Just like in my marriage when we find it hard to hear each other, the fact that we try and try and try demonstrates that we love each other not whether we ever succeed in doing so…
Positive
Deep church: staring to discover the depth of the christianity, across time and traditions - this is really been helpful to me both in having more confidence/engagement in my faith, the rhythm of good times and bad, immediacy and mediation, ordinary and liturgical time...
So what are some negatives and positives about your own christianity???
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