Fundamentalism: A Blessing and a Beating

I am a recovering fundamentalist.   I go to meetings weekly--every Sunday morning at a grace-filled church.  Ironically, I am grateful for aspects of my fundamentalist heritage.  My childhood fundamentalist church instilled in me a respect for and devotion to the Bible as the revealed Word of God.  In those early years I memorized much Scripture.  It wasn't that I was devout and preferred the Bible to my comic books; the church instilled and impressed those passages upon my mind. To this day recalling some of those passages in times of turmoil has brought me encouragement.  For that I am grateful.   


My fundamentalist past taught me the reality of objective Truth.  There are anchoring truths--realities--which, indeed, are true, whether or not I choose to acknowledge them.   That, to this day, instilled within me a passionate pursuit of what and Who is Truth.    For that, too, I am thankful.


Unfortunately, virtues pursued to excess become vices--and much of fundamentalism is about extremes, rather than balance.   The fundamentalist preoccupation with Word precluded little attention to Spirit.  My faith and life was centered on rule-keeping, rather than relationship.  It was a life of merely obeying God, devoid of loving God--or having a sense of God loving me.  My church instilled a fear-based life of obedience.  My obedience was not prompted or fueled by my love for God, but by our fear of falling into the hands of a holy God.  I was squeaky clean behaviorally, but shamed and fearful emotionally.  It was a terrible world with which to cope. 


 In our focus on truth, and this is a common trait of fundamentalism, we believed that we alone possessed the Truth.   We were very exclusive, which you would think would appear to us as a contradiction to the life and teachings of Jesus.  It wasn't a part of our consciousness then, nor is it among fundamentalists now.  If there is a disagreement in beliefs, the other party's stance or belief isn't regarded as different, but as wrong.  Consequently, even though many of my friends attended other denominations which held the same basic view of  Christ/ the Bible that we did, because they differed from us in other areas of belief we viewed them as either back-sliders or heretical, and it was our mission to "witness" to Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, certainly Catholics, and anyone else who wasn't us. 

That way of thinking breeds a self-righteousness  (which, in the gospel records, Jesus adamantly rejects) and a sense of moral superiority (which--who would have thought?--in the gospel records, Jesus adamantly rejects.)   We were concerned about the eternal destiny of these "lost souls" but simultaneously looked down upon them, loathing their language and and judging their behavior. 


Fundamentalism tends to breed a negation of life, rather than an affirmation of our existence.  Growing up I knew what was wrong, what I couldn't and shouldn't do, but I had no clue what I was meant and designed  to do.  Thou-shalt-nots prevailed.    That negation is all-encompassing; it is a mindset, the Weltanschaaung --the worldview, the way they perceive reality.  Typically, if a fundamentalist encounters a different belief or theological concept, the initial and, usually, the settled response is, "I know what is true and I know I am right; there is something spurious about this person's belief.  Be wary!!"  Seldom is there an openness to the possibility that I might learn from this other person, that maybe they have something to offer me that might enrich or expand my existing faith.  Instead, "they are wrong and it's up to me to refute them."  It's a negation of anything incoming that does not arise from their own closed system.  


I cannot adequately communicate the depth of relief  I feel in God having extricated me from that system decades ago.  It was oppressive, the dead legalism suffocating.  To be transported and transformed from a life of fearful obedience to a life that is loving response is a beautiful thing.  To move from being saved by God to being loved by God is, as they say, priceless. 

I feel a heaviness lately,  birthed on two fronts.  On an individual level, I am  feeling unfairly judged.  Someone I love very much is a fundamentalist and they are rejecting much of what and who I read--my mentors--and is the next step a rejection of me?  That would be terribly painful.  On a corporate level, our church is facing  judgment and  rejection by certain fundamentalist believers.  I love our church and so that pain is also felt by me. 


I need grace.  My initial impulse is not one of a loving response.  It makes me angry; I want to fight back.  I want to tell them how unlike Jesus they are in their condemnation, in their exclusivity.  I want to tell them that the Ultimate Judgment will not focus on whether or not we give mental assent to a certain number of theological propositions about Jesus.  We will be judged not on the basis if I held all the right beliefs about Jesus, but if I lived and loved like Jesus.   


But if I resort to that, then I am no different than these individuals who seem so judgmental.  I need grace.  I want to love when condemned.  I need to bless when seemingly cursed.  I want to bestow the love of Christ when hammered by the letter of the law. 

I have a long way to go.  I don't want my first reactive response to be one of regarding them as "freakin' fundies," but as my brothers and sisters.  And I want to love these brothers and sisters in God's family who would question my own belonging to that same family.

I need grace.


 (I apologize for the drought in my blogging.  We were out of the country the past 2 weeks, preceded by a 3 month hitch in Honduras.  I hope to re-establish some consistency in writing.  Thanks for your patience.)

Variations and Vulgarities of Christianity

There's a lot out there that passes as authentic Christianity.  And they are all warning about false teachers, as though they alone possess the truth.  In my channel surfing I, at times, go to  local religious channel 20.  It's a sad commentary on the state of religion in the Midwest  that I go there for entertainment rather than inspiration.  There are individuals uttering off-the-wall platitudes that have no ring of truth about it but if  they clothe it with a Bible verse I guess the audience believes it to be true.


Last night my good friend and colleague, Howard, called me and was chuckling as he said, "Check out Channel 20."   I flipped over and a woman was holding the Bible in her left hand and her right hand was extended --not with open palm but with the index finger pointed at me.  And she was yelling and threatening and condemning.  My thought bubble read, Just like Jesus?

This did not evoke laughter; it  brought back disturbing memories of my childhood fundamentalism.  Angry, yelling preachers.  Invariably shaming us for not being and doing better.  Ironically, hell was probably referenced more than heaven.  My faith was fear-based; I obeyed because of the damning consequences.  I  obeyed or followed Jesus  not because I was drawn to him, I did so because I dreaded him. That preacher gritting his teeth and spitting exhortations was, in my boyish eyes, Jesus--and he scared the hell out of me.  For a long time, what should have been a time of innocent childlike joy was, instead, a harrowing nightmare from which I feared I would never awaken.  This angry screaming Jesus made me very anxious on a good day--terrified on bad days.  Living like this was terrible and the thought of living forever, i.e. going to heaven, was intolerable.  Isn't that sick?  Most people think of heaven or "eternal life" as an unending experience of peace and beauty and restored relationships and healing and the list goes on.  I couldn't stand the thought of being in the presence of this angry Jesus forever.  I thought heaven would be pure hell.  "Dear God, please don't make me live forever. When I die just let me become nothing and have no brain and no heart and not live at all."  That was my thinking as I would lay down at night and dread going to sleep because what if I were to die in my sleep and fall into the hands of this angry God!?!


Last night channel 20 activated some stuff that had been lying dormant.  (Ya think?)

I am grateful that the 18 years I was confined in that religious milieu didn't define me.  It definitely influenced me, but the ensuing years have defined me. Since those early years, I have seen through those vulgar caricatures of Jesus and God has shown me Jesus of the gospels.  My life no longer consists of  merely following rules, but following Christ.  It's about relationship, not rules.  That has been liberating!  The caricature no longer damns me; the Christ now draws me.


I love this picture of Christ that is contained in the gospel of Matthew (12:19-20):


"He will not quarrel or cry out; no one will hear his voice in the streets.
A bruised reed he will not break,
and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out."


Jesus does not yell at us; he beckons to us.  I was a bruised reed boy and the preachers of my subculture nearly broke me.  There was scarcely a flickering flame of life in me and they nearly snuffed it out.  But Jesus intersected my life through people who mirror him and they imparted to me acceptance and affirmation and grace.  And I am a blessed man.

Now when I am bruised  I don't hide my hurt in fear of being condemned; I reach out to him for healing.  When the wick is barely smoldering I run to him for fire. 

And the idea of living forever wherein I will be in the very presence of God (and all the ramifications of what that may mean) is a vision that compels me and completes me.


I have to avoid channel 20 in the meantime.

Plastic Jesus

When I was a little kid I carried a soft, cuddly , cloth "wittle bunny wabbit" wherever I went. It was safe and harmless and I derived much comfort from him. Years passed and when I turned 16 my mom made me a deal--I could get my driver's license if I agreed to quit carrying around "wittle bunny wabbit." I got my license when I was 19. It was tough.

When I was a little boy and eventually a pimple pummeled adolescent I also carried with me--everywhere I went--a soft, cuddly and safe Jesus. He never struggled with a bad thought, and viewed women through the most platonic of eyes. My soft and safe Jesus was scrupulous and compliant; he dotted each and every "i" and crossed all his "t's," while I, on the other hand, was crossing my eyes and making faces at the teacher. For that alone, I knew I was hell-bound on a speeding locomotive.

I didn't have a chance.

My Jesus, when he was about 12, came up missing, according to the gospel accounts, and his frantic parents found him in the temple, of all places. When I was 12 if I had come up missing the absolutely last place my parents would have looked would have been the church. "Oh, I bet Steve's studying in the preacher's office!" Yeh, right. While sinful boys like myself were engaging in everyday sinful activities like baseball and fishing, my soft and safe Jesus, in contrast, was asking his buddies to remove their yarmulke from their head and join him in a bible study.

I didn't have a chance.

I was led to believe that being a Christian--a follower of soft 'n safe Jesus--consisted of following the rules. And the rules were all prohibitive. "Don't. . . " "Thou shalt not. . . " "If you don't want to rot in Hell you better never. . . " I knew what I couldn't do; I had no clue what I could do.
The Christian faith was a negation of life. If it was fun, pleasant to the senses, or savored the moment it had to be wrong and "worldly." And I, on the other hand, was supposed to be "spiritual." God may have created this world for Adam and Eve's enjoyment, but they screwed it up for all of us, and now God is angry and regrets giving us all this "worldly" stuff, and now commands that we avoid, rather than enjoy, it. And besides, God created it for Adam, and my name is Steve.

Darn the luck.

So I guess we are called to live a life of begrudging obedience to the rules. We are to be a squeaky clean example to our unbelieving and used-to-believe friends and whatever we see them doing we are to abstain, while praying for them. That's what my Jesus would do.

Nonetheless, there are some troubling passages in the gospels which, at first glance, seem to paint a different picture of Jesus' lifestyle. Emphasis on "seem to ." There's that incident in John 2 where Jesus is at a wedding and they run out of wine and they go to him, of all people, with their dilemma. " Soft n' safe, life-negating Jesus, we're out of wine! Six stone jars, each containing 20-30 gallons, and we've drunk them dry!! Help!!" Jesus had to be upset with their slurred speech and that they had interrupted a bible study he was leading in the adjacent room, and to make his point and to show them their error of their ways he granted their request, but surely filled the jars with soy milk.
I'll drink to that.

I don't have a chance.