To love or to be right…

When I left the religion called Christianity 3 years ago, it wasn’t out of pain, or rebellion. It was more out of frustration and the desire to follow Jesus. Sure I didn’t realize I was leaving Christianity (the religion) because I had always thought that all we needed was to change the way we practiced it, improve it, change those who lead it, or apply some New Testament principal that will revive it. Instead what I realized was that the root problem was far deeper. The problem was the tree.

(Hang in there if that last sentence didn’t make sense). In the Garden of Eden were two trees, the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” and the “Tree of Life”. What I was realizing is that all religions including the one I called Christianity, could be traced back to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. You see I had never paid any attention to the good part of that tree, I just assumed it stood for all things evil, and yet what I was not seeing was that my Christianity (my own attempts at getting closer to God) my good actions were part of the same rotten tree.

Now many, including myself, didn’t see what was so wrong with attempting to get closer to God, I mean my motives were good, how could this ever be a bad thing? However is this not what Paul talks about in the first part of Galations 3? Even the good of that tree is evil.

When I was really honest with myself I knew that while I could win most bible debates, or justify my actions and prove my beliefs from the Bible, I was not as loving as I had hoped I would be. This question was like a wooden stake to my zombie heart. Why wasn’t I more loving when I was so right about everything? (I bet all my friends are laughing, or at least those who used to call me friend)

I found a friend in the Apostle Paul who went around killing everyone because he was so right (Religion always fights about who is right), he was doing God’s work, in God’s name! However when Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus and Jesus didn’t exact revenge, I can only imagine how his love must have shattered Paul. I imagine the Bright Sadness of Jesus enveloping Paul as he asks “Why are you persecuting Me?” and Paul being broken by Jesus love.

For me, today, when Jesus invites me to another tree, the cross, the Tree of Life, I want to choose to pick it up and follow him, I imagine leaving Jerusalem where I used to practice my religion, practised being right, and I follow the call to die to being right, so that I might see how loved I am by Jesus, and that I might love this world, enemy or friend, right or wrong, the same way that Jesus loves me.

So this is where I am at in my relationship and something Jesus has been highlighting for me again. I would love to hear from you about your journey.

“I am not religious” and other religious sayings

I got that title from a book called Insurrection by Peter Rollins which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Ok, so here is the back story. If you scroll down my blog, you’ll find a post I did on Authority, which arose out of a devotional I was asked to give at my place of work (it’s a Christian run business). Now the problem was that my devotional was polar opposite to where the business was going and yet when I gave it instead of getting the backlash I was expecting, all I got was agreement.

I was totally floored, in fact I felt really discouraged and even alone, because I felt like no-one had heard or at least understood. If I look back over the last 9 months or so, that moment really was a fork in the road for me.

Here is what I have been learning, that nobody thinks they are religious, even the most religious person amongst us. To add to that probably the most unreligious thing we could say is that “I am religious” because at least we would be acknowledging the truth.

(just a side note for those who don’t know why I am going on about religion, please read some of my earlier blogs to get a better idea but maybe a shorter/grossly over-simplified definition is “any man made system that promises to give us God” the reason this is bad is because it takes us away from entering into a relationship with God through Jesus)

I used to think I was unreligious because I wasn’t Catholic, then when I left the Baptists I thought I was unreligious because I was Charismatic. Then I thought I was unreligious because for the first time in my life I got “Grace” while all those legalistic Christians were very religious. Then I thought I was unreligious when I left the last congregation I had been involved, I mean how can you be religious if you don’t even go to meetings anymore?

I have found that being unreligious is more than what denomination you belong to or don’t, it’s more than whether or not you understand Grace, or whether you are part of a man-made system or not. It is also the way we believe what we believe, it is the way we relate to God and how we believe he relates to us and it’s the stories we tell ourselves about what we believe and who we are, like saying “I am not religious” or not.

Why Jesus is so punk rock

Steve Jobs once said that the journey was the reward. I really like that when it comes to Jesus. For me in the past, he was Destination, or to have an intimate relationship with him was the Destination.

I had and we have have so many ways that make Jesus our “goal” (which is just another way of making him our destination) like going to church, being part of the leadership in the church, leading different ministries in the church and developing leaders in the church. I tried fasting, service, obedience, spiritual disciplines, lengthening my prayer times and sacrifice, but it was never enough. It instead left me feeling like I deserved any love he might send my way (on my self-righteous days) and never being enough/good enough (on my shame-filled, pity party days) to have a relationship with him.

There are a lot of good things in the list I just described, but when you lump them all together like that you get my understanding of what religion is, man-made attempts to get to God or at least get on his good side long enough to get whatever you want or need. Now this is what I mean by saying Jesus is so punk rock, because he came to set you and me free from religion. He came (in the words of the great theologian Jack Black) to “stick it to the man!” (If you are not familiar with punk-rock terminology, the “man” is the system).

Every religion has some sort of holy man that everybody must listen to. Every religion has a building that it values as more sacred than other buildings and every religion has some rituals. As you read the Gospels you see Jesus targeting and sticking it to each of these. Sadly what Jesus faced in Jewish opposition we again face today in christianity, not because of the people per se but because of the system that seeks to control and perpetuate itself through people.

This is not an attempt to pick a fight with christians, I think we all agree that we aren’t happy with how the church is doing at the moment, that on the surface the church has never been busier than it is, the variety of programs, ministries, sharing, networking and mobilising is quiet staggering and yet when we look at our teens there is very little difference between them and the teens who aren’t christians (to be honest it’s the same with us adults).

However when Jesus said he is the way, the truth and the life, I think he was sticking it to the man again. To say He is the way, means He isn’t just the destination, or to put it in Steve Jobs words, He is the journey and that journey is the reward. The way I see it Jesus is saying as you walk (live your life) I will walk alongside you, we’ll walk and talk. I’ll show you things, we’ll grab coffee, we’ll laugh and we’ll cry, we’ll hurt, we’ll heal, we’ll get to know each other and when we get to our destination we’ll have the same heart.

On that journey for Jesus to say he is the truth, is to me an invitation to know the person of truth. To not know all the answers but to rather converse with truth himself and allow that conversation to surface the lies, to allow the truth to heal, to transform, to take root, to reveal the greatest truth of all, that I am deeply loved by him.

In all of this while we weren’t paying attention Jesus becomes our very life. Not because we applied some set of principles we learned in a sermon or on a conference, but as our hearts are drawn to his, identify with his and finally become intimately invested in his heart.

I no longer feel like I have earned his love, because I am not doing anything to try to earn it, I also don’t feel like I am unworthy of his love because I have come up short. Rather I know his love as a gift to me, as I share this journey with Jesus, and all I can say is though I usually can only see till the next bend in the road, I know Jesus will get me to where we are going and I am enjoying the journey.

Grace is for me, but not my kids…

I remember I had been just lapping up all this Grace stuff, I was feeling so free in my relationship with God and loving the fact that for the first time I knew God’s love for me consistently, on my best and worst days. But then I realised, surely Grace has to impact the way I parent my kids and especially the way I discipline them.

Wayne Jacobsen once said “You understand grace properly when God is the safest person to be with in the midst of your sin”. That was a real guiding light in those early days. But God was deepening my understanding and experience of Grace and here he was using my kids to do it. So the new test question was something like this, how can I be gracious in the midst of the worst tantrum.

One of the things I realised was that what most of us call grace is actually “mercy under the law”. What I mean by that is simply this, we simply push the boundary back a little further. We say things like: “Jonny, you have had your chance now, but next time you try a stunt like that, you will get the hiding of your life!” I see it at school too, we say “Ok I’ll give you one day of grace, but if I don’t have the assignment in tomorrow then you lose 20% of your mark.” We think this is grace but it’s not. Whenever we have a limit what we have is mercy (I am not going to give you what you deserve today) but tomorrow you are going to experience the full weight of the law.

As I was engaging God on this issue, I feel like he brought a book along my path called “Loving your kids on purpose” and the first paradigm that slapped me sideways was when Danny said you can’t control anyone! I knew that I was now in the deep end, he had just taken my foundation away. Isn’t that what parenting is all about? Isn’t it about bringing your kids under control so that they will learn to grow up to be well mannered, well behaved kids?

Next time we are tempted to lambaste “pastors” for their religious structures etc maybe we should take a look at how we parent. I realised that the way I parented was every bit as religious at the institution I had left behind. Religion and sadly parenting too often are about control. Yet God, I was learning wasn’t trying to control me or my action, instead he was giving me the freedom in our relationship to make mistakes, and then learn from them and grow, but not on the outside but on the inside first.

When we parent using control we are only ever concerned with the outward behaviour, when that looks good we are happy and we stop being concerned with the real issues, the stuff going on inside. When we give our kids choices instead of trying to control them, we learn what’s really going on inside them. This then gives us insight into the real issues that need to be addressed. Doesn’t this remind you of the Garden of Eden?

I am amazed that God wasn’t scared of us making bad choices and we as parents need to learn that too. What makes it easier is that God made provision for our bad choices, the bible says that Jesus was slain before the foundations of the earth were laid. What I love about that is that it means I am really free to make my own choices, because God has made provision for my bad ones.

What does that mean in regards to Grace and parenting? Well it means that our kids are free to make choices even bad ones, but this freedom also includes experiencing the consequences of those choices. What people misunderstand about sin, or bad choices, is that they are their own worst punishment.What God through Grace makes provision for is that the relationship continues so that we can process and learn and grow from those poor choices.

So now when I am disciplining my boys, I give them the freedom to make both good and bad choices, and if/when they make bad choices I am there to make sure they take responsibility for them. We’ll talk about how they can clean up their own messes. Instead of distancing myself I stay engaged and help my sons helping them learn and grow through their bad choices instead of punishing them for their bad choices. What we are all learning is that it is far easier to get a smack on the bum, than it is to have to take responsibility and fix our own messes, but at least we aren’t alone, we have a loving father with us the whole time.

The body language of religion

This was actually when I realised that I couldn’t fix the local “church” and that my only option was to leave. I was standing up front leading worship. For about a year or maybe more I had grown frustrated with worship because the way we do it is so consumerist. Sure we as christians are very good at slapping spiritual terms on very natural things, like saying “wow this mornings worship was so anointed” meantime, the worship leader just picked my three favourite songs in a row.

My struggle was that I wanted to lead worship in a different way. I wanted the people to contribute more to the leading so that they wouldn’t just be singing my setlist, but rather they were singing about what God had been doing in their lives that last week. This congregation wasn’t unique. In fact I have never seen it done any other way. The sad thing is the more I moved in a new direction the more resistant the people seemed to become (also not new). And then it hit me, not only do people communicate 90% of what they say through body language, I believe that congregations and religion itself has a body language that says something powerful.

If I was lucky by my life style and worship leading and participation in the congregations life I was contributing to 10% of what people hear, 90% was coming from elsewhere and because it is not said using words, it’s almost impossible to argue against it. People are so good at denying the reality we just do what we always do, we slap on an explanation that suits us and proceed as if it’s true.

Decoding the body language of religious institutions is pretty tricky, and the only audience that I think will listen are those who have left because they know something is wrong, but they are not sure what, and so later on they second guess themselves. I am also not claiming to have “deciphered the code” but this is what I have found. This also ties a little into what I shared last week.

I believe that the body language of religion can be summarised by this word control. Religion does this in so many ways and so subtly. It controls through fear, manipulation, through peer pressure and management systems/structures/principles and emotional pressure/abuse.

Religion has one vision, one agenda and demands conformity to it. Have you ever brought a vision to the leadership that you believed was from God but didn’t line up their vision, I bet they didn’t even pray and ask God if he was talking to them. Jesus is creative, he loves and creates variety, he lives in the spontaneous moments because as these things relate to him and are gathered together in him, we find our unity in Him, not in uniformity.

Religion is supposed to have all the answers because it supposedly has the truth. Have you asked for prayer for healing, for financial breakthrough, for mental health issues that are never solved? Eventually the leadership distances themselves from you because that isn’t the “abundant/victorious christian life” and because it reflects poorly on them and they are supposed to have the answer. However the truth isn’t in a bible verse or in a timeless principle, it’s a person and his name is Jesus, he loves us into a relationship with himself so that we can live beyond our understanding even when we don’t have all the answers, and still be able to know that we are loved.

Religion doesn’t set us free from sin, it just manages and pushes it down either using shame, because at all costs we have to look like we are victorious, that we are growing and that we are supposed to be examples to other believers. Jesus sets us free from sin by his love for us expressed on the cross. His grace allows us to process the issues that feed our sinful behaviour and in time he loves us into healed transparent living.

Religion empowers people to a certain point, up to the point that they serve and carry out the agenda of the religious organisation which is usually about growing the infrastructure, beyond that point a ceiling is put on them and if they resist they are being “unsubmissive”. Religion talks about excellence, but it uses this talk to either qualify or disqualify people based on what it can get out of them. After this so many people are cruelly discarded. Jesus qualifies everyone by his love for them, sure not everyone accepts that love, but Jesus seeks out the marginalised, the forgotten, the unclean, the hated, the demonically possessed and calls them friends.

Religion is like squeezing a wet bar of soap on these issues, when I go to one of the services I find the contradictions between what they are saying, 10%, and what they are really saying, 90%, something I can live without. I believe that we can have a healthy, growing relationship with Jesus that is completely free of religion, because I believe that Jesus came to end religion and to invite us into a relationship with him.

(Please know that when I talk about religion I am talking about this body language and the structures etc, I am not talking about people, even the people who lead these religious institutions because I was one of them I know that religion makes good, kind, sincere people, do bad things, lead fearfully, control and manage others, and yet when they are removed from religion they become what Jesus always made them to be, like him)