the church, christians, and the gross unpopularity of believing

"not all who wander are lost."
or so the saying goes.

"augustine just woke up with a broken heart
all this time, he's never been awake before
at thirty-one his whole world is a question mark
all this time, he's never been awake before

watching dreams that he once had
feed the flame inside his head
in the quiet desperation of the emptiness he said,
'there's got to be something more, than what i'm living for
i'm crying out to You...'"

nearly 3 years ago, i read augustine's confessions. and while i maintain that he's a bit dry, there was something about his story that captivated me, that felt like an iron clasp on my soul. i would never claim to know as much, to ever hope to change the world as much as he did, or even that i think as hard as he did, but i related to the things he said. growing up with a mother that believed fervently in God and practiced her religion with devotion, augustine found himself rebelling against her faith. he loved and respected her, but there was something about it that he could not accept, could not feel, could not practice with sincerity. so he searched, and made numerous bad choices in the process. he ran from God and from religion as he understood it. even though his mother tried and pleaded, he couldn't - wouldn't - change. it wasn't for many years and after many, many poor decisions that he found himself before God, finally humbled. i have always felt that the most remarkable, powerful part of the story is not that he was lost and then was found, nor that he was blind and then saw. rather, i felt something when he was alone in a garden that one day, the day that everything changed. augustine, a man who thought he was too smart for everyone else, especially for tradition and God as his mother followed Him, cried out because he had reached the end of himself. because something inside his soul ached for what he knew he did not have, what he had been escaping for so long. i love that it defied logical explanation, that it was so intangible, but from which he could no longer hide.

i feel vindicated by augustine, because his belief in God was something that simply happened - a burst of faith that he later intellectualized. i walk so much by faith, perhaps not enough by academic and intellectual realization. i feel pulled, that there must be something more, that i can't run, yet there are aspects of christianity that i run away from, even hide from. augustine couldn't practice traditionally, but he knew God's presence when his soul cried out that day.

for the past year, perhaps even longer, i feel like i've been in the midst of an existential crisis. i've decided to stop attending church, and have spent significantly more time with people who have differing points of view on religion, faith, spirituality, the works. at times, i have even asked myself why i keep following Jesus. to those who don't see why this is a big deal, i think some perspective is necessary. while it's safe to say that temecula is a bubble, there exists dozens of sub-layers of bubbles beneath that one. there is temecula. then long-time temecula residents. then church-goers. then home-schoolers. and to top it all off, there are the home-schoolers of cornerstone academy - the christian home-schooling community where i spent 12 glorious years of my life. yes, i grew up in bubbles within bubbles. to those who think this must have been cruel, you misunderstand me. i liked being home-schooled. i liked growing up in the church. i wouldn't change any of it. when i'm honest, it's probably good, because i might have turned out to be a terror without such a morally strict community. with all this background, it's strange for me that i find myself so far away from where i once was. to some, it might seem natural, but to me, it's difficult.

i think the reason i haven't walked away from it all, however, is that, fundamentally, i believe in Jesus, what He said, and what He lived, died, and lived again for. my problem, i suppose, is all the small, unimportant characteristics of christianity today. church feels like it's so much about saying or doing or knowing the right thing, that it doesn't even feel sincere for me to participate. i sing the words, but they're simply words. i don't feel them resonate in my soul anymore. the jargon is probably what bothers me the most. things like: "God put it on my heart to..."
i've always hated phrases like that, because it makes anything that follows it irrefutable. if you told me God told you to do something, am i going to argue with you? me, argue against the very voice of God? and when i'm struggling with something - with a job, a relationship, school - i don't need to hear that it's because i'm not in communion enough with God, because i haven't gone to church, or because i don't pray enough. unfortunately, these are all cookie-cutter, classic aspects of christians today. they make me writhe with frustration, because people who struggle or who don't hold fast to that sort of faith in God cannot relate. i can't have a discussion with someone who hasn't found his or her place in the cosmic hugeness of God and tell that person that i heard God, that i know what God told me. i also feel silly making such assumptions. i believed God's will was a lot of things, and the majority of them have blown up in my face, revealing new purpose and direction in my life. so i've stopped feeling that in my heart, that i know that this is what God wants because His ways aren't mine. i tell others that some things make sense or that i believe everything happens for a reason and that God is intimately connected with my existence, but i don't claim to know what's going on. for all the bad/unexpected things that have happened in my life, i am grateful for their results, and i choose to abide by a good attitude and constant movement.

my problem lies with christian sub-culture rather than the faith itself. we separate ourselves with fences made of jargon, cross necklaces, and the gross blatancy that we disapprove of the vast stupidity of humans.

true, it seems counterproductive to assign such a cliche to something to which i align my life and even claim to be my salvation. and it's fair enough that postmodern culture is effective enough at this without my help. i would argue that the labels are unfair, but we often make ourselves easy targets. just browse websites like myspace or have a trivial conversation or two. we're easy to spot. our favorite books consist of the purpose-driven life and the bible, or maybe a little c.s. lewis if you're very lucky. it angers me to see "blue like jazz" as the "best book ever" and no mention of dickens or plath or flannery or tolstoy or chaucer or homer or austen. we just make it so easy, because we don't venture outside of the comfortable. we say "f-ing" when the whole world knows that what we really mean is "fucking." and of course, there's the constant talk of "praise the Lord," "grace," and true "love." yet the terms are so steeped in subcultural meanings that they have disintegrated into mere words, void of any genuine meaning or action. we speak of grace, but quickly shake our heads without listening or trying to understand. the world is full of black and white, but many people only feel the judgment, the lack of redemption, the inherent absence of His-ness in their relationships with christians.

i believe that, deep down, we are seeking righteousness. we do love others, but we present ourselves in all the wrong ways. we don't let them get too close, lest we be termed hypocrites. i've discovered in all the most painful ways that being wrong is not hypocritical if you can own up to it, if you can tell someone when they're wrong, yet admit your shortcomings as well. love God. follow Him whole-heartedly. know your faith. know that there is black and white, not just gray. seek His will, and actively pursue intimacy and purpose. but be still as well. find out what makes a person move, and they will want to know what moves you. and He, if He is real and if He is there, will pique their interest, will open them up to who He is and what it means to follow.

i pray sincerely, the way that i know how, the way that feels natural. separate yourself from the subculture, as tempting as it is. and be.




on a separate, though related, topic, i wanted to touch on another phenomena that i have observed about modern intellectual culture. these are the qualities of spirituality, non-commitment, and homogeneity. we claim that the world would be fine so long as people would seek inner peace or religion would separate itself from all other faculties - from education, politics, entertainment. what i don't understand is why, when we are so critical of religion, so detailed about how it contradicts itself, we are so vague about how we see purpose in our lives. it's as though a person can't possibly hope to live progressively if one has a religion or hasn't invented one's own spirituality - a spirituality which states that nobody's wrong and nobody's right. except maybe buddhism. but even buddhists are radical. they lock themselves up in monastaries, seeking enlightenment, because they are so convinced that their ways are right.

one of my best friends (my best friend?) is catholic. we talk about religion all the time, because we both ascribe to a set of beliefs. i am protestant because i believe luther was right, though i appreciate a lot about the catholic church. about commitment. about beauty and tradition. we talk about how uncool we are for picking a side. what people hate to admit is that committing to a side means that we think we're right and they're wrong. it must. it doesn't mean we don't respect those who choose otherwise, nor will we kill someone who contradicts us. but we will tell them that they're wrong. there is something wrong with a society that lives only by personal conviction - by only personal spirituality, which won't admit anyone is right or wrong. religion forces a series of pleasant and unpleasant tasks to each of us. it forces us to be outside of ourselves, to align ourselves and be responsible to more than simply what is inside our heads. to stand up or sit down. to surrender ourselves. to love others. because our faith in God and our adherence to His will commands that we do so. because we believe that such a commitment yields absolute truth.

in a world of radicalism, i find it ironic that we lack the motivation to be radical about the state of our souls or about truth. we pick sides all the time, but somehow lack the ability to do so in religion.



as i step into my future, i am slowly finding how much i pray for what augustine had. i pray for the conviction to cry out to God, to stick to God, to know God, to yield to God. i pray that God will humble me as he was humbled; i pray for a broken heart that finds its only solace in Him. i pray for the ability to say "yes, there is one God, only one way, and i know it. i surrender." i pray against mere personal philosophy, mere inner peace, mere spirituality. yet i also pray for his cynicism towards the concept that all must know Him the same way, for his inability to simply slip into what christianity appears to be rather than what it means. i pray for his sincerity, for his desire to know God because He is God, not because it's simply what christians do, what appears holiest. and i pray that my genuine commitment to a genuine faith is what motivates others towards God, not a mere attempt to adhere to goodness nor an ability to hide my shortcomings from others. i pray.

"...augustine, all his fears keep falling out
all this time, he's never been awake before
finding out all his dreams aren't panning out
all this time, he's never been awake before

but he's glad to be alive
and he's dying to be met
in the quiet desperation of the emptiness he said,
'there's got to be something more, than what i'm living for
i'm crying out to You

hey, i give it all away
nothing i was holding back remains
hey, i give it all away
looking for the grace of God today...'"
-switchfoot