My friend Peter Walker made the above video.  Peter’s sense of humor, and the fact that he calls out a certain absurdity in the stereotypes of Christianity, absolutely made me laugh. And it got me thinking about all of the theological dialogs I’ve had over the years.  So many of those dialogs (and a lot of arguments) were simply my attempt at arguing for what I thought I believed.  It was my carefully constructed attempt to make sense of my own reality.  My desire to fight for truth was for ME.

But his video also got me wondering.  Why does the fight for absolute truth always end up feeling empty, like a battle of specific beliefs that each person deems worthy of calling truth?  At what point at I arguing with myself?

What say you?

Are people inherently good or evil?

What say you?

When does someone enter the Kingdom of God?

What say you?

Scot McKnight shares a story on his blog that I have seen countless times in ministry.  He says,

One time a student came to my office and rather doggedly and aggressively said, “I don’t believe in God.” I knew the student a bit and I knew the student’s family, and I knew enough about the situation to say something that can only be taken as a “prompting.” I said to him, “What I think is that you don’t like your dad.” He stared at me so I suggested more: “You don’t really not believe in God. You don’t like your dad, and your dad is a pastor and therefore you reject not only your dad but everything he stands for.”

Odd thing is that the student agreed with me. Over his college career he gained back most of his faith.

Lately I’ve had so many conversations with people who are just leaving God behind.  I get that.  The conversation about God has shifted into a sort of complacency and disinterest.  But the problem of God doesn’t go away when we leave God behind.  Agnostics, atheists and doubters still talk about God incessantly.  We’re hard wired for God.

Sometimes I wonder if our shift to a postmodern mindset, and a shift away from organized religion has something to do with the loss of the father in the home.  The industrial age took the Father out of the home and it took 100 years to show that it had profound implications for the family.  This is just the first generation to speak up about it in a provocative way.

I hold onto the idea that we search for God because we are on a quest to understand ourselves.  If we are created in the image of God, to reject God is to reject the very thing that informs the self.

When does someone “become” a child of God?

What say you?

“Who are these people who are the experts because I want to be one of them, cause I believe in the conservative worldview.  And I want to create my own reality the way you are. (4:44)

Stephen baits Andy into the subjective/objective reality dialog and he buys into it hook line and sinker.  Stephen leads him right into the question, “But how do you know its not true?”  Andy laughs because he knows he’s caught.  Reality may be objective and true, but it still must filter through the subjective perceptions of broken human beings.

Andy tries to fight for objective truth, but walks right into the Catch-22 of it.  Colbert asks him, “Who gets to decide if its true.”  Andy responds with, “It’s the jury (of people).”

I couldn’t help but laugh because this is the postmodern tension in about 1:30. Who gets to decide what is true?  Even though truth exist, at the core we are subject to the radical uncertainty of our own interpretations of truth.

Then I ran across this second video of Philip Clayton.  Philip, is the author of Transforming Christian Theology, and is quickly becoming one of the my favorite theologians.  Philip explores this radical uncertainty as a specific outcome of biology and the way we exist in the world.  At 4:20 he says:

“The days are gone when we can just list the doctrines…mother church can decide and we can just sit there with those as a given.  Given is no longer a given. And I think there is an attitude of radical uncertainty and radical doubt.  And rather than saying can we integrate doubt and faith, I want to speak of a faith which incorporates the radical doubt, which is the doubting miraculously finding faith within it.”

What this all means to me is that we begin with humility as opposed to certainty, recognizing the reality of our own humanity, biology, and pride.  The person who best expresses this in writing to me is Brian McLaren.  This is also one of the reason I engage the dialog of the emerging church.  It begins with the idea of radical uncertainty and explores it in conversation.

“The irony is that even within Christian churches, we’re already post-denominational. Christian churches are already seeing that the issues that defined the denominations are mostly dead issues for people today.  The connections are across denominations.  Amazing movement called the emerging church.  Not only says, ‘to hell with denominations but to hell with church building, traditions pretty much as a whole.  But find something in this first century rabbi relevant to the twenty-first century.’ We are in a time of unbelievably massive change.”

Philip Clayton, Interview (7:10)

A few months ago I was in Borders and picked up a copy of Christopher Hitchens God is Not Great.  I thumbed through it for about an hour digesting portions of it.  And I liked it.

Yep.

Let me explain.  There’s a reason why the New Atheism is thriving.  It’s not because of what Hitchens, Dawkins, or Harris have written.  They’ve simply revealed what is already happening and provided a voice to it.  If they’ve done anything, it is to reveal the dissonance inherent in what we as followers of Jesus say as opposed to what we actually do. And when we create bumper stickers that say, “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven,” we actually provide the evidence to their debate.

I think what I also took away from it was the idea that those who rail against Hitchens miss the point.  I walked away wondering if this was a case of two ships passing in the night.  From my historical understanding of atheists and from reading portions of Hitchens, Dawkins, and Harris’ work, the God they are railing against is in Dawkin’s own words, “A delusion.”  And I tend to agree.

You see much of the problem within humanity is not God but our image of God.  And when we get it right, as in Jesus, it works.  But when we get it wrong, as in the Spanish Inquisition, or even our religious ideological dogma that are shadow attempts to control people as example, its horrific.

I would love to see someone from the ecclesia engage Hitchens, Dawkins, or Harris with an ear to listen.  But to do so would mean confronting our own constructs about God.  It would mean owning our own bullshit factor that seems to rise in the presence of those who don’t agree.  It would mean humbling ourselves in such a way as to first listen because a human being is speaking on the other end…and he just may have something good to say.

You see, when we outright excuse people like Hitchens, Dawkins, or Harris we invariably reveal our own bias and cognitive dissonance as followers of Jesus.  Because to engage love is to listen.  It’s to see the God image in the other and validate it as true.  But if we excuse the other, we invariably validate the broken image Hitchens, Dawkins, or Harris is railing against. Instead of revealing God’s image in ourselves we reveal the God delusion.

The only answer we truly have is humility in love. To reveal the true image of God in the midst of community. And that looks like Jesus.  It means owning our history and the reality that the historic church has brutalized people in God’s name.  And when we do, when we own the truth of our past, we will begin to have a healthy response to the critics.

I really wonder how much of our stuff is just an illusion that sates us into thinking we have it all together.

Last night I was watching television and one of the pinnacle 80’s movies came on.  The graphic, F-work laden Scarface. (My friend once counted the F words and there are 365.) I couldn’t help but get drawn into this strange story of the rise and fall of Tony Montana.  Outside of The Godfather, I think this is one of Al Pacino’s best performances.  It was dark and brooding, and full of so much drama.

But something stood out to me as I watched the glitz and glamor of 80’s fashion play out on the screen.  I was so immediately conscious of the fact that I would never, ever wear what they were wearing.  But at one time it was all the rage.  The tight polyester suits and Italian loafers. All of it looked funny now.  Things change.

In an early scene, when Montana’s character meets his boss Frank Lopez for the first time, we’re introduced to the opulence of Frank’s life.  His house has a three story living room with marble floors.  The furniture was chic and stylistic but now out of fashion.  His character says that his biggest problem is how to spend all of his money.  Even the Porsche 928, which Tony covets and I absolutely loved, is so yesterday.

And as I watched it I couldn’t help but think about how our stuff is so much of an illusion.  We agree to the ever changing idea of fashion and hip.  And in the moment we have it, it becomes valuable.  And what makes it valuable is our agreement that its valuable.  Yet 25 years later, all of that stuff is outdated and out of style.  The illusion is gone.

It makes me really wonder how much we play games with ourselves.  And 25 years later we still play the game.  What’s fashionable today will be outdated in one maybe two years from now.  I really wonder if we’re comfortable with being captured by the illusion of stuff.

This was insightful and deeply creative from Jude Simpson.It explores the nature of following Jesus and our insipid desire to dumb it down.

I ask you, what’s the answer, and you just ask me questions,
and I’m like, “hello, I thought you were God?”
Can’t I just download you, pay-as-I-go to decode you -
a quick fix listen on my i-pod?

I ask you, what’s the answer, and you say, “where does the wind blow?”
Well, if Dylan couldn’t find it, then I won’t get too far.
What’s with all this mystery?  How can you say, “follow me”
when I don’t even know where you are?

Your religion needs a makeover, you’ve got to de-clutter.
Make it softer, gooier and spreadable like butter.
I need a faith I can talk about and not sound like a nutter.
You ought to be easy to follow.

Like, a hop-on-and-off open-top bus ride,
a manual with A to Z tabs down the side,
I want a sat-nav path to heaven, not a Lonely Planet guide.
I wish you were easy to follow.

I want a Roman road map to instant glory
a happy-ending-ever-after chick lit story
and you just tell me another foggy allegory
featuring corn and sheep and wine and clay pots.
What are you like?  Do you want followers or not?
Far be it from me to tell you what’s what,
but if you did make it easier I’m sure you’d get a lot
more believers, Jesus.

Give me bite-sized thoughts in a faith shape sorter,
No more spilt blood or living water,
just a pint-sized god who’s a straight talker.
Make it easy to follow.

I want fruit-flavoured shots of the Holy Spirit,
bite-sized, trite truths in Boyband lyrics
“love” and “above” – yeah, that should fill it.
Make it easy to follow.

I want facts on a plate – don’t want to have to question any,
artificial roses every 14th of February.
I want simple faith – blind if necessary.
Why aren’t you easy to follow?

You say, “you are not my servant, now you are my friend”.
You say, “I will be with you until the bitter end”.
And I’m like, “why bitter? – I wanted happiness on prescription.
Isn’t that the whole point of getting religion?
And besides, friendship’s harder – can’t I just buy the subscription?”
Can’t you be easy to follow?

Give me a clear-cut structure, not a friendship’s fragilities,
favourable rights with few responsibilities.
I could follow that plan – yeah – religiously.
That would be easy to follow.

I want three steps to beauty from a teenage advice mag;
Ben and Jerry’s Triple chocolate straight of the ice bag;
ethically traded but with a Primark price-tag -
I could say Amen to those.

I want box-up beliefs wrapped in tissue-paper
presented by Fearne Cotton, and voiced by Tom Baker,
with a hands-free contract to contact the Maker
available from Tesco’s.

I want Quicktime cut-price broadband access.
Simple principles, easily practiced.
Directly transactional prayers – the fact is,
my time is precious, so why should I work?
Why should treasure always require a search?

I want a message that’s acceptable without having to plead it,
that’ll make people instantly realise they need it.
Yeah, thanks for the Bible – but have you tried to read it?
You need to be easy to follow.

I want all the answers set out in a paperback
of less than fifty pages, in the buy-now-read-it-later rack
I’ll skim it on the train down to visit Auntie Kate and back -
nice and easy to follow.

Everyone will warm to its convenient slimness.
It’ll be easily digestible and provoke a certain tingliness,
and every answer will be one sentence long, universally applicable, and in English.
That would be easy to follow.

You see, I think you need to focus and refine your vision,
if you want to market the brand they call “Christian”.
I say, “give me clarity”, you say, “will you marry me?”
With all due respect, Jesus, I don’t think you were cut out for religion.

Download the audio file.