Still being born...

IT HAS TAKEN ME A LONG TIME TO BE BORN. I began my life in the warm, secure womb of fundamentalism. Gradually I emerged from that womb into a more open, liberal point of view. But from time to time I backslid. (Backsliding is a term from evangelical Christian talk that indicates a person going back into sin after being saved.) Several times in my life I turned from my liberal perspective and went in the opposite direction, going back to a more secure conservative position. My theological point of view has been on a roller coaster ride over the years. I have tried to go back into the womb of security from time to time.

A few years ago I finally let go of any desire to go back to Egypt and committed myself to the ongoing journey to the land of milk and honey. The author of the Letter to the Hebrew in the New Testament speaks to me when he/she says, “But we are not among those who shrink back and so are lost, but among those who have faith and so are saved” (10.39).

Acceptance

I HAVE COME TO ACCEPT THE FACT that I will never fully accept myself. In my head I accept myself as I am. But in my gut I continue to doubt myself and live by the motto, ‘I’m not good enough.’ So, my acceptance is schizophrenic. But it is sufficient. I accept my non-acceptance.

I remember...

I REMEMBER…

…climbing the tree in the front yard and hanging upside down on a branch; I liked looking at the world in an upside-down way; perhaps that’s why I became a liberal

…playing tackle football with no padding in a vacant lot with several boys including my next door neighbor whose first name was Layman; I remember how he ran straight toward me at blistering speed, and how I fearlessly tackled him; and how a few years later he went to Vietnam and never came back

…sitting in the seminary cafeteria and hearing that Attorney General John Mitchell had resigned

…walking up a wooded path with Pat at a State Park and being surprised by a snake and how we both screamed and ran like crazy

…sitting in fourth grade class at Charles D. Jacob School when the teacher left the room and someone began passing around a note with the word ‘fuck’ on it; I had never heard or seen that word; so I asked Eddie what it meant and he gave me my first sex education lesson by telling me that ‘fuck’ means a man and a woman put their peters together

…being a few feet away from President Kennedy at Freedom Hall when I played trumpet in the DuPont Manual Band

…marching in the band in the Derby Parade, trying not to step in the horse dung left in the street by the horses ahead of us.

post-fundamentalist

I’m Getting Old, So I Wrote Some Things Down

thoughts on what I’ve learned along the way

I grew up in a fundamentalist church. I was taught that the Bible is inerrant (no mistakes or inconsistencies). In some ways it was like being shut up in a room with no windows. I didn’t know what was outside the Southern Baptist Church theology. I believed that if I accepted Jesus as my Savior, I would go to heaven; and if I didn’t, I would go to hell. So, as an eight year old sinner I accepted Jesus into my heart, and they told me I had been born again. They told me I would have joy and peace.

They didn’t mean bad. My parents and Sunday School teachers and my pastors all believed they were doing what was best for me. They cared the best they knew how. But they too were living in a windowless room.

As I grew older I found out that my Southern Baptist worldview didn’t line up with the way life really is. In college (a Baptist college!) my eyes were opened to a more historical understanding of the Bible. For the first time I learned of the ‘prophetic’ tradition of Scripture as embodied by Martin Luther King, Jr. In college and seminary (a Baptist seminary!) I was enabled to break out of the house with no windows and breathe the fresh air of objective history and ecumenical theology.

As I continued to read and study after my seminary days, I discovered that Christians often caricature other religions, and that our exclusive theological stance is based on ignorance or insecurity.  I found out that there is ‘grace’ in Buddhism and other Eastern religions; that the Jewish religion is based as much on grace and mercy as Christianity is; and that even secularists, atheists, and agnostics can embody the love of God.

My belief in a God-up-there slowly and silently ceased. The theologian Paul Tillich saved me from that distant God who made up the Salvation Game with its pedantic rules. Tillich taught me that what we call God is Being-Itself. (Now, I might want to say God is ‘Becoming.’)

I tend to be logical and rationalistic. Too much so. But I have finally figured out that I cannot figure out God. I believe that there is Something More than what meets the eye. But that Something cannot be grasped or apprehended by human logic or reasoning. (Even the term ‘some-thing’ objectifies God in a way that is unacceptable. God is not a ‘thing.’ God is ‘no thing,’ i.e., ‘nothing.’)

And here is one of the most important learnings over the years: All religious and theological language is symbolic. Every time I attempt to say anything about God, my human language falls short. But I can point. Like the Buddhists say, The finger points to the moon, but the finger is not the moon. All we can do is point. 

(more later)