DUE TO THE INSENSITIVITY OF CHRISTIANS AROUND ME OR HOW OTHER CHRISTIANS KEPT A BROKEN REED SMOKING BY CUPS OF WATER OR LORD BE GENTLE (Note: As I've been reading Brad Jersak's Out of the Out of the Embers: Faith After the Great Deconstruction I kept thinking I went through this forty years ago after my parents died and I was wheeling and dealing in the relige-biz. Then a dear friend
I never knew you struggled with your faith to such a degree. You always seem so sure of it when we've spoken. I found this piece explained much more of you to me - and you are even more interesting and a bit more complex than I had thought. I appreciated the questions you have about your faith. This paragraph ...
"In Madeleine L'Engle's book The Irrational Season I found I wasn't alone by being appalled by Christianity being made into a cause: But I watch in horror as a great liberal, passionately interested in the cause of--shall we say--the leper, very carefully avoids speaking to the leper in his path, in order to get on with the cause. And it occurs to me that Jesus couldn't have cared less about the cause of the leper or the rights of the leper...Jesus stopped. And healed. And loved. Not causes, but people. If I see and rebel against activism in others, it is because I have had to see and rebel against it in myself."
... is the reason I am no longer Christian. I feel in becoming Jewish that I am closer to who Christ was than I ever could be as a Christian, mainly because Judaism is rarely about causes and what is stressed more than anything is our own personal relationship to God, including our doubts and questions, which are encouraged. I don't care about causes and movements because they forget about the people they are trying to save. I care about people. I'm a much better Christian as a Jew than I ever was as a Christian.
I was embarrassed to be a Christian because of the Christians who made their causes so much more important than people, who made Christianity into a machine. I was embarrassed to be Christian because of Christians who never considered that they might not be RIGHT about everything, Christians who moved into our politics to control the country and world. Ultimately I found I could not be a member of a religion where I disagreed with so much of what Christianity today has become. I feel that if Christ were here, he would upend most of the Christian machine the way he upended the money tables outside the temple. I'm not embarrassed as a Jew, ever, and I am living more into who I am and who I believe Christ wanted me to be.
Hi Katie - this came at a good time. I’m going to share with a friend who is struggling mightily with her anger at God. This might help… Blessings to you
Thank you so much for sharing! It was crisply painful and beautiful.
I'm somewhat of an activist, though I hate that word and language that keeps us from precision and clarity, that struggles for balance - love, the mark of a Christian, and accountability, faithful obedience. It is hard to find.
But we keep on knowing Jesus is our faithful shepherd leading us to the fulfillment of all he has promised.
I'm glad he led new to your blog, and for your openness.
I’m glad you didn’t lose your faith in Jesus Christ.
begged Frank Schaeffer to “Chuck politics” ten years ago. Only I didn’t say “chuck.” I told him that the left wing politics of his senior years were as ugly and hateful as the right wing screeds from his his youth, that he had so much beauty and art and good humor that he could write and talk about.
Instead, Frank doubled down on the schtick, which maybe he really believes or maybe is all he can sell. I think it’s the latter because he once told me that he knew his progressive anger was making him into as big an asshole as his conservative anger did, but that it’s what his new readers wanted from him.
I still love the man, but I’m sad for him, as well as sad for myself when I once tried to enlist Jesus Christ into my personal “cause” instead of just being the hands and feet of Jesus in our desperate world. With what time I have left, I’m trying to let Him get me out of the muck into which I once marched
Jesus just doesn’t jive with politics or saving society, only saving souls, I think.
I never knew you struggled with your faith to such a degree. You always seem so sure of it when we've spoken. I found this piece explained much more of you to me - and you are even more interesting and a bit more complex than I had thought. I appreciated the questions you have about your faith. This paragraph ...
"In Madeleine L'Engle's book The Irrational Season I found I wasn't alone by being appalled by Christianity being made into a cause: But I watch in horror as a great liberal, passionately interested in the cause of--shall we say--the leper, very carefully avoids speaking to the leper in his path, in order to get on with the cause. And it occurs to me that Jesus couldn't have cared less about the cause of the leper or the rights of the leper...Jesus stopped. And healed. And loved. Not causes, but people. If I see and rebel against activism in others, it is because I have had to see and rebel against it in myself."
... is the reason I am no longer Christian. I feel in becoming Jewish that I am closer to who Christ was than I ever could be as a Christian, mainly because Judaism is rarely about causes and what is stressed more than anything is our own personal relationship to God, including our doubts and questions, which are encouraged. I don't care about causes and movements because they forget about the people they are trying to save. I care about people. I'm a much better Christian as a Jew than I ever was as a Christian.
I was embarrassed to be a Christian because of the Christians who made their causes so much more important than people, who made Christianity into a machine. I was embarrassed to be Christian because of Christians who never considered that they might not be RIGHT about everything, Christians who moved into our politics to control the country and world. Ultimately I found I could not be a member of a religion where I disagreed with so much of what Christianity today has become. I feel that if Christ were here, he would upend most of the Christian machine the way he upended the money tables outside the temple. I'm not embarrassed as a Jew, ever, and I am living more into who I am and who I believe Christ wanted me to be.
Hi Katie - this came at a good time. I’m going to share with a friend who is struggling mightily with her anger at God. This might help… Blessings to you
Hi, Katie. You nudge me toward God. There are a handful of people who do that. Thank you, my friend.
Thank you so much for sharing! It was crisply painful and beautiful.
I'm somewhat of an activist, though I hate that word and language that keeps us from precision and clarity, that struggles for balance - love, the mark of a Christian, and accountability, faithful obedience. It is hard to find.
But we keep on knowing Jesus is our faithful shepherd leading us to the fulfillment of all he has promised.
I'm glad he led new to your blog, and for your openness.
Thank you - sister, fellow pilgrim.
Allen
Good piece, Katie.
I’m glad you didn’t lose your faith in Jesus Christ.
begged Frank Schaeffer to “Chuck politics” ten years ago. Only I didn’t say “chuck.” I told him that the left wing politics of his senior years were as ugly and hateful as the right wing screeds from his his youth, that he had so much beauty and art and good humor that he could write and talk about.
Instead, Frank doubled down on the schtick, which maybe he really believes or maybe is all he can sell. I think it’s the latter because he once told me that he knew his progressive anger was making him into as big an asshole as his conservative anger did, but that it’s what his new readers wanted from him.
I still love the man, but I’m sad for him, as well as sad for myself when I once tried to enlist Jesus Christ into my personal “cause” instead of just being the hands and feet of Jesus in our desperate world. With what time I have left, I’m trying to let Him get me out of the muck into which I once marched
Jesus just doesn’t jive with politics or saving society, only saving souls, I think.