Tradition Sucks.

"Hey, when I showed up, I didn't go about using big words or religious terminology. I didn't pretend to be more educated or have special insight when I told you about my experience with God. It was my goal to know of nothing except Jesus Christ, crucified, when I was with you guys. I was weak and afraid. Very afraid. My thoughts, my message weren't from a high vernacular, not set in persuasion or wisdom. They were a demonstration of the Holy Spirit's raw power, so that you can have faith because of God and his power, not me or any other man."
--1 Corinthians 2:1-5, paraphrased

Just so you know that I'm not completely off my rocker with my (admittely biased) paraphrasing, here's the NIV:
"When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power."

I finally am reading the rest of Pagan Christianity, and will move immediately onto Reimagining Church after this. It's a good sign when books like this have you straight up read some scripture, and this one stood out to me. A few choice quotes from this chapter, with my thoughts: "The sermon creates an excessive and pathological dependence on the clergy. The semon make the preacher the religious specialist—the only one having anything worthy to say. Everyone else is treated as a second-class Christian—a silent pew warmer. (While this is not usually voiced, it is the unspoken reality.)"
Not only is that a doozy of a first sentence ("excessive and pathological dependence"), it's a good one. I find, as I read this and as I consider my experience on my own, that that last parenthetical phrase is anything but unimportant. It instead describes the church I know all to often. "Bad" things are often not voiced, or even vocally denied or condemned, but in reality are all too true and present. Things like this class system, the idea that the pastor is above everyone and the focus of Christianity (have you ever seen a church? The chapter on architecture was fascinating), the concept of love the sinner, hate the sin, the idea that works are a necessary result of "faith", the ridiculous obsession with wealth and prosperity. But those are getting into other issues. Back to the topic at hand:
"It [the sermon] has become so entrenched in the Christian mind that most Bible-believing pastors and laymen fail to see that they are affirming and perpetuating an unscriptural practice out of sheer tradition. The sermon has become permanently embedded in a complex organizational structure that is far removed from first-century church life." And a quote from David C. Norrington, author of To Preach or Not to Preach: "The sermon is, in practice, beyond criticism. It has become an end in itself, sacred—the product of a distorted reverence for 'the tradition of the elders'...it seems strangely inconsistent that those who are most disposed to claim that the Bible is the Word of God, the 'supreme guide in all matters of faith and practice' are amongst the first to reject biblical methods in favor of the 'broken cisterns' of their fathers (Jeremiah 2:13)."

The power of tradition is intimidating, and overwhelming. It is not always bad, but can often perpetuate bad practice. Tradition is the only reason that a majority of Christians (by my estimation, anyway) will tell you that people laughed at Noah, there was no rain before the flood, there were three wise men that showed up when Jesus was born, and Jesus had a whip when he chased the sellers out of the temple. None of these have the slightest shred, however, of Scriptural evidence. It is also the reason that some churches (like mine) have sacred communion tables, polyester choir robes, and yes, the sacred sermon (which every church that I've been to has). And it's not a good reason. There are many reasons that the sermon as it stands is a bad idea. And you should read Pagan Christianity. Because it's really, really good.

I Hate All Your Show

I was catching up on my feeds, when I came across this post over at the Holy Heteroclite, which is a re-post of part of a post elsewhere, which I will in turn partially reproduce here. It's a list of vocabulary that doesn't mean what it used to:

WORD	MISUSE	USED TO MEAN
church	building, organization	gathering of friends
worship	religious concert & lecture	a life poured out, as a sacrifice
saved	guilt free pass	salvaged and put back to hard work
truth	proposition, world view	a person--Jesus
christian	religious conservative	one who loves & suffers like Jesus
preach	religious lecture	announce on the street
ministry	professional religious program	serving like a slave
apostle	spiritual superstar	expendable messenger
prophet	dead, lacking diplomacy	listens to God
pastor	religious CEO	smelly sheep tender
love	feeling or mood	sacrificial, tender care acted out

Too often a very accurate list, that I have seen in action.

Additionally, in following some links, I rediscovered Jon Foreman's song, "I Hate All Your Show" - there's a post with lyrics and a video elsewhere, I won't repeat it here. But it is an excellent song - check it out and ponder it.

I know constantly and exclusively saying what's wrong with the church and Christians isn't the way to fix things, and is easy to do. But whatever my faith ends up looking like, it will hopefully be one of doing, being, and relationships. And, most difficult for someone with pride issues like me, humility and subservience. We'll see how that goes.

The Calf Path

One day, through the primeval wood,
A calf walked home, as good calves should;
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail as all calves do.

Since then three hundred years have fled,
And, I infer, the calf is dead.
But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my moral tale.

The trail was taken up next day
By a lone dog that passed that way;
And then a wise bell-wether sheep
Pursued the trail o'er vale and steep,
And drew the flock behind him, too,
As good bell-wethers always do.
And from that day, o'er hill and glade,
Through those old woods a path was made.

And many men wound in and out,
And dodged, and turned, and bent about
And uttered words of righteous wrath
Because 'twas such a crooked path.
But still they followed—do not laugh—
The first migrations of that calf,
And through this winding wood-way stalked,
Because he wobbled when he walked.

This forest path became a lane,
That bent, and turned, and turned again;
This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load
Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And traveled some three miles in one.
And thus a century and a half
They trod the footsteps of that calf.

The years passed on in swiftness fleet,
The road became a village street;
And this, before men were aware,
A city's crowded thoroughfare;
And soon the central street was this
Of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.

Each day a hundred thousand rout
Followed the zigzag calf about;
And o'er his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.
A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead.
They followed still his crooked way,
And lost one hundred years a day;
For thus such reverence is lent
To well-established precedent.

A moral lesson this might teach,
Were I ordained and called to preach;
For men are prone to go it blind
Along the calf-paths of the mind,

And work away from sun to sun
To do what other men have done.
They follow in the beaten track,
And out and in, and forth and back,

And still their devious course pursue,
To keep the path that others do.
They keep the path a sacred groove,
Along which all their lives they move.
But how the wise old wood-gods laugh,
Who saw the first primeval calf!
Ah! Many things this tale might teach—
But I am not ordained to preach.

—Sam Walter Foss

Rules

Humans like rules. God doesn't.

That's something I've noticed, and it kind of came to light in a discussion at college group the other night.

It sounds counterintuitive - we hate rules, we want to do what we want, not what anyone tells us to. But when I look at the old testament, and the new testament, and what the majority (or at least the vocal minority) of American Christians today have set up as Christianity, that's what I see.

God didn't want rules. Initially, he had one - don't touch the tree. That was it. But then Humans had to go and screw everything up. Throughout the Old Testament, we had all these rules and stuff, and despite all the Isrealites' whining, it worked pretty well - they had all these sacrifices and stuff, and they, on the whole, got along with God when all was said and done.

And then God was all like, "Okay, these rules are annoying, and not really what I want. I'm going to send Jesus down to fulfill the law so we don't have all these obnoxious rules. The humans will figure it out, and be much happier. They'll see."

So Christ came down, fulfilled the law, told the Pharisees and Sadducees that all their ideas were the worst idea since Noah let the mosquitoes live on the Ark, and told the people what God was *really* about - loving your neighbor, helping others, letting God's love shine through you. It was great.

So what about Christianity today? Well, the way I see it, a large part of Christianity has done what is to be expected - put rules in place, because rules are comfortable. We have all these rules and guidelines and expectations about what it takes to be a Christian, a good Christian. It makes it easier to count people in or out, put them in a box.

Where this really manifests itself is in salvation - Evangelical Christianity seems obsessed with the sinner's prayer, assigning it as the rule for when you're saved. It's comfortable, it's easy, it's human. Say the right words, and you get into heaven.

But I don't think that's how God intended it. Finding God, following God, seeking God, is a journey. Being on that Journey is what being a Christian should be. Paving the road and adding a gate at some arbitrary point that divides the Christians from the non-Christians doesn't make sense.

It makes it easy to have assurance of salvation, but it doesn't work. At least it didn't for me. So I think that we need to stop being so focused on the rules, as uncomfortable as that may be, and jump into a journey.

I don't know where I'll end up, or what I even think about Heaven and Hell. But I'm beginning a journey, and that's good enough for me. It's the best I can do, because I can't just say some prayer and not mean it. That just doesn't work for me.

So I'm permanently seeking.

If this doesn't make total sense, it's because I'm about to fall asleep. Perhaps I'll read it over after my nap.