Pensées – 11.

1. Early morning in the cafeteria makes for interesting conversations (one-way however): Man sits down at table across from me: “How are you this morning”? – “Fine” – “That’s good.” – “I was having a good day until yesterday when I got on the bus and you know how they let you bring a mug with a lid on the bus?” – “Yes” (actually, not really) – “Well yesterday I got on the bus and the bus driver told me that it wasn’t a lid (motions to his Tim Horton’s paper cup with no lid) So you know what I did? I just ignored her the entire trip.” – “Oh.” – “Anyhow, you when people are acting like that, she was being rude, bitchy, and mean, you know, they are worshiping the Devil and Satan.” – (I didn’t realize that they were two separate people) – “And you know when we are sitting here acting like we are, clam, cool, collected, patient, kind, we’re worshiping God, Christ, and Jesus.”
2. Aaaaaannnd…I just realized something. I am waiting for my “date” to show up for our 8 AM appointment (it is now 8:30) and I almost left, but maybe I ought to take this random guy’s advice and be patient because its the right thing to do. Or, I’m just super-spiritualizing this chance encounter with some random guy I’ve never talked to before. That too.
3. Every time I go and talk to C.A., I feel like I’m talking to myself as a 45-year old and I mean that it a completely respectful way.
4. Question the Resurrection in class, everyone assumes you are actually questioning the Resurrection. Question the Resurrection on your own and you realize you are actually questioning the Resurrection, but you don’t want to actually question the Resurrection in class otherwise everyone will think you’re one of those (the cynical and bitter RELS student that became an atheist after RELS 101 or 102; they do exist).
5. “Minimal facts”: Habermas’ point of departure for the defence of the Resurrection. Use only the texts that all scholars (regardless of school of thought or religious adherence) can agree on. Supposedly, one can “construct the entire Christian faith from the ‘minimal facts.’” That still doesn’t mean we addressed the presupposition of biblical historical reliability.
6. “I perceived that God was always near, directing my life, creating the circumstances and opportunities to choose, yet always leaving the crucial choices to me. I was awestruck by the realization of the intimacy and love that reveals, not because we deserve it, but because it is always there and all we have to do is turn to Him to receive it….God is the source of all the love, mercy, kindness, and wisdom—of all the beauty—that we experience and feel.” Think a Christian wrote that? Think again. How do we explain that?
7. I’ve found my passion in life, what I want to do, what I want to be, how I want to live. Now the task of doing that becomes the focus.

Reading the Resurrection Stories – Mark.

Reading the Resurrection Stories – Matthew. (Click on text to read the Matthew post).

Now flip a few pages to Mark 15.

In Mark 15.29, the two robbers show up again, this time, they are both mocking Jesus. There is no mention of the ‘nice’ robber asking Jesus to save him. The veil was torn again after Jesus died, but Mark does not say there was an earth quake. Now to the main stuff: the Resurrection.

Again, Joseph of Arimathea shows up and is called one “who himself was waiting for the kingdom of God” (v. 43). He goes to Pilate on “the preparation day, that is, the day before the Sabbath” and “asked for the body of Jesus.” Joseph received the body of Jesus and placed him “wrapped…in the linen cloth and laid Him in a tomb which had been hewn out in the rock; and he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb.” (v. 46). “When the Sabbath was over” Mary M. and Mary show up at the tomb hoping to get into the tomb to put spices around Jesus’ body and they are surprised to see the tomb stone already rolled away (v. 4). Remember in the Gospel of Matthew’s account, the tomb stone was rolled away while the women were already there (Matthew 28.2-3). This time, we (and the women) find the angel in the tomb (contra Matthew’s sitting on the tomb stone, cf. v. 2). Additionally, although it is assume that this person is an angel, the author of Mark does not say so: “they saw a young man sitting at the right, wearing a white robe; and they were amazed” (v. 5). The young man tells the women:

“Do not be amazed; you are looking for Jesus the Nazarenee, who has been crucified. He has risen; He is not here; behold, here is the place where they laid Him. But go, tell His disciples and Peter, ‘He is goinga head of you to Galilee; there you will see Him, just as He told you.’”

It is interesting that in the Markan narrative of this event, the young man specifically mentions Peter. It is “His disciples and Peter” not “His disciples (e.g. Matthew 28.7). Do I smell a little Petrine primacy brewing? Haha…just kidding! Back on topic, Catholic claims aside, the women depart but the author of Mark said that the women were so terrified and astonished that “They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid” (v. 8). This is in contrast to Matthew 28.8 in which they “left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy and ran to report it to His discples” (v. 8). (Sidenote: how peculiar they these two descriptions both happen in v. 8 of their respective chapters.) Jesus then appeared to Mary M. after he rose and later “appeared in a different form to  two of them while they were walking along on their way to the country” (v. 12). What exactly is meant by “different form” is unclear but interesting nonetheless.

I must note that scholars believe that Mark 16.9-20 is a later addition to the Markan text. Later manuscripts add v. 9-20 to the end and some manuscripts simply have v. 20b “And they promptly reported all these instructions…” just after v.8.

Time to read Luke.

Reading the Resurrection Stories – Matthew.

I have always had this assumption that the biblical narrative about the Resurrection was one cohesive story. It wasn’t until I actually sat down this past week and read each of the Resurrection accounts that I discovered that they don’t all agree with each other 100%. So I’ve decided to reflect a little more on these stories and try to ascertain how to go about reading them and understanding them seeing as they recall the central confession of the Christian faith: Jesus is Lord and he is Risen.

I’m beginning in Matthew 27.33 when Jesus has arrived at Golgotha to be crucified. In the amalgamated version of the Crucifixion and Resurrection account (the blending together of all four accounts), I had always assumed that there was one ‘nice’ robber and one ‘bad’ robber. The ‘nice’ robber was the one who asked Jesus to save him and Jesus did so. But in Matthew 27.44, both of the robbers are insulting Christ “with the same words” (v. 44) of abuse that “those passing by were hurling…at [Jesus]” (v. 39). One thing I hadn’t noticed was the weird chronological shift that occurs in v.52-53 of Matthew 27: “The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the tombs after His reurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many.” Two things strike me as being strange in this verse. First, it talks about a resurrection of the saints (presumably holy Jewish men and women). This resurrection of those “who had fallen asleep” (died) happened after v. 50-51 when Jesus dies and the veil in the Temple is split. So so far we have this little chronological order:

1. Jesus dies (v. 50)
2. Temple veil splits and “the earth shook and the rocks were split.” (v. 51).
3. The “asleep” raised (v. 52-53).

But, in v. 53, it says that the “asleep” were “coming out of the tombs after His resurrection…” This doesn’t really make sense to me. It seems to completely shift the entire chronology of what’s going on here. If these verses are pulled together in chronological order, it would seem that we’d have this:

1. Jesus dies (v. 50)
2. Temple veil splits and “the earth shook and the rocks were split.” (v. 51).
3. Jesus raised from the dead (Matt. 28)
4. The “asleep” raised (v. 52-53).

Anyhow, I don’t know what the author of the Gospel of Matthew was thinking. Returning to the Resurrection story, v. 57 describes Joseph of Arimathea “who himself had also become a disciple of Jesus” going to Pilate to obtain the body of Jesus for burial. Jesus was placed in a new tomb that Joseph had “hewn out in the rock; and he rolled a large stone against the entrance of the tomb and went away.” (v. 60). Now, the stone had been rolled in front of the tomb by Joseph, but it wasn’t until the following day that there were guards at the tomb. This is something that I hadn’t realized until I carefully read it. All the Easter plays I’ve ever seen and most retellings of the Resurrection account always assume that the guards were at the tomb right after Jesus was buried until the day Jesus purportedly rose.

However, “on the next day, the day after the preparation [the Sabbath]” the chief priests went to visit Pilate to ask him to protect the tomb. The chief priests were well aware of Jesus’ claims that he would rise after three days. So in an effort to prevent that from happening, and furthering a “last deception [that] will be worse than the first” (v. 64), the guards were dispatched. Pilate tells the chief priests “‘You have a guard; go, make it as secure as you know how.’ And they went and made the grave secure, and along with the guard they set a seal on the stone.” (v. 65-66). One of the often perpetuated non-miraculous explanations for the Resurrection of Jesus put forward by skeptics is the belief that Jesus’ body was stolen by the Disciples. I can now see where they get this possibility. For one night (and then some), the tomb was unguarded and unsealed. This would certainly lead some to conclude that there remains the possibility that the Disciples stole the body of Jesus to make it look like he rose from the dead.

So the tomb is finally sealed. On the day after the Sabbath, a second earthquake happened and the stone was rolled away after Mary Magdalene “and the other Mary” (Matt. 28.1) arrived at the tomb. A singular angel showed up at the tomb and was specifically attributed to the Lord and it was this angel who rolled away the tombstone. The angel announced:

“Do not be afraid; for I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified. He is not here, for He  has risen, just as He said. Come, see the place where He was lying. Go quickly and tell his disciples that He has risen from the dead; and behold, He is going ahead of you into Galilee, there you will see Him; behold, I have told you.”

Jesus appears to Mary and Mary M. as they ran to tell the disciples. He told them the same thing the angel did: “Do not be afraid; go and take word to My brethern to leave for Galilee, and there they will see Me.” Its interesting to note that the tombstone was rolled away after Jesus had risen. In other words, he some how managed to get outside the tomb without the tomb stone actually being rolled away. It seems as if he was pulling a John 20.19-23 (Jesus shows up, walks through a locked door and scares the crap about of the Disciples).

Meanwhile, the poor guards (who had failed quite miserably at their guard duty, but then again, I would probably pee my pants and die too if I saw an angel roll away a stone) ran back to Jerusalem and told the chief priests everything. A little money quieted them and the story that the chief priests told the guards to tell “was widely spread among the Jews, and is to this day [the contemporary day in which the author of Matthew was writing this text]” (v. 15).

Now, on to read the Markan narrative.

 

Faith and Lettuce.

As I got ready to go to campus today, I was reflecting on this past summer. I worked for two weeks on a commercial organic farm. The year before, I had had an awesome experience on a much, much, much smaller farm (the commercial farm being 60+ acres, the smaller farm just being about 5 acres). But this is all beside the point. One morning while I worked in the greenhouse seeding lettuce trays, I met the owner’s son who had been working on the farm since it started out on a small 1/2 acre plot about 15 years ago. He was now about 30 years old and was enjoying the fruits of his labour on the farm.

“So where are you from?” He asked.

“Washington, but I live in Langley during the school year.” I replied as I placed a freshly seeded tray of Romaine lettuce on a cart.

“So you go to school up here?” He replied as he set his tray down on the same cart.

“Yep. I’m a third year over at Trinity.” I said (slightly sheepishly).

“Oh. So you go to a religious school.” He replied.

“Yeah.”

“So you consider yourself religous?” He relied.

“I guess you could say that.” I knew the last thing he wanted to hear was the ‘I don’t have religion, I have relationship’ jargon. And I knew that that was the last thing I wanted to say too.

“What are you studying?”

“Religious studies.” I added another tray to the cart feeling embarassed because I knew I was setting myself up by loading more ‘religious’ stuff into our conversation.

I didn’t dare tell him that I was actually a Christianity & Culture major. In fact, in general I don’t say Christianity & Culture because its a mouthful of words that probably means nothing to anyone (“What is that?”) and unless they know the theological leanings of myself and Trinity Western as a whole they might be inclined to think that I’m gearing myself up for the Evangelical culture wars: “That’s great to hear! We need to get strong Christians out there to fight off those homosexuals, Muslims, and atheists! They’re destroying our families and our country!” or “Oh, you’re one of those religious right fundies, aren’t you?” So to keep myself from having to explain to either side of the spectrum what Christianity & Culture actually is, I just say “I’m religious studies.” Plus its neutral and many non-religious schools over religious studies degrees so I am not quickly lumped into the “He’s gonna be a pastor because he’s a Christian studying religious studies at a Christian university” group. Although invariably that happens. I digress.

“So are you going to be a pastor?” The guy replied (a perfect example of what I just said a few sentences ago).

“No, I think I’m going to teach, either at the high school level or at the university level.” I replied.

“Ah.” he put another Romaine lettuce tray on the cart, “So, if I walked into your class one day, what would I learn to help me make any money.”

I gave a inquisitive look.

“How is your class going to help me make money.” He continued.

I honestly can’t remember what my reply was that day. But if I did have to answer that question, I would say “There are some classes that explain ‘how’ to make money, there are other questions that ask ‘why’ do we make money. I teach the ‘why’ part.

“I tried religion once.” He had a slight grin on his face as if he were recalling his unique experiences with various Christians. “I knew this one family that called themselves Christians and they tried to convert me and all and I tried it for a bit. But they were just a bunch of hypocrites. They had all this family drama and didn’t practise what they preached.”

I honestly felt bad for both this guy and for the family. I gave a little “Oh” as an acknowledgment that I had heard what he had just said.

“Me? I just try to live a good moral life. I try to be nice to people. I try not to do bad stuff.” He continued.

My conservative Evangelical side of me wanted to say “But you can’t work your way to heaven! You need grace and Jesus!” I lassoed my thoughts to keep me from saying anything stupid or out of place that might alienate this guy.

The owner of the farm walked in and called his son outside. It was the end of our conversation.

A few months later, I found out that this guy had been diagnosed with cancer, the really bad kind. But he was still young, still on the cusp of his future life as a family man. I felt even worse. I hoped that he continued to ask questions and that maybe this experience would drive him to pursue answers to his questions about life.

This morning, I thought about that encounter again and the meaning of it. But more so, I reflected on my responses (or lack thereof). I realized how little I knew/know about the faith I claimed/claim to practise. How could I respond to this man’s questions and his thoughts?

How could I respond to his experience with the Christian family that had so much “drama?” I could have easily replied that all Christians are humans and therefore one shouldn’t expect that they’re going to be perfect. Christians have problems and yes, they do have family issues. But is that really convincing?

Is it really convincing to separate adherents from their faith? “Yes, Christians are hypocrites, because that’s because we’re imperfect and we’re sinners.”

That makes sense only if you actually believe there is such a thing as sin.

How could I respond to his honest attempts to live a decent life? Should I shoot him down with nice little phrases about human depravity and how his works are like a pile of crap? How could I respond to the fact that he had “tried religion” once but that it didn’t work out? Should I tell him he didn’t try hard enough, that he should have ‘just believed’ or ‘prayed for faith’?

All of these thoughts culminated in one realization: I have become that guy. I have tried Christianity and while it worked out for the first 21 5/12  years of my life, at the 21 1/2 mark of my life, I began to move slowly towards the cusp of utter confusion and still find myself in the midst of a mild agnosticism. Am I that much different from this guy that I met on the farm? Not really.

Had I spent the summer there, I have no doubt he would encounter me with the question: “If there is a God, why’d he let this cancer happen to me?” Would I have then responded: “I don’t know” because I honestly didn’t know or because I didn’t know how to respond to the very real problem of pain. How could have I responded? With the trite phrases: “God has a plan.” or “God sometimes allows things for a reason.”

Am I religious? Perhaps. At the time I was. I’m still religious in a sense. But how religion doesn’t get people anywhere. I’m not saying religion is a bad thing. What I’m saying is that in the midst of a myriad religions, the religion must offer something completely other than all the rest. But I even hate the fact that I have to write that last sentence in the way I did because it makes truth seem like a marketable material. Take your pick.

I realized this morning, I have never really believed what I once thought I believed. I have never known that which I supposedly knew. I didn’t have answers for the things I claimed to have answers for. I do not have the faith I thought I did.

Pensées 10.

1. Historical inaccuracies in the Biblical narrative: (e.g. Luke 2:1-2 and Matthew 2:1 allowing for a 10 year time span between the two possible birth-dates of Jesus, one during the time of Herod the Great and the other during the time of Quirinius (Cyrenius) of Syria). Whelp…there goes biblical inerrancy. Oh wait, inerrancy in the original texts. But wait, we don’t have the original texts. But we have a good idea of what the original texts are. Oh…okay…but we still don’t have the original texts.
2. Did the apostles have a vested interest in faking the Resurrection by stealing Jesus’ body or to “raise” him from the dead in some other way? The question remains, if the apostles wanted to raise Jesus from the dead, would they have done so? When I say “if they wanted to raise him from the dead,” I mean, “did they lie about it?” Were they not safer in simply moving on with their lives after the death of Jesus? They would have endangered their lives even more by living a lie that said Christ was risen. Why would they have wasted all the energy (not to mention their lives) to pretend that Christ rose again. Note to self: look at the previous examples of Jewish individuals who claimed to be the messiah; see if anyone claimed resurrection; what happened to their followers? did they try to “raise” their fallen leader from the dead or did they think “Well, he’s dead, let’s go back to what we were doing before we followed this fake messiah.”; did they all die afterward or merely sink back into society and move on with their lives. It almost seems like the apostles were already doing that: Peter’s denial; apostles going back to work on the boats; they probably thought they had been lied to; they knew they had been duped; their hopes were dashed; Why go through the effort of pretending Jesus’ Resurrection (in any form or fashion) and then DIE for it? Especially if they knew it was a lie. Were they really that concerned about their reputation to fake the Resurrection? Had any other previous followers of Jewish “messiahs” faked their leader’s resurrection? Did any messianic movements continue on after the death of the leader and still keep the leader as the centre of the movement? (Acts 5:36-8 might be a good starting point for this discussion.)
3. Thoughts on the Resurrection #1: in defending the Resurrection, it is easy for Christians to become unconscious the fact that some defences of the Resurrection are not simply absolute and watertight as we might like to think. For example, the argument is made that the apostles did not steal the body. One apologetics book backs this reasoning up with the belief that the guards would not have been able to sleep through the racket that the apostles would have made as they pulled away the giant rock.23 Additionally, this assumes that the guards were posted the for the entire three day period that Jesus was purportedly dead. But the Gospel of Matthew, assuming we take it as historically accurate, explicitly states that no guards were at the tomb during the first night of Jesus’ interment. Jesus was likely crucified on a Friday (Mark 15:42 notes that it was “the day before the Sabbath” the “preparation day”) and it was not until the day of the Sabbath that the chief priests asked Pilate to send guards to secure the tomb. Matthew 27:62-66 recounts this: “Now on the next day [the Sabbath], the day after the preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees gathered together with Pilate, and said “Sir, we remember that when he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I am to rise gain.’ Therefore, give orders for the grave to be made secure until the third day, otherwise His disciples may come and steal Him away and say to the people, ‘He has risen from the dead,’ and the last deception will be worse than the first.” Pilate then told the Jewish leaders to send their own guards to the tomb and “make it as secure as you know how” (v. 65) and the Jewish leaders “went and made the grave secure, and along with the guard they set a seal on the stone” (v. 66). No doubt on the night of Jesus’ crucifixion, the stone was rolled in front of the tomb but it was not sealed nor secured with guards until the day after. But I suggest that we still need to account for the single night that there were no guards and no seals on the tomb. After all, at least fifteen people knew where Jesus was buried.

The Wisdom of Others – GK Chesterton

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who happen to be walking about.

GK Chesteron

Being Skeptical About Skepticism.

Doubt doubt.

What?

Yes, doubt your doubt.

Oh. That makes sense. It does, really. It is actually more consistent than what most people think of as skepticism or doubt. To be truly consistent ( in one’s skepticism or agnosticism), to actively engage one’s beliefs with pure doubt, is to actually doubt the doubt, to be skeptical about the skepticism.

What a revolutionary new concept. I find that when I read stories about people leaving Christianity and becoming agnostic, there’s a missing element: they stop questioning their beliefs (which have now become agnosticism). To be truly consistent, one must be an agnostic about their agnosticism. Only then can one really call themselves an agnostic.

Have you questioned your questions lately?

Have you doubted your doubts lately?

Have you been a skeptic about your skepticism?

Pensées Neuf.

1. Victory over evil is not evil defeated, it is evil redeemed. Apparently this is a rough understanding of what author and minister George MacDonald once said. I’m still trying to locate with the help of my roommate where this is, but whatever the case, it is a very beautiful thought that is really helping me out as I research paganism and Christianity and their quite interesting relationship.
2. The glory of God is man fully alive. I keep coming back to this so often and I find myself overjoyed by the thought that becoming truly human, fully human, is in itself an act of worship.
3. If Christ is a hoax. I’m going to have a really hard time understanding how it was that Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s Mass in B Minor got to be among some of the most amazing music every written and performed. “My late friend Stephen Jay Gould, who insisted with dogmatic fervor that he wasn’t a believer, was a member…of the Handel and Haydn Society in Boston, and so he sang all this Christian music. And in an interview several years ago that we were both involved in, he was asked about communication with other planets and other worlds, and how should we try to reach people who don’t know our language or anything else. And he said, “We should play the Bach ‘B Minor Mass’ and say, in as many languages as we can, ‘This is the best we have ever done, and we would like you to hear it, and we’d like to hear the best you have ever done.’ And so he would want broadcast systems blaring across our solar system and beyond it with the “B Minor Mass,” including “Credo in unum Deum.” (Jaroslav Pelikan, The Need for Creeds)
4. In vino veritas; in wine there is truth; or, wine loosens the tongue. Nothing better than a Saturday night, a glass of wine, and talking about Jesus, life, and faith.
5. Fully human, fully God. Rediscovering the humanity of God and the humanity of Christ and the entrance of God into human history and the use of humans to carry out his will seems to be the best way through so many difficult questions. But then how do we avoid God becoming a mere human construction within a system and subsequently getting an intellectual beating by a dead Swiss-German theologian, Karl Barth?
6. Real luxury is time and opportunity to read for pleasure (Jane Brody). Why do I feel so guilty for reading for pleasure? From where did I get this sense of “I can only read textbooks,” or “You can only spend 20 minutes a day reading for pleasure?” Ironically, combining reading for classes and reading for pleasure (or for one’s own benefit) doesn’t seem to assuage the guilt either. “You feel guilty because you’re actually learning!”
7. No two persons have ever read the same book (Edmund Wilson). It is fun to pull old books out from several years ago and to realize that when you read them initially, you never actually read them. For students, it might be the realization that you only read them to get the 5% reading credit or so that you wouldn’t have to lie in a RELS class on the final exam that asked you how much of the book you actually read.
8. Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring. As I read in an online forum yesterday, someone noted that this title of Bach’s song seems to identify the very important issue surrounding questions about Christianity in relationship to other religions. Jesus, the “the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man,” is the central desire of all men, whether they know it or not. Everyone longs for the true, the good, and the beautiful. Is it possible that “the germ of truth” (a la Clement of Alexandria) existed in other religions before and after the time of Jesus but that Jesus remains the fruit and fulfillment of all that desire? Christianity is not merely a fulfillment of the Jewish law as it claims, but rather, a fulfillment of all human longing for the divine, all human longing for that which is true. Thus, the Great Commission is not so much getting people “saved” and making sure they don’t go to Hell or to tell people that they are wrong and stupid for believing in whatever it was that they believed in before, or badgering them into saying the “Sinner’s Prayer” and telling them that they are bad humans who are bad, bad, bad, bad, and they’re going to burn, burn, burn. Rather, the Great Commission is the demonstration through thought, word, and deed, that Christ is the fullness of truth. This requires an unbending humility and willingness to listen to others, but to also show people (and not merely tell) the Truth, to show people that Christ is the actualization of all that they have longed for, whether they know it or not.
9. Our hearts are restless until they find rest in you, O Lord (St Augustine). Maybe some of us are never content with where we are and what we believe, even if we were atheists, even if we were Muslims, even if we were Hindus, even if we were agnostics, even if we were Christians.
10. The hugest hurdle for me to overcome if I were to give up on Christianity: the martyrdom of the disciples (all but one, John).

My Name is Ryan Schutt and…

…I am going to change the world. I had a really profound conversation with my roommate last night. He was watching a movie, The Secret, for a class he is teaching. I will admit that I am a little suspicious of some of the broad claims it makes and the sensationalizing of a subject that doesn’t deserve to be sensationalized to the point that one calls it a “secret,” however, it did bring up a number of good points about the power of the mind, the power of our thoughts, and the power of personal choice. I won’t comment any further on the movie, but what came out of our discussion about the movie was this: why are we afraid to think positively and why are we afraid to dream about what we hope to become? So we subsequently plastered our refrigerator with 3×5 note cards bearing statements of ideas, dreams, goals, all of which we hope to become.

My first note card has this written on it:

Ryan Schutt, MDiv, ThM, STD: Theologian, professor, and pastor.

To those that might say “We shouldn’t pursue worldly titles,” or “Success isn’t determined by how smart you are,” or “We shouldn’t aim simply to put more letters after our last name” I say:

AM I NOT ALLOW TO DREAM? AM I NOT ALLOWED TO PURSUE THAT WHICH I AM PASSIONATE ABOUT?

I happen to agree with these people that success isn’t in the number of letters after a last name. But the assumption is that everyone who has titles or letters after names, or degrees, or any type of distinction, have simply done so for the sake of popularity or fame or whatever. Certainly, there are those who are out there that do pursue such marks of success for their own sake or for less than noble reasons. But that’s just not the case with everyone. However, I need to ask myself who are the people who are telling me that I can’t do this? They are not my parents. They are not my friends. They are most certainly not my professors. The person that is telling me that I can’t do this is myself. I am my own worst enemy.

What’s more is this: my conviction is this, the meaning behind pursuing something and the strength to pursue it cannot be simply willed from the individual himself. Rather, some outside entity gives his passions, his strengths, his weaknesses, his hopes, his dreams, meaning and the subsequent strength to pursue both the meaning and the outcomes (in this case, degrees). Furthermore, I’m not going to a diploma-mill to get these titles. These titles come after years of hard work, hours of study and reading about a subject I am intensely passionate about (dare I say it has become an obsession). The meaning behind such titles is more important, by far, than the mere letters that make up the title.

So why the hell can’t I do what I want to do?

If I want to become a theologian, I can. If I want to become a professor, I can. If I want to become a pastor, I can (although I need to find a church that will accept me just as I am…theologically speaking). If I want to do something, I can.

From the Archives: Wanted Ad.

From the archives (posted on a Facebook note about two or three years go). Not much has changed in this wanted ad except for the last line. I’ve been looking and I realized, I need to become the person that attracts people who desire this so that together we might create this community. By the way, I know of at least two people who’d like this too. Care to join in?

Wanted:

A place that values community.

Where we share our feelings, our thoughts, our struggles, our ideas, our theologies, our values, our dreams, our lives, our possessions, our money, our time, our skills, and much more. Where simplicity is valued.
A place that isn’t afraid to struggle with doubt and uncertainty. A place where we talk through issues from all points of view. A place where we aren’t afraid of contradictions, diversities,  and inconsistencies. A place where people are allowed to ask thought-provoking questions that may be uncomfortable. A place where we recognize that we may not have all the answers and we can’t really be sure of things.

A place that is authentic.

Where we share our daily battles, our deepest secrets, our biggest doubts, our most difficult questions. A place where someone isn’t immediately labeled because of something they said. A place where someone isn’t afraid to share with others because they are not fearful that the others will judge them.

A place where others are first.

Where justice is sought. Where solidarity is pursued. Where peace is promoted. Where reconciliation takes place. Where hope is given freely. Where people are not left out on the doorstep because they’re “those people.” Where everyone has a fair shot at life. Where no one is treated as subhuman. And this place can’t be a club. It has to be open to everyone, regardless of race, gender, income-level, addiction, sexual identity, etc. A place where every human being is recognized as having an inherent dignity and worth, regardless of their situation. A place where traditions are valued, but progressiveness is not feared. Where the traditions of old are preserved but we are not afraid of the future.

A place that is holistic.

That is to say, a place that doesn’t think that life is limited to one or two affairs. A place that realizes the interconnectedness of everything. A place where people are passionate about a couple of affairs but recognize that those two or three affairs are dependent on other things as well. A place that realizes that life demands our full attention.

A place that is fully committed.

Where people give 100% of themselves, not 50%. Where people are fully aware of the requirements of their commitment and are willing to dig deeper into that commitment to experience and carry it out to the fullest. A place where people don’t shy away because something might be uncomfortable.

If anyone knows of a place that fits this non-exhaustive description, let me know. I’ve been looking and haven’t found a place like this yet.