Jaded
So here it is, later than I promised and different than I planned, but here nonetheless. So... Jaded. It is long, so I hope that it will be a good diversion from finals and stress. It might not make a whole lot of sense, we will see.
I have struggled with Christian culture for quite awhile and have come to some interesting conclusions about Christianity and society. Some of those I will deal with here and others later. The topic of being Jaded is one that I thought that I had a hand on, but the more that I grasp at the topic the more control I lose.
I am in the Philosophy department and KU, and we hate religious people. I am serious. We think religion is a stupid ritual that the weak use to depend on for strength and comfort. God? Doesn't exist, or if he does, He puts insane requirements on people and calls them to live celebite lives filled with meditation and poverty.
Sometimes the venom of my colleagues is passed around and praised as being intellectual. Sometimes I say something, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I receive an injection of the venom, poisoning my blood and clouding my thoughts. Without sounding poius or proud, I see more darkness than the average Christian. I play with more darkness dubbed as being intellectual that many people do.
In the Philosophy department, we all hate (and maybe love) God for different reasons. Some people, the hatred is personal - a rough time in life, bad childhood experience, suffering loved ones, crisis of a loved ones faith, and so on. I know a guy in the department, we talked once at a study session. He had a massive problem with Christians. I began to poke him and found that his problem wasn't with the witless Christians he despised, but rather the God behind those Christians. Don't tell me what to do, damn it.
For others, the hatred of God is academic. It isn't cool to think God is cool. What will our wise colleagues think of our irrationality? Sides, look at religion. Look at the Crusades, hypocracy, and history of the church. Whoa! Count me out!
For me, the hatred is personal in someways. I sometimes "hate" God for one main reason - because He is God, and I am not and Because I can't beat Him. I went through a period where I tried to beat God. Guess what? I lost, miserably. I have strained at the leash to be "free" but with no avail. God has me, He is right, He IS... purely IS.
My struggle with God has a history. Not many people have heard this history. I was fairly recent actually. It started in August of 2004 and ended July 2005. I still feel the scars from the journey that it was. Even though I didn't really stray morally, I accumulated some pain that finally reached the surface in June. The journey was hell, pure hell.
The journey had two parts. The first part dealt with the existence of God. I had been raised in church, so even though I thought about this question when I was younger I never worked it out in my faith until I hit college. I began to look at the issue. My faith was at a place where I didn't really hear or see God. I felt alone. I searched.
About December 2004, I was satisfied. I had seen enough science, logical forms, and intuition to confess that I believed that God existed. I still didn't feel God though. I was confident in His existence, but I didn't see Him.
Then the drought.
The Spring of 2005 was the hardest time of my life. It was the second part of the journey, the question of God's morals and Word. It was an incredible journey. This post isn't really the place for describing the journey, the main thing is that through the pain and loneliness God triumphed and revealed Himself in due time. My faith was new, birthed and refined through fire. I saw God differently. I began to convulse over religion. I loved God, but hated religion.
So here we are. As a Christian I see God in a new, more intimate way, and as a philosopher I see God in a bigger than you can imagine. Philosophers may be fools, but they do catch a perception of God that believers sadly miss. I caught that perception, and it changed me.
So here we are, believers walking through this life, working, and dying. We are on display for the world to see. The world hates Christians, not doubt about that, but we also give them some reason. Hypocracy, worldliness, immorality, corruption, you name it. There are the fakes that totally shame the name of Christ, and there are the Spiritual-dynamos that go unnoticed, living faithfully day by day.
So how is this Jaded? What am I talking about, you may say. Merely this. I think that sometimes we prepare the fire to eat each other when we are the problem. I could have started blogging about what Hypocrytical bastards Christians can be, and how they are a shame to be around, but I can't do that. Why?
I had a startling realization.
What if they struggle with me? What if they think that I am an arrogant punk who thinks he is better than everyone else. What if we are all sitting in the same room, judging each other the same way? What if my problem with other believers is the same problem they have with me? What if they see my hypocracy, critical words, and evil thoughts. What if?
We are all living under the curse of sin. I cannot escape it. The little baptist boys and girls cannot escape it, and neither can the god-less philosophers. We are all sinners. Born in sin, deserving death. It was by the grace of God and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that we can find life. Our mission is to share that life with those around it and to enjoy this life in Christ. We were created to worship God! To live, not bound by the monotony of tradition and sin, but to worship Christ wherever we are, whatever we are doing.
In short, I hope that I didn't waste your time. I hope that you enjoyed some aspects of this BLAH. The point is this - I am jaded with myself. The selfish Dave gets the best of the Dave that loves Jesus and wants to serve Him, and what Dave feels as being Jaded with the Church is really Jaded with Himself.
I cannot sit and throw judgment at my brothers and sisters while I have sin in my life. I see some serious shortcomings of the Church, but by frosting my family I just contribute to those shortcomings. Matthew 7:1-5 is what I have learned again. I am learning a hard lesson.
This lesson is called grace.
So, simply put, love your sibling as yourself. Live in such a way that Christ is glorified, and you are made smaller. What great love God has put over us, what love... To my Philosophy department, you guys have missed the point. The problem isn't with the God behind the Christians, rather the problem is with the Christians following their flesh and not following Christ. If you see Christians, your missing God. If you see God, that is when they are living right.
To my sibs, forgive me. I am far from perfection. Just know that I love you and want to live Jesus to you in love. I think we need to set the pace again, mainly forgetting ourselves and letting Jesus shine! Here we go, lets do it. We have a call, lets answer...
D <><
Props go to...
I have struggled with Christian culture for quite awhile and have come to some interesting conclusions about Christianity and society. Some of those I will deal with here and others later. The topic of being Jaded is one that I thought that I had a hand on, but the more that I grasp at the topic the more control I lose.
I am in the Philosophy department and KU, and we hate religious people. I am serious. We think religion is a stupid ritual that the weak use to depend on for strength and comfort. God? Doesn't exist, or if he does, He puts insane requirements on people and calls them to live celebite lives filled with meditation and poverty.
Sometimes the venom of my colleagues is passed around and praised as being intellectual. Sometimes I say something, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I receive an injection of the venom, poisoning my blood and clouding my thoughts. Without sounding poius or proud, I see more darkness than the average Christian. I play with more darkness dubbed as being intellectual that many people do.
In the Philosophy department, we all hate (and maybe love) God for different reasons. Some people, the hatred is personal - a rough time in life, bad childhood experience, suffering loved ones, crisis of a loved ones faith, and so on. I know a guy in the department, we talked once at a study session. He had a massive problem with Christians. I began to poke him and found that his problem wasn't with the witless Christians he despised, but rather the God behind those Christians. Don't tell me what to do, damn it.
For others, the hatred of God is academic. It isn't cool to think God is cool. What will our wise colleagues think of our irrationality? Sides, look at religion. Look at the Crusades, hypocracy, and history of the church. Whoa! Count me out!
For me, the hatred is personal in someways. I sometimes "hate" God for one main reason - because He is God, and I am not and Because I can't beat Him. I went through a period where I tried to beat God. Guess what? I lost, miserably. I have strained at the leash to be "free" but with no avail. God has me, He is right, He IS... purely IS.
My struggle with God has a history. Not many people have heard this history. I was fairly recent actually. It started in August of 2004 and ended July 2005. I still feel the scars from the journey that it was. Even though I didn't really stray morally, I accumulated some pain that finally reached the surface in June. The journey was hell, pure hell.
The journey had two parts. The first part dealt with the existence of God. I had been raised in church, so even though I thought about this question when I was younger I never worked it out in my faith until I hit college. I began to look at the issue. My faith was at a place where I didn't really hear or see God. I felt alone. I searched.
About December 2004, I was satisfied. I had seen enough science, logical forms, and intuition to confess that I believed that God existed. I still didn't feel God though. I was confident in His existence, but I didn't see Him.
Then the drought.
The Spring of 2005 was the hardest time of my life. It was the second part of the journey, the question of God's morals and Word. It was an incredible journey. This post isn't really the place for describing the journey, the main thing is that through the pain and loneliness God triumphed and revealed Himself in due time. My faith was new, birthed and refined through fire. I saw God differently. I began to convulse over religion. I loved God, but hated religion.
So here we are. As a Christian I see God in a new, more intimate way, and as a philosopher I see God in a bigger than you can imagine. Philosophers may be fools, but they do catch a perception of God that believers sadly miss. I caught that perception, and it changed me.
So here we are, believers walking through this life, working, and dying. We are on display for the world to see. The world hates Christians, not doubt about that, but we also give them some reason. Hypocracy, worldliness, immorality, corruption, you name it. There are the fakes that totally shame the name of Christ, and there are the Spiritual-dynamos that go unnoticed, living faithfully day by day.
So how is this Jaded? What am I talking about, you may say. Merely this. I think that sometimes we prepare the fire to eat each other when we are the problem. I could have started blogging about what Hypocrytical bastards Christians can be, and how they are a shame to be around, but I can't do that. Why?
I had a startling realization.
What if they struggle with me? What if they think that I am an arrogant punk who thinks he is better than everyone else. What if we are all sitting in the same room, judging each other the same way? What if my problem with other believers is the same problem they have with me? What if they see my hypocracy, critical words, and evil thoughts. What if?
We are all living under the curse of sin. I cannot escape it. The little baptist boys and girls cannot escape it, and neither can the god-less philosophers. We are all sinners. Born in sin, deserving death. It was by the grace of God and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that we can find life. Our mission is to share that life with those around it and to enjoy this life in Christ. We were created to worship God! To live, not bound by the monotony of tradition and sin, but to worship Christ wherever we are, whatever we are doing.
In short, I hope that I didn't waste your time. I hope that you enjoyed some aspects of this BLAH. The point is this - I am jaded with myself. The selfish Dave gets the best of the Dave that loves Jesus and wants to serve Him, and what Dave feels as being Jaded with the Church is really Jaded with Himself.
I cannot sit and throw judgment at my brothers and sisters while I have sin in my life. I see some serious shortcomings of the Church, but by frosting my family I just contribute to those shortcomings. Matthew 7:1-5 is what I have learned again. I am learning a hard lesson.
This lesson is called grace.
So, simply put, love your sibling as yourself. Live in such a way that Christ is glorified, and you are made smaller. What great love God has put over us, what love... To my Philosophy department, you guys have missed the point. The problem isn't with the God behind the Christians, rather the problem is with the Christians following their flesh and not following Christ. If you see Christians, your missing God. If you see God, that is when they are living right.
To my sibs, forgive me. I am far from perfection. Just know that I love you and want to live Jesus to you in love. I think we need to set the pace again, mainly forgetting ourselves and letting Jesus shine! Here we go, lets do it. We have a call, lets answer...
D <><
Props go to...
- Kieran, for hanging out with me and talking about some of this stuff. Coversation has been great man, I hope that you have been blessed as I have. I think we both see a big God, and that excites me.
- Scott M. for the coffee and fellowship that completed some thoughts that I had about grace. Good brother.
- Katie, for that one conversation.
- You, for what evern comment you make, whether it is related or not.
posted by David B at 12:01 PM
