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September, 2010

  1. In the spirit of authenticity (pt. 3). . .

    September 29, 2010 by Nate

    Read part 1 here.
    Read part 2 here.

    I knew nothing. Growing up in traditional fundamentalism kept so much hidden from me. And as much as I love my parents, they were ill-equipped to handle the whirlwind of two teenage boys in the house.

    I mean, think about it. If you spurn everything in society, calling all of culture “taboo,” there are a lot of things that you and/or your children will come across that you’ll have no idea how to deal with.

    Including something as important as sex.

    If you look through the Bible, you’ll see just how important human sexuality is to God. Part of the Imago Dei is sex. I won’t go into all the correlations, but I alluded to them here. Unfortunately, the Church has shirked her responsibility to communicate it.

    And by not owning the concept of sex, the Church has offered it up to the world’s system of handling things. As you can see, it’s pretty distorted.

    Don’t get me wrong. I’m not blaming the Church for my struggle with porn. But the Church needs to talk about these issues instead of brushing them under the rug, or worse yet, calling these issues out and pouring judgment on those who struggle with them.

    It’s not easy for me to talk about this. It’s something I battle everyday.

    I wouldn’t be much of a man if I didn’t deal with with it. But it’s just that I hate this fight, and I often wish it would just go away.

    So there I was, a scared preteen boy trying to figure this world out on my own. What began as curiosity soon became fascination. And from fascination it grew into a full-blown addiction.

    And I was never really honest with myself either. I always heard that people who were addicted to something lost the ability to function normally, and since I was able to go to school, study, play basketball, sing in choirs, and do all the same things “normal” people were doing, I wasn’t really addicted.

    So I continued down this road. For years I fought this battle, never talking to anyone about it. I was too scared. I knew it was wrong; I knew something had to change. But I also knew that if I said anything, I’d be in trouble.

    So I walked this walk alone.

    Let me pause my story for a bit. If you’re battling porn like I, find a friend and talk through it. You already know that it’ll ruin you, but everything you’ve tried has failed. Trust me, you will continue to repeat your failure until you open up and talk to someone about it.

    It’s not easy. These battles never are. But doing it alone makes the fight far more difficult than it needs to be.

    I mentioned in part 1 of this story the author Anne Jackson. Her story has been a source of hope and encouragement to me over the last few years. If I thought I had reason to be afraid of the fallout from my admission of an addiction to porn, hers had the potential to be completely devastating.

    But it resonated with me because, even though she and I are nothing alike, we have similar stories.

    Check hers out below.

    Category Christianity, Personal, Spirituality | Tags: | No Comments

  2. In the spirit of authenticity (pt. 2). . .

    September 26, 2010 by Nate

    Read part 1 here

    I never realized that what I had been taught throughout most of my life was actually antithetical to what the Scripture teaches about our lives in Jesus.

    While people at the churches I grew up attending won’t admit it, they actually advocate a works-based system of following Christ. Doctrines like “rededication,” “letting go and letting God,” and “the victorious life” run rampant through these churches. There’s more of a focus on someone’s external condition than on his/her internal condition.

    I could go to camp every year and “rededicate” my life to Christ but never actually follow him. And that’s exactly what I did. I prayed a prayer when I was a child, and everyday between 1989 and 2007 I lied. I lied because I didn’t really have a clue who Jesus was. I lied because I’d never encountered him, and it seemed like everyone else did.

    I even lied to myself.

    I came up with this elaborate story of how, when I was just five years old sometime in November of 1989, I was sitting in my grandmother’s living room, my aunt told me about Jesus, and I “accepted him into my heart” that day.

    I was too afraid of not having a story that I made one up.

    And somehow I believed it.

    I really wanted to be a Christian, but I think I got so caught up in looking like a Christian that I never had the opportunity to find out what it really meant to be one. I felt so much pressure on me to live up to a certain standard, but I could never measure up.

    The year I discovered rock music was devastating. I wrestled with it because I knew it was something that was sinful yet strangely enjoyable. While I couldn’t find anything inherently wrong with it, I knew it had to be sinful because my pastor said it was.

    And I couldn’t piecemeal my life. If I broke one Christian rule, according to James 2.10, I was guilty of breaking all of it. So the fact that I liked rock music meant that I had broken all of God’s commands. Since I wasn’t completely surrendered to Christ, I was a carnal Christian, and by conclusion, of no use to God’s Kingdom.

    But I tried to compartmentalize. If no one at church found out that I listened to rock music, I’d be fine. I looked like a good Christian, so therefore I must have been a good Christian.

    But all that pressure to live my life according to what they claimed were God’s standards was eating away at me more than I ever realized at the time. Now add to that pressure cooker puberty, curiosity, and a new toy called the Internet. . .

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  3. In the spirit of authenticity (pt. 1). . .

    September 26, 2010 by Nate

    I want to share a story with all of you. I probably should have shared this a very long time ago, but I’ve been afraid to look at my past with this kind of detail.

    After two years of online correspondence with activist/author/fellow blogger Anne Jackson, I finally got to meet her face-to-face. And she’s exactly what I expected. Who she is over email is the same as who she is in person.

    But that came as a challenge to me. Because I know that’s not me. I’m still afraid to be real.

    And I’m really afraid to talk about this.

    So after a deep breath let’s start from the beginning.

    I grew up in a fundamentalist culture, more specifically the independent Baptist fundamentalist culture. The seventeen years I spent there shaped my view of God and gave me many gross misconceptions about who God is and how he works in our lives.

    Most of what I learned growing up stems from what’s called Keswick theology (chefarianism). (I’m indebted to Dr. Camille Lewis for her enlightening me on the pervasiveness of this view.)

    Keswick theology is, in my opinion, harmful to a healthy view of our Creator and is the primary reason non-Christians have such a negative perception of Christians. Sadly, however, this is what’s been taught in churches across America.

    Ideas like “the victorious life” or “dedicating your life to Christ” are the result of Keswick theology which essentially removes the human identity with the goal of being completely surrendered to God. Here’s how Lewis describes it.

    For the Keswickian there are two types of Christian: carnal and normal. For the normal Christian, the self is dethroned, yielded, absent. Any hint of self-identity, however, is carnal. Sin, in the Keswickian perspective, is overwhelmingly powerful. And while it can never be eradicated, it must be continually thwarted. Full surrender is the only solution; anything less is willful rebellion. What this comes down to is complete capitulation of anything human or anything personal. The self is useless. It has no rights, no personality, and no humanity.

    It’s in this setting that my journey begins. . .

    Read part 2 here.

    Category Christianity, Personal, Spirituality | Tags: | No Comments

  4. Belief. . .

    September 22, 2010 by Nate

    One of the awesome things about my new job is the opportunity to listen to men who are far smarter than I am dialogue about spirituality. I love sitting in on many casual conversations that take place in the kitchen/conference room. But there have been several occasions where I’ve been pulled into a conversation.

    Today was one of those occasions. One of our pastors looked at me and said, “Commit this to memory: Romans 4.3.” When this guy says something, I know I need to listen. He’s one of those men whose opinion is cherished throughout the office.

    So today I after work I decided to read through that passage.

    “For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.’”

    The ramifications of this sentence floored me.

    For practically my entire life I’ve added so much to the Gospel. But when the question is asked—”How can I be made right with God?”—the answer strips all that away.

    Believe.

    My favorite story in the life of Jesus is the story of Lazarus’s death. The story is a microcosm of everything that Jesus came to earth for. He enters our world in the middle of our deepest suffering and pain. He looks at the pain and sympathizes empathizes with us. He even cries with us. He then does battle with the pain and breathes life into death.

    After Lazarus died, Martha, Lazarus’s sister, approaches Jesus in the middle of her pain and essentially asks, “Where were you?!” And instead of comforting her or reassuring her, Jesus reminds Martha of who He is.

    “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”

    How reassuring is this statement when your brother just died?

    And then Jesus asks her point blank. “Do you believe this?”

    Her response is staggering. “Yes, Lord, I believe. . .”

    And in believing, she was given a front-row seat to Christ’s duel with death.

    Believe, and God takes you into His family.

    Believe, and God shows you how mightily He fights for you.

    Believe, and God makes you right with Him.

    Martha’s doubts didn’t go away before she believed. None of her questions were answered before she believed.

    She believed, and then she saw.

    It’s the same thing for us today. Seeing is not the catalyst for believing. Believing is the catalyst for seeing.

    When we believe, we see just how powerful God is.

    When we believe, we see just how much God loves.

    When we believe, we see that God wants us with Him.

    But all this is possible only when we believe.

    Category Christianity, Scripture Musings, Spirituality | Tags: | No Comments