Unfundamentalist

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Christian Spirituality

Keeping Hope Alive

by Chuck Queen in Christian Spirituality

In Luke’s story about Mary and Joseph bringing Jesus to the temple (Luke 2:22-40) they meet two prophets, Simeon and Anna, both well along in years. Simeon and Anna had been patiently waiting and looking for “the redemption of Israel” (Luke 2:38) and for God’s salvation “prepared in the presence of all peoples” as “a light for revelation to the Gentiles” (Luke 2:31-32). In eschatological terms they were looking for a world of peace and restorative justice, a world healed and put right.

This is what the early Christians were longing for when they talked about the second coming of Jesus. They were looking for a new world order of equity and equality (Gal. 3:28), in essence “a new creation” (Gal. 6:15; 2 Cor. 5:17). The early Christians employed the language of “apocalyptic” to talk about this new world, which is the language of poetry, of metaphor and symbol, of exaggeration (hyperbole).

Some Christians think that God will intervene at some point in the human struggle to bring about this new world. Other Christians think it will come about through the collaborative, cooperative work of human beings as they work with each other (and with the Spirit) to bring it about. I align with this latter group, if indeed, the kingdom of God will ever be realized fully in this world. Sometimes I wonder.

In terms of our spiritual and moral evolution as a species we can’t be much past adolescence can we? Our intellectual and technological evolution seems to be outpacing our spiritual and… [Read more…] about Keeping Hope Alive

How do you know when you've had a divine encounter?

by Chuck Queen in Christian Spirituality

Not every experience of the Divine is as momentous as Mary’s encounter with the angel in Luke 1:26-38, but Mary’s experience can be seen as a kind of archetypal representation of what a divine encounter can do in our lives.

An authentic God experience generally gives us two things that are foundational to a healthy and transformative spiritual life. First, such experiences give us ground to stand on.

When the angel first appears Mary is fearful and perplexed. The angel says, “Greetings, favored one! . . . Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have favor with God.” Isn’t it interesting that almost every time God or an angel of God appears in the Bible, the first message communicated to the recipient is, “Do not be afraid!” It would seem that being fearful of the Divine has been a problem throughout human history.

The first thing Mary had to let go of was her fear.  And the first thing she needed to embrace was God’s love. Mary is assured, first of all, that she is favored, that she is loved by God. Mary is just an ordinary Jewish girl trying to get by in a patriarchal culture. It would have been quite normal for her to feel devalued and inferior.

All authentic God experiences beckon us to stand on the solid ground of God’s unconditional love. We hear God say, “You are my beloved daughter/son, on you my favor rests” (see Mark 1:11). This is not based on merit, status, or any accomplishment. It is God’s eternal disposition toward all God’s… [Read more…] about How do you know when you've had a divine encounter?

A Christmas Play Gone Awry (or maybe not)

by Chuck Queen in Christian Issues, Christian Spirituality

One of my favorite Christmas stories is about a little church that traditionally had a Christmas play for all the children and the “adult children” who loved it just as much. There was a ten-year-old boy named Barry who had been a disaster in every Christmas play in which he had been involved. One year his angel wings caught on fire, which nearly burned down the church. The next year, as Herod the Great, he jumped from his throne and, in his usual clumsy way, jerked the carpet out from under the three wise men and dumped them on their heads.

The children begged the director not to let Barry ruin another Christmas play: “Please, teacher, could you leave Barry out this year?”

But how could she reject a little boy who tried his best and loved Jesus with all his heart, even if he was a bit clumsy? She was able to convince the other children that Barry couldn’t do any real damage by playing the innkeeper of Bethlehem. He just opened and closed a door and spoke one short line. What damage could he possibly do?

Barry made it through all the rehearsals and the dress rehearsal perfectly. Then, the big night arrived, when all the mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, friends and loved ones gathered to relive the Christmas story with their children. Barry was given a chance to redeem himself from all his previous mishaps. He opened the door of the inn and looked straight into the face of Mary and Joseph. Mary, very sad and pale, sat on a little donkey, which they had never… [Read more…] about A Christmas Play Gone Awry (or maybe not)

Being and Becoming Children of God

by Chuck Queen in Christian Spirituality

I grew up with a theology that said all children are children of God—that is, until they reach the age of accountability. I was also indoctrinated into a belief in total depravity: that we are all born sinners and inherit a sinful nature. Somehow we had to harmonize these two positions, and the way we did it was by postulating an age of accountability. It’s kind of ironic because we prided ourselves in being Bible believers, yet there are no biblical texts that mention an age of accountability.

We believed that a child was a child of God until that child reached a kind of semi-adulthood. When the child reached the age of accountability (and nobody really knowing when that was certainly made for a useful loophole), then he or she was no longer a child of God, and had to believe certain things and do certain things in order to become … well, a child of God. In other words, we believed that the child had to be “born again” in order to become a member of God’s family.

I have since evolved in my thinking about what it means to be a child of God, and what it means to be “born again.” I know many reading this post have as well.

The distinction I like to make at this point in my spiritual journey is that the distinction to be made here is between being and becoming. I’m convinced that we are all children of God all the time, and that there is nothing we can do, or believe, or fail to do or believe, that can change this fundamental truth about every single… [Read more…] about Being and Becoming Children of God

The cycle Christians must help break

by in Christian Spirituality

Hi, guys. UC founder John Shore here.

Recently, on the Unfundamentalist Christians Facebook page, we linked to a piece I published on my blog last November called “I’m Christian, Gay, and Too Angry to Read the Bible Anymore”, wherein I advised a Christian lesbian who found herself no longer comfortable reading the Bible:
I don’t know if the homophobia and faith issues are related to each other [she wrote], but I know that I can’t read my Bible. I try sometimes, but I feel my stomach tighten and my heart heart rate increase, and I feel like a trapped animal. … I don’t know how to separate out what is God and what is my religion. And even within my religion, I don’t know how to save what is good, and let go of the stuff that is harmful. I love Jesus, but some days I’d like nothing better than to turn my back on Christianity.
Part of my answer to this good woman was:
If you’re angry with God, be angry with God. I think it’s safe to say that s/he will understand. If you are angry with God, think how angry God must be with the people who made you feel that way. … If you don’t feel safe reading the Bible, put your Bible away. I imagine you’ve had enough of the Bible in your life to last you awhile.
Back on the UC Facebook page, a commenter wrote about that post:
Bullshit. If you can’t read the Bible because you are so angry, then you are not a Christian. … If you can’t separate God from the lowbrows who are attacking you in this world, then you are not a… [Read more…] about The cycle Christians must help break

Dr. Albert Mohler versus musician Michael Gungor: Who is on the verge of theological peril?

by Chuck Queen in Christian Issues, Christian Spirituality

Dove Award-winning Christian musician Michael Gungor has been taking a hit from some of his evangelical fans for saying that he has no more ability to believe that Adam and Eve were literal persons who lived 6,000 years ago or that “a flood covered all the highest mountains of the world only 4,000 years ago” than he is able “to believe in Santa Clause or to not believe in gravity.”

In a recent podcast Dr. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist flagship seminary in Louisville, claims that Gungor “is shifting into theological reverse, moving right back to the last decades of the 19th century.” According to Mohler, Gungor’s ideas are the result of Protestant liberalism, “which also came over to the United States [from Germany], infecting many denominations and seminaries.”

I mean, really, Dr. Mohler? Since when is learning how to think a disease?

What Dr. Mohler doesn’t say is that practically all mainline biblical scholarship rejects the inerrantist view of the Bible and the literal interpretation of the creation story and flood narrative. Even many evangelical scholars who still cling in theory to biblical inerrancy (they are forced to sign faith statements in that regard) reject the literal reading of the early chapters of Genesis.

Actually, throughout most of the history of the church the literal meaning of a biblical text was deemed the least important reading by many Christian scholars and teachers. The literal reading was often compared to the physical body,… [Read more…] about Dr. Albert Mohler versus musician Michael Gungor: Who is on the verge of theological peril?

Stupid Religion

by Steve Schmidt in Christian Issues, Christian Spirituality

This guest post is by Steve Schmidt.

I just had another one of those conversations. The conversation I seem to have a lot these days with my Christian friends, gay and straight, about what it means to be a Christian.

Am I still a “good Christian” if I don’t go to church? Am I a good Christian if I cuss, if I have sex with my girlfriend or boyfriend? And of course, that one question that seems to preoccupy the evangelical world right now: Can I be a good Christian if I’m gay?

Franklin Graham, the hostile son of that epitome of Christian kindness Billy Graham, thinks not. And he’s spouting his morality-driven view of Christianity in all the media. For him, and for many in the church world, Christianity is defined in terms of do’s and don’ts. Rules. Outward behavior.

And ya know, to some extent, I would agree with that. But only to the extent that “behavior” is defined as how we treat other people.

Christianity, at least for most Protestants, is defined by our faith in Jesus, and then how that faith translates into real life. More than simple head-knowledge or just believing that something is true, it is the transformational power of a relationship with the Living God that defines us–proves us–to be true followers of Jesus. That, and that alone, is what makes us “good” Christians.

That’s what I’ve come to conclude–after living my entire life in the church, growing up in a conservative evangelical home, going to an… [Read more…] about Stupid Religion

Do these jokes make me look fat?

by Angela Fields in Christian Spirituality

Body dysmorphia is like a special kind of astigmatism. A pair of glasses can fix the normal kind of astigmatism, but there aren’t corrective lenses for the body kind. I happen to have both. Since I regularly lose my glasses, I end up relying on others to reflect reality to me—whether that means reading street names aloud while I’m driving, or telling me that I look like a normal, healthy human being.

The way my dysmorphia works is that I look in the mirror, or shop windows, or any terrifyingly reflective surface, and see a whale. Everyone else looks at me and sees a tall, unremarkable-looking girl of average BMI (body mass index). I look down at my medium-sized clothes and wonder how they’re even containing my bulk. I walk up the sidewalk in amazement that cracks aren’t forming in the cement beneath me. At Starbucks I try not to let anyone see me pouring cream into my coffee, so that I won’t offend the other patrons, whom I’m sure would like to think that someone as large as me is at least trying to change her ways.

You might be thinking, “Wow, an entirely warped view of things! Is her view of everything warped?” Sadly, I don’t get to look around and see ballooning Dr. Seuss table legs on the coffee table, or massive squirrels in the trees being miraculously supported by frightfully narrow branches. My funhouse mirror vision applies only to me.

I look at my reflection as a blob overflowing its intended human frame, and feel like an irresponsible child who… [Read more…] about Do these jokes make me look fat?

Keeping Jesus, Letting Go of Christian Exceptionalism

by Chuck Queen in Christian Spirituality

The degree to which Christianity will contribute to a more equitable and just world will depend largely, I believe, upon the degree to which Christians can let go of their exclusive claims on God and deepen their actual commitment to the way of Jesus.

This letting go will not come easy for many steeped in traditional forms of Christianity. Christian exceptionalism is deeply entrenched within the general Christian culture—and often feeds upon American exceptionalism, which our political leaders use to justify all sorts of intrusive and unjust polices and actions, such as drone strikes in other countries.

The wave of controversy sparked by a Coca-Cola ad which ran during the Super Bowl is a good example of how embedded in our culture American exceptionalism is. The ad featured diverse voices singing America, the Beautiful in languages other than English. Apparently, some (or perhaps many) Americans believe that true Americans must speak English regardless of what other languages they may know.

Many Christians believe just as strongly that God’s true people must speak the language of Christian faith.

An English teacher once told me that in the original version of the Wizard of Oz, the Emerald City was not any greener than any other city. The wizard had put green spectacles on everyone so that to them everything appeared green.

Many of us were taught to see the world through Christian-colored glasses. Those who taught us were not bad people who were… [Read more…] about Keeping Jesus, Letting Go of Christian Exceptionalism

Three questions about the Bible Jesus might ask

by Chuck Queen in Christian Spirituality

Last December, in a piece for the Washington Post, E. J. Dionne beautifully wrote of our imperfect quest for the truth. Christians need to humbly acknowledge, wrote Dionne, how “imperfectly human beings understand the divine” and how, “over the history of faith, there have been occasions when ‘a supposedly changeless truth has changed.’”

Truth exists, but our experience of it is limited and fallible. Christians would do well to humbly acknowledge that our sacred texts are also limited and fallible. Jesus did.

According to the Gospels, Jesus had no problem dismissing, rejecting, and reinterpreting the sacred texts within his Jewish tradition. Surely, part of reading the Bible through the lens of the story of Jesus involves consideration of how Jesus read his own Scriptures.

For example, some religious authorities in Jesus’ day abusively used Deut. 24:1 (If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house . . .) to justify divorcing a wife for any reason whatsoever, very much the same way religious authorities today abusively use Scripture to condemn the LGBT community, condone violence, and subjugate women in the home and in the church.

Jesus dismissed Deut. 24:1 by offering a critical reading of it. Jesus said that this law did not, as the Scripture claimed, come from God, but from Moses himself, who made the concession due… [Read more…] about Three questions about the Bible Jesus might ask