Unfundamentalist

Above All, Love

Christian Spirituality

Love, Love, Love: The painfully misunderstood, profoundly simple, earth-shattering message of Jesus

by Emma Higgs in Christian Spirituality

 

If someone was to ask me to sum up the message of Jesus in a few words, I would probably quote the Beatles:

“All you need is love.”

Love. 

Not just shallow, gooey, fluffy, romantic love.

The kind of love that sets people free.

Love that gives of itself endlessly and asks for nothing in return.

Love that fights tirelessly for the needs and rights of strangers.

Love that breaks down barriers, crosses borders, and shatters social constructs and expectations.

Love that sees the beauty in all life and seeks to honor, treasure, and nurture it.

Love that treats the outcasts of society as if they were worth more than all the diamonds, gold, and oil in the world combined.

Love that brings tangible hope to those who are suffering physical or emotional pain … those who are lonely, lost or terrified … those whose hearts ache with grief … those who long for deeper meaning and significance.

Love that points to a greater reality, a greater purpose, and a greater future for the whole of creation.

Love that never, ever, ever gives up.

That is the kind of love that brings transformation.

This is not a sideline to the main Gospel message in the Bible, an optional add-on that helps to make life more bearable but is ultimately pointless.

This is the point.

Over the centuries, we “Christians” have complicated and distorted this message. We have added conditions, built walls, piled on guilt. We have… [Read more…] about Love, Love, Love: The painfully misunderstood, profoundly simple, earth-shattering message of Jesus

Confessions of a Party Girl

by Belinda Croft in Christian Spirituality

As I stood at the entrance to our favorite night club, I looked across the road at man standing on a wooden box yelling at the crowds of party-goers walking by: “Repent now! Your sins will send you to hell!” I shook my head and looked down as a mixture of feelings washed over me. I was angry at God for not being as loving as my heart so desperately needed. I was angry at this man for yelling at people. I was mad at the conditions placed on my behavior.

After leaving home at 19, I spent many years trying to be a “normal person” and finding out who I was. I risked my life and safety many times. I wanted community and desired to live life closely with my friends. It didn’t come boxed clean like my crisp Christian life had done in the years before, but I had community. We talked about the depths and rawness of life. We spoke unbridled and without judgment of our thoughts and ideas on spirituality and “god.” We cried together while binging on junk food and mid-range bourbon. We shared pain and joy and I wouldn’t take back those years for anything.

My experiences and the people I met have given me compassion and understanding for those from all different walks of life.

The crisp Christian life

Deep down I always knew God existed, but my perspective was that He was disappointed with me, due to my constant inability to please Him. And while I was out galavanting around the countryside, He had no choice but to remove Himself and His love from me because I was disgusting in that… [Read more…] about Confessions of a Party Girl

You Have Permission to Walk Out

by Caroline Garnet McGraw in Christian Spirituality

I’m not proud of this, but here’s the truth: I waste a lot of time gripped by false guilt.

This past winter, for example, I felt guilty that my husband Jonathan and I spent $11 on ornaments for our Christmas tree. I felt bad in part because I am naturally frugal, and in part because I was taught by my childhood church that Christmas trees were “pagan” and off-limits to true believers.

As Jonathan and I stood in the check-out line, I said, “Um … should we really buy these? Maybe it’s too much. I feel guilty. I could put them back … ?”

Jonathan paused. We’d agreed to shop for ornaments, so he had every right to be annoyed. Instead, he thoughtfully replied, “It seems like you feel guilty about a lot of things unnecessarily. So maybe guilt isn’t a reliable indicator of whether or not you should do something.”

BAM. He was right. My guilt gauge is overly responsive. It goes off at the slightest “infraction,” so I can’t look to it for a true reading. Instead, I can acknowledge false guilt, then make a deliberate choice about what I want to do.

This takes a lot of practice, but it’s worth it. One recent Sunday, I arrived late to church and felt–you’ll never guess!–guilty. But I coached myself:

You are allowed to be imperfectly punctual–even your pastor says so! (This is one of the many reasons why you love her.) Remember, it was hard for you to come here today, since you’re feeling vulnerable. So instead of being hard on yourself, maybe you can give… [Read more…] about You Have Permission to Walk Out

On Saying Goodbye to the Night: Thoughts on Fireworks, Spaceships and Justice-Making

by Jill Crainshaw in Christian Spirituality

This guest post is by Jill Crainshaw.

Where were you five years ago on July 4th? Nothing is recorded on my Google calendar for that date, and I don’t remember what I was doing.

A Google search uncovered some of the news that headlined on July 4th five years ago. The cover of Time posed the question, “Does the U.S. Constitution Still Matter?” Debates were raging on Capitol Hill over tax revenue and the debt ceiling. Environmental scientists warned of a creepy-crawly insect interloper from China, the ash borer, that had killed 60 million trees in 15 states. And NASA was one month away from launching a spacecraft named Juno into the cosmos on a journey to Jupiter.

Juno has been speeding through space for five years now on its way to Jupiter, more than 360 million miles away from the ground under my earthbound feet. I only know this because I happened to listen to NPR in my car today as I drove to my neighborhood coffee shop for an iced coffee and a few hours of writing.

Until I heard the NPR story, the only night sky spectacle I anticipated for this July 4th was the annual fireworks extravaganza scheduled for after the Winston-Salem Dash baseball game. Now I know that while fireworks engineers stitch kaleidoscopic colors into the night sky, scientists will be holding their breath and watching to see if their timing is perfect enough to sync Juno with Jupiter’s gravity on the first and only try.

As I type these words, NASA scientists are preparing to press… [Read more…] about On Saying Goodbye to the Night: Thoughts on Fireworks, Spaceships and Justice-Making

Miracles Do Occur

by Ronna Detrick in Christian Spirituality

There is an old, old story told of a woman named Tabitha. (If you care to look, it shows up in the book of Acts in the New Testament.) It doesn’t have the best of beginnings:

She dies!

That is how it starts, but hardly how it ends. Her friends just are not okay with this and so they send for Peter to come and bring her back to life–which he does. He says, “Tabitha. Get up.” She opens her eyes, takes his hand, and is presented back to her community–the women who love her.

Truth be told, there’s a part of me (and probably you, as well) that struggles with this story because, well, she was resurrected! That seems too good to be true: some made-up story to make the “miracle worker” himself look better, an ancient version of the snake-oil salesman.

But what if we reserved such judgment and instead allowed the story in its entirety? Even more, what if we could/would allow her story to be ours?!

What if we allowed miracles into our consciousness, our everyday reality, our lives? Even more, what if we actually believed that we are one?

That just might change everything (which sounds a little like a miracle in and of itself)!

We’ve been conditioned to think of a miracle as something completely outside the realm of possibility. The parting of the Red Sea. Walking on water. The blind and lame healed. And yes, the dead raised to life. But…

What about the miracle that despite our grief and agony and depression and profound sadness, we still hope?
What about the… [Read more…] about Miracles Do Occur

Why I Stopped Reading Self-Help Books

by Cherie Lee in Christian Spirituality

In the most Freudian tradition, it began with my Dad.

The Dad who was absent?

No.

The Dad who was reckless?

No.

He’s not that kind of Dad.

The Dad who for Christmas, wanted not the latest James Patterson thriller, but a hefty computer programming manual for his leisurely reading?

Yes. That’s the one.

The Dad whose work centers on graphs and data and code and numbers and other terrifying things?

Yes. This is about that Dad.

I’m sure that some of his analytic tendencies snuck into my DNA.

The benefits? A boundless sense of optimism in my ability to solve computer-related problems.

Firewall? Yep, I got it. VPN? Bandwidth? Defrag? HTML? I’m all over it.

The drawbacks? A boundless sense of optimism in my ability to solve every other part of my life.

Traditionally I would crowd-source answers. If you ask everyone you know the same question, there’s got to be a median response!

Then, along came Google.

That glorious oracle.

Mecca of all the answers.

What’s your quandary? Emotional, relational, spiritual, medical?

Google: is it normal to have one dark black hair on your arm that keeps coming back when the rest of the hairs are kind of blonde-ish?

Yes. Probably normal. Maybe skin cancer. But probably normal.

I would surreptitiously type questions under the table during a dinner date: Google: he didn’t hold the door open for me, is that a deal breaker?

It turns out that Kelly from Illinois had a strong… [Read more…] about Why I Stopped Reading Self-Help Books

We're Not The First

by Christina Krost in Christian Spirituality

It’s a rough time to work for the church and her people.

In the past few weeks I’ve been riding waves of emotion while following the General Conference of the United Methodist Church, which took place last month in Portland, Oregon. It nearly ripped the church apart and deferred work on LGBTQI inclusion to a committee which will convene at a later date.

My heart broke as it also voted down measures to divest from fossil fuels and severed a relationship with an organization that was integral to maternal health care around the world. It ran out of time to take up other important legislation from United Methodist Women that would have helped elevate women and children globally.

This church, my church, which has nurtured and affirmed my husband’s call to ministry and has literally sheltered my family through the roughest time in our lives, is weighing heavy on my spirit.

Lord, hear our prayer.

Real life happened in these last weeks, too:

The check engine light came on in the van. Thankfully, tightening the gas cap did the trick.
My daughter Ava turned 7 and was celebrated with birthday treats for her class and a butterfly-themed party with her friends.
The girls finished up first- and fifth-grade and recognized their teachers for their steadfast care and guidance.
My moms group at church decided to move in another direction this fall, which is part relief and part challenge.
My youngest daughter Harper began full-time daycare this week. We’re wrestling with… [Read more…] about We're Not The First

The Spirituality of Bass Fishing

by Chuck Queen in Christian Spirituality

When I was a kid I loved to fish. Then life happened. I became preoccupied with many other things. By becoming consumed in church work I thought I was doing God’s work and didn’t have time for such trivial matters like fishing.

Last year I came to a point where my passion for things “religious” had fizzled and I was all dried up. Then a church member took me bass fishing and I fell in love with a first love all over again. It has given me new life. The night before I’m headed to the lake I’m like a little kid on Christmas Eve. I am doing something I love to do just for the love of doing it. I have never been more alive. When I’m making the hour and fifteen minute drive to the beautiful lake where I kayak fish for largemouth bass, I am thanking God much of the way for simply having the opportunity to do something I truly love to do. I believe it is making me a better person.

I recently posted this on my Facebook page:
I am KISSING PARTISAN POLITICAL POSTS GOODBYE. I have made a decision to go on an indefinite fast from writing or posting any piece that names political parties or persons. I will still post on issues of justice, but I will stick strictly to the issues. I can see myself writing a piece such as, “Why mass, indiscriminate deportation is morally wrong” but I would not mention any political party or persons. This election cycle will be filled with lots of name calling and ugliness. As a Jesus follower my first priority must be to love inclusively, especially… [Read more…] about The Spirituality of Bass Fishing

An Open Letter to the Girl Who Failed

by Leanne J in Christian Spirituality

Dear friend,

I know who you are.

You’re the girl with the teacher who said you would never amount to anything.
The girl who looks in the mirror and sees a face full of imperfections.
The girl who trys so hard to overcome, only to succumb to the same thing over and over again.
The girl who looks to her friends with jealousy and envy.
The girl who feels like she’ll never be good enough.
The girl who feels as if she’s failed her parents.
The girl who knows no boy would ever want her.

The girl who tried her best and still failed.

And I just have one thing to say to you.

You’ve failed.

You’ve failed to see your worth and your value. You’ve failed to see that there is a God that loves, cares and knows your name. You’ve failed to see that our God is a loving God who turns broken things into something so beautiful. Sure, things may be spiraling down an unknown path but know that even if you think things are falling apart, things are falling into place.

Life can be unforgiving. Sometimes one mess up is all you need to think your life is ruined. But so the saying goes, when one door closes another one opens. I’ve had my fair share of fails that have cost me my friends, education and my relationship with God. But, if I’ve learned anything from all of this, it’s that it is possible to bounce back. I have faith in you, you can do it. Feeling discouraged is just the devil’s way of feeling better about himself. And we can’t… [Read more…] about An Open Letter to the Girl Who Failed

The Freedom to Think

by Rachel Bailey De Luise in Christian Spirituality

The poet Lord Byron said: “There is something Pagan in me that I cannot shake off. In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything.”[1] Great thinkers, across the centuries, have always used inquiry to understand the world. It doesn’t mean that nothing can be believed, but it does mean that skepticism and doubt are human inclinations that lead us toward growth.

Nietzsche’s famous quote that “God is dead”[2] was originally intended to mean that societal perspectives had “killed” God, rather than the actual death of a supernatural entity. Society (believers included) made God irrelevant.

In another work, Nietzsche wrote: “Really unreflective people are now inwardly without Christianity, and the more moderate and reflective people of the intellectual middle class now possess only an adapted, that is to say, marvelously simplified Christianity.”[3]

Is this reflective of many religious institutions and their collective members in the 21st century? Christians are often lumped together into a collective body, yet have little to no “public” intellectual power, in politics, science, and culture. Why?

Broadly speaking, Fundamentalist Christians have “privatized” Christianity, leaving little room for the intellectual exercises within the world of thought that leads to true growth and increased effectiveness in understanding and communicating our spiritual journeys.

Thus, Nietzsche’s point is well taken — surface understandings of God eventually result in a religion without a head,… [Read more…] about The Freedom to Think