Unfundamentalist

Above All, Love

The Prophecy of Prejudice

by Lydia Joy in Fundamentalism

For many years, I had anticipated with anxiety last Friday’s presidential announcement that Jerusalem would finally be recognized as the capital of Israel, of God’s Chosen People. I felt fear and panic whenever I saw something that I had been told meant a prophecy was being fulfilled, and was leading our world closer to its cleansing and its end: the final Judgment of all judgments, ringing in the Rapture where God’s saints would be fetched up with a single trumpet signaling we were “going home” to heaven.

Being part of God’s Kingdom meant many things to me as a child. For one, it meant I wouldn’t burn in a literal hell for eternity. Also, it meant I would be reunited with any loved one who had believed and accepted Christ as their personal Savior, granting them a place to worship at His throne forever. So, two major things that concluded in a positive way of thinking, right?

Wrong.

I say this because I know the other teachings Christian Fundamentalism includes. Forgiveness of sins is only part of the salvation they preached. As a Christian, you’ve also reserved a place to point out those that have not experienced such forgiveness, deeming others of your fellow human race damned by the guidelines you were given to separate the “Goats from the Sheep.”

As a child, I have strong memories of scanning crowds of strangers, searching for other believers, because I knew if they didn’t resemble me, chances were they were going to hell, and this brought terrifying images… [Read more…] about The Prophecy of Prejudice

Long Obedience in Different Directions

by Cindy Brandt in Christian Spirituality

We had left our baby girl in the makeshift nursery to attend one of the meetings for the orientation that was to launch our missionary career. In the next few days, she would get sick with her first fever while we were trapped in a damp, chilly, tiny lodging with an outside shower that provided limited hot water. It was our inaugural taste of “suffering for Jesus,” and it was miserable and gritty but grand.

In a roomful of fellow missionaries, some seasoned, others new to the field, the energy was palpable. We had gathered to reach the nations, just like I had dreamed as an evangelical teen on fire. The speaker spoke powerfully, and the one phrase that resonated in my young adventurous mind, the one mantra that would sustain me through some of the most stressful years of my life, was this: “long obedience in the same direction.” The speaker was using the title of Eugene Peterson’s Christian classic, which I had not read, but the catchy title was pregnant with meaning, and especially poignant for a life of mission. We were fueled by the intense longing to stick it out for the long haul, to persevere despite the suffering, to be faithful in our long obedience.

We were faithful, for a year. And then two. And three and a half more years after that. But there started a stirring in my spirit, like a pea at the bottom of twenty mattresses, which kept me tossing and turning in the dark night of my soul. That small pea quickly turned into a full blown faith crisis that first… [Read more…] about Long Obedience in Different Directions

Advent: Peacefully Waiting

by Janene Cates Putman in Christian Spirituality

Let there be PEACE on earth and let it begin with me
The first snowfall of winter is happening right now at our home. What is it about falling snow that is so peaceful that there’s even a Peaceful Snowfall app? As I sit gazing out the window beyond our Christmas tree, a sense of peace and goodwill envelops me. I wish that feeling could stay with me always. But wait a minute—why can’t it? This is the season to celebrate the coming of the Prince of Peace—doesn’t that mean something today, here and now?

A prophecy in the Hebrew scriptures promised a Messiah to come who would be the leader of PEACE. “For unto us a child is born; unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder. These will be his royal titles: Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). This was a promise to the Jews and, I believe, a promise to us today. “The Prince of Wholeness” has come and we celebrate his arrival during Advent.

Advent worship is a journey toward the Christmas story—the story of God putting his family back together. Advent is the story of shalom—peace; wholeness; completeness; the way God meant it to be all along. PEACE—particularly, the PEACE we celebrate at Advent—is not merely the absence of conflict; it’s a sense of wholeness, a sense that all is well within you.

So there I was, looking up the dictionary definition of PEACE, like a good little researcher, and I came across this gem at… [Read more…] about Advent: Peacefully Waiting

Advent Two: Preparing a Way

by Jill Crainshaw in Christian Spirituality, Poetry

To announce and encourage a season of waiting seems preposterous to me sometimes. Too many people suffer through enforced waiting every day, and every path they try to take through their life’s wildernesses is blocked by human wreckage. The lectionary Gospel reading last week from Mark spoke of stars falling from the heavens, and for some people that image is not a metaphor. Some people’s skies are empty of signs of hope, and they can’t see a way through the darkness.

Yes, the realities of racism, violence against women, food insecurity, political unrest—so many painful realities that people face into everyday—make it hard for me to light the candles of Advent and sing hymns of waiting. We have waited long enough.

I wrestled with these thoughts as the prelude began in my church last week on the first Sunday in Advent. Then, with no rehearsal or liturgical prompting, three children formed into a circle at the front of the church and began to dance. Their innocent joy reached out into the sanctuary and, for a few moments at least, quieted my restless spirit.

As we enter into the second week of Advent and hear in the lectionary “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way,’” I am still restless for Gospel justice and peace to come soon. But those dancing children sparked in me a new imagining. Perhaps the sacred Star-flinger who sequined the skies in the beginning with light is now sowing stars into hungry and thirsty wildernesses by… [Read more…] about Advent Two: Preparing a Way

When Quiet Means Work: A Reflection for Families, Caregivers, and Those Who Are Still Loving

by Ellen Perleberg in Christian Spirituality

The Sunday after Thanksgiving, I rather spontaneously—or perhaps, I’d like to think, by the work of the Holy Spirit—got on a night bus and went to church. I arrived at St. Mark’s Cathedral to a contemplative Eucharist in their beautiful chapel. It was soft and lovely and quiet.

I love the quiet. I sought it out when I came to college in Seattle, living in “the big city” for the first time this fall, more than a little overwhelmed by the sheer number of people everywhere. I looked for and found spaces where we pray in quiet to hear our own God answer. And now I have come to a season in which we encourage each other to come into the quiet and the rest and peace it brings.

But I noticed something else in the quiet that evening. Perhaps because I had just returned from a trip back home, I realized that my quiet does not belong to me. It belongs to my sister. My twelve-year-old sister has severe developmental delays and serious sensory processing issues. Anything and everything is liable to be too bright, too loud, too much for her, and so I grew up with the quiet. With subtitles on muted TV screens, with an empathetic dread of ceiling fans, with a constant, chiding shhh.

My quiet is active. My quiet encompasses all the work it takes to make the world safe for my sister. My quiet is an act of love. My quiet was enforced for years, and my quiet puts her needs first.

My quiet is heartbreaking. Quiet is unanswered questions and the words she can’t say.… [Read more…] about When Quiet Means Work: A Reflection for Families, Caregivers, and Those Who Are Still Loving

Breaking Free: A Survivor’s Anthem

by Lydia Joy in Poetry

Breaking Free
A Survivor’s Anthem

They say just to forget,
Pretend, get over it.
Move on, start over again.

But the memory, the pain,
Made to feel ashamed,
Still linger, still fight, a battle in my brain.

I’m not gonna cover up these scars.
I’m breaking away from these prison bars.
I’m stronger than I’ve ever been.
Won’t lock myself in that prison again.

I’m breaking free. I can finally breathe.
I’m trying to forgive, to finally live.
I’ve still got this memory that never will fade.
I’m letting go. I’m walking away.
I’m breaking free.

Sometimes they are scars.
Other times open wounds.
At moments, I question how I made it through.

And when it all comes back and I have to relive,
Somewhere deep in my soul, I beg God to help me forget.

All the scary nights. All the tears I cried.
All those people who said I lied…
I’m letting go.

I’m breaking free. I can finally breathe.
I’m trying to forgive, to finally live.
I’ve still got this memory that never will fade.
I’m letting go. I’m walking away.
I’m breaking free.

Don’t cover up your scars.
Go ahead, break away from those prison bars.
You’re stronger than you’ve ever been.
You’ll never need to lock yourself in that prison again.
You’re breaking free.

 

Photo via Unsplash.

About Lydia Joy
Lydia Joy is a childhood sexual abuse survivor and former member of Independent… [Read more…] about Breaking Free: A Survivor’s Anthem

Advent: Hopefully Waiting

by Janene Cates Putman in Christian Spirituality

“A thrill of HOPE, the weary world rejoices for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.”

Do a quick Google search for “Advent Calendar” and you’ll find over 3 million results—for the gourmet chocolate lover, for the wine connoisseur, for the beauty trendsetter, for the traditional-at-heart, for the children in your life, for that boozy friend—an Advent calendar for everyone on your list.

Having grown up in a non-liturgical church tradition, this is what I knew about Advent: there was a Christmas tree calendar that had doors for each day, December 1 – 25, with candy inside. It was a countdown to Santa Claus and had little, if anything, to do with the biblical Christmas story. I was an adult with nearly-grown children before I began to learn about and celebrate Advent. This yearly celebration has changed the way I worship. “Let every heart prepare him room” has become my personal prayer for this season.

This is the first week of Advent. The definition of Advent is “the arrival of a notable person, thing or event.” Advent has to do with waiting, with being “pregnant with expectation.” This is waiting with purpose, waiting with action. It’s “nesting”—preparing my heart to be Christ’s home. Advent worship is a journey through the biblical narrative, the story of God putting his family back together. It’s a time to focus on what Christ’s coming brings to us: hope, peace, love, joy.

“Come, Lord Jesus” is the anthem of Advent. It’s waiting, between the now… [Read more…] about Advent: Hopefully Waiting

Advent One: To Watch Again Another Night

by Jill Crainshaw in Christian Spirituality

Advent One: Isaiah 64:1-9
Up there. In dusk’s dimming sky. What did the Isaiah poet see that long ago night? Stars wheeling out from their daytime hiding places? Cosmic spheres twirling across a vast celestial ballroom dance floor? Or did the poet see only a sky empty of light? What did that ancient wanderer wonder that stirred such heart-rending words: O that you would tear open the heavens…

Rip through the veils that shroud your light, O God.

Place your feet yet again upon our earth and tremble the mountains as you walk in our midst. Be here. Right here.

These texts for the first week in Advent—they are sublime, in an ethereal sort of way. And grim too. Not much warm Christmas nostalgia in Isaiah. Rip open. Quake. Boil. Tremble. These are words to begin our high holy season? Where is gentle Mary and her lullabying voice? What about the twinkling stars that lit the shepherds’ way to the manger? Where in these verses is our tasteful Advent aesthetic?

And yet, our ancient wondering wanderer offers up bittersweet Advent truth. Even if we had a substantive theology of lingering, even if we knew how to wait—we are tired of waiting. What we really want is for God to rip open the veil and let God’s cosmic light bear down on every place where injustice and its power brokers try to hide. We yearn for God—to boil, quake, tremble. Hopeful expectation and starry-eyed wakefulness don’t do it for us anymore. Not when justice has been delayed and denied. When streets… [Read more…] about Advent One: To Watch Again Another Night

Me Too: Finding My Voice Outside of Fundamentalism

by Lydia Joy in Fundamentalism

Trigger warning: childhood sexual abuse.

Me, too.

With two little words, I joined a campaign. Signed up and shouted, “No more silence! No more with the lack of accountability! No more with the victim shaming!” It’s a campaign that has been long overdue for many of us out there. Our experiences and our accounts fell on deaf ears for many years, regardless if the actual abuse had since ended, all because our stories were too uncomfortable for others to hear.

My story is typical of many other former Christian Fundamentalists: for at least seven years as a child, I was sexually and physically abused by two male family members. One perpetrator is serving twenty-seven years in prison for crimes he committed against me and other victims, the other has never spent one day locked away due to a “lack of convincing details” about that summer when I was twelve.

To my knowledge, the pastor of my Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) church knew about my abuse and decided not to intervene. No law enforcement involvement was ever sought out. No professional counseling was offered. The victim shaming, however, thrived within that environment.

For many years, it was like a roller-coaster of events and emotions. A series of ups and downs regarding my story were whispered within my childhood church and by others closely connected with it. To this day, twelve years later, the memories of the shaming remain. Sometimes, I wanted to become invisible, to shrink into… [Read more…] about Me Too: Finding My Voice Outside of Fundamentalism

Dining With the Devil

by Darrell Lackey in Christian Issues

In 1993, Os Guinness wrote a wonderful little book entitled Dining with the Devil. The subtitle was The Megachurch Movement Flirts with Modernity. Guinness pointed out how the megachurch movement was borrowing tools, insights, and strategies from the modern management, business, and marketing world to “reach” people. It was a sort of Babylonian captivity. What these churches often thought were the result of prayer, evangelism, or biblical preaching, were, perhaps, simply the result of good marketing, management, and business principles applied to growing one’s membership (clientele). Further, he likened this borrowing, this captivity, to dining with the prince of darkness himself. Yikes. The book, of course, was written with fundamentalist/evangelical churches in mind.

At the very beginning of the book, Guinness quotes sociologist Peter L. Berger, who in his book A Rumor of Angels writes:
He who sups with the devil had better have a long spoon. The devilry of modernity has its own magic: The [believer] who sups with it will find his spoon getting shorter and shorter—until that last supper in which he is left alone at the table, with no spoon at all and with an empty plate. The devil, one may guess, will by then have gone away to more interesting company.
This bit of wisdom and insight would also apply to our present moment in the political/cultural realm. Someone needs to write a new book, entitled Dining with the Devil: Part Two. And… [Read more…] about Dining With the Devil