Life In Lyrics #2: “Arise My Soul And Sing”

…from the depths of this hell:
Where the free are slaves.
No difference between the cowards and brave,
Where our love and hate have become the same,
It’s time that we “unbecame”

– “The Same Sun” by Have Heart

I love the church.  I often loathe the church.  I am frustrated by the church.  I am identified as a part of the church.  I can no more divorce from it than I can leave my own body.  I could pretend, like so many to say I am an agnostic, but I am not nor ever could be.  The experience of my life is fused with the knowledge of God in my world to the point that I must say that I am firmly a follower of Jesus the Christ, the One who is and is to come.  This knowledge shapes my worldview, and more importantly is  reshaping the way I live my life to towards those I love.

That being said, I am not one to specifically delve into issue of the/any local church, but the story retold by Matthew Paul Turner of one Andrew and the act of  ”Church Discipline” by Seattle’s Mars Hill Church (pastored by Mark Driscoll) is harrowing and raises a larger issue in the church universal: control.

The story of Andrew’s encounter can be found in two parts here.

The story of  church congregations operating from a context born out of legalism and literalism is nothing new in the Christian church. From the beginning, in Acts, throughout the Epistles, into the early church to reaching its first peak in the Middle Ages, Christianity has always been political in the social sense. Decisions concerning morality often tend to inspire political behavior.  Posturing to be “right” or “correct” rather than “truthful” and “loving” has dominated religion for all time, obviously predating Christianity.  It is not only a Christian problem, for both Judaism and Islam seem to suffer the same “thorn in the flesh.”  There is, however, a problem that Christianity faces that explains its past failings and poses its greatest threat for the future. And it creates a paradox for theology and daily Christian life.

Simply put, the Christian church as an institution tends to be an entity of control. This is not to say that Christianity itself as a belief system is about control, but the religious framework in which the present day church operates heavily relies on a control that is centered on specific codes of morality and social behavior. Much of this Christian behavior is unrelated to theology, unfamiliar with the context in which scripture was written and generally ascribes to denominational group-think based on puritanical codes of conduct. However, a problem exists in Jesus being the Messiah of a Christian church that acts in such a manner.

The entire ministry of Jesus was built on a single premise: speaking truth to power.  The informal rabbi/teacher from the countryside built his teaching on giving hope to those oppressed and controlled by social and religious systems.  He avoided the large centers of power in the region, building his Messianic message on hope and access to the Hebrew God who had been locked away in an ark buried deep in a temple guarded by career religious leaders.   These leaders, much like the corrupt pope/priesthood of the Middle Ages, used their exclusive access to knowledge (only religious scholars were allowed education and literacy) to control the people.  They interpreted the scripture, they set the ground rules and they set the price for redemption.

And Jesus called them the “sons of hell”.*

Fast forward to today, and the religious landscape hasn’t changed much, other than the apostolic Christianity born out of the “way of Jesus” and the early church is more splintered than ever. Those ever dwindling numbers of people who ascribe to an active Christian faith have a spectrum of voices to choose from to listen to, and at an ever-increasing volume.  These voices all demand an audience.  It is no wonder that some ascribe to the positivism packaged in an easy to open package of a Joel Osteen of Lakewood Church in Houston. Neither is it surprising that thousands in Seattle and tens of thousands more have been attracted to Mark Driscoll’s new revised standard of Calvinism-meets-macho-Jesus message.  Driscoll is a good speaker. As far as a theologian who will not waver from a Calvinistic literal reading of scripture, he knows his stuff. He cusses (kind of) like a tattooed Emergent pastor…and he drinks craft beer!  Sarcasm intended.  The problem arises when a ministry such as the one at Seattle’s Mars Hill (not to be confused with the Mars Hill of Grand Rapids, MI formerly pastored by Rob Bell) publicly positions itself as a voice of truth speaking to power, when by its theology and actions, it is actually the very religious body that Jesus condemned and rejected. We, the church, have failed to get the message we are supposed to share.

Jesus’ words have found us out.  Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill of Seattle are not alone.  The Christian church, in some respect, has become the very thing Jesus condemned, a religious and social power more interested in control than in a redemption based on divine love of Creation by a God desperately trying to save us from ourselves.  From the orthodox to the fundamentalist to the evangelical, whenever the Christian church abuses scripture, theology, people’s personal history, emotions and a slanted sense of eternal destiny to control human beings – it has become the “sons of hell.”

The truth lies in something that is foreign to our societal desire for conquest and victory. What is our antidote for the virus of control and spiritual abuse that leads to the systematic shunning exposed in Andrew’s story?  Love.  Jesus told us to love.  God.  Ourselves.  Our neighbors.  Our enemies.  Friends.  Strangers.  The poor.  The rich. Everyone.

Can Christians reclaim love from the fringes of sanity? Love has been abused, diluted and mistaken for far too long by those who have agendas that aren’t THE agenda.  Love is the agenda.  That takes something that we are not used to doing, being or becoming: selfless.  We are all told to fight, to scrap, to be independent and yet we are never told how to love.  That act of giving one’s very self to another being.  Pure religion is and never was rules. It has always been giving love with abandon.  The church too often has become something else.

“It’s time we ‘unbecame’”** those sons of hell, those whitewashed tombs, our pit of vipers.  Shame and control of others was never the point. We are meant for love. There is no other way.

Jesus demands that we love instead of hate.  That we accept everyone as they really are. That we become free from this self-imposed slavery of control.  When we do that, we will be more than the church – we will be sons and daughters of God.

with all the love in my heart,

Bo Liles

*quotes & paraphrases by Rob Bell

**lyric from the aforementioned Have Heart song “The Same Sun”

Stranger Than Fiction: On One Conservative’s Measured Defense of President Obama

I have have reposted work by the wonderfully honest and thoughtful Andrew Sullivan before. He is, simply, the most rational and smart (little c) conservative journalist/author/blogger in America today. I say that, and he’s a Brit (soon to be dual citizen). He is conservative, gay, Christian, outspoken, moderate and never hard pressed to be honest about the insanity of both the right and the left wings of the American political system. So, when he wrote this thoughtful, fair and accurate essay on how President Obama is actually a really good (not perfect as the left wing liberals wanted him to be) Commander-In-Chief, and how if any reasonably intelligent people will pay attention, he should be reelected if we want to see America move in the right direction. And he nails the GOP/Tea Party/right wingers/religious zealots, as well as the stale liberal fringes to the wall with the truth about Obama’s first term. In short: read this honestly, and you may find yourself quietly voting for Obama in 2012, because if the truth wins out – the GOP doesn’t stand a chance.

From Newsweek & The Daily Beast:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/01/15/andrew-sullivan-how-obama-s-long-game-will-outsmart-his-critics.html

This is our blackout: STOP SOPA

I understand and support those who would like to protect intellectual property. But SOPA is NOT the way to do it. This bill becoming law would be devastating on many fronts and is not worth it on any level.

Sign the petition and STOP SOPA.

https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/

Life in Lyrics #1: Straw & Smoke

1. Straw & Smoke

Men of blood, we are the fruit of lust, filled with sin, death and despair. Burning straw, this is a harrowing month, our dreams the smoke that fills the air.

–Lewis, “The Cruelest Month” from the 2002 album Even So

We bought a lie for forty-nine ninety-five.  We bought a line that a nine to five and an M5 would be enough to make us feel just fine.  We never expected for the tide of our generation’s lifetime to being going out, rather than coming in.  This is the new reality of life on the western front.  This is the wild west where culture both clashes and combines with religion, and politics attempts to co-opt it all to justify the dollars spent and the soap boxes built.  The cynical part of me stands by and sees the irony of such a shallow youth culture that is bloated on its own self-importance.  All the while, I wonder aloud as to what happens when a world stops wanting to be saved by a God, because we say we can save ourselves.

We can buy the trappings of success, and on credit – as riches are now financed.  We can buy enough drinks after hours that we can fill our online profiles with friendships based on commerce rather than relationship.  We can purchase 7 step books for business or sex, we can join the new rich.  We can tailor our children’s academic future before they reach kindergarten, we can convince ourselves that success is raising financially secure offspring.  We can attend churches where they have Ferraris onstage to illustrate a point, or we can attend “emergent” potlucks and talk about social justice for an hour while taking notes on our iPads. We can do almost anything, we can and often do many of these things to varying degrees of success and completion.

We can forget who we are and what we are meant for.  And this is a fundamental issue for us as human beings on planet earth, and as an extension, for the Christian church as a part of culture.

Jesus once stopped and asked his disciples, his students: “And who do you say I am?”

As in…just checking, but do you know who I am?  Do you understand this path that you are on?  Are you aware? Do you know the plan I have for the Son of Man, you all, and everyone else whoever lived, is living or will live?  Really, do you know who I am?

Because, knowing the face of salvation is usually salvation in of itself.

We have to go back, then around, then forward to begin to understand the nature of creation, meaning, history, emotional fulfillment, relevant spirituality, and how culture and religion attempts to frame it all around a central theme of the necessity of redemption.

The truth of our reality is that our understanding of existence is grossly incomplete.  These are the gaps missing in the puzzle of human life.  This is why musicians can have careers, 24 hour coffee shops exist and too many of us have graduate degrees that we rarely use.

We are searching for the fulfillment of our dreams.  This is the foundational bedrock of relationship, family, clan, tribe, culture, etc.  We seek fundamentally to create, to mirror the echoes of our beginnings, to reconnect with the source of our life.  Ancient culture did this effectively through the transmission of story, art, mysticism (pre-modern religion) and an elevated value of memories. Dreams wove in and around the importance of living a good story. Success was how good a story your children would one day tell about your life.  The author Donald Miller wrote a whole book on this recently.  In contrast, the birth of Western culture brought a new approach based in the concept of philosophy, or the search for truth in the nature of man.  Philosophy was humanity’s first finite frame for the picture it found itself in.  Religion has always worked within this same framework of searching for truth.

Paul Tillich touched on this point:

“Philosophy formulates the questions implied in human existence, and theology formulates the answers implied in divine self-manifestation under the guidance of the questions implied in human existence. This is a circle which drives man to a point where question and answer are not separated. This point, however, is not a moment in time.”

Contrary to popular belief, neither pursuit – intellectual philosophy or spiritual religion – is opposed to one another but rather function much like two rivers running alongside each other in the same direction.  They are doing what we all do, which is to say we are trying to understand puzzle of our lives.  Dreams are useful in this manner, as they allow us to speculate and create answers to the gaps in our story.  And if you grew up in the 1980’s, you will now recognize that the Choose Your Own Adventure book series as the greatest philosophy book you never knew you read.

Our dreams and search for purpose in life is structured primarily to connect us to that which created us, in order to save us from ourselves.  This is a pursuit that is universal, from story retelling, to philosophical debate, to religious theology.  Simply put, humanity makes bad choices and we need a way out of the mess we’ve made of our lives.

But what is this mess we’ve made?  And how do we apply the brakes to the culture/industry that has sprung up to capitalize on each others’ failures?  This is the great cultural and spiritual question of our time.  Yet instead of seeking salvation, it seems we would rather create this paparazzi to document the downfall.  In some sense, we stopped wanting to be saved because being lost now means you might just be a celebrity, or at least get a reality show casting call.

Why did we decide that we didn’t need to be saved anymore? Maybe we got bored.  Or possibly, religion got off track.  There are a dozen good reasons why.  In a broader sense,  tend to think that maybe “happily ever after” means we aren’t squarely in the center of the cultural spotlight anymore.  You and I can’t deal with being ignored.  We have been falsely taught that attention equals self-esteem.  We are, almost to a person, narcissistic.  And as we can all attest, we would feel quite incomplete without our staple of cultural narcissism.

There is one problem with our culture centering the universe around each of ourselves.  Life will continue to flow under, over and around us regardless of our declaration that we don’t need to be saved from ourselves any longer.  Because the trappings of the way we have defined success and the short shelf life of pop culture doesn’t make life any less difficult to manage as we seek out this question of meaning and salvation.

Again, Tillich becomes our guide when he pointed out that:

“Life remains ambiguous as long as there is life. The question implied in the ambiguities of life derives to a new question, namely, that of the direction in which life moves. This is the question of history. Systematically speaking, history, characterized as it as by its direction toward the future, is the dynamic quality of life. Therefore, the “riddle of history” is a part of the problem of life.”

Our attempts at elevating popular culture and our own sense of social relevance as the source of our self-worth, meaning and salvation are akin to attempting to burn straw in a vacuum.  You cannot sustain it with out something more to fuel the flames.  Life keeps happening, and our personal histories keep building, for better and for worse.

There is something telling about us as a society, when we buy and sell celebrity culture as a corporate commodity.  It is a sign of a lost empire that we could redefine brand development for the lost youth of the new rich by how many stories one can sell to US Weekly and People magazine.  This is a recurring condition of a culture on the brink – that rewards/benefits/bonuses for lives well lived become the object of affection themselves.  People stop pursuing creativity, art, productive business, innovation and genuine dreams for a fast life of fame, money, a Bentley and a Birkin.  The effects of these choices, propped up by corporate media, are devastating – youth culture is derailed with every reality show starlet that creates a brand and “career” out of the aftermath of a sex tape and every young male in the industry that can resurrect a pop career after beating up his girlfriend.

Money and fame become our post-modern golden calf.  And celebrity our false idol.

We have forgotten who we are as people.  The world is showing the stress and cracks of a culture struggling to maintain an insistence that money will make us happy and that success is how others see us rather than what we do.  The American dream has been set on fire.

We would be well advised to watch the smoke rise and see that we were never meant to settle for what we have been sold by preachers, politicians, media and social architects.  For when the culture begins to make choices based on how to sustain its own economy, then echoes of Rome call for us to either look for salvation or watch our own destruction.

It is not to say that this an apocalyptic prediction or event unfolding, for it is not.  But the truth rings out that we have ignored the need for salvation and redemption for too long.  We need to be saved from this present reality so that we can, as a people – spiritual, physical, emotional, sexual, political, intellectual, cultural – can begin to dream a new dream.  Not a dream of our own making, but rather a new path based on all that the truth and beauty in this world might hold for us.

Often times, Christian religion finds itself speaking to these roadblocks in our story as a people.  Well-meaning believers and leader took around the world and they feel the ache that this is not right.  They know that something more is meant for us.  Some look to the skies and pray “Come quickly Lord Jesus” in hopes that the struggle of this present world would be but a distant memory.  Others tell us to speak to life as if it was an object under our control, claiming that blessings come in adherence to affirmations based in scripture.  Others toil away in a life were nothing is questioned, no matter how bleak and cast as a part of the will of this now distant God.

But what if it wasn’t about a Puritan’s shangri-la in the cosmos, or financial riches gained, or the acceptance of a mediocre life?  One avoids the prophet’s call to value of our life here and now, the other buys the culture’s lie that money – even from God – can validate us and the latter ignores the transformative message of the scriptures and the gospel of Jesus of Nazareth.

This is not the faith we have been called to.  This is religion that has elevated segmented dogma over and above the truth available about who we are and what we are meant for.  Religion has bought the same lies we have been sold by the culture: that our dreams are limited by the conditions we found ourselves in.  That we can only do that which is placed in front of us as well as possible.  That or we can sell ourselves to the media machine of celebrity.

We have forgotten to ask the right questions, to place ourselves firmly in the right frame of mind to see that there is always a different way.  That different way reminds us that the only way to know ourselves is to see outside of ourselves to that which is pure.  Beauty is pure if fleeting, truth is pure though often difficult, love is divine if not polluted by lust, community is pure when not polluted by politics. It’s a matter of listening to the truth behind the noise.  If we can grasp the beauty in the mess of this fray, then we can answer Christ when asked “who do you say i am?” Love.  A force that pushes our ingrained selfishness to the side in favor of giving for giving’s sake. So powerful that we all begin to stop hurting each other because now see that the face of Christ is the face of love realized. Who are we? We are souls searching for the home that is only found in love. A love that accepts all, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, economic and/or social standing. And we see that love does not need a heaven for it is intent on giving heaven away in every small act of selfless kindness. This love is Christ giving up life for our lives, and a hope that we would rob those metaphorical streets of gold so that starving children can eat. If we really love God, then heaven’s rewards will be spent here on earth to save all that which is broken but was never meant to be. Our lives now have meaning, and the message is clear: finding our way home will only occur when we give up on all that which has cost us so great. I am not the center of this or any universe, and all any of us can hope for is the salvation that comes through being thrown headfirst in grace, a grace so lovely that we see no other way than to love. And love deeply any and all who are willing to receive it. That is Christ and that is the dream desired for each of us, even as the smoke fills the nighttime air.

The OPEN TABLE: a discussion series powered by YOU

What is THE OPEN TABLE?

It is an OPEN REQUEST for any & all to throw out TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION here on Voodoo Heart – the deal is you can submit a question, topic, opinion, etc on any topic and if it fits the broad(est) scope of the blog, I will write an approx. 500 word “conversation starter” and we will open it up for all of us to contribute.  A lot like we did on the blogs The rEvolution Collective & The Conversation Lab back in the day, for those who have know me online for a while.

THIS IS A CHANCE FOR clean, productive discourse about spirituality & religion, culture – pop & braoder, arts – of all types, and even celebrity as it relates to our cultural fabric.  Whatever allows us to go deep into discussing the ways in which we find ourselves as human beings in the world in this space and this time.

I really encourage you to comment, message, email, facebook or twitter your submissions!  I want to see this happen in a way that is organic and open to all.

Until we sit together at the table,

Bo Liles