There are a lot of reasons, I think, why I have entered on this journey of deconstruction and re-thinking. Some of it, I firmly believe, has been by the hand of God, because it seems He often leads and teaches me by experience. Some of it has been because of the experiences themselves, including extended times of trial, and the wake-up call. Some of it is because I have gradually realized I can no longer be in denial about what I’ve seen in my years within institutional Christianity.
But some of it is because I got bored.
In another earlier post, I talked about how I came to a place where I could no longer bring myself to have extended quiet times because I felt I’d worked my prayer formulas into the ground and nothing had worked. This was the place where my religion failed me. I felt as though I were backsliding, although I still loved Jesus very much. I couldn’t understand where my zeal had gone. And finally I realized what was wrong.
I was bored. I was bored stiff.
I was bored because I thought I had God figured out, and when it turned out I hadn’t, I had no interest in the old ways anymore.
I have a broad religious background, but my largest influence growing up was the Word of Faith movement. For a long time I’ve questioned the extremes of that movement, although I adhered to the basic beliefs. But the by-product of that way of thinking is that, quite simply, there is a systematic way to explain everything about God. If someone prayed and didn’t get healed, or continued in their lack, they just “didn’t have enough faith.” The Bible says what it says, and when you work things the way the Bible says, the Bible works for you. Despite claims to the otherwise, just about everything about my faith was reduced to a formula. If my prayers were answered, I was working the formulas correctly; if they weren’t, since God was perfect, it must be something wrong on my end of the equation. Simple, trite explanations for everything, giving new meaning to the term “systematic theology.”
When God wouldn’t cooperate on my terms after all my faithful prayers and confessions, I came to a place where I had to say, “God, I just don’t know.” My prayers were reduced to, “God, I lean on You to get me through today.” Day after day I prayed this, until He led me through my situations. And I discovered something in that season that my Word-Faith background never taught me: the mystery of God. I recognized that despite all I thought I knew about the Scriptures, there were things about God I did not know or understand, and I had to learn to be okay with that.
A lot of talk is going around these days about us entering the “postmodern age”. The main tenet of postmodern thinking–embraced by more and more people in our day–is that everything is relative, that there is no such thing as “absolute truth.” While I believe ultimately truth is found in God (Jesus is the “way, the truth, and the life”), and therefore cannot echo this claim that all truth is relative…I don’t think postmodernism is necessarily the enemy of the church. I say this because one offshoot of postmodern thinking that actually benefits our faith is that it is restoring to us the mystery of God. Postmoderns tend to embrace the messiness of mystery, with all its paradoxes and unknowns, and are actually far more open to an unfathomable God than the “figured out” version we can easily explain to them.
You see, the reason I’ve been bored is that when you believe you have God figured out–He stops really being God to you. If God is truly God, we will NEVER be able to comprehend Him fully in this life. He is beyond our dimensions, beyond the grasp of our limited intellect. I got bored with a God I could easily predict and had neatly boxed up. When God jumped out of the sytematic box I built for Him, at first I was devastated; but seeing Him outside my preconceived notions has caused me to become very interested in Him again.
I believe there is absolute truth, but I admit that I don’t know it fully. I also believe God’s Word is truth, and that the Bible means what it says; but I also recognize that there is so much in Scripture that must be interpreted that I cannot say I know what everything means anymore. And I have come to be okay with what I do not know. In fact, I am inspired and fascinated by this.
Embracing the mystery of God–recognizing how amazingly huge He is and how much of Him I cannot fathom–has cured my boredom.
Wayward Son
Musician. Composer. Recovering perfectionist. Minister-in-transition. Lover of puns. Hijacker of rock song references. Questioner of the status quo.
I'm not really a rebel. Just a sincere Christ-follower with a thirst for significance that gets me into trouble. My quest has taken me over the fence of institutional Christianity. Here are some of my random thoughts along the way. Read along, join in the conversation. Just be nice.
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Great post! I think postmodernism has its extremes (like relativism), but this is kind of the stereotype of postmodernism (pomo) as well. Actually, a lot of pomo is a rejection of the pride and arrogance of modernism. Modernism promoted the idea that man could solve any problem through careful, technocratic, formulaic, controlled methods and institutions. So, actually, I think modernism was incredibly destructive in the ways that the church and Western Christianity has been influenced by it. So for me, I have to agree with you that not all elements of pomo are negative. What I don’t understand is why the church so wholeheartedly embraced modernism, but is so resistant to postmodernism.
Sarah, thanks for a great comment.
I’m going out on a limb here and am not studied on this, but I am guessing we (the church) embraced modernism on several levels for several reasons, but not all at once. For one, the church was going through its own revolution (the Reformation) just when modern thought was emerging (the Renaissance and Enlightenment), so perhaps at least the Protestants were more inclined to adapt their thinking. Secondly, I think there were areas where we did resist it for awhile, but eventually our theology adapted and was conditioned to modernism over several generations.
Interestingly enough, modernism in its purest form can be as anti-Christian as hard pomo is. Because modernism claims a scientific explanation for everything, it challenges the supernatural and chastises Christianity for claiming to be the truth. Postmodernism, by contrast, often chastises Christianity for claiming to have the *only* truth. Wow. 🙂
Thank-you for the article and sharing your thoughts. I greatly appreciate it as I wrestled with a number of things.
I was going to comment, but alas, I am not an intellectual. Despite having a graduate degree, I just hate to get into one of these types of conversations. It gives me tired head.
But you said something that I identified with. I have spent lots of time in the faith movement, or at least used to. My frustration with the parts I couldn’t get my head around drove me away. And my chastisment for the same helped drive me away.
While I embrace many parts of it, the ease in using the “not enough faith” reason always bothered me. Its so subjective, and easily used by someone who needs to defend his position.
And its most easily defended by making me look like I’m the guy who is an idiot because I don’t have the faith to operate in God’s principles. At some point, I gave up on having faith.
Instead, I have relied on a fact that does not involve my faith. That God loves me and died for my sins. I guess that technically, that is having faith, but, there it is again, why I hate this argument stuff.
I have relied on God’s mercy to love me in spite of my lack of faith. And I cling to a couple of scriptures.
1. “what does God require of you? to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.”
2. “the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end. they are new every morning, great is his faithfulness.”
3. “when I am weak, he is strong.”