In response to my previous post, Gary D. said this (among other things):
“Realness and authenticity are valuable things in ones spiritual life with Christ. You are so correct when you say that there are people inside the bubble who are deceived, who think that because they are in the protective bubble that all is right and ok.”
And Erin followed with this statement:
“My prayer was (in response to a series of somethings that had happened in the church) ‘If this is who you really are, I want nothing more to do with you.'”
Completely bypassing the glee I feel that someone thinks I am “so correct”, 🙂 I have continued to turn this over in my mind…because I remember how many things about the bubble seemed absolutely real to me at one time. And what was so weird was that I would equate the realness of God with the realness of the environment around me, and I could not understand for the life of me why someone would not want what I had. 🙂 The nonbeliever perceived what I had as fake, and evangelism almost became more about convincing them that no, it was really real.
Because it was real to me. Our perception is the “truth” we live in, isn’t it?
Deception and denial are tricky little beasts, for the simple reason that we don’t know we are in denial, because we are…well…in denial. It’s a self-perpetuating system that is driven by the filters in our mind.
In my experience, the only thing that breaks this cycle is when an anomaly is thrown into the works that doesn’t fit the equation…something that our neat, clean little bubble world just can’t explain, and somehow we wake up just enough to realize we can’t ignore it. (This is why I like it when Christians get squirmy.) The anomaly is what gets us asking the questions, gets us to realizing the filters we are using are actually preventing us from seeing what is real–and prompts us to ask ourselves, “Well, if what I thought was real, isn’t…what is?”
So in a way, it is these anomalies that are God’s needles hitting our bubbles. 🙂
What makes Erin’s comment so poignant to me is that just as I equated the perceived reality of my bubble with the reality of God, the opposite often happens when the bubble bursts. The danger is that when this happens, many people end up walking away from God completely, simply because they sort of decide if all of this bubble world wasn’t real–then God must not be, either. I think this is the largest reason why former Christians become atheists or agnostics. I can’t go there with them, because something in me realized that God was still real, even if the bubble wasn’t. But I understand why some people do go there. And I have to embrace the painful irony that there are agnostics and atheists out there who arrived at that conclusion with the same motivation I have in embracing a more organic form of faith: we share a deep longing for what is real.
Interesting to think about, isn’t it? We have more in common with some atheists than most of us want to admit–because even though we arrive at completely different conclusions, we’re still looking for the same thing!
I love the new Wendy’s Hamburger commercials (although I rarely eat Wendy’s Hamburgers). 🙂 The whole theme is about how they use beef that is fresh, never frozen, and the jingle goes: “When it’s real/You know that it’s real.” It’s a great advertising campain, imho, because it touches the deep desire in our culture for authenticity…but in fact the funny scenes that underscore this fact are all about how we think certain things are real, but they turn out not to be. In fact, the only thing about the commercial where we know that it’s real is when Wendy’s fresh, never-frozen hamburger patties are shown in contrast to the pre-fab frozen hockey-puck patties of the “other guys.” 🙂
My point? We don’t always know when it’s real. And the only thing that really makes us search for something more real is when one of those anomaly-needles penetrates our perfect system and messes it up.
I’m glad God threw some of those anomalies my way. 🙂
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stuart_spivack/ / CC BY-SA 2.0
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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Wow. Wanting to somehow prove to non-believers that it's real. Your words bring so many old emotions rushing back that I literally feel flushed recalling my life inside the Charismatic bubble. I was constantly afraid of it somehow being popped, not by God, but by someone else. I cared more about defending my bubble than any other aspect of my faith. "Sharing the Gospel" was really "proving my bubble is better than anyone else's". Thank you once again for putting my feelings so clearly into words.
Hey! Wendy's serves baked potatoes. How can you not like a fast food restaurant that serves something more than french fries?
On a more prosaic note, I agree with your thoughts about 'us' and atheists. In many cases, we have traveled a similar path (for awhile), but ended up at a different destination. (I was going to use a Wizard of Oz analogy, but I don't think I want to go there.)
I rather like the baby and the bath water analogy. We may see a fair amount of bath water to toss out, but the Baby (note the subtle Christmas reference) is worth keeping.
Great thoughts again…. and anonymous had a great addition with, "I cared more about defending my bubble than any other aspect of my faith".
Bubbles can become idols, more important to us than our personal private relationship with God.
Also reminds me of what Kathy Escobar has said about being God's policeman, law enforcer whatever. Seems a lot of differences in different christian labels/circles is regarding motive/purpose. For what purpose does God have me here?
I could be mistaken, but it seems to me in my vast discussions of this, it's more common in charismatic circles than non-charismatics. I was a card-carrying endlessly defending these experiences against those who are Christians but don't believe in "that stuff".
One day, "that stuff" wasn't real to me anymore, and that was one reason I have spent the last 5 years trying to separate my human understanding of religion from the reality of God.
I'm afraid after all these years I'm still not very articulate at describing my process, but the bottom line is that when it turns out that one aspect of who you believed God to be is not real, it leads to having to sift through everything else to determine what else was not real. Eventually you come to a stopping place. My stopping place was that there is no way I can deny who Jesus has been to me and continue to have peace…so I have to stay there. But as you say, many people find their boundary to be beyond that, into being atheist, agnostic, pagan, buddhist, whatever.
Jeff,
I gave my life to Jesus at the age of 30, in a situation that pretty much equates to getting smacked in the head by a 2×4. I had cancer and was pretty much in a live or die situation, literally.
I'm not trying to get all heavy and everything. But, I was in a situation where God became very real to me early on in my walk with Him.
It's just always been very puzzling to me, that when given the opportunity to know the God of the universe, who can make such a difference in ones life, that many choose to get lost in the meaningless traditons of men. And, even more puzzling that many will defend those meaningless traditons to the death.
The biggest struggle for me at a time was seperating my relationship to God from my relationship to the institutional church.
The first time that I really became turned off from the ic life, I found myself drifting from God. It was only through much self interspection, that I came to realize what was happening in my mind.
This is where I was coming from when I made the statement about
realness and authenticity being valuable in ones spiritual life with Christ.
You do make some good points about sometimes not being able to tell the difference.
Blessings,
Gary
Anon,
When anything challenges our bubbles, the first reflex is fear. The thing about fearing that someone else, not God, would pop it is pretty insightful. I can literally remember times when I wanted to stop my ears when someone was saying something to challenge my bubble–not because I was mad, but because I was afraid. I didn't want my world to be rocked by some truth I hadn't considered.
Al,
Using the baby and bathwater analogy, I would venture purely a guess that someone who becomes an atheist after being a Christian probably never saw the baby. All of it was bathwater to them.
Randi Jo,
I personally think the most messed-up role we Christians have created for ourselves is "defenders of the faith." I think we took the admonition to be able to "give an answer" way too far. God has never needed man to defend Him. As for the idolatry, I think you are right. What is interesting, though, is that we so often think protecting the faith and protecting our bubble are one and the same.
Erin,
Very well said. I think you're right about the charismatic thing, that there are a lot more subjective experiences to sift through. I think the way I navigated those waters at the time was to accept the fact that there was a mixture there from the beginning–that some of it was real and some of it was just man's emotions wanting it to be real. I have personally had some deep supernatural experiences with God, the reality of which I cannot deny. (Most of them happened outside of church, btw.) So I suppose it's been easier for me to at least accept God's existence as a plumb line while I sift through everything else, including my own accepted interpretations of Scripture.
The whole thing you said about sifting through and finding a stopping place…very insightful and well-put. Thanks.
Gary,
Thanks for sharing more of your context. What you say brings up a whole lot of thoughts as to why people would embrace and defend tradition over true relationship…and in my view it underscores how diabolical a thing religion really is. Religion is like a vaccine–just enough dead stuff to inoculate us against the living stuff, where we don't hunger for what is real. For many who defend the traditions you speak of, that is the only sense of "meaning" they've had. Too many times when we are defending our traditions, we're actually defending ourselves, our comfort zones–our bubbles. And I think the reason we sometimes have trouble discerning what is real is because religion is a blinding element.
Good conversation, bro. Thanks.