Coming Clean, My Spiritual Journey

Preface

I love Jesus. Most of the time I like Jesus. I am learning to love the church again. I am allowing myself to ask questions I never asked before. I don't ask because I want to degrade Jesus, but because I now think He is strong enough for my questions. These are thoughts as I continue my faith journey from deconstruction to reconstruction and beyond…

Prayer

God, for 45 years I lived as a very well behaved American Evangelical Christian. Then in 2016 all changed and I started asking questions I never allowed myself to ask before. That led me down a rabbit trail that changed my relationship with Jesus and the Church and my whole world. For a long time you and I have been the only ones that knew what was going on, but to be honest, it’s been stressful keeping this between you and me. It's really stressful to open up to others about this complicated journey too, but I don't think I can keep this to myself forever. Also, I am thinking about other people that are deconstructing their faith. I would like to be able to encourage them that there is faith in Jesus that is true and harmonious with science and their lived experience. 

Musings

It’s terrifying but it’s time for me to come out of the closet. I’m afraid I have become what I always feared, a Christian people talk about behind my back  

I remember a number of friends over the years that disappeared from church. One was in construction and started with Jesus and our church around middle age. He and his family became very involved for a few years and then they disappeared. Another business man was a part of the church for years with his family, and then he disappeared though his family stayed. I was perplexed at how they vanished. I judged them and imagined all kinds of stories about what might be going on. Now years later I am more like those I judged than the faithful church members. How will people judge me?

The last couple years, I have had an authenticity crisis. Whether assuming I am republican, or anti-gay, or anti-woke, it is very uncomfortable for me when people in my tribe make assumptions about my beliefs. Its a catch 22; I can let them know I disagree and risk isolation from my community or keep quiet and suffer from feelings of in-authenticity. So far the risk of isolation from my community has felt like the greater risk, and I have kept my mouth safely closed. Interestingly, I think I have had a small opportunity to understand how people from other religions feel when we Christians ask them to change to our religion. While there is no persecution for changing my relationship with the Evangelical Church, the thought of losing those relationships that have been so important for the last 50 years is terrifying. However, not living authentically for a long time has taken its toll, and I don't believe I can live this way forever while keeping good mental health.

Staying the Same

Let’s start with what has not changed before talking about what has changed.  I still believe the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed. These cornerstone documents have guided the Christian church for centuries. One day as I struggled with the modern Church, I looked these documents up. It was so exciting! I thought, "Now this is something I can believe in!" I still identify myself as a Jesus follower. I still look to the Bible for wisdom and direction; in fact, I am much more inspired and dedicated to understanding the Bible, reading and studying more than I have been for years. I'm still going to church.

Changes

So what has changed? I no longer identify as an Evangelical Christian. That label has so much baggage in the public square that the label is simply embarrassing to me. And the label presumes many beliefs that I no longer share.

Theological

Though I consider that the Bible is inspired, “God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,“  I no longer look at the Bible as I always did.

Previous	Current
Historically accurate in the modern sense	The ancients had different purposes and intents in relaying history
Primarily literal	Literal at times, but not always
Written to me	Written to others and for me
Myopic view consisting of rules and promises	God's wisdom expressed most clearly through the macro view
Inerrant	Inerrancy not required to be God's revelation
Easily interpreted by me	Subject to my internal biases
Neat and clean	Messy, confusing, and even disturbing
Generally prescriptive	Often only descriptive
Internally Consistent	Internally Inconsistent
My tribe and I never pick and choose what we want to believe	Every Christian picks and chooses what we want to believe
Evangelicals had the right interpretation	Many wise Christians in our world and in our past have different yet faithful interpretations

I see the Bible as the story of God and man rather than a rulebook for life. Imagine people from all walks of life, all the Biblical authors, sitting around a table. Listen as they discuss their journey with God. They share many stories. They have many perspectives, many of which are consistent with each other, but many are not. They speak to one another, and we listen in, but they are not speaking to us, and they don't share our culture, even though we have someone translating for us. I think the Bible is more like this.

I’ve changed my understanding of many Bible stories  I used to believe the creation story was historically accurate aside from timing. But now I don’t think the Bible is trying to relate history as we understand it. The story may be allegorical or representational and I’m completely okay with that. I think that theistic evolution is the tool that God used to create the animals and people. The geologic, DNA, and fossil science is simply too compelling  and I’m okay with God doing it that way. Noah’s flood was probably a catastrophic local flood that was tragic and worldwide as they understood the world but not worldwide as we understand the world. 

There was a time I thought I could be certain about the meaning of parts of the Bible. But now I realize that the strain for certainty robs the life from the Bible, encourages pride, division, dogmatism, and fundamentalism, and isolates the church from those outside we are called to help.  My philosophy is that I should do my very best to understand truth, yet no matter how hard I work or how confident I am, I should not close my ears to other opinions or evidence.

When it comes to salvation, I still value my relationship with Jesus and being "Born Again." I believe this special relationship makes a way for me to reach heaven. However, I hope that some of the progressive theologians I have read are correct that more people will be welcomed into heaven than just those that have been born again according to our modern American Evangelical construct.

Political

It is "common knowledge" that evangelical Christians are also Republicans. That used to be me, but I no longer have a clear affinity to either political party, seeing Jesus in parts of both parties. Everything changed with Trump's ascendance in 2016. In many years Christians voted for Republican candidates holding their noses because of some candidates less than ideal character. But, after maligning Bill Clinton for his lack of character, in 2016 Christians EMBRACED Trump in spite of his HORRID character. This sent me into a political tailspin that left me right in the middle with no political home. 

Cultural Issues

My perspective on the culture war has changed greatly. Most importantly, I don't think we should be at war with the culture, because there is no way to bring Jesus' whole-hearted life to people that don't like or trust Christians.

I can no longer categorically say that being LGBT and Christian is an oxymoron. I was always taught that LGBT people were those that had forsaken God and because of that had become LGBT. While that may be true in some cases, there are others that sincerely love God and yet have same sex attraction they can't shake. It is difficult for Christianity to deal with LGBT people that grow up in the Church and desperately pray and seek to change their sexuality to no avail. We believe that

• God makes each person, 
• God answers prayers which are in line with His will, and that 
• God does not tempt us with beyond what we can endure.

This reality and these beliefs are in conflict. 

Furthermore, analysis of the "6 Critical Passages regarding LGBT people" initiate enough doubt that the plain reading of the English text is not actually plain. So while I may not be fully affirming (yet?), I am closer to that than fully non-affirming.

However, even if tomorrow someone proved without a doubt that gay is sinful, every Christian I have known is sinful in some ways. We will all die sinful and the only hope for anyone is Jesus' grace. Why would we treat being gay different from being unloving or unforgiving?

I grew up listening faithfully to Focus on the Family, which taught me everything I know about a Christian family. I learned a lot of good things that benefitted my family, so I appreciate the help. But I also picked up some rather patriarchal ideas that I now believe are inconsistent with Christianity. So I changed from a complementarian view of women to an egalitarian one.

As a kid I grew up going to marches for Life in Washington DC, and fighting against Abortion. While I think that the fewer abortions the better. I think the Christian strategy with respect to abortion is terrible. We are trying to gain political power to force people to not have abortions, and yet we are doing little to support poor women that refuse abortion or intellectually convince people to refuse them. Rather we should focus on love, trust, and persuasion; and we should support life better at all ages.

I was born white middle class and naïve. I heard an amazing quote, "Most of the people that benefit from racism, have no idea they are." This struck me to the heart, and as I tested this in my life, I saw it to be true. Though, I have always considered myself to "not have a racist bone in my body," I have learned with more introspection that I have biases in my thinking that are racially motivated. As I uncover these biases, I can work on them, but as long as I am unaware, I risk unintentionally hurting people I value. Additionally, the study of power dynamics and oppression using tools such as CRT should continue albeit with great care. It is both important to understand these social dynamics and to not be overwhelmed by them.

If it is true that African Americans are as a community less well off economically than the White American community, one of two things must be true.

1. Their community is less intelligent and less able
2. The oppression their community faced historically has caused the problem

I can not accept number 1, so I must accept 2. Believing 2, I feel we have some duty to help restore the African American community even at some sacrifice of our own.

I wish the word woke did not exist. It is horrible because it is wholly undefined, because everyone defines it their own way. According to my definition, I am woke because I woke up to the plight of the less powerful in our country. It is a horrible word we throw back and forth like a grenade to wound the "other." It closes down conversation and prevents compromise.

I wish we had universal healthcare in the United States. I believe the argument against it is primarily one of selfishness by the people like me that have reasonable healthcare currently. We look at healthcare as finite, and assume that if more people entered the system that we would receive less or lower quality care. While I don't want my care to suffer so that others that don't have healthcare can have more, Jesus taught that we should think more about others than ourselves. Surely there would be problems transitioning, but we could make it work. Could the most prosperous country in the history of the world not figure how to provide healthcare to all its people?

And finally I am a radical-ish environmentalist. Actually, this is not new. I have always felt responsible for the creation around us. I have always wanted us to work sacrificially to preserve the Earth the best we can for the benefit of future generations. However, the depth of my commitment to the environment has grown through my journey.

Attitude

The American Evangelical Church lives in a state of fear of the world around it. I can no longer live this way. They desire to use power rather than persuasion to do the "work of God." I can no longer work this way. They are rightly seen by the culture as angry and bitter. I can no longer be a part of this. I desire to, trusting Jesus, enter into peoples lives in such a way that we can trust each other and enter in discussions which provide the opportunity for persuasion.

Conclusion

It is rather funny in some sense. Many Christians and many outside the Christian faith would look at this revelation of Tom, and think "So what? All this makes sense." But for me these ideas are so radical to the Evangelical bubble I grew up in, that I am weirdly nervous about letting people read it. My thinking brain says that the people that care about me will still care about me, but the lizard brain sees the future me with a scarlet letter walking around Annapolis.

I am not the person I used to be. Am I better? Worse? Am I more or less Christian? What Would Jesus Think about me? I think I am following Jesus better now, but I may be wrong and I am still on a journey. I am not certain, and certainty is no longer my goal, for certainty is a poor guide. I am on a journey to know Jesus better, and I expect some twists and turns in this path. But, Jesus and I are good; we are committed to each other more than ever. If you are a friend I hope we continue our friendship unchanged. If you have questions and want me to explain more, or if you want to challenge me on some points, I would be happy to have a conversation.