In my last post I touched on the vast amount of diversity within the Christian tradition that I came to discover (something I hope to describe in more detail later on), and how that led me to realize that much of what I had thought of growing up as “traditional Christianity” was actually one very particular (and quite recent) expression of Christianity among many. Of course, none of that makes such an expression wrong or in any way inferior. Indeed, although I no longer identify with that way of seeing Christianity today, I still hold it quite close to my heart (even though its apparent prominence and degree of seemingly uncritical acceptance in our culture can be admittedly frustrating for me at times). Nevertheless, I cannot deny that it served as a great source of spiritual nourishment in my life for many years, and has no doubt served in a similar fashion for millions of Christians around the world for many centuries. I truly believe that the Spirit of God has worked through it, producing changed lives filled with love and compassion, and that the Spirit of God continues to work through it today. However, for me and for no doubt many others, it ultimately became more of a stumbling block than a vehicle for spiritual growth, yet a stumbling block that – although in many ways painful at times – also served as a catalyst in enabling me to find a degree of spiritual freedom I had never experienced before, leading to a paradigm shift in how I came to see the Christian faith that truly changed my life.

During this paradigm shift, I came to see the Christian life not primarily as a life of requirements and rewards, of “getting it right” or “measuring up” by believing or doing all of the right things in order to please God for the sake of receiving a blessed afterlife in the future, but rather as a life most centrally marked by radical transformation in the present through a personal relationship with God. I came to see that believing is less about thinking and more about beloving; that faith is less about intellectually assenting to the truth of a given set of propositions and more about actively trusting and committing my loyalty and allegiance to the God to whom those propositions point; and that truth is not limited to or contingent upon the confines of literal historical factuality, but rather is most deeply, most meaningfully, and most transformatively expressed and experienced through the storied world of metaphor and parable so brilliantly modeled in the life and teachings of Jesus – the wonderful paradox that truth needn’t always be fact, that myth needn’t always be fiction, and that when it comes to the meaning of a story versus whether it actually happened, although it can assuredly be both, it is the meaning of the story that almost always matters most. I came to see that I needn’t take the Bible literally in order to take it seriously, that I needn’t fear the findings of mainstream scholarship or contemporary science in order to study it faithfully, and that although there are a variety of different perspectives on its nature, origin, inspiration, interpretation, and authority, what matters most is not so much believing or defending one particular perspective over another, but rather allowing the Spirit to speak into my life by being intentional about listening for the voice of God within its pages, regardless of my perspective.

I came to see that the Christian tradition is an extraordinarily rich, lively, and multifaceted conversation voicing countless intellectually and experientially sophisticated understandings of the Christian life and worldview, and that it’s not about bringing the conversation to an end by reducing it to the particular understanding of a specific voice, but about joining the symphony of voices and living within the variegated beauty of its melody, as it continues to develop and evolve in response to the Spirit’s ever present work within its midst. That it’s okay to have open or unanswered questions no matter how central, that it’s okay to disagree, and that it’s even okay to be wrong, but that what’s not okay is to refuse to love God by refusing to love one another – that I can worship God with wild abandon without needing to demean those of other religious persuasions. I began to realize the danger of reducing my faith to a cognitive level and thereby missing the sense of wonder, awe, and mystery about God and salvation; the importance of the affective, emotive, and intuitive dimensions of human life; and the importance of the practical outworking of Christian commitment in a life of service to God and others. That although I may not always be able to choose my beliefs (i.e. what seems to me to be true), I do have the power to choose how to live in light (or in spite) of them; that Christianity is less about affirming a system of beliefs (including this one) and more about pursuing a way of life; and that the fruit of the Spirit isn’t a mind marked by correct theology, but a life marked by joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, and, most of all, love.

I came to see that my identity isn’t found in being a “Christian” – whether conservative, liberal, evangelical, catholic, contemplative, activist, charismatic, orthodox, or associated with any particular denomination or theology, etc. – but that it’s found in simply being a child of God; that it’s not about who I am, but whose I am (and not to be confused with whose I believe I am). I came to see that the Christian life isn’t about toeing the party lines of man-made religion which construct endless barriers of division between who’s “in” and who’s “out,” but about a relationship with God that supersedes all party lines and breaks down all barriers of division; that it’s about becoming increasingly conscious of and intentional about a deepening relationship with God as known in Jesus, as I seek daily to pick up my cross and follow Him and His way of self-giving love for God and for all of God’s creation. That it’s not so much about subscribing to a theology about Christ, but about dying and rising with Christ, about dying to an old identity and an old way of being, and about being born again into a new identity and a new way of being; an identity and a way of being that is centered, not in beliefs about God, but in God. That it’s about a relationship and a way of life that not only transforms me, but also allows me to serve as one of the primary means through which God transforms others and, ultimately, the world. 

That it’s not about punching my “get out of hell free” card by reciting a prayer or a creed and then waiting around to escape earth so that I can go to heaven one day when I die, but about heaven coming to earth here and now; about the Kingdom of God as a present tense reality experienced whenever God’s will is done here on earth as it already is in heaven. About being sensitive to the Spirit’s presence and work, not only in my own life, but in the lives of those around me; about living out my identity as an image-bearer of the divine by reflecting God’s sovereign rule of love into all of creation; about becoming an active participant in fulfilling God’s dream for the world; about doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with the One who chose to be humbled beyond all comparison. That it’s not about believing in God and trying to “be a good person,” but about becoming a good person through the practice of loving God and loving others; about becoming the person God created me to be; about loving God with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength; and about living life in the redeeming presence of God’s love, now and forever.

As you can imagine, this paradigmatic shift in my thinking radically impacted my overarching perspective on how I came to see and live out my faith, giving me a renewed sense of passion and purpose as I sought to move forward into the next season of my life by focusing less on what I “believed” and more on simply following Jesus; less on being “right” and more on loving and serving others. Not because I no longer valued the quest for truth through pursuing the life of the mind (I most assuredly did and still do), but because I no longer idolized those things in the way that I used to, seeing God and His people as more important and worthy of my love and devotion than any set of beliefs. And despite the fact that my thinking has shifted quite radically in many ways, it has also in many ways remained very much the same, as I still believe just as much as I used to (if not moreso) in the existence of God, the centrality of both Jesus and the Bible, the importance of a relationship with God as known in Jesus, and the fundamental need for transformation (both for myself as well for the whole world). Although the way I believe those things may be different in certain respects, they all still hold a very foundational place in how I have come to see things today. But perhaps most foundational of all is the burning desire within me to love God and others with all that I have, a desire that is both deeper and stronger today than it has ever been, and a desire I hope to better put into practice as I continue along my journey.

Indeed, it is with that desire in mind that I decided to create this blog in the first place, and it is with that desire in mind that I hope to devote the remainder of it to unpacking in greater detail much of what I have, up to this point, only been able to give a brief glimpse. Although there is much left to unpack, perhaps the best place to start would be to unpack that which became the greatest source of struggle in my faith, and which has since provided the greatest source of breakthrough and freedom – the very nature of faith itself. And so it is to that topic that I will begin to turn my attention in more detail in the next series of posts.

Until then, thanks again for reading and – as always – stay curious, seek truth, and love well.

Cheers,