Posted by Benjamin on: 08.02.2007 /
Glenn Hager kindly invited me to participate in his synchroblog. Thanks Glen!
His subtitle was “(That didn’t prove true, and what I am learning lately)”
So a coupla lists–and a tiny bit of a justice and compassion slant (I’m not making this stuff up)
What I learned in church:
- Sex is mainly for procreation.
- America is the greatest nation on earth.
- Alchohol is evil. period.
- Using contraception is almost always a dumb, and perhaps even bad, idea.
- The U.N. is evil.
- Homosexuality is a far worse sin than gluttony.
- We’re right, and they’re wrong.
- God created the United States.
- Public Education is evil.
- The King James Version is the *only* right translation of the Bible into English.
- The Bible is about principles.
- Most of the stuff that came out of the civil rights movement was bad because it destroyed personal freedom.
- Roman Catholicism is evil.
- You can follow Jesus by going to church once a week and praying a prayer. And you can even pray the prayer in secret
- It’s not hard for the rich to get into the kindom of heaven. It’s easy.
- Forgiveness means you have to forget what the perp did, and pretend it didn’t really hurt you.
- The dichotomy between good and evil is simple and easy to see.
And what I’m learning lately–well, I don’t got do church so much anymore. But from lovely Monkfish, and Brian McLaren, and Jim Henderson, and Seattle Mennonite Church, and Dan Allender, and perhaps even Union a bit, I’m learning:
- It’s more important to be kind than right.
- You don’t have to buy into the idea that billions of people are going to burn in hell forever to be a christian.
- God’s not stressed or freaked out by gnarly pagan ideas and rituals.
- God cares more about the poor, the broken, the raped, the starving, the whole hurting world, than I do, and she certainly cares more about these people than she does about … stupid little doctrinal debates between various sects of the church in America.
- God doesn’t need the bible to talk to me.
- Actions are more important than words.
- I can make a difference.
- The Bible is about stories.
- God likes the idea of people giving power away to other people. Prodigiously. And Bit by bit.
- Real christians have to at least take into consideration the idea of war tax protest.
- Jesuits rock.
- Nuclear weapons are evil.
- Following Jesus is hella hard, and involves more than … openly changing your lifestyle.
- It’s okay to hate someone who hurt you.
- Good and evil are nuanced, and as humans we can’t really escape being victims and perps.
What about you?
32 Responses to "Syncroblog–Things I learned from “Church”"
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Comment by: Benjamin
1 08/2/07 7:38 AM | Comment Link |and here’s some of the other synchroblog posts
Alan @ The Assembling of the Church: Here I Am To Worship.
Heather @ A Deconstructed Christian: 15 Things I Learned From and Another 15 I Am Learning Lately
Jim @ Lord, I Believe; Help My Unbelief : Some Ecclesiastical Paradoxes
Lew @ The Pursuit: It’s A Grace vs. Works Thing
Lyn @ Beyond the 4 Walls: Learning To be “Proper”
Comment by: glenn
2 08/2/07 9:29 AM | Comment Link |Benjamin…
Pithy and provocative. Imagine that! I am amazed at the tangents of the church and how the main thing, i.e., love, has often been lost. But then that is human problem. Still, it really ticks me off and amazes me how we have missed this in “church life!” Thanks for making/helping me think!
Comment by: Julie Clawson
3 08/2/07 10:01 AM | Comment Link |I like your list. I posted my thoughts at my blog.
Comment by: Great Articles: Part 2 « re-dreaming the dream
4 08/2/07 10:43 AM | Comment Link |[...] Benjamin @ Justice and Compassion: Pithy and Provocative [...]
Comment by: Sam
5 08/2/07 2:57 PM | Comment Link |How truly sad for you………I have been a part of “the church” for sixty years and did not learn any of the things you learned. I am very grateful for the teaching that I recieved and learning that God IS love, Jesus died for all and brings hope to all who accept him as Savior, and the Gospel is Truth (KJV or not).
Comment by: Benjamin
6 08/2/07 4:22 PM | Comment Link |Sam, You’re right–sizeable parts of my story about church have been quite sad and painful. Glad to hear you’ve had a really great experience with the church! Welcome to Justice and compassion! I bet after sixty years you must have some really amazing, hair raising, hilarious, and inspiring stories of your experience with church. I’d love to hear one or two!
Comment by: Robert
7 08/2/07 8:26 PM | Comment Link |I too am sad for you. Sounds horrible. I’m glad you are listening to others who can help you see the church in a different light…one point of disagreement on the new list–I don’t think followers of Jesus are into “hating” those who hurt you…you might want to read about “turn the cheek” and “bless those that persecute” that’s what I have heard the people you mention above state …not to be a doormat, that’s altogether different…anyway here is my experience:
a group of people that have stuck through some really hard sh@%t like divorce, death, bankruptcy…people that have stuck it out for the long haul
people who have remained friends and celebrated weddings, babies, graduations and the like
that Jesus walks with me through the good and the bad
God can heal the violence I experienced at the hands of an abusive father and a subservient mother who didn’t bother to protect her children
a group of people who gather around loving God and serving in whatever place of pain the world is calling them to participate in bringing healing
The Jesus loves all people - even the Pharisees
The table of God is big and invites all who will to come
that I am not at the center, Jesus is and my life to the best of my ability is to be organized around His Kingdom -
That God really is love…
These are a few things I learned and am still learning in Church
Good post - thanks
Comment by: Rachel
8 08/2/07 8:53 PM | Comment Link |Welcome to Justice and Compassion, Glen, Sam and Robert! We hope you will hang around and join the conversation.
Robert, I love how the computer turned your cuss word into a link for an email address!
Comment by: Paul
9 08/3/07 12:41 AM | Comment Link |thanks benjamin, i’m glad you unlearned some of that and are learning more helpful constructive thangs. I posted my own synchoblog post and i certainly resonate with your thoughts - esp that one of the biggest challenges i face is to be concerned with being good and not just obsessed with being right…
Comment by: benjamin ady
10 08/3/07 11:44 AM | Comment Link |Robert,
Yeah–I kind of grew up with this fakish understanding/interpretation of turn the other cheek, love your enemies etc. Hatred was considered an unchristian emotion. C.S. Lewis and others get freaked out by David’s imprecatory prayers in the psalms–you know–the “god please make my enemies fall into a nest of scorpions, skunks, and porcupines.” We weren’t allowed to pray/think that way, even though the jews certainly *were*. A couple years ago my wife and I were invited to attend a Purim service with an orthodox Jewish family that are friends of ours. We all gathered in the synagogue, and we were all given little noisemakers. then the whole book of esther was read out loud. Every time Haman’s name was about to be read out, everyone would use their noisemakers and their voices and feet and hands to make enormous lots of noise, so as to blot out the reading of his name. They would go on for 2 or 3 minutes every time. There was this astounding anger and hatred toward him–a wish to blot out his name and memory forever. They do this every year at purim–orthodox jews all over the world. The negative emotion is palpable and intense. I found it a little frightening. But I think they are onto something. Haman wanted to completely and utterly wipe out the jewish people, and he nearly pulled it off.
Dan Allender said we must hate the perp so much that we want him to die. Not to be obliterated completely–but that the person who did such a horrifying crime against us would cease to exist, and in their place would be born an amazing new person–the compassionate, wise, gentle, glorious person god meant them to be.
This is something I’ve seen Iraqi people doing in a couple documentaries and news reports I’ve seen–calling out to god to destroy and wreak vengeance on those who have brought blood and ashes upon them. There’s something so amazingly real and refreshing about that after trying to listen to american christian positive thinking “Your best life now” type stuff. Hope that makes some sense.
Comment by: benjamin ady
11 08/3/07 11:52 AM | Comment Link |Paul.
yeah. I find it much easier to be right than good. Good I can hardly do at all. Right is easy, since I’m a lot smarter than most people =). Kind–kind I can pull off sometimes. Other times, I completely blow the kindness thing. I’m also amazingly good at being wrong, and evil, and … rather unkind. But I have make a huge lot of progress since growing up in the church I grew up in. I was almost totally more concerned with right than kind back then. Now I’m a lot further leaning toward kindness being way more important than rightness.
Thanks for commenting. I think we’ve interacted before! I remember briefly talking with you about how kewl it is that your in UK and you know Q-cafe. Another such coffehouse type thing associated with a church has recently opened in seattle called mosaic I think you’d like it a lot too.
Comment by: Robert
12 08/3/07 2:00 PM | Comment Link |Benjamin,
you stated:
Yeah–I kind of grew up with this fakish understanding/interpretation of turn the other cheek, love your enemies etc.
I would encourage you to go back to the OTM Revolution talks by Brian McLaren - he actually addressed this topic of “hate” for the follower of Christ in one of his talks…
I think this might be one of those times to agree
it is better to be “kind” than right around issues of hate…
Comment by: Monte
13 08/3/07 5:16 PM | Comment Link |Beautiful! I don’t feel sorry for you at all! Sounds to me like you’ve found some treasures.
Best wishes,
Monte
Comment by: Rachel
14 08/3/07 6:04 PM | Comment Link |Welcome to Justice and Compassion, Monte!
Comment by: Meg
15 08/3/07 6:18 PM | Comment Link |yes it’s ok to hate … ecclesiastes - a time to love, a time to HATE. it’s liberating, when we hate, to acknowledge and examine and describe the hatred and the feelings around it. And we all do hate…
We all respond to others who are different from us negatively sometimes - unexamined and unacknowledged, this grows into racism and group atrocities against those who are different from us which punctuate our planet’s history. Examined and acknowledged, our hatred and fear of ‘other’ and ‘different’ can grow into respect and love.
it’s too easy for us humans to fakely pretend to love, and in our hearts, hate. that’s why i think it’s harmful to make hate taboo.
Comment by: Rachel
16 08/3/07 7:12 PM | Comment Link |Here are a few things I learned from church that didn’t ring true:
* Social action is for godless liberals.
* It is OK to take young, impressionable children to extremely scary “Christian” movies about “the End Times.”
* Parents should try to “break a child’s will without breaking his spirit.”
* It doesn’t matter how we treat the earth because soon God will destroy it in a flaming fireball anyhow.
* Whatever the state of Israel does is always right. Arabs are bad.
* The book of Revelation is to be interpreted literally; the Sermon on the Mount is not.
* “Immorality” means sins having to do with sex.
* Women should be seen and not heard.
* Rock music is of the Devil.
* Ecumenism is bad. Mainline churches have abandoned the true faith.
* It is OK to gossip as long as you present it as a “prayer request.”
* The “Anti-Christ” will probably be a Roman Catholic pope.
Here are a few things I’ve been learning lately:
* It is possible to have strong religious beliefs AND be respectful and tolerant of those who do not share those beliefs.
* The Bible is not more important than Jesus.
* God gets really angry about economic injustice.
* Following Jesus affects every area of life.
* Christians were pacifists for the first 300 years of the Church.
* It’s possible to believe in evolution and creation at the same time.
* I love liturgy and beauty and mystery and ritual. And that is not a bad thing.
* I can’t pledge my allegiance both to Christ and to the empire.
* Jesus feeds me and gives me strength for my journey through the Eucharist.
* I can see the face of Jesus in the face of my cantankerous Grandma.
* It is possible to be theologically liberal and a faithful Christian.
* Faith and doubt go together.
* God loves justice, mercy and humility.
Comment by: Benjamin
17 08/3/07 8:19 PM | Comment Link |Megs
You nailed it!
Comment by: Benjamin
18 08/3/07 8:26 PM | Comment Link |Robert
Yeah. There is a hatred that is ultimately kind. Dan Allender talks about the christian use of vengeance. Do you remember even Brian Mclaren touched on this. He told the story of how you can be next to a flooding raging river, and you see someone floating down, and so you and your posse link arms and form a human chain out from the shore to rescue the person. But then you see another person, and you do it again. and again. and you’re starting to get tired. That’s compassion. But justice means that you send a part of your posse up river to stop the bastards who are throwing the people in. It’s okay to hate those people, in my book. Christian vengeance means using vengeance in such a way that we cleverly (see David and Nathan re: Bathsheba), even sneakily, use our our wiles and hatred to … force the person who is throwing people in to realize what they are doing, and hate thier own actions as much as we and the victims do.
Comment by: Benjamin
19 08/3/07 8:30 PM | Comment Link |Rachel,
OMG–god will soon destroy it in a flaming fireball anyhow. that’s *great*. sounds so absurd from out here–but I totally remember that in church.
Your list so rings true for me as well. I think I shall repost it at the top tomorrow.
Comment by: Justice and Compassion
20 08/4/07 3:33 AM | Comment Link |[...] (that turned out not to be true–and what I’m learning now). the Glenn instigated Synchroblog. From Rachel’s comment in this thread. [...]
Comment by: Great Articles: Summary « re-dreaming the dream
21 08/4/07 9:45 AM | Comment Link |[...] Benjamin @ Justice and Compassion: Pithy and Provocative [...]
Comment by: Monte Asbury’s Blog What I learned from church that didn’t ring true … «
22 08/4/07 1:24 PM | Comment Link |[...] @ One For The Road : A Gracious Voice Sonja @ Calacirian: Losing Her Religion and Keeping Her Faith Benjamin @ Justice and Compassion: Pithy and Provocative Julie @ Onehandclapping: Faith, Certainty, and Tom Cruise Aaron @ Regenerate: Hope Monte @ Monte [...]
Comment by: Kathleen
23 08/4/07 5:55 PM | Comment Link |But isn’t it better to love the sinner, hate the sin? I know that’s cliched and can be used to justify a lot of intolerant behavior, but still…if we’re trying to force people to hate their actions as much as we do, that means we hate their actions. It doesn’t have to mean that we hate them, does it? I see what you’re getting at, but I still don’t think that hating people is in accordance with the teachings of Jesus.
Comment by: benjamin ady
24 08/4/07 7:33 PM | Comment Link |kathleen
You said “I don’t think hating people is in accordance with the teachings of jesus”
I half agree with you. I think what you said is true, but it’s only half of the truth. The other half is that hating people *is* in line with the teaching of jesus. here’s to antinomy. Jesus pretty clearly hated the pharisees: “Doom to you, you snakes!” etc.
What is a person apart from their actions? Jesus interaction with the fig tree, and his story about the sheep and the goats, would both seem to indicate that the answer according to him is … “the question is invalid”. Or at least that’s *half* the answer according to him =)
Comment by: Calacirian » Things I Learned From Church …
25 08/5/07 10:24 AM | Comment Link |[...] Benjamin @ Justice and Compassion: Pithy and Provocative [...]
Comment by: Che V.
26 08/9/07 5:05 PM | Comment Link |I’ve been following all the links associated with this topic, and have enjoyed them alot.
However, though slightly off topic, how do you explain hating someone?
I admit that my upbringing makes me want to recoil from that, but I have come far enough in life to know that the ‘christianese’ I’ve been taught, is mostly bunk.
So could you explain it more fully, maybe even on another post?
I’d really like to try to understand….
Thanks.
Comment by: benjamin ady
27 08/10/07 1:07 PM | Comment Link |Che
I shall make a new post on the topic next week. thankyou for asking!
Comment by: Justice and Compassion
28 08/13/07 3:34 AM | Comment Link |[...] the synchroblog thread, there was some discussion of hating people, in which I threw out some thoughts to the effect that [...]
Comment by: wende
29 04/28/08 3:09 PM | Comment Link |You contradict yourself. You said about “giving power away to other people” yet you delete comments you don’t agree with. Thats keeping power, not giving it away. And you are so anti hate yet you say its okay to hate those who hurt you. Well Muslims hurt the US..by your words its fine we hate them, but then you contradict yourself with these situations. you are a very confused man.
Comment by: David H
30 04/28/08 4:49 PM | Comment Link |Wende, I don’t admin this blog but am also a very confused man. However, I would suggest you go back and carefully read the beginning of this thread. Contradictions are likely on this topic because it is about what we (each commenter) has learned in church and what we are learning as of late. Part of the reason why I am such a confused man is because much of what I learned in church as a youngster is contradictory to what I am learning today.
I don’t know about any comments being deleted, but as for Muslims hurting us that sword (and scimitar) cuts both ways.
All of that aside, I’m sure everyone here would love to hear what you have learned in church and what have learned lately. If there are no contradictions, bully for you.
Comment by: Benjamin
31 04/28/08 8:36 PM | Comment Link |Wende
Welcome to JaC! You said
How very human (not to mention godlike) of me! =)
I only very rarely delete comments on the blogs, and you’re right in that I disagree with the ones I delete, but you’re wrong in that I don’t delete all the ones I disagree with.
If you imagine that comments (and everything we say, for that matter) are made up of 2 elements: the *information* content, and the *relationship* content, then the policy here on Jacques is that we delete comments whose *relationship* content is excessively negative–in other words, comments whose relationship contents strikes us as excessively unkind. Because we disagree, in some sense, with that type of relationship content. There are lots of blogs on the internet where people can shoot relationship unkindness back and forth at each other with no controls. We want JaC to be a place where the relationship content is respectful, kind, etc. I hope that we will continue to do our best to invite those whose comments contain excessively negative relationship content to participate more respectfully. We’ve written a little about that on our about page.
I freely admit I’m very confused about lots of things. No surprise there.
Yes I’d also love to hear what you’ve learned in church, and what parts turned out to wrong, if any. I bet you have a beautiful fasinating story, like most people. In fact, if it tickles your fancy, I invite you to read my interview at CatE, as well as those of others, and perhaps even do your own interview.
Comment by: Benjamin
32 04/28/08 8:41 PM | Comment Link |Beyond that, I think we can talk about hatred as actions and words, or as emotion. It seems silly to me to label emotion “wrong”. It is what it is. When I experience hatred, the feeling, my hope (and I sure don’t pull this off anywhere near as well as I would like) is that I can use it for good ends–let it translate into words and actions that MTWABP.