FREEDOM FROM RELIGION
These are excerpts of a book I am in the process of writing. I invite feedback and dialogue. Thanks.
Dale
===============
FREEDOM FROM RELIGION
The Confessions of Saint Nobody:
Anonymous Believer, Sinner, Human
====================
Introduction -
“Don’t stop believin’. Hold on to that feelin’.”
I decided that if God was real, then He was everywhere. I needed to be able to
find him anywhere.
- Jessica Williams
If God is real, then He is bigger than religion.
- Dale Baker
If. . .
If is a very big word for being so small.
If is a fellow that seems out of place in the world of spirituality. He does not fit
in with Orthodoxy and Inerrancy. He does not mix well with Belief and Faith.
He doesn’t go to the same parties as Doctrine and Creed.
But I can’t seem to live without him.
If. . .
But I can’t stop saying his name.
If. . .
I can’t part from his company.
If. . .
I am dependent on “If” for my life.
What does that make me? Unfaithful? Faithless? A weak believer? Heretic?
Heathen? Pagan? Lost soul?
Can I even call myself a believer? I believe so.
What do I know about God for sure? I am not sure.
Do I have to be right to know God? to have salvation? eternal life?
Or can I know God without having the right answers? without knowing the right
questions?
Will I ever have it all figured out, or will I die with more questions than answers?
I don’t say, “I believe in God if. . .”
I say, “I believe in God. If He is real, then my belief is not in vain, and one day I
will know.”
I look forward to that day.
I believe that faith does not exist in a vaccuum. It is the polar opposite of doubt.
Where there is no doubt, there is no faith.
Faith is the answer for doubt, the rebuke for accusation, the “substance
[realization] of things hoped for, the evidence [confidence] of things not seen”
[Hebrews 11:1 New King James Version Bible] (“the firm foundation under everything that
makes life worth living. It’s our handle on what we can’t see” [11:1 The Message]).
The absence of doubt is certainty, knowledge, reason, rationale. Where these
rule, faith cannot dwell. We must believe in the unseen to live by faith.
What do I believe?
I am persuaded of my own immortality.
I am certain only of my own mortality.
I am persuaded of the power of God to change me.
I am certain only of my responsibility to change.
Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it alive and moving.
- Paul Williams
To me, belief is “the hope that the good that I don’t see is more real and true and
everlasting than the evil that I do see.”
More than anything else, this book is about the difference between religion and
faith -- the difference between being a Christian and being a Believer.
“I believe in Kingdom Come, when all the colors will bleed into one, bleed into one, and yes I’m
still runnin’.”
====================
Chapter One -
“It certainly does suck!”
(or, “You’re sucking my will to live!”)
Ever feel overwhelmed?
Maybe sometimes everything piles up inside and you don’t know what to do with
it. You don’t know how to deal with the anxiety and the stress, the confusions,
the questions, the doubts.
The pile becomes so high -- so large a pile -- that at some point it starts
collapsing, caving in, avalanching, and it doesn’t matter whether you feel on top
of everything or somewhere underneath, you are in danger. With time your
trouble increases -- the greater the pile-up, the greater the fall. Certain and
predictable destruction looms.
Maybe you’ve never felt that way. I’m happy for you. No, really, I am.
There doesn’t seem to be any logic to it, but some people seem to go through life
without ever finding a bump in the road. Others seem to thrive on bumps, as if
their life is one great big 4X4 Off-Road Adventure. And then there are those of
us who sincerely try to avoid the bumps, and in doing so, we fall off the edge of
the road.
I don’t think I ever set out to make my life hard, but it seems to do quite well on
its own. There are many times that I wonder what I am “training” for. In fact,
forgive me for saying so, but there are many times that I wonder who I am
working for, or living for. I am one of those people, in the words of Brennan
Manning, who “just can’t keep the cheese from falling off their cracker.”
There are the times when I feel like I am sinking in an abyss of depression,
discouragement, disillusionment, no way out -- being sucked toward a whirlpool
that leads to doom -- lonely death and secret burial. Maybe I choose to open my
mouth and scream, even though my lungs will surely fill with water, believing
against belief that perhaps my voice can break the surface of the ocean, and if my
voice can find freedom, then can I.
And so I write. Write or drown.
A great writer once gave an account of a discussion he had with an admirer: the
fan met him at a party or function, told him how much he loved his work, and
then mentioned that he had always wanted to be a writer. He asked the author if
he had any suggestions for someone getting started. His reply: “A writer writes.”
Certainly this means for some people that if you don’t do what you are expected
to do, you won’t get paid. For others it may mean that if you don’t do what you
love, it won’t matter if you get paid. You won’t have a life. I agree with the
people who believe that each person has some gift to share with the world, and if
they don’t share it, they will be unfulfilled in their life.
And so I write. I am compelled. I am compelled, as no man can compel me.
Here is the irony: for most of the last year and a half, I have no written. And for
the last year and a half, I have had more reason than ever to write. More
philosophical ponderings, more catastrophic traumas, more relationships of love
and loss, more fatal blows to the structure of my life and the foundation of my
belief system. More . . . that seemed to lead to less.
What makes me write now?
I write . . . so that I won’t drown. (I hope.)
====================
Chapter Two -
“I’ll Stop the World and Melt with You”
I went to Israel last year.
(In case you are curious, I also got engaged and un-engaged, totalled my car, quit
my job, and had a near-nervous breakdown, all in the space of a week. But that
was before Israel.)
On the same trip, I travelled through Amsterdam (where they serve beer at McDonald’s), and
to Egypt (the Great Pyramids, the Sphinx, a boat ride down the Nile River, stopping to see the tombs and temples).
But there was something about Israel. Something else. Something completely
different. A whole other world. A whole other lifetime, it would seem. In
Portland, Oregon, I stepped onto an airplane, and in Tel Aviv, Israel, I stepped out
of a time machine into 4000 years of history.
It would be cliche to tell you of the homes and streets and people looking as if
they hadn’t changed in 40 centuries. Every book, videotape, and television
documentary about the Holy Land emphasizes its “separate-ness” -- its
uniqueness. To be sure, most of the non-Western world (and by that I mean
un-secularized and un-industrialized, not un-civilized) -- Africa, India, China,
Eastern Europe, etc. -- may look essentially the same as thousands of years ago.
But Israel is a paradox. Of course, it is industrialized, secularized, computerized,
and capitalized, yet it retains its claim to history.
Israelis wear blue jeans, smoke cigarettes, drive cars (all certain marks of civilization) but at
the same time they boast a heritage beyond memory, practically beyond history.
Maybe I was especially intrigued by Israel’s connection to the past because of the
relative youth of my own homeland, and its attempts at maturity: I can hardly see
evidence of our few hundred years of heritage, yet we position ourselves as the
leaders of the free world (and much of the rest of the world, as well). My nationalism was only
one of many parts of my personality that would be tested, challenged, battered by
storms, and potentially destroyed by my journey to Israel.
I SUPPOSE I had better make my point, or else lose your interest.
When I set foot in Israel, I touched something eternal.
From the Mediterranean Sea to the walls of Jerusalem to the streets of Bethlehem,
my temporal trivial life felt the wind from another world, the breath from another
existence, and perhaps the hope for another life.
Yes, I was struck by the visual grandeur, and simplicity, of the land of God’s
People. But I was struck in my heartbeat -- in my breath -- by the grandeur and
simplicity of God.
====================
Chapter Three -
“Whostolamahonda!”
(or, “You label me, you label you”)
So what did the pile in the last chapter have to do with anything? What is this
talk about avalanches, and whirlpools, and does that have anything to do with the
Holy Land, or anything else, for that matter?
All I can say is this: I went to Israel as a “born-again” Christian, and came back
something else entirely. What else -- I still don’t know entirely.
It used to be easy to define myself. I had a list of labels: White. Anglo-Saxon.
Male. American. Christian. Protestant. Evangelical. Fundamentalist.
Pentecostal/Charismatic. Non-denominational (one of those funny names that
means “no name”).
My aspiration was to be a missionary, all over the world. The prospect of going
to Africa, Japan, or Mexico excited me, but I wanted to go to every country.
After 27 years as a Christian (including 3 years of intensive Bible school
discipleship training) I believed I had something great to export [all the right
answers to all the right questions, you know].
I don’t know at what point I started to change. Maybe it was when my estranged
fiancee told me that she didn’t want to be a prize for my good behavior. Or
perhaps it was during the long days of tearing rotten siding from condominiums in
the pouring rain, when I had to find something else to occupy my mind. I don’t
remember when the change began, but I remember telling the tour leader -- in a
souvenir shop in Cairo, Egypt -- that I couldn’t hold onto any of my previous
beliefs; I didn’t value my doctrines enough to build on them; I could find no life
in my spirituality to sustain me. Everything that I thought I knew seemed to have
been filtered through a tightly woven screen of biases and prejudices
(pre-judgments).
WHAT HAPPENED in Israel that was so profoundly disquieting to my soul?
What was growing inside me that was so predatory, so cancerous, so murderous
toward my so-called life? It was as if there was another me inside me, no longer
willing to be the lesser twin -- no longer satisfied to scrape an existence from the
table droppings of his fat, over-fed other. (Or was he so close to annihilation that
his survival depended on his last-ditch effort at gaining the upper hand?)
I know that the transformation began long before Israel. Even two or three years
before, while I was in Bible college, I was questioning my own ability to be who I
thought I was supposed to be.
Regardless of how many times I was told that the spiritual disciplines I was
practicing were NOT dead works, empty religion, or mind-control legalism
enforced by another, I could see them no other way. I don’t fault anyone who
tried to lead me in a godly direction, but there was something wrong in my head.
I could not STOP doing what was expected of me (in my own mind); I could no
more keep myself from performing toward an impossible standard than I could
keep my heart from pumping blood, or my lungs from sucking air.
I tried many times to adjust my “confession of faith” (you know, the hocus-pocus
mantra “God, please help me. I can’t do this on my own” that you repeat over
and over, and then stand up, walk out, and live, on your own).
I tried to get desperate. I tried to get emotional. I tried to get into self-discipline
and self-denial.
There seemed to be a vast gulf between my belief -- salvation by grace through
faith -- and my practice -- anxiety, guilt, and depression. Anxiety that I wasn’t
doing enough right; guilt that I was doing too much wrong; depression that I
couldn’t do any different.
At some point I started to make a few independent decisions. (These are the
decisions that I alone was responsible for; some people call them “adult”
decisions): I opted not to continue Bible college, although I didn’t have a clue
what else I was going to do. I quit a job that I felt was making me into a person
that I didn’t want to be. I took a month off and did nothing at all except to talk to
and try to listen to God.
During that month I decided I was going to go to Israel.
Prior to that month were the crises of Chapter One, beginning with my
un-engagement. (Just in case any of you want to feel sorry for me and blame her,
please note that two days after I proposed to her, I confessed to my fiancee that I
had been unfaithful to her less than a month prior, and with a man. Believe me,
one thing I have NEVER questioned is that I sow what I reap.)
Suffice it to say that I was ready for some serious soul-searching. I don’t mean
looking deep into my soul to find some spiritual strength; I mean looking for my
soul.
The Holy Land seemed just the place to do that.
Now back to the original question: so, what happened? Did I have an awakening?
an epiphany? a revelation, or a visitation?
I got wet.
“I have spoke with the tongue of angels. I have held the hand of the devil. It was warm in the
night. I was cold as a stone. . . but I still haven’t found what I’m lookin’ for.”
====================
Chapter Four -
“Turn or burn!”
(or, “I want to be under the sea”)
Christianity has some nasty history.
The Jesuits have been accused of the wholesale slaughter of the Indian peoples of
South America. Similar accusations have been made toward the early Christian
settlers of North America. The Crusaders of Europe may have been overzealous
in their conversion tactics where the Moslem people were concerned.
At one point in our heritage, certain believers even gave certain other believers
the ultimatum, the option, of being dunked or being burned. They were called
“re-baptizers”, and they were convinced that to be saved from the fires of
“h-e-double-toothpicks”, you had to be baptized Their Way, or be plunged into
the fires of a pile of toothpicks.
No one had to threaten me with fire. I decided to get re-baptized all by myself.
What did I think? It didn’t work the first time? My conversion didn’t take? I
wasn’t really saved? Maybe I didn’t say the right words (or maybe I didn’t really
believe them); perhaps I had done sins that negated my born-again experience.
Symbolic though baptism may be, I honestly never was convinced that I
experienced death to my “old” self, my un-regenerate, “raised in church to
believe I was o.k.” self. So, right or wrong, I decided to take a dive, again.
The trip to Israel was full of experiences with water, and those are some of my
fondest memories. The Dead Sea (or Salt Sea) was the first place I had ever been
able to float. I went swimming in the Sea of Galilee, on whose shores Jesus of
Nazareth teached and touched so many people. We also took a boat ride on the
Galilee, and I remember somewhere near the middle of the lake thinking to
myself, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it were perfectly quiet here and now?” and
the boat pilot shut off his engine as if reading my thoughts. I walked on the beach
of the Mediterranean Sea, and late the first night we stayed in Tel Aviv some of
my tour companions helped a local group of fishermen draw in their nets. Then,
in Egypt, we floated down the Nile River and I soaked my walk-weary feet under
the soothing jets of the swimming pool. We nearly swam in the Nile as well,
while we took a “leisurely” afternoon sailing journey, with vessel captains almost
young enough to be my sons, (and their subsequent lack of sailing expertise).
We swam in the Red Sea, where Moses and the Jews fled from Pharoah and the
Egyptians. This time we fled from Egyptian children who would not take “No” as
an answer when they peddled their hand-crafted wares. Then there was the pool
on the roof of the hotel in Cairo, that we asked the manager to fill for us (what
presumptuous American children we were!) and he obliged. We shared the pool
with a little red salamander, and we shared Egyptian candy bars with very little
chocolate -- the closest thing to ice cream I could find at the corner market.
(Some of our tour mates ate the store out of ice cream bars, which is what I was
sent to buy, but I wasn’t about to return to a group of travel-tired empty-handed,
what do you think I am, stupid?)
And the Jordan River.
Where Jesus was baptized.
Where I got wet. |
Spirituality
