Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 12,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

I’m sure it has something to do with a new year approaching.
And I’ve been reading a lot. Reading opens my eyes, opens me. I see things and see things differently. Reading incites reflection and births desires. Some books are just that transformative. I feel like if I stopped reading, maybe some of the restlessness would depart. But perhaps I would also be deprived of something wonderful by abandoning these texts. And besides, I can’t un-know whatever I have already read.

I am re-imagining my life.
I am frustrated.
I feel the need to go, to move, to push, to take a risk.
And I’m not sure which way to go or what to do.
There is something more, but I don’t know what it is.

And then have some eggnog or something.

At one point in the evening, conversation landed on the topic of religion. And it got a little intense. A few ladies launched full throttle into diatribe against Christianity. And that was followed by the now-so-commonplace assertion, “I’m spiritual but not religious.”   One of the ladies went on to sing the praises of Buddhism and tell about why it makes so much more sense to her than Christianity. I listened. Though I had plenty to say, I just listened.

But my unspoken words have been dying to get out. So here they are.

I certainly empathize with their (or anyone’s) disdain for Christianity. Truthfully, Christianity does not have the best track record. Many injustices and oppressions have been committed in the name of Christ. It is a painful, shameful history indeed.  Additionally, the theology and cosmology of Christianity leave a lot of unanswered questions.  And the more Christians have insisted that the Bible is the answer to everything, the more glaringly obvious the unanswered questions become. I, too, have struggled with this. But can we concede for a moment that perhaps the empty and the unsavory of this “Christianity” are not of God?  When we encounter Christianities that are inconsistent with Christ, we must make a decision: Either those Christianities are feeble and flawed, or the whole thing, Christ included, is hogwash. Christianity is not Christ. But the two are so often conflated. (And that ought to serve as a high call for Christians to perpetually examine the ways we are/are not like Christ, so that the inevitable conflation is an accurate representation.)

But back to the feeble and flawed…

It is my position that all religions are feeble and flawed. The Divine is so magnificent. So beyond. So incomprehensible. And we seek out ways to grasp God.  That is what religion is. Religion is us inventing ways to reach for and connect with the uncontainable. Have you ever tried nailing Jello to a wall?  Have you ever tried to catch snowflakes in a Ziploc bag?  We are wonderful!  But we are frail and finite….and so are our inventions, including religion.

It’s easy to get mad about religions you don’t agree with, about religions that have done harm to you, about religions that don’t make sense to you. That’s easy. The harder and higher task to is to recognize that our own religion is cause for just as much indignation. It, too, is feeble and flawed. We are all desperately reaching for God. I don’t think that being above or beyond Christianity makes someone more enlightened. Perhaps the most enlightened thing we can do is honor the divine impulse to reach for God and honor each person’s shaky, wobbly, feeble attempts.

I recently had a conversation with a close friend about our self-imposed exiles from church.  We each have had a hard time finding a church that fits. We each have beef with the church. We are progressive Christians that value a multiplicity of Jesus-loving expressions.  Maybe one would expect us to get high off an anti-church dialogue. To ping back and forth about its many flaws. To pride ourselves in living above the church fray.

In reality, we lament.  We long. We miss. For both us, the church has been a cornerstone in our identity formation. The church has been an essential ingredient for constructing loving community at various times in life.  Being anti-church means dismissing how enriched we feel after singing heart-wrenching songs in a sanctuary full of people. That stuff matters. I’m not saying that church is the only means to construct community. We are more creative than that. I’m not saying that we absolutely cannot do without the good things church offers. I’m saying let’s not pretend that we have not benefitted from or enjoyed church. That’s not cool.

In the first scenario, I have poured my heart out to someone. Something worries, troubles, or afflicts me, and I vulnerably divulge those burdens. And the person on the receiving end says, “I’ll pray for you.”  This response is often genuine. But sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s the easy way out. Truthfully, it is easier to tell me that you will pray for me than it is to walk or talk with me through pain.  Sometimes this response is a way to absolve them of their communal responsibility to respond to my needs, to carry burdens, to be present.

In the second scenario, someone who knows very little about me tells me they will pray for me. This, too, is often genuine (and appreciated). But why does the person feel the need vocalize their intent to pray for me? I think, in this case,the “I’ll pray for you” response may be marshaled as a means to gain greater access to me. Perhaps it is vocalized not to reveal their prayer intentions but their relational intentions. In other words, “I care about you” or “I want to be involved in your life.” So the relational desire is cloaked in spiritual language.

So, what to make of this?

I don’t throw these scenarios out as criticisms. I generally appreciate when people tell me they will pray for me (whether they actually do or not). I contemplate these scenarios because I think there is more to the utterance than what we interpret at face-value. There is more to it than simply revealing one’s prayer intentions. Isn’t it possible that “I’ll pray for you” is actually a rhetorical move to dodge the responsibility of doing the gritty community?  Isn’t it also possible that “I’ll pray for you” is actually a rhetorical move to attempt to foster a greater sense of connectedness?

In virtually every domain of my life, I am required to simultaneously amplify and mute certain aspects of my self. Admittedly, this is necessary in certain contexts. For instance, it would not be appropriate to give full voice to my spiritual/religious convictions and curiosities while I am performing my role as a teacher in the classroom. Could I get away with it? Yes, probably. But many students would probably get uncomfortable, which would inhibit their learning. And their discomfort might evoke a disaffirming response towards me. So, perhaps, no one would be well-served by the bringing of my whole self in that situation. It’s not hard to imagine other similar situations.

But what happens when all situations are those situations?

Am I living a life of profound fragmentation? Am I ever a whole BEING, or am I always only a DOING, serving a particular function required by the context?

There is a song that starts, “Lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary…”
But today, my prayer is, “Lord, prepare a sanctuary for me to be.”

Reblogged from Eugene Cho:

At the expense of being called a cynic, a hater, an angry Asian man, and [insert your words here], I still think it’s important and necessary to be mindful of the history, context, and stories of why we mark or celebrate certain “events.”

For example: Thanksgiving.

Let’s be honest:
The notion of being grateful and thankful is a beautiful thing. It’s a concept that transcends any gender, race, age, religion, etc.
But honestly, I have a difficult time acknowledging Thanksgiving – let alone, …

Sobering Thanksgiving thoughts from Eugene Cho. Even as we are thankful, we ought to be mindful of this country’s history of genocide.

How Disability Challenges Orthodox Christianity (Part 1)

Definitely worth reading. It’s touching and challenging and calls into question the Christian (over)emphasis on “right belief”.

“Classrooms can be places of real education, but they can also be camps for dogma. And that’s troubling. Many seminary students are second-career individuals, so this may be the only time a professor gets to open the door to new insights before the students trek off to their ministries, where they will be looked to by parishioners as experts. Unless seminary professors put our students (and ourselves) under the microscope, examining the motivations and commitments behind our beliefs, we will be creating monsters, un-self-aware and unchallenged ministry leaders with a dangerous stamp of approval provided by their seminary degrees.
Religious educators who train religious professionals play a powerful role in our society; we can either reinforce assumed facts about our own religions and stereotypes of others, thereby encouraging prejudice, or we can identify our intellectual gaps and personal wounds that make us human, overcome them, and perhaps live out the golden rule of loving our neighbors as we would have them love us.”  (Brandon G. Withrow)

Full article here:
Finding Empathy in Religious Studies