I often wonder what I’d think of God if I’d grown up differently. How would the divine permeate my consciousness had I grown up without any religious training or been influenced by a different faith tradition? What if I’d been raised in the faith outside of the United States? What if my theology had been formed by both male AND female pastors? What if I’d heard other theories about hell and the afterlife? What if I had partaken in communion alongside folks in the LGBTQ community?
We are products of our environments. Our inherent beliefs are influenced by everything that influences us. And yet, how often have I heard certain styles of preaching are the correct ones? Certain theological tenets are the Biblical ones? Certain belief systems are the orthodox ones? I guess I’m more skeptical than ever after realizing, more so now at 34 than 15, just how massive this world is, how diverse its people are, how conflicted we remain in our varied perceptions of God. We are all searching God in our own ways, fueled by personal conviction, curiosity, bias, arrogance ... Christianity is an amalgamation of traditions and theologies, many named after human men convinced they were right in their doctrine of hell or depravity or human subjugation. We’ve been warned against making God in our own image, but is this not what we all do? We are but dusty specks in a universe of grandeur, unable to contemplate the magnitude of time and space and existence, let alone who and what God is. We do the best we can with limited, finite minds, seeking God in the only ways we know how with stunted imaginations, traditions, and a million conflicting interpretations.
Much of my life has been spent in traditions convinced they are correct. At some point we’ve bonded in shared belief and hope in a divine Creator embodied in the personhood of Jesus. But beyond that, we’ve created a lot of excess baggage that’s muddled the message. The last church we joined several years ago was of the Reformed Southern Baptist variety (which I knew nothing about at the time). In the new member’s class, various church leaders discussed the meanings behind the words reformed and southern baptist—lessons I scarcely remember now.
Every Sunday, we attended this mostly white Reformed Southern Baptist church which sat across the street from an African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church. It was the first time I began suspecting that we’ve made Truth a complicated, unattainable virtue. If my small, very white, Reformed Southern Baptist church was in possession of The Truth, what about the very different, but very much Christian church across the street? What is the value of attaining “correct” doctrine, while remaining minimally involved in the community, contributing to its gentrification and furthering divides with often incomprehensible language? Something important is lost when we theologize everything, when we make creeds and tenets, traditions and interpretations essential to true Christianity.
But Jesus said “blessed are the poor in spirit.”
The poor in spirit are seeking God beyond confines and boundaries.
They are daring God to meet them in wrestling matches.
They are waving fists.
They are not perfectly reverent or without sin.
They have felt forsaken.
They’ve been overwhelmed by grief.
They’ve known doubt, disbelief, and despair.
There is blessing in the doctrine of the unknown and a faith fueled by movement instead of absolutism. Truth is found through love, not tradition, in humility and openness to a long pilgrimage of discovery.
I’ve been in countless Sunday services where other traditions were mocked, belittled, even condemned as false and dangerous. But then I think about the evangelical tradition and our own closeted skeletons, the abuse scandals, the fundamentalist cults, the deeply rooted sexual shame, the universities masquerading as beacons of light when they’re actually institutions of power and control. I think about how we still elevate doctrine over justice, theology over safety.
We can’t seem to tell our stories without being criticized and chastised, told to “just forgive,” dismissed when we dare take a step towards vulnerability. But integrity requires self-reflection, looking within instead of judging without. We become gatekeepers when we dig in heels and refuse to consider these essentials to faith are not essential at all. For much of my life, I was unaware how the Church has differed, argued, and debated countless “essentials” since her inception. These vary from the existence of hell as eternal conscious torment to the creation account as literal, atonement theories, the doctrine of depravity, tithing, sexuality, and church membership just to name a few. We were told Universalists believe all will be saved and Catholics pray to the dead, Methodists are affirming, and Anglicans are liturgical, and Episcopalians allow female preachers, etc, etc, etc…BUT, our church is Bible-based, orthodox, doctrinally sound.
We can be experts in church history and theology and still lack love.
We can write and speak with beautifully brilliant words and still lack love.
We can revere the Bible and still lack love.
We can think we’re correct on the “essentials” and still lack love.
And I think…I’d rather be poor in spirit, open to learning from the Universalists, the Catholics, the Methodists, Anglicans, and Episcopalians. I’d like to read from Native and Liberation and Queer theologians. I’d like to hear a woman preach.
I want to rid myself of the pursuit of correctness and instead see people as fellow seekers of the Truth, bumbling along in the chaos of life, realizing we’re all wrong about a lot. But, maybe, we’re all right about some things too. And maybe God, in God’s grandness and Divine Love has enough love to meet and hold us in the midst of it.
I often wonder the same thing, but my upbringing was so very different. Never heard a word about God or the Bible. I also came to the faith in college, not through a church but (ironically) because an atheist philosophy professor wrote a question on the chalkboard that I couldn't shake. I didn't have any filters of religious expectations. I used to think my churchless upbringing and churchless start was a disadvantage, but the more stories I hear, the more thankful I am for it. I went and became a pastor before anyone else had the chance to tell me I wasn't supposed to be one. 🤣
Amen and amen and amen.