Our Stagnation

Many of you may Remember at the end of August that Jessie Golem posted her dislike of Christianity in a long post which fostered enormous response- which I felt inspired to come to her defence in regard to. I intended to put on a bit of a clinic and produce several instalments, which began with part one on Christian fascism and imperialism. While this does not cover necessarily all the points I wanted to get across and actually combines two of them I believe it is a worthy inclusion which challenges and incises the point and flaws of which we deal with in our present Church here in North America.

Some background: This segment has been transferred from xxxchurch.com/prayerwall, from a discussion of a young man asking prayer for his brother who was struggling with homosexual porn use, everything is already anonymous so feel free to go and see a wider context for the position presented here, the title of the discussion thread is ‘please help, please pray, my 14 yr old brother is fighting homosexuality’. Otherwise my response is to a statement made by myson, confronting an individual who holds themselves to a gay Christian and to have had several same sex relationships. In this confrontation he mentions the authority of scripture as a finalising and absolute category- whilst I do not entirely disagree, what that means is anomalous and so I decided to address him on this controversial topic which I am sure many people never considered to be relevantly controversial now and then- at least not in the idea that the church has it wrong- both by what it says and holds as prime focus, and how it applies it- but that’s just simple math at the end of the day.

I do apologise to anyone who will likely be confused or misunderstand, please attempt to go with the flow, and address any passages that by my own limitation you do not get- its not you it’s me, believe me. Please finish if you begin, I do not at all believe there is anything in this post of useless value at this point, it will at the least be provocative and challenging:

Our Stagnation:

But myson, does this mean that we have now all the knowledge and relationship we need and that from Scripture? If so, why do the ages continue, why do the ages change? Why do new books of inovative and progressive theology continue to be studied and written and distributed? Why is it the assumption of most Christians, that they do not need the total extensive intelligesta of christianity- they pick the most conservative, least developing doctrines and notions of faith- they pick total depravity because that makes it all simple, they read the bible out of context without the need to let circumstance, history, or the fact that we all possess and agenda towards it guide a responsible application- out of this comes the declaration that Scripture is authority and Authoritative.

I struggle with this notion so very much, not least of all because Christianity was first to say that the world is leading towards something- and it is not destruction, but reconciliation and community with God. That would insinuate that Christianity should at every moment being moving foreward and creating innovation and being progressive- it should be the Rush of all stages of humanity in every field- just as Rush is the king band of progressive rock- we should always be re-examining, always be experiment, always striving for excellence and an uncompromising attitude that is still marketable- yet we don’t, we rest on laurels of the past, some of which are hundreds of years old, on the assumption that these values are the values of Christ, when really they were values of victorian and georgian austerity and much more the virtues of snap spring wound English before the back broke and they all become much more relaxed pleasant people.

So here is the question- unless God has sent us a drout of his Spirit- how is it that Christianity, which should be the garner for transformation- chooses to plant itself firmly in the stance and caste of that which will least transform us, is little transforming and that which was old, hundreds of years ago- why do they insist values do not change- is this not the same as saying, Christianity does not change? In which case, while we would like to be as Christ like as possible, isn’t there still a distinction to be made- we are not Christ, who is the same yesterday today and tomorrow- what reason have we to assume his church should always be the same- whilst we are the refuge for the imperfect both in image and in capability- God is still the God of the living, and so we should be burying our brothers brought to life with the clear signs they have given us something- with the clear signs of foreward motion- yet, they drop like flies all around us- and everything mostly stays the same- and if their is no change, then it means we are not changing- which should be the most revolting thing to consider when a Christian contemplates that we are all about or almost about nothing else but transformation into the changed humanity of Jesus Christ. I know each generation leaves us and a new one comes, which must start from scratch- mostly false, because we should be teaching them- but we teach a system that reaches a head not in poetry on relation, but in systematology and math, applied to scripture, we teach a system which reaches a head not in the idea that each generation grinds a more sure polish over the scope which is the dark glass we see through as Paul says, but that the victorian pretensiousness and snoot of the eighteenth century, a cultural stale point of judgement and cold sweat about the function of the body- ground out the clearest and most sure polish on the binoculars and anyone who tries to polish it again as if God has something more to show us, and yet another way to change us is hailed as a discontent.

Now I will not argue that this austerity was pointless or incidiously intended, in fact it was engineered chiefly in its inceptions because we believed that our bodies, ourselves, other people, all creation and our relationship with God had absolute paramount importance- but guess what- the heart of a thing does not allow us to do is rest for too long within it- and when cultural climate changes the time for rest is done- and the climate has long changed. If the spirit of this intention were still alive in our Christianity, it would not look the way it does, so impedeous about the importance of everything that it allows no one to do anything, let alone important things- it even ostricises and murders those who don’t have it on the assumption that they behave viley because they are vile and desire villainy- as it consigms prostitutes to abuse rather than loving them out of their situations- because somehow Christian morality is something the worthy recieve or are born to, or something good natured moral people just don’t want- as though any one who does it wants that kind of life. But what is living continues to bear fruit, it bears fruit as it gains practice of heavier and girthier and tremendous yield, it bears itself to be polinated by many intendents and likewise polinates many it intends- and we can see the fruit of Christianities transformation under its present values- that it will only accept incest from other Christians when it is time to be polinated, and it sends pathogenic spoors against any other kind of fruit to kill it and slake its progress- and it does this with abstonant words.

We can see this tinctured and disgusting rejection of truth and refusal to transform, based solely on the easy joy of a simle life with no other responsibility than to make other people like you for the size of your pay check, or the kind of church you attend- and the proof of it comes right out of scripture and our bad abhorent attitude. The fathers of our religion, from Adam downwards had better relationships with God than we do- surely even as we have the Holy Spirit and the patriarchs recieved the law by angels and the distant whisper of God’s Spirit, somehow it is us who are crippled to act- somehow it is us who read scripture more literally, but as soon as something real entangles us or we are facing an issue of image- what God wants of us is not a material reality but a metaphor- from baptims to ‘dying to self’ these are not euphamisms, they are very real expectations- to die with blood and the rigor of flesh in mortality- to actually be reborn in martyrdom by taking the plunge. These are not metaphors- they are realities that as Christians we should be facing everyday- seeking out the good and sometimes shameful death at the hands of violent molesters loved by God.

But now when people hear God’s voice, they run to their bible’s to confirm- Our fathers in that very book did some similar things- but if we did the same similar things- like cast lots- it would be denounced as pagan and testing- you yourself myson are willing to defend why homosexuality is a sin- but I don’t see you casting lots like David or the Apostles did- is it that such a thing is far clear cut and final for our liking? When God speaks these days we run to our bible- we confirm we deliberate, we play it safe, all with God himself possessing us. But our fathers did not so many things- they sometimes consulted the scripture, they sometimes threw the lots, they often were met by strange and eccentric men who spoke strange things and it was known very soon if it were the voice of God. But for the most part, all our fathers knew when God spoke, they knew his voice, they knew what he said, and they knew what he wanted- all while they did not have the mind of Christ- and whilst according to our Scriptural thinking God could not possess their inner most beings. But look, Amos knows that it is God calling him to do the unspeakable shameful thing- marry a whore- and then speak God’s truth like people will listen to him with Credibility- Ezekiel knows it is the Lord who tells him to build a fire fueled with human shit, or Declares that no longer will son suffer judgement for the sins of his father but each will bare their own account. saying that Phoenicia, Egypt and Edom will all come to the lord and all will three shall be known as his children and his people. Jeremiah is confronted with a God that may not be as good as we suspect- sending plagues so bad mothers will eat their babies- Peter is asked to take unclean animals, slay and eat, Elijah is given food from an unclean woman, not an Israelite, David and his wondering men eat the bread of presence, Daniel prophesise that Israel will become a beast with a boastful haughty horn screeching blasphemes. Paul tells us not to fret if we eat meat given to idols, or that the Israel that is saved should respect her gentile brothers that are saved. These are all precedence showing that God has always called us to do things that do not follow the normatives set down by scripture- but the concensus among Christians today is that God does not do that, funny how their own book says other wise. True man quickly grows apart from God- but this does not apply to us, for we have been gathered to his bosom, filled with life, Shakinah, knowledge truth temperance over our passion, even as we are given a new passion.

But tell me, how many of us hear something and come to scripture to find it, and come then to ‘His sheep will know his voice’ and are convicted of the truth of why the do not know- when clearly someone was speaking- bar mental disorder what is the explanation? They do not actually know his voice. How many come upon taste and see and are convicted of the truth, that why don’t they have the taste? Because the bible is what they eat, not God himself, they haven’t met him yet, and that’s the truth of the matter, simplistic bibliographying, stringent morality- the idea that these things and perspectives are absolute, they are the last bastions of those who are more interested in have a structure that they barely have to participate in- and easily does not expect them to transform- it answers their questions without actually having to make them think- it gives them values they may actually hold already- all the while never having to ask God how he will teach us what is right- because three hundred years ago God spoke for the final time and this is what we got.

How many of us go then through scripture and discover that we should work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, completing the work of Christ yet to be done- and in this is found the clinch- we do not have to be in fear and trembling or of any expectation if we continue in a way designed not to meet God- and the theologically contrite thing to say is that Jesus’ work is done, we are saved- unless we are to transform beyond salvation- beyond simply being healed or recieveing healing- but to become nurses and paramedics. VEry few are wrecked or convicted by these realities- it comes out of dichotomy, if we are totally depraved them to be saved is to be in no more need- and now so many are saved- but if we are sick like a disease, and incomplete then perhaps the process of pain and passion and crucifixion is exceptionally necassary- for if we are not so far Gone, then perhaps the magic is more practical and less romantic and dramatic- and the stuff of real life that doesn’t get turned into movies or aired on the news- maybe it is as simple as the person who visits and stands by the burn victim until wellness or death becomes them- and that is salvation and transformation.

How many people read verses that tell us we should not consigm ourselves to what we ‘cannot do’, and are convicted, or that religious austerity and rigidness actually depletes and injures your body, making a mockery of religion, and ourselves and our anscestry- because they should have given you not simply the hope but the reality of something relentlessly chugging forewards, something of great desperate hard work of the kingdom being established on earth, but they should have left you with one more castle, or sortie outwards that inspired us to sortie from the gates- but we have to find too few, which are older than three hundred years, because our values have killed our growth.

How many people sit back and realise that the living God is living because unlike idols who need support and balance all engineered by man, Gods image stands on its own, breathes automatically, blinks sees, hears, speaks, no more so its own than when indeed it knows that the engineer is God. And we want to create a litmus that will only allow this thing that can do so many things without support, to run when we say to walk to crawl, to speak and crap and fuck only when we say? And the sad thing is, we tell people when and how they can do this, under our conditions never willing or wanting to do them ourselves until neither do they and whose image are they cast in then? It’s little wonder Metallica is still cranking out hits like Unforgiven.

How many people read that there is a kind of righteousness that has power and a kind that doesn’t- mostly when speaking of power- it means the chance to give life and death- and I look around and I see so many things about our churches that do not give life, nor let people die- and I see then that we do nothing important or meaningful- we cannot kille, though some try very very hard, and we cannot bring people to life- though we think we have the method and try very very hard. And the worst is that, based on the ease of never having to change- we never have to accomodate- and so we insist that someone else’s modes are really deadly when they’re just as pathetic as our own- but watch out for how we will treat the person who is content with the suitedness of that pathos in their own mode- because that is a person who is about to grow and begin or continue down a road that will begin to hand out death and life at exactly the places it should be, because it can see through itself, it will see through all things- and that’s the enemy, self contentedness in the inconsequence of inconsequential things- nihilism to the things nihilistic in nature- will produce incentivism in the things to be insensed about. And in regards to homosexuality I think that is really after thefact that we might actually have to submit to God and force the risk of changing on his terms, what we are afraid of, those who are content before God- because the only thing in these cases which can bring death is the lack of honesty- there is trumping honesty once decisions have been made- like marrying a woman if you’re gay- you committed and God is good to transform and make peace and bring wholeness and faithfulness- it happens also in heterosexual relationships and once again- God is able to transform and make peace and make whole faithfulness- but to those who find their honesty- then let them accept the inconsequence of it, and quickly make down the path to life giving. Each relationship of any nature has the chance to give life that is not just producing children- we all have that choice to make before God, and those who do not believe need him so much more and likely recieve so much more of his help- but in this sense, gay or straight they face no difference of mandate or choice.

But still are we willing to lose the fight of this doctrinal conflict, at least in appearances, are we willing to surrender, are we willing to make concessions- because this is not the same as changing out confession of Jesus Christ- but to bullwhistle and continue on- it can only turn to bitterness and hate- and going in to win is not the side of Christ- the only thing he refuses to lose is us- he goes so far to say, may no one fall away on account of me- and in that he means us, his body. If Christianity is right to appose Homosexuality, it is not going to be by blow by blow defence of hetero sexual relationships or by banning supportive legislation- it will be by serving the gay community and submitting to the rule of the land- and going to its death for those it has no other right to exercise but sacrifice. Christs moment of glory is the moment he died in full shameful display for what he was- the son of God. I am sure many homosexuals feel they can relate. But are we willing to lose, accepting that God is God and that what is right endures even with our silence, even while our consciences are pained? Isn’t there something else that transcends our need to act in oppostion and rallies our obedience to submit and serve and even protect the homosexual community, or do we fall into the same group of people who would rather fifty thousand gay people die of aids, only to help them when straight people start dying of it? One of my favourite preachers once equated the shame and misery visited upon people in this age for association of that disease that if Jesus came today he might be dying of it.

I fail to see what hope we have as a faith if we cannot reconcile ourselves to enter all situations in mangers and on donkeys. I fail to see what hope we have of faith if we cannot see that Christ is like Duditz from Dreamcatcher, or Edward Scissorhands- and strive perhaps not to be that- but be content that he and we in some postitve and perplexing mystery are that and can be content in it. Unless we can start to see the absolute descent, and almost near lack of needed supernaturality in Jesus- the true fact being how ultimately he salted the earth by how close he came to it- eventually being covered in it- unless we can bring ourselves so low to kiss that same earth as he did- we have no hope. If on the other hand we choose to lose, not so we might win, but actually choose to concede and bow down, Jesus might actually begin to look like who he really is- and that through us.

Let us stop fighting this war and actually come to grips not with the scripture that supports us, but with the scripture that lays us bare before God- the no flesh is justified. it is not man and woman together that makes God happy, but people out for healing, mending and wholeness and in recieving also the giving of it- this is the person he scowers the earth for, wether gay or straight knowledgeable, ignorant, acquainted or unacquainted with.

Though I have said so much already to return to the scriptural argument- as far as Scripture told me the bible was not very special at all- except in honesty and perspective- it in itself was not authoritative- except from the source- but in this sourcing itself in God- why then do we cling to it so dearly- why not go to the source itself instead of seeing the source through the coin of scripture? Every coin is always going to have someone’s stamp on it, King James has his stamp all over his gold coin, and it would be very odd indeed to kiss that coin, it might be like kissing him. It is something entirely different to go to the mine itself, to touch and kiss and be covered in the static charge that gold conducts, and be drenched in gold dust til you’re breathing it, to sit in darkness and be permeated by precious qaulity in its purity. It was not long ago that Tolstoy wrote ‘The Kingdom of God is within you’ But I doubt any of us have read it- but if he was correct in title alone- set the book down for a while, and go to the source- unlearn all that we have learned save Christ and meet the Living Lord.