Brett Tilford

Nietzche called Christians “despisers of the world” and “haters of the body”. The first time I read these words I was shocked – they seemed so harsh and unfair. Most of the Christians I know are decent people – not haters. Yet increasingly I think that there may be more truth in this critique than I care to realize.

It’s in our Left Behind view of the future that says, “Sin has irreparably broken this world. Ultimately there is no hope. Thankfully God has a plan B so a select few of us can go to heaven someday. The rest of creation (people included) will burn.” To those outside the Christian bubble it sounds callous and downright evil.

It’s in our preoccupation with sin. We are obsessed with it. Can’t stop thinking about it. Can’t stop talking about it. We have strange theologies that can literally see no good in people anymore. We have fallen. We are entirely wicked. Nothing of God is left. We have been cast to the trashheap. We’re sinners. Sinners to the core of our being. Wicked. Wicked to the core of our being. We’re disgusting, vile, wicked sinners. Sinners who love their sin. It’s sick. God hates it. Of course God loves “us”, just not “us” as we currently are. He loves the um… non-sin part of us? Of course a love that doesn’t embrace people as they actually are isn’t love at all.

It’s in our disdain for “physical” and “worldy” things. Pleasures of any sort are suspect because they’ll cause us to sin. Remember we are out of control sinners to the core of our being so we can’t be trusted. We can’t be trusted with alcohol and dancing and sex. Food and parties and conversations with someone of the opposite sex. Music and books and art (at least the non-Christian kind) – dangerous! These are the tools of the enemy! These pleasures of the world! Abstain. Withold. Close your mouth. Stop moving your feet. Stop up your ears. Close your eyes.

So the distancing continues.

We can’t trust our own bodies. We can’t trust other people. We can’t trust this world. It’s fallen and evil and wicked.

Granted, not all of us are so extreme but still – it’s in the back of our minds. Remnants of a 100 Sunday School classes when we were 7. Echoes of 100 sermons when we were 17.

Am I saying that sin is non-existent? No. My point is that we’ve become alienated from ourselves and the world and we’ve mis-used the Bible to back it up. A crying shame I think.

So come on over. Let’s have a drink (and a smoke?) and talk till the stars come out about how much we love the world: it’s art and music and food and dancing. The world and it’s imperfect, lovely, created-in-the-image-of-God-himself people.

Deeply committed to a theology of the weakness of God with a focus on the sufferings of Christ

Intuitively it makes sense to focus on the power of God. He is God after all. That’s why I think it’s interesting that the Gospels, with their centrality on the cross, present the somewhat paradoxical idea that the love of God isn’t best expressed in displays of awe inspiring power, but in sacrifice and weakness. Sometimes God loses. Love is fragile; easily crushed by the powers that be. In a world where power and violence is constantly on display via various media outlets (t.v., radio, internet) I think this is a timely message that resonates deeply with people.

Intent on encouraging people to read weird books (including theology) with the hope that it derails and changes them

In so many ways books saved my faith. People tend to think of books as dry and dusty things – full of cobwebs. In the same way we tend to think that “intellectualizing” the faith will make it a dry and dead thing as well – a religion confined to dusty books and scholars pens. I don’t view books like that. Books are simply a medium to convey ideas, and ideas are the absolute lifeblood of any faith. The minute we stop thinking, writing and arguing about our faith is the moment it’s no longer relevant in our lives. There was a time when I thought most everything about my faith had been figured out by pastors and theologians before me. Looking back that was the day my faith started to whither. It took writers like Nietzche, N.T. Wright, and Pete Rollins to dig fresh the spring of ideas that could give life to a vibrant faith in me again.

Focused on our actual material existence: our eating, drinking, walking around, playing, loving, laughing life (Romans 12:1)

“I sought my God, but my God eluded me. I sought my soul, but my soul I could not see. I sought my brother and I found all three.” – Anonymous

I think too often our faith get’s lost in our search for a God “out there”. He’s in “heaven” or somewhere “spiritual” – just beyond our reach. If only we’d pray a little harder, listen a little closer, or raise our hands a little higher we’d find Him. This can easily veer towards a striving for a God who remains silent despite our best efforts.

On the other hand we can lose ourselves in endless introspection. God is somewhere in our souls – the core of who we are. This ties in with the “Jesus is in my heart” type of thinking. I need only to peer inside myself and then I’ll find God. If only I could clear this sin out of my life then I’d be in touch with myself (and by extension God) again. “Oh wicked man that I am.” The worst is when Christian “small groups” catch this disease. You go around the circle and all we can talk about is our latest sin and how we can’t feel God anymore. It’s group therapy and it’s a faith that believes this is the way to God – looking inside ourselves. I tried this for a decade and eventually couldn’t take how obsessed with myself and my feelings I was.

“I sought my brother and I found all three.” This has been so true for me. I love the idea that God is love and that he’s best experienced in those magical moments when we stumble into generosity, kindness, and goodness (e.g. love – which transcends any definition). My faith has meaning only to the degree that I become the place where God manifests in the world, which is anywhere that love is springing up. The beauty of this is that suddenly my entire life can be riddled with God (in a uniquely Christian sense), whether I philosophically agree that a supreme being (G-D) is really “up there somewhere” or not. It also infuses our every day lives with beauty and meaning because suddenly God and faith is tangible. It’s seen in everything from my ethics at work, to how I interact with the bum on the street, to what motivates my politics. My actual life is no longer divorced from my faith. I don’t need to take a “time out” for God and go and meditate over my lunch break (of course if you enjoy that then by all means indulge yourself!) because my entire day is saturated with the divine – at least to the degree that I’m loving the people around me.

More to come on this…

I used to seek “God’s will” for my life. I believed he had a plan, a roadmap of sorts, that I needed to follow very closely. When I came to a fork in the road I’d pray fervently for guidance – nearly give myself an aneurism – straining to hear a voice from heaven. I’d read into every circumstance and chance interaction – like some old mystic deciphering tea leaves. Naturally, after weeks or months of indecision, I’d grow weary of the guessing game and confidently announce that God had spoken: I would go to such and such school or take such and such job because of course, God had told me to. I would never be so presumptuous to “walk in my own strength” or make a decision “in the flesh”. I wasn’t like people from the world who made decisions based only on what they wanted to do or what they felt was right. I was above all of that – God whispered in my ears – I was confident in my steps.

The problem is that looking back, I think my claims of otherworldly guidance were rooted in insecurity and a fear of what others thought about me. I viewed my ability to divine God’s will as essential to people believing in me; to keeping the aura going that I was a spiritual person who “heard from the Lord”; essential to my own confidence in my decisions; to keep going when times got tough. God was a security blanket of sorts.

Now I get a bit nervous when I hear people announcing that they’ve heard from God about their future – it’s like spiritual shock and awe; no one can speak into it, critique, or question it. God has whispered in their ears: conversation over.

All I see is someone trying too hard.

I respect people honest enough to admit they’re making it all up as they go. People with the confidence to take responsibility for their actions. People who refuse to blame God for their failures. People who can say, “Look God hasn’t whispered in my ear, I just think this is the right thing to do – you’re free to join me.” No coercing or cajoling. No big promises of quick success – like some slick salesmen.

I’m not sure if God has a wonderful plan for my life – at least in any specific way. For awhile I was terribly disappointed by this, but now I find it incredibly liberating. I’m free to do what I want to do. There are no “thou shalts” hanging over my head. No excuses like, “Well I really wanted to do ‘X’ but God called me to do ‘Y’.” That’s b.s. I’m a human being and I’m free to make my own decisions.

As Christians, the paragraph above sends up red flags for us. This is selfish talk. This is someone refusing to bow the knee to Christ. This is what we fear. We fear people thinking for themselves and making their own decisions. We’re afraid that without the shackles of “God’s will” they’ll leave God out of their lives all together. But what if the opposite is true. What if it takes leaving the idea of “God’s will” behind for people to begin to take responsibility for their lives and the state of our world. We need to empower people with the idea of God’s will – not hold them back.

Millions of Christian teens are about to graduate from high school in the next few weeks – if I could tell them anything I’d tell them that God’s will for their life is that they would be the most loving and Christlike people imaginable. How they become those people is up to them. They’re 100% responsible for their lives and actions. They’ll bring either heaven to earth or hell – the choice is there’s. I’d beg them never to be weighed down with thou shalts. I’d beg them to be fully immersed in the world – pressing their hands to the bloody pulse and not letting go. I’d encourage them to build orphanages and become school teachers and adopt kids – even if it doesn’t make much financial sense. I’d tell them it’s beautiful that they can do whatever they want, but it’s also a profound responsibility so they need to take it damn seriously. This isn’t kid stuff. Kids need maps. Kids need to be told what to do. Kids need their hands held. They’re not kids anymore. God trusts them and so do I.

I’ve come to love melancholy music. For Emma, Forever by Bon Iver, Hospice by The Antlers and anything by Sigur Ros. My friend said that if he listens to Sigur Ros for more than two hours he wants to kill himself. Not me though. I like the wail of the falsetto and the screams of the guitar. The resonance of the base drum – like a buddhist monk chanting in a temple where even footsteps echo; the sounds these albums have stolen from every day life – a train rumbling over dusty tracks or the simple clapping of hands. It’s all very earthy, mournful and beautiful.

You probably know someone who cuts. You’ve seen the scars – like a thousand paper cuts scattered on forearms and legs. When I first encountered this as a youth pastor working with teens, I thought it stemmed from self hatred – they hate their bodies so they hurt it. After a bit of research though I learned this wasn’t the case. It turns out people cut for therapy. The process of opening up their bodies and watching the wounds heal is like good medicine. Sure it hurts, but at least they can feel again. Oh God, anything to feel again.

Turns out the worst thing isn’t that we feel pain – it’s that we don’t feel at all. I think the same is true of our music, the worst thing isn’t that it makes us feel sad, it’s that it doesn’t make us feel at all.

Benjamin Zander has a brilliant quote in this TED talk that I’ve found myself coming back to repeatedly. He says that every parent  should ask themselves, “Who am I being, that my children’s eyes are not shining?” I think that applies not only to parents and children but all sorts of relationships. Aas a husband who am I being that my wife’s eyes are not shining? As a boss who am I being that my employees eyes are not shining? As a friend who am I being that those I love eyes are not shining? The beautiful thing about this question is that it requires us to be 100% accountable for the impact we have on those around us. Normally when people act out we wonder what their problem is – how genius to flip it around and ask, “Who am I being that they feel the need to act this way?”

As my previous post explained, a group of people from our faith community visited the contemporary service of The Church of the Incarnation (an Episcopal Church in Dallas) for the purpose of experiencing something outside of our own tradition. Here are a handful of my takeaways from our time there.

First, they’ve done a fantastic job of modernizing certain elements of the service without sacrificing the “high church” feel that people connect with so deeply. The pastor still wore a clerical collar but his sleeves were rolled up. They had contemporary music but it was still pretty contemplative and not rock-bandish. Think less Led Zeppelin and more Bon Iver. We met in a beautiful chapel that looked about 100 years old but the sound and visual systems were modernized and fit well within the space. The Eucharist was celebrated in the traditional manner (at least as far as I could tell – it seemed very similar to the Roman Catholic service I attended a few months back) but the pastor explained that instructions would be on the tv screens for visitors who were unfamiliar with their normal procedure. Again, all the stuff you love without the items that make you cringe (i.e. is the pipe organ really the only instrument approved by Christ himself and omg should I take communion and if so how on earth would I go about doing that).

Second, the culture seemed more laid back than the conservative/charismatic culture I’m accustomed to. We’re all about “pressing into God” and “being hungry, nay starving, for God” and “pursuing God.” The upside to this in the charismatic culture is that people take their faith very seriously. The downside is that it can get very exhausting. We’re never doing good enough. God is always just out of reach. Revival is just around the corner. The breakthrough is just one more week long fast away. “Come on people. Press in. Press in. We’re almost there. Can you hear the whisper of the wind of the spirit? It’s almost here. Just raise your hands a little higher. Just take your voice up one more octave. That’s it, we’re almost there.” Like I said exhausting.

At this service people seemed very comfortable to engage God in quiet and stillness. The music wasn’t overly loud. The pastor spoke in a relaxed manner. You never got the vibe from someone on stage that they were trying to pump you up. There was an energy in the room but it was focused and quiet – like the energy you feel when you’re trying to concentrate. Not an over-caffeinated energy. Not everyone in our group liked this vibe but I did.

One critique I had was that many of the songs were of the same contemporary worship genre that just feels so tired to me. I almost fell over when the band struck up “How Great Is Our God” however, the mandolin almost made up for it.

In the Christian tradition we normally think of God as an object. He is “something” we can grasp and even understand in the same way we understand another person. For example my wife is extroverted and caring and generous. In the same way I think of God as good, all-knowing and just. She is a person with personality and characteristics and God as revealed in the Bible is a “person” with personality and characteristics… sort of.

Within most religious traditions it seems there’s always a group of people (mystics) who call into question this idea of God as an object, as something we can grasp and understand with our minds. While most folks are content to focus on what we know about God these mystics focus on the otherness of the divine. They ask, “How can a drop of water contain the sea? How can the finite contain the infinite?” They warn us that even language and our religious texts – while pointing to the divine – fail to contain it-him-her (see what I did there).

Coming from a very conservative background I’m familiar with the red flag that last sentence likely threw up. I think the concern goes to the very heart of conservative theology because it’s on this point that most conservatives take their stand, “Brett all this ‘mystery’ and ‘otherness of the divine’ talk is fine for you wishy washy liberals but it’s only because you’ve left the firm foundation of the Scriptures. We still believe in the perfect and inerrant Bible. We still believe that based on the scriptures we can make definitive statements about God.”

My response would be this: looking for some firm ground to stand on when it comes to the divine we’ve made claims that the Bible is “perfect and without error” and that it “contains all truth.” The idea seems to be that the text somehow captures God and then renders him “revealed” in an almost magical way. This is why we defend our claims of an “errorless” Bible to the death because if even one part of it is contradictory, historically inaccurate, or just plain barbaric then our foundation is gone, the entire house of cards comes crashing down, the magic is lost and now everything theologically is “up-for-grabs.” However, this all or nothing perspective has caused us to be dishonest. I’ll handle this in more detail in future posts but the long and short of it is that most pastors know there are contradictions, historical inaccuracies, and just plain barbaric passages – they’re just not willing to be honest with themselves or their flocks because of this “all or nothing” perspective. I think the mystic perspective offers a way forward for us because it frees us to be honest about the scriptures without feeling it destroys our entire faith. If anything it might say that scriptures we have are exactly what you’d expect to find in any finite tradition that’s trying to grasp the infinite. Of course there are contradictions and differing perspectives. Of course there is paradox and mystery and unknowing built right into the very heart of the scriptures – it’s God we’re talking about.

It’s easy to bash the ‘other’ when they’re at a distance: impersonal, untouchable, almost mythical – not real, not a real person that laughs and bleeds. They’re like a shadow: faceless – just a blank canvas waiting for us to paint our judgments all over them. Of course we lie to ourselves and rationalize that we understand ‘those people’. We know their type because we’ve heard stories: wild tales of their strange beliefs and rituals. “I’ve heard they wear weird underwear to protect themselves, they think the Virgin Mary – not Jesus – will save them, they have thousands and thousands of gods that they have to burn incense to every day. Can you believe those people? Caught up in rituals and creeds instead of enjoying a relationship with God like ourselves. Thank God we’ve been saved from that mess.”

But of course in Jesus’ command to love our neighbor we have a call within our religious tradition to bring the ‘other’ close. To affirm their humanity. To seek to understand them with an ear that is quick to listen and a tongue slow to cast judgment. When we do that I think a startling thing will happen. It’s the same thing that happens to any anthropologist who immerses themselves in another culture or any person who’s ever been married: it’s the process of moving from a place where you think their creeds, rituals, and culture are monstrous to that blessed and cursed moment of seeing yourself through their eyes – you become the monster. It’s your family that’s weird, your culture that’s strange, and your church that’s monstrous.

Our little faith community is trying to take a first step in this direction this Sunday by attending a contemporary Episcopal Church service called UpTown in Dallas. It’s both Contemporary and Christian so I don’t expect it to be too traumatic of an experience for this conservative evangelical crew but I do think it’s a good first step on our journey to embrace the ‘other’ and gain new insights into our own tradition. Feel free to email me at bretttilford(at)gmail(dot)com if you’d like to join us.

The evangelical church is searching for inspiration. Like an aging athlete we’ve “lost a step”. You wouldn’t guess it from visiting us – we have more people and money than ever – but we know it and that’s enough. We’ve run out of new ideas. We’ve run out of new language. We struggle to make art. We have no new prayers. Our songs don’t resonate – like fingernails clicking on tin cups. The bible has become stale. Our children are leaving the faith. We try to rally the troops, to instill new life, but we remain un-inspired. We try not to sound cliché but we can’t help ourselves – it’s all we have. Cliches and tired theological ideas. We sense this and so we look to the big churches and pastors for inspiration.

Surely, they will provide a spark, some insight that will instill new life. But they’re just as desperate. On the outside they’re “hip” – electric guitars, shorts, and pastors with tattoos – but theologically they’ve refused to come to grips with the 21^st century. Like a trendy 20 something who wears the latest styles but talks like their grandpa. These churches attract some young people but sooner or later most realize it’s the same shtick and move on.

I don’t offer this critique as an outsider – someone pointing fingers or kicking people while they’re down. I’ve been there. I’ve been the one with a faith that didn’t resonate anymore. The one searching for new language and news songs. Struggling with that nagging sense that I’ve outgrown the clothes of my childhood faith. My answer was to grow up and re-engage with a world that had passed me by.

Based on most evangelical books, music, and day time talk radio I thought the “secular” world was headed to hell in a hand-basket. It was filled with unhappy people leading meaningless lives adrift on a sea of moral relativism. Imagine my surprise when I found Catholics, Liberals, Buddhists, Agnostics, and Atheists happier and, dare-I-say-it, more Christlike than me. The writings of these folks disturbed and wounded me at first. But I quickly found that they were the wounds of friends. They didn’t want to destroy me – they simply wanted to be honest with me.

So here’s my fear for the evangelical church. I fear that in our not so subtle rejection of all things “non-Christian” we’ve cut ourselves off from the thinkers and poets who could serve to infuse us with new life. We’re scared by culture. We’re scared of people who read. We’re scared of being branded a heretic. We’re scared of science. We’re scared of “post modernism”. We’re scared of gays. We’re scared.

So here’s my antidote. Re-engage. Throw yourself into the world. Immerse yourself in the music, poetry and literature of our day. Not so that you can critique them – let them critique you. Let them freak you out and piss you off. Let them rail against you and you stand there and take it for the good medicine that it is. I can’t promise that you’ll re-emerge stronger in your faith – who knows maybe you’ll lose it. But I can promise that you’ll emerge a more courageous and honest person.

Our churches desperately need people like this. People fully engaged with the 21^st century.

We’re part of a church that meets Monday nights to explore faith and develop community. Below is an overview of a night we had just before Christmas. It was focused on the topic of suffering. It was co-written and organized by myself and Mike Nagel. Peter Rollins and Dietrich Bonhoeffer were leaned heavily upon for inspiration.
———-

- Parable: Women & Dead Baby (Music in Background)

- Narrator: Philosophic Problem of Suffering
One of the most devastating critiques to the existence of a good God is the reality of pain and suffering. The argument goes something like this: If God is all powerful but chooses not remove suffering, then he is not good. But if God wishes to remove suffering and is unable, then he is not all powerful. In other words, he cannot be both good and God.

And yet the Christian God is said to be the epitome of goodness and the epitome of power.

Imagine the most selfless act you’ve ever witnessed – maybe it’s a mother bandaging up her son after he’s fallen or someone who owns very little giving sacrificially to someone else. Even these amazing acts are said to still fall short of the goodness of God. He is, we are told, goodness incarnate.

But he is also all powerful: his hands placed the stars and his words formed life itself. He holds the planets in motion and orders the steps of our lives.

And yet, despite his power, despite his goodness, suffering remains.

Song & Meditation

Parable: Pastor Explains Suffering (Music In Background)

Narrator: Human/Religous Responses to Suffering

In the face of suffering we humans can’t help but offer up explanations for our suffering and the suffering of those around us…

* Don’t worry it will all work out in the end
* Everything happens for a reason
* S*** happens
* You’re really going to become a better person through this
* Think of all the people you’ll be able to help later on

Christians haven’t been to different except that we bring God/Theology into the mix…

* God causes all things to work together for our good in the end
* God brought this into your life so that you will rely on him
* It’s not God’s will that this happened, it just happened
* God is going to get so much glory out of this situation
* You just need to let go and let God

While well intentioned, these phrases don’t explain a thing.

Song & Meditation

Narrator

When we look to Jesus for answers, we don’t really see an articulate explanation or a rational defense for suffering either. We don’t see a God whose power is in pulling strings, pushing levers, making things happen. We don’t see the God of the philosophers.

Instead, we see a God who suffers with us. A God who loses. A God who dies.

With this in mind, perhaps the only truly Christian response to suffering isn’t to explain it but to enter into it. To experience it with those around us. To try to understand instead of try to explain.

Maybe what humanity needs, what we need, is people who will just listen.

To symbolically identify with the suffering of God and the suffering of the world we’re going to invite you to take communion now. You’ll notice we don’t have bread and wine as usual though. Throughout human history bitter foods have been symbolically connected to suffering so we’re going to have a few substitutes tonight.

Communion (Music In Background)

Narrator

In the garden of Gethsemane Christ asked that his friends join him in prayer so that he would have the courage to go to the cross. Tonight we’re going to take 60 seconds to offer up a silent prayer for the person on our right and left: asking that they have the strength to enter into the suffering of those around them.

60 seconds of Prayer

Benediction (Poetry)