So here’s the deal.
I’ve been wrestling with “faith based faith” issues for a long time, but especially lately. It’s not just the recent election. It’s the state of the world. The hopelessness of our species. Iraq. Africa. The Sudan. New Orleans. Everything I’ve witnessed in my life-the greed, the poverty, the disease, the war making, the sweatshops that defines today’s trucking industry and AIDS, all of that chest beating has lead me here.
The timeless reality that humanity just can’t get over its petty self, this seems to be our perpetual chorus.
And through all that crap, all that bullsh*t, I’ve been trying pretty dang hard to hold onto my faith. Hold onto it against even more questions, more doubt and even larger disillusionment.
I still know Jesus. But I can no longer claim that I know any semblance of simple peace. I find myself closer and closer to the endless desert wanderings of the prophets-trying to find something to sustain my faith but not sure what it’s going to take this time to get me there. (And no mom, I don’t think I’m a prophet, I’m just saying I’ve got that whole whining, crying, wandering in the wilderness thing down).
I could use a miracle. But please God, no more translation-required “signs” thank you very much. I’ve seen enough “signs” to last me a lifetime. I just don’t trust those who interpret them.
Throughout all of this, my father and I have been having this difficult and nuanced dialogue. Mom and dad read the blog. They cringe. Especially when I express my doubts about George Bush and James Dobson and Pat Robertson and Lou Sheldon and Jimmy Falwell.
Oh and have you noticed lately that Falwell is looking more and more like Jabba the Hut?
Anyway, lately we’ve sort of gingerly “not” talked so much about my disdain for the religious right. In the past, our “discussions” have come close to being a reenactment of the inquisition. But recently, our discourse has been a much quieter and a much more hesitant tome. At least post Jim West, Mark Foley, Ted Haggard and all the other Republican Scandals.
The Republicans, and especially the religious right, have so gotten caught with their pants down and yeah that pun is intended. It’s hard not to just enjoy the hell out of it. But then again, it’s not like the scandals exactly make gays look all that great either. Actually when we all stand naked, whether Republican, Democrat or closeted gay dude, we all look pretty bad.
It’s a wasteland out there. I wonder if we are witnessing the times of the Katrina Gospel.
In light of this, my parent’s dialogue with me is a very strange discussion. When it’s all said and done, and all the doctrine and verses have been thrown back and forth, we always end up right where we started. A long way apart but still joined by the strongest link. My folks believe in Jesus. I believe in Jesus. They say they are Christians. I am a Christian as well.
My father still asks perfect strangers in supermarkets, “Has anyone told you today that Jesus Loves You?’
Dad’s motivations are pure, but I wonder what good that does some incredulous dude holding a box of Hamburger Helper in his hands?
Meanwhile I want to ask the poor people paying for their groceries with Food Stamps, “Has anyone told you today that most Christians would rather your Foodstamp money go to Halliburton in Iraq?”
See how messy that gets? See how impossible it is to reconcile our dialogue?
The boundaries of my faith seem fundamentally flower child while many Christians define their faith by the very guns and gore measures that frustrate me most. What I hear the leaders of my faith preach seems so far from what Jesus actually did with his life.
“They” talk about prosperity gospels and values voters. Jesus fed people and said the greatest commandment was love. “They” separate, divide, and cast judgment. Jesus partied with lepers and whores and blessed people’s lovers, their servants, and their families. Jesus would have told stories on Public Radio’s Prairie Home Companion. The Religious Right wants to defund Public Radio. Jesus claimed the worst of the lost causes-even extending his love to those sentenced to death. The Religious Right abandons the lost causes, as James Dobson just did to Ted Haggard.
How do you bridge those two variations of faith? How do you make the Katrina Gospel flesh with and become seamless with the Apostle Paul, Way Better than You Gospel?
Because of this fundamental gap, my religious hero’s are scattered and thinning in rank. Whiner Isaiah. Doubter Peter. Super cool Jesus. I’d even add Moses, simply because I can really relate to him. Moses had anger management issues. He got lost. A lot. And Moses had to explain on numerous occasions a certain weakness for well, weakness. Moses did things throughout his life that I bet he wished he could take back. But he couldn’t because this side of heaven there are no do overs. He paid for those mistakes. Brutally.
Moses never won The Faith Is Right Showcase Showdown. He never pledged “The closest tithe without going over”. He did not win the all-expense-paid-ministry to the perfect Trinity Broadcasting Network Promised Land. For Moses, his no-expense paid, Yahweh ticket-to-ride was economy all the way baby. Have stick. Will Travel. Hold the Atlas.
Moses never got a glory ride. It was all by the seat of his pants. Moses wandered, stuck in thankless leadership roles, just like his modern counterpart, Howard Dean.
Moses and Howard Dean have a lot in common. Yeah, no lie. Moses could have been President except for that one outburst. Dean could have been President except for that one outburst. They both got stuck leading a bunch of ungrateful, bitching whining Jewish Democrats through the desert. And as one last, final gut punch, right when Moses was ready to retire, his 401 K is robbed from him. Dean led the Democrats to Beltway, and as one last gut punch, operative James Carville announced he wants to rob Dean of his chairmanship. Go figure. Maybe the Democrats know more about the Old Testament and wandering in the wilderness tale than we give them credit.
Or better yet, take for instance Jesus, the Son of Man. Now that was truly a thankless ministry. If Jesus wanted to, he could have been so much better than Dobson ever dreamed of being. Focus on the Family, the Colorado Springs Campus, the radio ministry, the trips to the Oval Office in the White house-all that could have been part of Christ Inc. Jesus could have owned Enron, the Temple on the Mount, and even Rome. Instead He gets forsaken at the end of the road by His so called friends with nothing but splinter duty to show for his trouble.
To be honest, I often question the depth of my faith based faith. I live in an endless tug of war between doubt and belief. Temptation and I are way tight. Failure under pressure is my middle name.
And then there’s my dad, Mr. almost retired Lutheran Pastor-a quiet man whose theology probably lands him somewhere right of the Missouri Synod branch of the Lutheran Church (which is pretty dang conservative). Yet he’s one of the only ministers who for a long time would do AIDS funerals. Mom and Dad believe in speaking in tongues and the gifts of the spirit and they go to a mega church that is larger than both my town’s hospital and nursing home combined. They are values voters. They’ve been faithful to each other all their lives. They did the best they could. And for all that hard work what did they get? God blessed them with the ultimate faith based faith challenge, gay kids.
Two of them no less.
How do you deal with that setback, especially when your faith leads you to believe your kids may not make it into heaven and the fans in the stands of the local mega church are watching you to see if you cave? Will it be P Flag or Promise Keepers? Yet I have never heard them express doubt or question God.
I look at all this from the perspective of the mega-jaded, 40-something gay man. A sometimes wavering, faith based faithful, religious exile. The one who can’t claim virginity since 5, nor monogamy before 35 but who somehow still claims Jesus as the last best thing still getting him through each crisis and appreciative of each Joy. A bigger than life Jesus no less. One who could understand and claim someone whose done meth, or spent years in bathhouses, or who gave their partner HIV, or who stole millions of dollars from investors. Or even claim someone who didn’t do any of those things but who was just not all that angelic either.
I believe.
I don’t know why I still believe, but I do.
I don’t know why my parents still believe, but they do.
After all this doubt and all this fist clenching, and unanswerable questions, I still carry that still small voice. The voice deep inside that prevails against the cynicism, against the corruption, and against my own failings and disappointments. That divine bearer of grace that still claims me, no matter what, simply because of faith based faith.
I guess I just got my miracle after all.
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