The Metaphysical Golden Calf

We all have beliefs. Let me just start out there. Each one of us has something that we consider to be true, and to mark that as true we attach something called a belief as a marker. This is why philosophers consider beliefs to be the markers of what a person or group consider to be real.

Beliefs signify reality to our selves.

This is perhaps no where truer than in regard to identity; what we believe about ourselves signifies who we are to us. In a certain sense our beliefs become us, become the limits of who we can become. In so far as the limits of our visual ability become the limits of our sight, so our beliefs about anything become the limits of what we can consider that thing to be; especially ourselves.

The marker of salvation.

This becomes problematic for Christians, as that identity marker and limit has become conflated in certain linguistic instances with the mechanism for salvation - believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved (Acts. 16:31). This poses an insurmountable conundrum for Christians, as the limits of what we consider to be true become the means of salvation. To say this differently-

Who we consider ourselves to be influences intrinsically our standing with God.

But this approach to salvation necessarily places God within the limits of our beliefs as far as we are concerned. In a sense, what we believe about God becomes God to us, creating out of our conception an idol of our minds; a metaphysical golden calf. What's more, we formulate God into our imagined image, locating our identity in this image that is contained within ourselves.

We become our own gods.

There is an ugly consequence to this understanding of salvation, in that it becomes absolutely necessary for our beliefs - our reality, our very selves - to be right, because if they are not, we are damned. And of course, this leads to constant division in the church and exponential multiplication from this dividing. And because we are fighting over something so vital and central to our self understanding and salvation as beliefs, we become increasingly vicious and condemnatory towards others who do not share our particular beliefs.

I have to be right.

This understanding of what it means to be a Christian has caused unimaginable difficulties for us when we attempt to distinguish what makes Christianity different from all other religions. The best we can come up with is really only foundational; the incarnation, God with us, God coming to get us, Emmanuel. This is, of course, the ultimate center of the Christian gospel, but if it only gets that far before being abducted by our own personal understanding of ourselves then it has no actual currency in distinguishing Christianity from anything else. In this way, the critique of every atheistic philosopher since Nietzsche rings true; God is dead, and we have killed him, because he only exists in our minds.

And this is where I draw the line.

The bible calls us to something much more radical than belief. It calls us to faith. Where belief sets the limits of what can be, faith destroys those limits and opens us up to God's actions. Barth was on to something when he championed the freedom of God, but that freedom needed to be connected to humanity because of the God-Man, Jesus. Whereas beliefs need to be right, faith does not. Faith rests in God's righteousness through grace; in our zeal to defend the limits of who is "in" and who is "out" we've lost sight of this.

"Faith is the evidence of things hoped for, the substance of things not seen."

What I fear we miss in our reading of Hebrews 11:1 is the incredible openness it contains. It intrinsically indicates a profound sense of openness to what God can do and is doing. It reveals an almost unbelieving hope in God's actions on our behalf.

These thoughts don't really conclude, because I haven't concluded. I could keep writing on this for years, but need to end a blog post with some semblance of brevity. I'd love to get your thoughts and feedback on where I'm trying to go here, and hopefully I'll have a book out sometime next year that fleshes these ramblings out into something concrete and meaningful.

New Song!

https://soundcloud.com/nathan-myrick/confessions-rough

Here's a little sneak peak at what you will find on my latest album, Believable Lies! If you like what you hear, head on over to http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/631063502/believable-lies-the-album and help fund the mixing and mastering of this album! I'm super excited for you to hear it, and I hope you feel the same way after listening to this sneak peak!

The Poor

I woke up this morning thinking about politics. A heinous admission, I know. I must have been dreaming about the immanent collapse of the "free world" or something like that. Anyway, as I was going about my morning routine, I started thinking about what is, at bottom, wrong with our present political system. A small topic, I know. And one that I am woefully uninformed about. So I cannot argue political theories here, since I do not know or understand them. Instead, I want to look at this from a theological perspective - as a Christian.

Here is my assumption: the health of any society can be determined not by how rich their rich are, but how poor their poor are. It doesn't matter how much money we have, but where that money is spent.

This sounds like the rhetoric of a certain political party, and I do not mean it as such. In fact, I don't think that party cares about the poor at all. They just like to sound like they do. The other side of the aisle, well, they've given up even pretending to care about the poor, even if they, down real deep, believe that their system will actually help the poor.

What is funny is how Christians fall into these categories. I grew up in the latter, which, experience has told me, is predominantly white (as am I) and rural. The former is predominantly non-white and urban. Both have Christians.

I've heard many well meaning Christian leaders and pastors explain how their particular party is the most closely aligned with Christian principles, or with systems that enable Christian values to be lived out, etc. But I don't buy it. And I don't buy it because neither one can ever answer honestly in response to Matthew 25:31-46.

In Matthew 25:31-46 Jesus explains what will happen at the end of the age. He says that he will gather all the people of the world to be judged, and that he will separate them "as one separates sheep from goats" (32). The sheep will be welcomed into the kingdom of heaven. Why? because they cared for the poor, the oppressed and the afflicted. The goats, on the other hand, will be put out of the kingdom on the basis of the exact same criteria that the sheep were let in; they didn't care for the poor, the oppressed and the afflicted.

And in case you were wondering how this has anything to do with politics, if you read the surrounding passages, you will see that it has everything to do with politics. The notion that Jesus was apolitical arose in Enlightenment Germany, around the same time as the idea of private and public sectors. Jesus was killed as an insurrectionist-that's what crucifixion was. His teachings and method of living into the Kingdom were counter to the way of Rome that the leaders of his people had adopted. His call to obedience was holistic-including political. But the foundation of his politics was care for the poor and needy. And not just sentimental emoting on their behalf, but actual care- "go, sell all you have and give to the poor, and come, follow me" (Mt. 19:21).

Now, there is a very good and honest push back to this suggestion that you are surely thinking of- Matthew 26:6-13. This is the story of Jesus' anointing, where a woman comes into the room where he and the disciples are eating and pours a years wages worth of oil onto him anointing him as king/for burial.The disciples, of course having just heard chapter 25, are indignant-"this could have been sold and the money given to the poor" (9). Jesus' response completely cuts through any chance I had at moralizing the issue with easy, universal slogans: "You will always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me with you" (11).

I have heard this passage used to refute the sort of platform chapter 25 affords me, and I think the refutation is valid. But only from a distance. When we actually look at what Jesus says in 26 and what the bible itself is saying in this passage following closely (ish) on the heels of 25 we see that Jesus has cut out our many easy approaches to caring for the poor. First, he has not dismissed giving to the poor as less than giving to him; he has affirmed giving to the poor (you will always have the poor with you), but has shown that this is not encompassed by giving them money. Second, he has affirmed that "the earth and its abundance are the Lord's!" (1 Cor. 10:26), and within that reality there is space for "waste," especially for wasting on God (I mean waste here to mean giving something that is valuable in another capacity for the enjoyment of others). Third, He makes the point that this is a limited opportunity to honor him, as he is leaving soon, making this a singular and particular act. Finally, when taken as a whole these two stories demonstrate what is at stake in caring for the poor. It is not enough to give them money, although we should do that. Instead, Jesus is saying that our entire political system should be built on the value of the least: the poor, the orphans, the widows. This system cannot come at the expense of the Gospel (see what Jesus says the woman had done in 26:13) but is instead an inextricable part of it.

What it all comes down to for me is this, as a Christian, a disciple of Jesus (or whatever other cute term you prefer), I cannot support a political system that does not make care for the poor the primary priority. If I were ever going to run for public office, I would do so on a platform of caring for the poor (combination private/public sectors creating opportunities for jobs, housing, mental health and counseling for homeless and impoverished) not by giving handouts but by enacting laws and policies that enable them to be cared for holistically, and by encouraging programs and people that come alongside those who are marginalized and care for them. This is, at base, why I am not a Republican or Democrat: because neither makes the least their priority. And this is what Jesus says his kingdom is; making the least the first.

Beliefs and Art: Kickstarters and Startkickers.

After a few months in the cocoon of creative angst, I am emerging with a new album and the chance to promote it! The album is entitled "Believable Lies." It is a short album, comprised of seven songs, all wrestling with the ideas of belief and lies and their conflict with reality at the intersection of faith and loss.

A personal theme permeates the album -  the notion of wandering off into ourselves. Sometimes I feel that the most hopelessly lost a person can become is when they turn inward and focus only on themselves and the depth of their own need and desire. We seem to do this all too often. In fact, it seems like an entire generation and society have done this.

There is a certain association for me between the words "loss" and "lost," as so often the one leads to the other. The loss of friends, family, occupation, or even your grip on reality seem to cause a soul to become hopelessly lost. This lostness seems to be located inside, and so I call it being lost in yourself.

I think we expect to find truth in there. We imagine a world tucked deep beneath our skin that is the "true" one, that in there we will find ourselves. And we continually look for ideas and movements beyond us that reinforce this sense of internal reality. If those external forces resonate with our internal world then we go along with them. I call this the system of belief. I've written some academic stuff on the subject; in fact, it was my master's thesis.

But my imagination does not end with what is. Instead, I dream of a world where we are not lost in ourselves but present and aware of the world around us; of the colors, the smells, the feeling of being alive. I imagine a world where it is not my ideas and beliefs at the expense of all others but instead in conversation with others. Where being right individually or otherwise does not equal righteousness. Where instead of my beliefs about God in need of defense we can rest in the assurance that God defends us from our own beliefs.

I hope to one day turn these thoughts into a book on the subject, but for now, I am staying with my primary medium: rock music. I would desperately love to have the chance to share these ideas with a much larger audience, because I think these ideas need to be heard. And so I have decided to do a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for this album's release. My goal is to have $2500 raised by November 7th, and I would love it if you would consider backing this project. $10 gets you a digital download of the album, and while it seems like not much money, it helps me immensely! Will you support me and my art in exchange for this work that I am passionate about? Will you come along with me on this adventure and see if we can live more connected to God and each other?

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/631063502/believable-lies-the-album

Conservative vs. Liberal pt II: A Better Way of Thinking

My last post attempted to illustrate the semantic and philosophical disconnect between the terms conservative and liberal. This post is an attempt to provide a better way of thinking and talking about the issue of social change.

Here's by basic assumption: the problems conservative people have with liberal people and vice versa are not in fact, fundamentally, with their methodology regarding social change, but that both relative positions are unaware of their own historical and cultural conditioning. This is the root of the problem. Each person is shaped in innumerable ways by the experiences of not only their own lives but by the lives of their ancestors, friends and acquaintances. Furthermore, they are shaped by the place, the location, in which they live.

This shaping means that what a person feels, assumes, thinks, to be universally true may only be true where they are from. And before you go running off and taking this statement to be universally true, remember that I myself am also shaped by my history, and I am not talking in those terms. I am saying that what you consider normal is not necessarily what I consider normal, and what I am conservative about is not, therefore what you are conservative about. Conservative to me means keeping the values I grew up with, which weren't the values you grew up with. Liberal to me means abandoning the values I grew up with, which weren't necessarily the values you grew up with. Moreover, I am conservative and liberal on these points, in that there are some things I grew up with that I want to keep and some that I don't.

What makes the difference is that I am aware, at least to an extent, of how I have been shaped, and that my shaping is not how everyone else has been shaped. I am conservative and liberal because I am aware. The fundamental difference is not between people who are predominantly conservative or liberal, but between people who are aware of their shaping and those who are not. This is actually the line that divides.

If you truly want to overcome these nitpicky differences, learn your history; know where you come from. Understand that the factors that have shaped you are myriad and far reaching. And seek to see beyond that shaping to be able to engage others. If we must draw lines, let's draw them between people who are aware and those who are not.

Conservative vs. Liberal: Thoughts on Why These Positions are Unhelpful

There are always words that get thrown around as if they have the weight of the world in their meanings. Conservative and Liberal are two of those words. In the banter that has become Western Christianity in America, these words are the razor's edge in a knife fight, the trump card that within any circle signifies the end of an argument as a two sided affair; "that's a liberal idea" or "you're too conservative."

I would like to propose the inadequacy of these terms and propose a radical thought: that what these terms denote is not the problem each has with the other. In fact, I want to suggest that the misunderstanding of these terms is in fact the problem. Here it goes:

Conservative and Liberal are relative, derivative terms in that they depend on a particular position to reality and derive their significance from that position. You are conservative or liberal relative to what is; to what the current situation is perceived to be. In short, conservative actually means supporting what is, where as liberal means being unsatisfied with what is and straining for something else (the denotative meaning). Yet this is not in fact a complete understanding of the terms, as conservative also connotes the supremacy of what was, implying a situation of decline from an earlier, more idyllic time. Liberal connotes an assumption of progress, that the earlier ways of doing things were not any better and were in fact worse than the current (the connotative meaning).

Interestingly, both assume that the current situation can be improved upon, which is inherently a liberal idea. The difference is the method taken to reach that improvement; conservative perspectives want to reclaim where as liberal ones want to press into something new.

Now here's where these terms are inadequate. People who are rhetorically learned, such as politicians, know how to use the connotative vs. denotative aspects of the terms to their advantage, pandering to their audience to gain the vote they desire. The dual meanings of the terms then release them of responsibility to act in accordance with what their constituents heard them say, because they are able to claim, and with a degree of scientific honesty, that what they meant by conservative or liberal was not what their constituents thought they meant.

Furthermore, because of the derivative, relative nature of the denotative meaning of the terms, they are not static; their meanings change in relation to what is. When a value is assumed to be static and universal, it becomes an entity, and once an entity has been assumed, it can become a weapon. These weapons are the words that are used like arrows to pierce the armor of those we oppose, who interestingly often share the same conservative or liberal perspective we do.

This post has already gotten too long, and so I will leave you in suspense until tomorrow, when I publish my conclusion. Until then, sound off as you wish on my incomplete treatment of the subject!

Who's the most irreligious?

Not too many years ago I found myself uttering these incredibly cliched words: "I'm not religious, I just have a relationship with Jesus." This was an echo of the words that I had heard time and again from my church leaders-"We're not into religion, we're into relationship."

So, what is "religion?"

Over the years, I've begun to question what we mean by these words. I've struggled to reconcile what we who use this language project by it and what we enact by it. See, on the one hand we seem to have a firmly constructed idea of what constitutes "religion:" empty repetitious sayings and doings, and esoteric ideas about the nature of the world and life and death.

The True un-religion

Of course, each group of people who use this type of language claim (and I am only slightly generalizing here) that they are the true irreligious group. All others are still religious. This has struck me as incredibly ironic, as it was not that long ago that each group was proclaiming itself as the true "religion."

But how is that not religious?

What has struck me as even more ironic is how much each of the irreligious group's practices look an awful lot like what I consider religion. Without fail, each group claiming irreligiousness has some perspective that is in line with a seemingly irrational belief, or "superstition." We've all got them, even the most diehard rational person has in some dark closet a superstition they cannot transcend.

Full disclosure: I am not against religion.

But I say this only with the understanding that religion is relationship. False religion is irrelational. Nope, that's not a typo- irrelational. At a fundamental level, nothing we do or think can be completely justified from a rational point of view; we are simply irrational creatures. Our strange, "religious" practices are only empty when they are devoid of relational concern.

Religion is a particular way of being in relationship.

For Christians, our particular way of being in relationship is inextricably rooted in our fundamental faith in the redemptive and restorative work of God in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. Our religion is a way of living with others that acknowledges and participates in this reality. And ironically, this reality cannot be participated in without practice, action; doing, saying, thinking and making.

Done with the bait and switch.

All of this boils down to a simple relational truth: you cannot be a Christian without religion, and you cannot be positively religious without positive relationship. I'm done with sloganeering and posturing to make Christianity sound like something it isn't, or for that matter with only telling half truths to get people in. I'm done with the bait and switch. We are religious, and it's time we acknowledge this and strive to be faithful in our religion.

Prayers

Life has been, well, busy. And of course the first thing that takes the hit is this little blog here. But today I had to write out five rhyming prayers for a class, and I liked most of them so much that I have decided to post them here. Some are funny, some are sad. Others my seem absurd but I  still like them, and I hope you do too!

Prayer of Thanks for Food:

By Your mercies we are fed

Our meat was led by pastures green

And grass to milk for them was weaned

From soil grew the tender sprouts

Whose roots abhor the leaning droughts

Their leafy tongues licked up the rain

While sunshine then drew forth the grain

And man who from the dust You formed

Worked her way to dusk from morn

From field to truck to grocer’s shelves

As we unwitting helped ourselves

Thank you for our daily bread.

Prayer for Travel: (Lament and Protection)

Lament:

A single sorrow knows the road

Where feet and faith and tires ‘trode

A second father knows no son

And spirits meet us, everyone

Protection:

So many terrors haunt these roads

So many kick against the goads

Protect us from the weaving one

Whose ringing phone the lane’s undone

Protect us from the fate we share

With those whose tires have worn bare

Protect us from the screeching stop

When some Ferrari lost her top

Protect our hearts from rage so fierce

When some soul’s middle finger rears

Protect our rears from unawareness

When tarmac burns like fiery furnace

And may You soon reveal new means

Of getting from point A to B.

Prayer While Making Coffee:

Thank you for this bean so brown

And for the energy it brings

May its affect not be frown

For at its savor my heart sings

Thank you for the water clear

And for current to make it hot

May we be mindful of its sear

And abuse the fluid not

Thank you for the charming smell

And mugs to hold the brew

May we remember those who sell

And those whose labors grew.

Prayer While in the Shower:

So far above the dirt You formed

I wash free from all its norms

And naked from the womb I came

Now beneath this flood the same

I’ve no more disguise from You

Than if a camera caught me nude

Forgive my wayward, wandering heart

Whose quiet murmurs drift apart

From Yours and all your beckoning

And friends who’ve had their reckoning

Forgive the way I hide my eyes

And humbly hide behind my pride

Remember me, so far removed

From all that I’ve begun to do

Remind my heart whose worth it finds

In You alone and Your design

For all that I intend to do

May it first begin with You