Ya Basic: The Calvinism Edition
Hey there. Hi. How are you? Long time no see. I have been absolutely, head-spinningly, crazy busy. But here we are, on the eleventh day of February in 2020 and I’m finally writing the first real blog article of the year. Those who have hung around here before and know me, know this: I’m a big believer in an examined faith. If we don’t take the time to examine what we believe and why, we can end up with all sorts of crazy theologies in our heads and a lot of them can be nothing more than glorified superstition. In a time when the evangelical church is coming under increasing, and I believe deserved, scrutiny, Biblical knowledge a noble pursuit.
The truth is, it is easy to walk into churches that feel good, sound good and speak about nice things, but be none the wiser when it comes to what they believe. I also believe that, with the emergence of a trend towards going independent, ideas can permeate the pulpit and sound original, but hail from older theologies. Is this a bad thing? Not always. I’m all for modernising the word and making it more understandable and accessible. But here’s the thing: older theologies often have a little more conversation and criticism around them, meaning it is easier to see what is solid and what isn’t.
Before I delve into the basics of one of the big thinkers of the Protestant Reformation (circa the 1500’s), I want to say this: I’m a layperson. I don’t have a theology degree. I don’t claim to know it all. I’m just a regular Jo, working her way through life and trying to do her best with faith and followership. There are whole books arguing for and against this next topic! I’m just giving you my super quick cooks tour of it.
Without further ado, meet John Calvin. The TULIP guy.
The 1500’s were a turbulent time for Christianity. The Roman Catholic Church, which had enjoyed a position of privilege in society, was undergoing the throes of what would later become known as the Protestant Reformation – a significant split from the institution. John Calvin was a French theologian born into a catholic family but later went protestant after studying philosophy, humanism and law. He stepped up to the plate in the mid 1500’s and began to help popularise a few things ideas that have hung on until today, namely; belief in the sovereignty of God in all things, and the doctrine of predestination.
Why did I call him the TULIP Guy? Because he had five points and the best acronym people have come up with for that is a flower. (Hey, I like flowers!) Christianity.com briefly explains the five main points of Calvinism as this:
Total Depravity – asserts that as a consequence of the fall of man into sin, every person is enslaved to sin. People are not by nature inclined to love God, but rather to serve their own interests and to reject the rule of God.
Unconditional Election – asserts that God has chosen from eternity those whom he will bring to himself not based on foreseen virtue, merit, or faith in those people; rather, his choice is unconditionally grounded in his mercy alone. God has chosen from eternity to extend mercy to those he has chosen and to withhold mercy from those not chosen.
Limited Atonement – asserts that Jesus’s substitutionary atonement was definite and certain in its purpose and in what it accomplished. This implies that only the sins of the elect were atoned for by Jesus’s death.
Irresistible Grace – asserts that the saving grace of God is effectually applied to those whom he has determined to save (that is, the elect) and overcomes their resistance to obeying the call of the gospel, bringing them to a saving faith. This means that when God sovereignly purposes to save someone, that individual certainly will be saved.
Perseverance of the Saints – asserts that since God is sovereign and his will cannot be frustrated by humans or anything else, those whom God has called into communion with himself will continue in faith until the end.
Okay! Big ideas here. Big ideas that have permeated church until today. I always used to just think “Yep, okay cool” when it came to Calvinism, but the more I grow in my faith and deconstruction, the more I can see some fundamental flaws in the logic. Most of them pertain to the middle three points. Let’s start with unconditional election: the idea that we are either doomed to hell or destined for heaven from the dawn of time is something I find deeply troubling. We have scriptures such as John 3:16 (For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that *whosoever* believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life) or Acts 2:21 and Romans 10:13 that guarantee that anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
Then there is Romans 5:18 that says “as through one transgression, there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness, there resulted justification of life to all.” 1 Timothy 2:24 talks about Gods desire for all to be saved, and Titus 2:11 speaks about God bringing salvation to all. 2 Peter 3:9 says that God’s desire is that none should perish. These scriptures seem to be at odds not only with unconditional election, but the idea of limited atonement too.
The idea that there is an in crowd destined for heaven and an out crowd destined for hell, and we have no choice as to which crowd we are in, is deeply flawed. Yes, I know there is that verse that says “many are called but few are chosen.” This is an unsettling parable that shows that even though the invitation to salvation goes out to all, only some show up. These are the chosen. The elect. And there is Ephesians 1:4 that refers to the elect that God has chosen before the foundation of the world. So I can see where Calvin was getting his ideas from. However, the greater story arc that stretches through the Bible shows the nature of God to be one where He wants to redeem all. Why would he then only redeem some and eternally doom the rest from before their time on earth begins?
All of this hails back to the idea of predestination and God’s sovereignty: ie. that we cannot change what God has already decided so we are sealed in our fate. Now, both of these can be argued biblically both ways. We could have two skilled debaters on the platform using only biblical knowledge as their argument and it would make sense.
But for me, there is a chink in the chain mail. Why send your only begotten son to die for only some? Why create a soul that you love, that you care for, only to decide from the outset that they are destined to burn. We are introduced to God as being “love” and as being a loving father. As a parent, this speaks to me. I have two beautiful kids. You want me to choose one to live forever in a glorious afterlife and the other to burn for eternity?
Nope. I’m choosing both of my kids for the good stuff. No one burns. So that’s me, with two kids. Two kids I love so much I’d walk through fire for them. I’m not writing either one of them out of the will. I love them, thus I will do everything I can for them.
In pulpits everywhere, we are taught about God’s unconditional and sacrificial love for us. It’s an argument seated solidly in scripture. How then are we supposed to argue that only some of us actually have tickets to take advantage of it, especially given all the scriptures I quoted above.
Now I get it; if God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and all the omni’s, then He already sees and knows our choices. He already sees and knows who will take Him up on the offer of salvation. But does that mean that it is not freely offered to all? I think not. A hard core calvinist, when asking themselves a few questions would have to come to the conclusion that God knew and even desired for sin to enter the world from the beginning, that there is no point praying to bring unbelievers to faith because its either going to happen or not anyway, that Jesus didn’t die for everybody, and if we take the concept of predestination to the extreme, that God ordained things like the holocaust, murders, tragedies or sexual crimes.
Now to the idea of irresistible grace – that if we are the elect, nothing we can do can separate us from God’s grace and atonement. It’s a lovely idea. So lovely. I believe in the all sufficiency of God’s grace. However, the idea that the elect get this conscience clearing superpass to heaven no matter what they do, while those who are not in the elect get the short straw and go to hell no matter what they do is troubling.
It paints God as a masochist. A bit of an arsehole dad – who made a whole bunch of kids and decided a large portion of them weren’t good enough to eat at the family table, and who killed one of them to redeem only some of them.
Now to the idea of total depravity. Okay – I have no problem with the idea of sin. Sin, as falling short of a lofty, Godlike standard is just the human condition. We are all flawed in some way. We are all great in some way. We are all doing the best we can. But calling it total depravity is a whole new level.
To say “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” is a recognition of our human flaws. It is a recognition that we are not God and we need God. I like that. I’m fine with that.
Now look to your local maternity ward. Inside the nursery, swaddled in whites, are tiny babies. They are so new to the world that they don’t have a functioning prefrontal cortex. They don’t have awareness of what is right and wrong. They have awareness of hunger, tiredness and discomfort. This is not total depravity. This is innocence.
I have two preschoolers. Even in all the tantrums and tears and the selfishness of always wanting the bigger slice or the cooler toy, I can’t call it total depravity. Inside their brains is a firestorm of growth. They are learning who they are apart from me. They are learning how to assert themselves, and the difference between justified frustration and an unjustified tantrum. Even now, I can’t call their poor decision making total depravity. Because as frustrating as it is, it is innocent.
If you argue that total depravity sets in at the point where a person has a fully functioning prefrontal cortex and can make conscious decisions, then fine. But answer me this: the emergence of the atheist movement over time seems to have shown that people can be altruistic and seek to create a better world even if they aren’t Christians. It seems to show that ethics and unconditional love aren’t the domain of the redeemed alone. I look to those who campaign for human rights and I see God in them regardless of whether or not they believe.
At what point then, do we become totally depraved? You can look at the Ted Bundy’s of the world and think “Yep, depraved.” You can look at the Hitlers of the world and think “Heck. Absolutely. Depraved.” But a four-year old who just wants to faceplate directly into the top of the watermelon instead of waiting for mummy to slice it? He’s just learning patience and doing badly at it.
For all have sinned, fine. For all are flawed, absolutely. Depraved? I can’t come at that. We are all just doing our best. It’s just a shame our best isn’t Godlike, or the world would be a more peaceful place.
Look – I was going to try and argue for Calvinism. But it turns out I can’t. Someone else can! Heck, if you feel like it, pop me a note and you can guest blog on it! Be my guest!
The Bible is a complex document. It is rich in historical and cultural context that we often miss. The Protestant Reformation was an important time in history where mankind started to re-take the reigns of faith that had been handed off to the clergy. It gave us an opportunity to participate in faith to a whole new degree. It was an important development.
But there is a line somewhere in the Bible that says God builds line upon line, and precept upon precept. We, as Christians, progressives even, in the year 2020, need to take our faith and understanding further. And that means understanding what it is built on now.
Until next time,
Kit K, predestined since the beginning of time to write this blog article and publish it without proofreading it on February 11th 2020.
Peace
What Happens When God Doesn’t Answer Our Prayers
Late last night, a friend send me a text message. “Have you seen, #wakeupolive on instagram?” it read. I jumped on over and saw every mothers nightmare. A beautiful little girl name Olive, 2 years old, full of life, had suddenly stopped breathing and died. She was taken to hospital and declared dead on arrival. She was not on life support. Olive was gone. My heart sunk to my shoes. I wanted to wake my sweet 2 year old girl and cuddle her forever. Because no parent should lose a child. But little Olive’s case was different. Her mother is a worship leader at Bethel and the last five days have been filled with worship sessions, worldwide prayer and fervent beseechings for God to raise this little girl to life.Now read me right, I’d be thrilled if the best were to happen. I’d pull a Tom Cruise and jump up and down on the couch with my kids.
But we are heading into day six now and so this story will have a lot of people asking “What if she doesn’t get raised from the dead?” Well that, my friend, is a very good question.
I want to start by saying I believe in miracles, in that I have been the very reluctant recipient of two of them. (I.e. It wasn’t mind over matter because I was sure that I was not going to be healed from these conditions. I’d even been in big arguments about it. There were witnesses to that.) Long story…
But miracle healings do happen. In the science world, they are called spontaneous remissions. There are thousands of documented instances of sudden and inexplicable recoveries in both Christian and secular settings. When you look at people like Dr Joe Dispenza, Dr Gregg Braden and even illusionist Derren Brown, you actually do get some pretty fascinating explanations for how these healings might take place. I’mma blog more on that another day because it’s complicated. But for the sake of today I want to say this:
I believe that God, or whatever you choose to call the force that animates the universe, can use various mechanisms to heal us. Science and metaphysical philosophers of various streams may be able to explain some aspects of it. Great. I’m not offended by that. I believe that God can do whatever He wants to do. I also believe know it can be profoundly disappointing when it doesn’t pan out the way we’d have liked.
Real talk: God has been profoundly disappointing to me at times. I remember sobbing in the shower after my fourth miscarriage and telling God some things I really hated and was furious about. Then I hated myself for hating God. And then I realised God has big shoulders. He can handle my anger and my questions.
When these questions become deep questioning, that can be called deconstruction. It’s the moment we start to grapple with whether or not our faith and worldview holds up to scrutiny. The issue with deconstruction is not whether God can handle it. Its whether we can. When I look at the Bethel movement, I can see some pretty big red flags. One is the doctrine that complete healing is guaranteed as part of atonement at the point of salvation.
Bill Johnson believes and teaches that [1]:
God never causes sickness.
God always chooses to heal.
Paul’s thorn in the flesh was definitely not a physical ailment.
If you do not believe in healing on demand, you are preaching another gospel
Johnson has said “I refuse to create a theology that allows for sickness.”
Well! Bill isn’t God. He doesn’t get to decide that, but…
The first point I don’t have an issue with per se. Although, as we age, the body is subject to entropy and atrophy. That, to me, seems to be just part of life after Eden.
The second is rubbish. God doesn’t always choose to heal. Jacob walked with a limp. God didn’t choose to heal him. The argument that Paul’s thorn in the flesh was “definitely not a physical ailment” is laughable. There is no way we can tell. I know plenty of people of great faith, who walked closely with God, who were constantly bringing their sin and failures before him who did not receive their miracles. I wouldn’t dare question their salvation. I wouldn’t dare question anyone listed in Hebrews 11 who didn’t receive their healing or the thing they were praying for.
The moment we create a theology that portrays God as a genie in a bottle who grants our healing wishes, we deny the sovereignty of God. If we believe that God is God, we have to believe He is sovereign over the timing of healing (i.e. here or eternity). We have to believe the choice is ultimately His. If not, we are demoting Him to genie, and promoting ourselves to deity.
And hey – the scripture tells us that if we share in his sufferings, we share in his glory. Why would that be dropped into scripture if salvation meant life would be a painless walk in the park?
The idea that healing is guaranteed on demand is a bad doctrine that has the potential to knock someone right out of the church door if tragedy strikes. It’s bad theology. And bad theology is dangerous.
I used to come at faith from a position of, I don’t know, superiority maybe? I had some bad theology of my own. Now, having lost the blessed naivety of my youth, I know that Christianity isn’t a magic wand, a silver spoon or a genie in a bottle. It is a comfort and a guide. It is a set of ethics and morals. It is a way of seeing the world. It’s a reverence and a reference point, and so much more.
I believe it should constantly be something I wrestle with and think about in terms of how best to live it out. But it doesn’t change the amount of struggles I will face in my life (spoiler: there have been a few!). I doesn’t change the amount of struggles anyone faces. The Bible never said it would. It said though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will *fear* no evil for you are with me. It said thy rod and staff comfort me. It said all things would work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose. But that never meant we would be immune to pain.
Hey. I’ve got unanswered prayers. I have significant health challenges. I don’t for one minute blame God, and I don’t for one minute blame myself. Those challenges mean I can sit with people who have invisible illnesses, support them and understand them. I grieve my angel babies. But I’ve been able to hold the hands of people walking the road of infertility. Sharing those deeply personal struggles is an honour I don’t take lightly. I might not be healed, but I am bloody resilient. I thank God for that gift.
(I’m not suggesting that poor Olive’s mum looks for any such silver lining right now. I am hurting for that woman! Let’s make that clear.)
The case of young Olive is a tragedy. I hope it doesn’t become a dual tragedy that causes her mother to lose faith, or causes other people to ask God why He didn’t be a good genie and bring her back when we demanded it. If it did, I wouldn’t blame the parents. I wouldn’t blame the people who are praying for these precious souls because of the compassion and empathy and faith they have right now. Thank God for them!
I’d blame the people who trot out bad theology and raise expectations above the Biblical bar.
God isn’t our genie. He is our father in heaven. He is the author and finisher of our faith. He is sovereign. He is not able to be fully understood and I cringe at even using male pronouns for him right now. God is too big for our petty labels. God is too big to push around.
And hey side note: I read this fabulous quote on instagram (I’m looking at you, Jess Hugenberg): Types of witchcraft: 1) incantation: magic spells, a series of words or phrases believed to be uttered to achieve a desired result. 2) Divination: seeking knowledge by supernatural means, such as necromancy, which is summoning spirits or raising the dead.
Proclaiming “resurrection power” with poor understanding is heresy. Resurrection power is NOT the power to raise anyone from the dead. Resurrection power is the power that fuelled and accompanied Jesus’ resurrection which defeated sin and death. That doesn’t mean we will never die but that our souls will have eternal life in Jesus.
Look, I don’t know about you, but I like to stand well clear of the line that tells God what to do. The rationale above is pretty good reasoning as to why. My witch friend (yes! She’s fab) has shown me there is far more to witchcraft that what I wrote above. Her practice is quite different. But I’ve put that quote up there for thought provocation. We need to be careful which lines we cross. In my mind here, Bethel is crossing some dangerous lines.
If God didn’t answer your prayer, If he didn’t heal your child, or your sibling, your friend or partner, if He didn’t grant your wish on demand, that doesn’t mean God doesn’t exist. Look for him in comfort you receive. In the medical treatment you can access. In the faces of the friends who support you, and hopefully even in the blogs that try and help you to grapple with the questions that fall out of that disappointment.
But when we subscribe to the genie in a bottle doctrine of complete and guaranteed healing as part of atonement, then we not only question God but our very salvation. There is no biblical case for us to think we get to demand God heal us and have him scramble to snap his cosmic fingers.
Now, for my atheist readers, Hi! Good to have you along. I’m sure there are a million thoughts you have here, including the power of the mind and the placebo effect in healings. I’ll get to that another day! But for everyone else who believes there is something out there, for those of us who believe that something out there is called God, hang tight.
Unattained healing, ungranted wishes, unrequited desires – these are not evidence of an absent God. I like what a friend of mine says “Lack of evidence is not evidence of lack.” She was saying it about the world of research, indicating that there is much yet to be discovered in terms of the power of the body, the mind and the forces that animate and impact upon it.
I think it applies to God, too. I look at world history, at world religions, at the different denominations that exist around the world and I know that we are all striving to find meaning on this planet and to try to understand and explain the uncontainable Divine.
If God hasn’t answered your prayer. I’m sorry. I hope in time, He does. But if tragedy has struck, I hope that you can find comfort in the knowledge of a loving God who will carry you through the aftermath. When we subject ourselves to bad theology that treats God like a genie and denigrates His sovereignty, we can’t find comfort in God when we go through hard times. We can only be angry that our genie didn’t perform, or we can think that somehow we weren’t good enough.
Don’t do that. Life is hard enough. My heart is with the Bethel Church and the Heiligenthal family. I’m praying for them right now in this horrendous time of grief. I’m also grieved that this has played out in such a public and desperate fashion. Gosh. Imagine.
That’s all I got. I’m going to go hug my daughter real tight.
Over and out
“Just Choose Joy!” Um. No.
This post might be a bit of a rant. I'm okay with that. It might have very few scriptures to back up the stream of consciousness. I'm also okay with that. After all, I'm not a pastor or a theologian. I'm a Christian who is exploring faith, turning it over, turning it inside out, and examining all the different ways the light can refract.
I have an issue that I want to throw a little light on myself. This week I listened to a new song by a band I just love. And it well and truly pissed me off. The song was titled "Joy." Its catchy. Its not untrue. But it sends a message I think can be a little harmful, because it is so often repeated in churches across the globe and it can create unhealthy pressure.
The opening scene in the video clip showed two news anchors covering a mega-storm that was devastating the nation. One anchor was presenting the negative side of the story. The other was frustrated that she couldn't find the upside. Spoiler alert: the one who was trying to find the brighter note was the 'right' one. Because he was choosing joy.
Fair point. Learning to choose joy is a good thing. Learning to have faith in God when the situation seems dire is wonderful as it can take the lid off the pressure cooker of life. If you can choose joy, then you should. Good for you.
But for heavens sake (pun not intended), if there's a mega-storm coming at you, threatening to level everything around you, you don't have to be happy about it. If you are happy about it, I'm really worried. Or suspicious that you have a dishonestly inflated insurance policy and you're getting a windfall out of hurricane whatever.
Negative emotions are ok. They are fine. God made them. They shouldn't be what we build our lives on, but they are an essential part of the process of life. If we can't embrace the full spectrum of human emotion, if we only allow ourselves to express "Christian" emotions of peace and joy, then we almost guarantee the other God-designed emotions will become bottled, fermented, and explosive. I remember when I was young, my mum used to make non-alcoholic ginger beer. It was relatively uneventful until one batch fermented too far and blew up. You should have seen the mess. Wow. It covered everything in the shed.
It's a decent picture of what can happen when we deny ourselves the honesty of sadness, anger, grief etc. you know, when we just choose joy. Those other emotions become all-encompassing. They then have the potential to derail things.
If you are going through a mega-storm in your life, don't feel pressured to feel joy.
Grieve, if you have faced loss. God made grief. He turned His head away when His son was crucified. He couldn't look. I think He felt grief then.
Be angry, if you have been wronged. Didn't God invent anger too? Didn't Jesus express anger in the temple? Didn't God tell us "be angry but sin not?" The emotion is not the sin, friends. Keying your ex-boyfriends car, or rage-spending on a credit card that doesn't belong to you is the sin. (Insert a million other possible examples)
Be sad, if you are facing sadness. Didn't the Bible give us enough examples of God feeling sadness when he looked at the human race? Why do we lump these emotions in a basket marked "Bad?" They're human. And given the fact that God is no stranger to these emotions, I'd even say they're divine.
I refuse to use the term "negative emotion" any more. Emotions are necessary for us to process life. But if you want a key to peace, and indeed joy, then the trick is to let God in the troughs with you. Don't force yourself to always appear is if you are on the peak. He sees all your grief/anger/sadness already. Why not let Him share it?
I kinda blame the faith movement for this maladaptive approach to human emotion. There were a lot of good things about the faith movement, but this one stinks. You don't have to be up all the time. Gosh! Even God isn't.
I've been a little curious looking around churches and seeing a lot of depressed and anxious people. I don't know what the statistics are for the church globally, but I suspect that in some cases, our statistics on depression and anxiety could actually be worse than the unchurched world. Why?
I have a theory (Okay... a few). One of them is that we think Christianity demands perfection of us, and perfection means faultless emotional "upness". But my goodness that is so inauthentic.
In the last couple of years, I've given up faultless emotional upness. I'm happier than I ever was. I used to think, like a lot of Christians think, that we need to let our light shine constantly so a dark world can see and be drawn to our faith.
But newsflash. Candles flicker. Stars twinkle...in that things get in the way of their light so they are momentarily more dull. Clouds get in the way of the sun. The only light sources that are constant and unwavering are artificial.
Lets not be artificial. It hurts us. It makes us inauthentic. It makes others wary of what we are hiding.
You don't have to choose joy all the time. Sometimes you need to choose a good cry, a session with the punching bag, or a journaling session when you pour out your broken heart. Do this, and joy will be easier the next day, or the day after that. Do whatever helps you process the hurt and then you'll be able to find the sunny side again in time.
Just saying.
I hope joy is always easy for you. If it isn't, you are in good company, friend. Jesus, most of the world, and me are right there with you.
Cheers
Kit K
The De-Calvinisation of Kit Kennedy
There we were, my ex-husband and I, walking our two babies along a boardwalk during Covid19 lockdown. The dew was still fresh on the plants that carpeted the wetland floor. Our two-year-old was busy conquering her fear of bridges (because look, a boardwalk is one long bridge, isn't it). I watched her a bit proudly and reflected on my unfaced fears, and whether I had any. (Spoiler: We all do.) Then I said the thing that had been bothering me for a long time, but that I hadn't given voice to yet: "Bae, I just don't think I subscribe to the Evangelical trope of Jesus as my bestie anymore. And I can't think of God as an old white man in the sky who is morbidly curious about my every action, reaction and inaction, and who has a huge "choose your own adventure" style book of punishments and prizes depending on what I do or don't do in any given moment."
Patrick responded with a sentence almost as wordy as the two I'd just thrown him. And that is perhaps one reason we work so well as friends even after splitting.
But that wasn't the moment I was observing. I was observing another one, a big one where I recognized the seismic shift in my faith. There was no one around. It's not like anyone could hear, and if my theory was correct (which I won't know until eternity), then the only person who would hear was Patrick. After a lifetime of believing that God watched and judged and reacted to every single thing I did or thought, and even wondering whether the "cloud of witnesses" were still creepin' when you were shaving your legs or whatever in the shower, it was almost a relief to get that thought out of my head.
Superstitiously, I've waited for the other shoe to drop and for cosmic judgment to fall upon me because I don't look at Jesus as if He is my best friend.
It hasn't. And that is perhaps the most telling thing of all.
Let's step back a bit: what is this Evangelical Trope of which I speak?
It has long been a trend in Christian worship music for songs to kinda swing in a direction where the word "Jesus" could be subbed out for the word "Baby," a slick beat dropped behind the catchy riff and BOOM: club-worthy song. There was a meme that made its way around the internet not too long ago in which the dorkiest band you've ever seen sang "Jesus is my friend. I have my friend in Jesus. He taught me how to sing, and how to save my soul, He taught me how to love my God and still play rock and roll" blah blah blah. In fact, I have instant regret over typing those lyrics because the song is that catchy. There goes a perfectly good night's sleep.
That song, released soon after the advent of color television, was a very early iteration of the "Jesus is my best friend/lover/brother/" genre. It might have worked for me as a teenager when I needed to feel a sense of connectedness, lofty destiny, and the illusion of a guaranteed rosy life, but it certainly sat a little wonky in later years when I started to wonder whether this was true worship. I'd started to wonder whether worship should instead carry an attitude of reverence and awe, rather than the sort of poetry cooked up by hipsters to make their target market feel good.
Harsh. I know. Heck, I've written some of this stuff so I've certainly been part of the machine. Admittedly nothing as cool as the pop-star worship-leaders of today.
But can I say it out loud? Can I acknowledge it for what it is? I don't think many of us see Jesus as a literal best friend. And that's okay. Perhaps to call Him that is to bring the divine down to a human plain, or worse still, to raise ourselves to god-status by calling ourselves equal to the third part of the trinity.
Jesus is, in my mind, the divine incarnate. To others, He is a prophet or a philosopher. To others, maybe just an invisible buddy they like to chat to. I don't believe its bad to see Him as any of these things. But I certainly don't believe it is bad to admit that we don't see Him as the latter.
But where did this "Jesus is my friend", buddy-buddy attitude come from?
I'm sure there are better scholars out there, a fact I recount often. But there seem to be only a few instances in scripture and none of them seem to line up with "Jesus is my best buddy."
John 15:14 - 15 "You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you."
James 2:23 "Abraham believed in God, and it was accounted to him as righteousness, and he was called a friend of God."
Jesus was certainly called a friend of sinners, the first-born of many brethren, and he was certainly a friend of the disciples. But none of these instances put him on the same human level as the recipient of his friendship. It's more like having a name in your phone book of someone powerful who you could call on if you needed them. I have a number of MP's on my Facebook friends list. But I don't play pool with them or muse to them about my thoughts on dating post-separation. Having an influential friend is different to having a buddy.
Yes, Peter James and John had a closer relationship with Jesus than anyone else. I'm not denying that. But am I as close as they were? Could I ever be?
If I was ever in a position where I thought I could clearly, accurately, faultlessly and tangibly hear Jesus' voice and "rest my head on Him" as these disciples did, I truly hope one of you would drag me to a psychologist office - stat.
Now, look: the point of this post isn't to change your mind on anything. If you look at Jesus as if He is your best friend - good for you. I guess what I'm writing about here is an honest look at the state of my deconstruction. I'm not scared to call my approach to faith what it is anymore. I've got the podcast which creates a beautiful opportunity for me to explore the more intellectual avenues of deconstruction, theology, faith, and social justice. But who would I be if I didn't say exactly what's on my mind in terms of my own deeply held thoughts?
The truth is, I don't view Jesus as my best friend. Perhaps I never have. Perhaps I did but I'm glossing over history with the kind of paintbrush that makes things all look tidy and consistent in the present. I don't know. But either way, it's okay. I think I've mentioned before that I watched a beautiful series on Netflix called "The Story of God." It was narrated by Morgan Freeman (which was sort of meta, as it sounded like God was narrating his own story. Bravo Netflix). But what I noticed was a rich reverence woven through the exploration of each religion's origins and traditions. The gorgeous sound of the Islamic call to prayer, the deep respect that Native Americans and Indigenous people of other countries had for their spoken traditions, the incredible respect held by the researchers looking into the origins of the Abrahamic religions. The thread woven through was one of reverence, respect, awe, and somehow despite the diversity and difference presented in each faith or tradition, there was a thread of something familiar. It was a story of origin, of connection, of searching for a way of being in the world that was good.
Then Joel Osteen stepped on screen for the first time. He was there as the standard-bearer for American Evangelicalism - a faith that should be the closest relative to mine. His teeth, impeccably capped and whitened, made me grimace, but none so much as the words that came out of his mouth. I felt like I'd just switched channels to a Tony Robbins thing. I hated it. Where were the reverence and awe? It felt cheap and tacky but dressed up in a suit that undoubtedly cost thousands.
Today, in the height of the Black Lives Matter protests, I saw another cringe-worthy moment. Mega-church pastor Louis Giglio sitting with rapper LeCrae of all people, explaining the "Blessing" of slavery and reframing "white privilege" to "white blessing". My stomach sunk. It is a statement Giglio has since offered up a sincere apology and said he sees no blessing in slavery. Thank God. But still, I see something in the institutions of Evangelicalism as something deeply problematic: something more like Tony Robbins than Jesus. Something more like a fast-food franchise than a slowly-grown, deeply held, intentionally-built ethos that asks "how might I model myself off the life of Jesus? How can I make this world better?"
Jesus isn't my best friend. He is the highest-held model and ethical ideal in my mind. He is my God. Yes. But I won't bring Him down to sibling or bestie level.
My best friend and I (or ex-husband, however you want to phrase it), we sit and binge Netflix shows. We talk trash. I run things by him when I want a second opinion, but I know I can ignore his advice if I want. I don't base my ethical and moral decisions on what he would want me to do. My other best-friends - well at this point in Covid lockdown, we drink a fair bit of prosecco or gin and talk about our love lives a lot.
Again. Not doing that with Jesus. Although praying about what decision is right - that I do.
The Bible calls Jesus the firstborn of many brethren. But let's look at sibling relationships: I'm the eldest in my family. Of the five of us, I really only have semi-regular contact with one (if you don't count the odd snapchat or text). She is a free-spirit and a gifted public speaker. She is generous and a hard-worker. She is fabulous with kids and her wardrobe is phenomenal. There are things I admire about her. But I don't build my life around her and she certainly doesn't build hers around me.
What am I saying? Jesus isn't my sibling. He isn't my bestie. That's not a role I would ever reduce him to.
This realization has made me understand, for the first time in my life, that there is a jarring misfit between me and the contemporary church.
But why use "de-Calvinisation" in the title of this blog when you weren't even raised Calvinist, Kit?
A few weeks back I blogged on the five pillars of Calvinism. There at the top of the list is the doctrine of "Total Depravity." It's one that Evangelicalism is still very much steeped in; that since the fall of mankind in Eden, we are all born with a sin nature; totally depraved, enslaved to sin, selfish and self-serving, determined to act against God.
We hear it in altar calls. We hear it in the speeches of Billy Graham, who has been held up as the greatest evangelist of the modern era. Over the last few years I've been sitting with this uncomfortable question though: is it possible to follow Jesus without subscribing to a deep and wounding sense of self-loathing. Of inadequacy. Of "I can do nothing without God." I first started to wrestle with this when I was reading my ex-husbands Gay Conversion Therapy manual. I realized my own sense of inadequacy, fear of doing the wrong thing, feeling of being the wrong thing without the approval of the church - it was all internalized shame gifted to me from that Calvinist belief I had marinated in since childhood. It paled in comparison to the internalized sense of homophobia he carried. But that's another story, and another blog post (How I survived gay conversion therapy).
Side note: I wasn't raised Calvinist. It's just a belief that I see deeply steeped in the "Come to Jesus, all ye sinners" narrative."
Then I heard a podcast. The guest was Richard Rohr, and I can't even remember what else he said apart from this sentiment: why do we start our faith in Genesis 3 with the fall of mankind, when we could start it in Genesis 1 where God repeatedly looked at creation and said "It is good. It is good. It is good."?
So perhaps I'm a Franciscan now? Maybe? I don't know. All I know is reading Genesis one and letting those words wash over me felt healing. Because here is what I know about humanity:
No loving parent looks at their newborn and sees sin and depravity. They see beauty, even in those first weeks when their kid is funny looking - Let's be honest. We are told God is love, but then told that we are depraved and He hates sin (thus he can't stand us). Furthermore, we are told the Bible never contradicts itself. Well, it just did. If God, whom we are supposed to call Abba Father, is love, then he loves us. Or He is a hateful parent who alienates and estranges his children from the get-go until they can earn their way back. I'm a mother of two children. I know which parent I am. And I am infinitely less good than the divine good.
All of us are doing our best. I loved watching Game of Thrones. Because every character had redeeming qualities and also the ability to do awful things. Yet we wouldn't call them awful. (Okay, Joffrey doesn't count. Straight up jerk, that one!). I believe all of us are doing the best we can with what we are given. Can we all do better if given the right resources? Yes. In "Little Fires Everywhere" featuring Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington, the latter yelled, "You didn't 'make good choices, you had good choices." And wow, it's true. That's privilege in one sentence.
Not many of us believe we are inherently bad people. Why is it that religion steps in, and before accepting us into its exclusive club, makes us admit that we are terrible and hopeless, and sinful without God? Surely, if God is God, and if Jesus is the human incarnation of the divine, then there should be good enough reason to follow him without self-hatred and shame. I believe there is. I don't believe we need to think of ourselves as the scum of the earth before we reach for a more merciful, honest, compassionate, anti-corruption, anti-exclusion, self-sacrificially loving existence. Do you?
So look. This is an intensely personal post I'm just putting out there because I need to get what's on my mind off my mind before I finish crafting a ghostwritten book on infant and pediatric craniopathies!
Here's what I believe about myself now.
I start my faith in Genesis 1. I am good. I am not perfect, but I do not hate myself for that. Jesus is a divine being I approach with reverence, not familiarity. I do not follow Him because I hate myself. I follow Him because I love humanity. I believe that Christianity that builds itself on instilling a sense of self-loathing or shame in its adherents is inferior because it is not built on the immensity, infinitely expansive, compassionate, merciful, intentionally diverse nature of God and the world He/They created.
So yeah. That's me right now. This is the state of the de-calvinisation of Kit Kennedy as at June 17, 2020. Let's see where we are next year!
Peace
Kit K
P.S. Here is the song I referred to. You're welcome.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-NOZU2iPA8[/embed]
Why I don’t seek certainty anymore
For me, faith was always about certainty. Certainty that the world worked a certain way. Certainty that God would always come through for you (if you prayed hard enough, worked hard enough, didn't sin, fasted if the situation warranted it, and were generally the good girl). If you were a good evangelical, you would reach other people for Christ, and this often came through a formulaic approach based on the godlessness and hopelessness of all humankind, and the goodness and all-powerfulness of God.
Cool. Except for the fact that I prayed hard enough, worked hard enough, behaved well enough, fasted if the situation warranted it and was generally a good girl. A really good girl. If you knew my story, you'd probably know that I've had more things go wrong in my life than many. I firmly believe that there should be a cosmic quota for heartache and misfortune, and I've passed it. Waaayyy passed it. So why am I the happiest I've ever been?
I think its because I've shifted from certainty to uncertainty. And it's beautiful. Do I know all about God? Nope. Not even close. Am I always seeking to understand God, and connect with the divine? Yep. Do I seek to live out my followership of Christ in the truest, most compassionate, most dedicated way I can? Yep. Does this bring me certainty about the world? Heck no.
Am I okay with that? Absolutely.
You see certainty, for me, brought about a deep sense of unease. If I was so certain that my doctrines were correct, and that everyone else was wrong and needed to convert to the movement I was in in order to be right, then I needed to wrestle with what I saw around me. My perfect God was missing a lot. He was not intervening in a lot of situations despite the endless prayers and supplications of His devout followers. He was turning a blind eye to abuse, a lot. He was making life really hard for the people who followed Him. If I was so certain that this version of God was the right version of God, and this version of philosophy and spirituality was the right version of it, then I had to earnestly want all my friends and family to convert to this extremely difficult way of being in the world.
I...didn't. Couldn't. And a new way of interacting with God began.
Let's be fair: it began with a bit of a shitshow. I catapulted past that cosmic quota on hardship (that doesn't exist). And the final straw came when my marriage transitioned. I say transitioned because it became a friendship that just works. To say it ended would elude to me losing my best friend and confidante. I didn't. He's gay though, and that is a bit of a pivot. So we separated.
In that moment, the vows that I had relied upon were broken. I stared in the face of potential abandonment once again, and guess what: it didn't happen. He stuck by me the best way two separated people could. We share a house, and co-parenting duties. Our relationship has changed, but he did not run for the hills. My friends gathered around me, and I realised for the first time in my life that I didn't want friends who rejected him or whose interactions with me were based on conditional love or the perception of me being weak and hurt. Because although he was my ex-husband, he wasn't the man who wronged me. He loved me enough to give me a chance to find love again while I was young. He loved me enough to plunge us both into uncertainty, knowing that it would force us both to live authentically.
Yes, he needed to live authentically for obvious reasons. But he knew something about me too: I'd been making myself smaller in order to stay in his shadow, like a good, submitted, complementarian wife. He wasn't going to let me do it for the rest of my life. So here we are: two single people parenting two presidents-schoolers, and about to take on the world of dating and its uncertain as heck.
In that moment, when we first separated, I went "huh. Can't control a bloody thing, can you? Best just roll with it."
Then Covid19 hit. And I thought "huh. Can't control a bloody thing, can you? Best just roll with it."
And then we moved to a whole new neighbourhood, in a whole new city, and we aren't giving out our address for the first time in our lives. We waited until after the Melbourne lockdown was over to make the move, knowing making friends in Covid19 is difficult, but then the second lockdown started 48 hours before we arrived. And I thought, you guessed it, "Huh. Can't control a bloody thing, can you? Best just roll with it."
I mean I could have tried to control everything, to line it up with my "certain", "non-negotiable" or "tried and true" ideas about the world. But that would have been fruitless, wouldn't it. It would have taken up a crazy amount of energy, reduced me to frustration, and perhaps given me another walk with the black dog.
Here's the problem I see with seeking certainty: it's very hard to distinguish between certainty and control. In fact, sometimes when we say "certainty" what we mean is "control - fitting everything into a box I can understand and compartmentalise, keeping people and ideas where I want them so I can feel safe." And control, frankly, is a myth. You can't wrap the world up in a neat little bow, claiming you understand all of its in's and out's, its workings, timings and cosmic rhythms.
You can't make people do what you want them to do and have that relationship be one in which both parties are healthy. For one person to have control over anothers actions takes away from the personhood of the second party. It costs part of their individuality, and agency over their choices in order for them to fall in line with what the person-in-control wants them to be.
And it's a lot of work to maintain that inauthenticity, or that control. It breeds distrust, dissatisfaction, and all the disses.
So I'm embracing uncertainty. I know I do not understand God and the universe. It makes seeking those answers fun and fascinating. I know I can't control anything, so I connect with my own integrity and what I deeply feel to be true in any given moment and do the best I can. I embrace the idea that I may be wrong, and that's okay. When I'm faced with curveballs, I'm learning to go "Okay. Can I control this? No. So how do I respond best? How do I act in this moment that allows me to still be in my integrity, in my boundaries, and in line with what I feel to be my purpose?"
I like it. I like it better than certainty. A God I don't understand is so much easier to seek after than one I think I've got locked down. A person I can't control is so much more freeing to be around because they can be their authentic selves and I can be my authentic self. The energy once spent on good behaviour and fitting in is so much better spent elsewhere, don't you think?
Anyway, that's my thoughts for today. They may be influenced a little bit by Keith Kristich's session on the podcast...but I have to wait until next week to post that. Stay tuned.
I'm currently listening to the sound of children playing, looking out over a city skyline on a sunny winters day. All is not how I thought it would be. But its pretty darn great. And I am happy. And this is a moment worth marking.
I hope you are well in this crazy time.
xo
Kit