Am I Growing In My Faith?

How do we know if we are progressing in our faith? How do we know if we are digressing in our faith? How do we know if we are stagnate in our faith? It is commonly taught that it is the fruit of our faith that matters and so we should just look to the fruit of our faith and then we know if we are progressing, digressing or stagnating. This way of thinking might overlook that a child can be full of kindness but that does not mean they have a deep faith that will help in time of need. Or even the most patient person might still desire to be correct all the time. So they are patient and self-righteous.

And so how do we know if we are progressing in our faith? One way to think about it is where we see God. More specifically we might think of the spiritual life as moving from:

• Seeing God where we expect

• Seeing God everywhere

• Unable to see God

• Seeing God where we do not expect God to be

What follows is a brief unpacking of each of these different movements, or different faiths.

There first is being able to see God where we expect to see God. This is the “reassurance faith”. We move through our world and we expect to see God in nature and so we look out and we see God in a sunset or a blooming grove. We expect to see God in the good, true and beautiful. We associate God with these things and so when we see something good, true and beautiful, we expect that God is there. And we see God. And that reassurance is soothing. It allows us to return to the good, true and beautiful when we are stressed, anxious or crumbling to be reassured that God is where we expect to see God.

However, as we experience the broader world, we begin to think that maybe God is not just limited to the light and beautiful. We begin to think that maybe God is also located in the night and darkness of our souls. We see God not just where we expect to see God but we begin to see God everywhere. Yes, God can be seen in a lovely daybreak but also in the heartbreak. God is present everywhere and there is no place where we can go that God would not lead us. This is the “purity faith”. Some stop at this level and think that if God is everywhere then I don’t need to participate in a worshiping community to see God because God is not just where I expect (such as in corporate worship) but God is also with me when I read a book with coffee early in the morning. Seeing God everywhere is a great step and it feels like we are going deeper, but in practice we begin to believe that God is where I am and I am where God is. While an important movement, remaining at this stage makes our sense of God rather small.

It makes sense why we might want to stay at “purity faith” because it gives us permission to retain our innocence without having to address the difficult question, such as: Can God be in the tragic? Where is God in this terrible things? Surely God is not in the evil thing, right? The inner conflict we have to see God everywhere but not being able to see God everywhere creates cognitive dissonance. Some of us resolve this dissonance by tossing our hands up and go back to “purity faith”. Others embrace a “material faith”. This is when we are not able to see God, and since we cannot see God, maybe God does not exist. To be clear, “material faith” is not atheism. It is not a rejection of a God, rather it is just a redirecting of what one has faith in. Maybe one begins to have faith in one self or in what is measurable or testable. Even the most ardent “atheist” has material faith, it is faith that rejects the intangible or the non-material.

The “deepest” movement that I have experienced is the movement into “contradiction faith”. This is most commonly experienced when we see God where we don’t expect God to be. When we are able to see God in the "other” or even the “enemy”. When we are able to see God in places where we do not expect God to dwell or be. When we are scandalized by the idea that God is present in the hells and demons of this world. Many of the most ardent faithful Contradiction faith looks silly, wishy washy, inconsistent and even to some, evil. At it’s core, contradiction faith is being able to be surprised by God’s presence. It is unpredictable and vibrant. It is a freedom from having to solve or overlook inconsistencies in our faith. It is being able to see that contradiction is not to be avoided but to be embraced, because the very world is full of contradiction.

Disgust Will Kill the UMC and GMC

Within the United Methodist Church, the conventional wisdom is that differences divide and similarities unite. Therefore we need to create churches of like-mindedness because a church that has differences cannot walk together. It is the conventional wisdom that differences are obstacles to relationships, and so those obstacles must be removed or we must end the relationship. It is naïve to suggest otherwise. It is seen as ridiculous to suggest the opposite - that differences are what unite and our similarities are what divide.

And yet, I read this parable in Luke 18:9-14 in the Common English Bible:

9 Jesus told this parable to certain people who had convinced themselves that they were righteous and who looked on everyone else with disgust: 10 “Two people went up to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood and prayed about himself with these words, ‘God, I thank you that I’m not like everyone else—crooks, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week. I give a tenth of everything I receive.’ 13 But the tax collector stood at a distance. He wouldn’t even lift his eyes to look toward heaven. Rather, he struck his chest and said, ‘God, show mercy to me, a sinner.’ 14 I tell you, this person went down to his home justified rather than the Pharisee. All who lift themselves up will be brought low, and those who make themselves low will be lifted up.”

The Pharisee and the tax collector are both in the temple praying, but they are separated. Why are they separated? Because the Pharisee is disgusted with the tax-collector who is a heretical, stealing Jew who, from the perspective of the Pharisee, does not have a high view of scripture. Because if the tax collector did have a high view of scripture, they would know that it is a clear violation of scriptural to work for the Romans who worship other gods and enslave people. Disgust is an expulsive response humans have when we encounter disgusting things. It is why we push a plate away when we taste something bad. The Pharisee chose, for the sake of Orthodoxy, to separate himself from the dirty, lying, unclean tax collector.

Then notice, that when the two finish their payers, the parable reads, “I tell you, this person went down to his home justified rather than the Pharisee.” The word in this parable translated as, “rather than” in Greek is the word, “par”. Par means “alongside”, as in “parallel” parking. At the end of the parable, the two men left the temple side by side.

Something happened in their prayer that removed disgust and the two walked alongside one another. They each were converted from their own disgust. The Pharisee no longer is disgusted by the tax collector and the tax collector is no longer disgusted with himself. The Pharisee is brought low, as in brought down to the proper level since he thought to greatly of himself. And the tax collector was lifted up, as in brought up to the proper level since he though too little of himself. And they walked out alongside one another.

We have no proof that either man changed how they prayed or how they lived. We may assume that the each went back to their work and their lives. We may assume they each went back to interpreting the scriptures the way the had before the prayer session. We may assume they have many differences even to this day, but they walk alongside one another.

The Pharisee and the tax collector understand that it is their differences that bring them together. It is their differences - not their sameness - that attracts one to the other. They understand that they could walk along side each other, even with their fundamental disagreements. The only thing keeping them apart was disgust.

The UMC is splintering, breaking, tearing or whatever word you want to use. The argument is that we have fundamental differences about the authority of scripture, the sovereignty of God, the role of the church, the human condition and the nature of sin. For the sake of argument, lets assume that the UMC and the WCA really do have such fundamental differences (we don’t, regardless of leadership suggesting otherwise). Are we to accept that the differences between the UMC and the GMC are so vast and so much greater than that of the Pharisee and a tax collector? If you think so then I would encourage a re-read of the Gospels.

After prayer, the Pharisee and the tax collector can walk alongside the other, not because one convinced the other, but because in prayer we let go of disgust.

Ultimately, from where I sit, the reason for the turmoil in the UMC is not because of any of the stated reasons, but it is because of disgust. We are disgusted with each other. You see this disgust in all the digital ink spilled as the GMC makes a claim about the UMC and then the UMC makes a claim about the GMC. We grow more and more disgusted with one another and, disgust is an expulsive action.

The GMC is pushing the UMC plate away. The UMC is pushing the GMC plate away. Neither of us will be justified when we come down our little mountains of self-righteousness.

If you read this parable and think, “The tax collector is doing it right and shame on the Pharisee for doing it wrong” then we are doing the very same thing that the Pharisee is doing in the parable. Could this parable be, at least in part, a call to see that it is only when we walk alongside those who are different from us that we have the chance to convert from our disgust. If we do not overcome or even befriend our disgust then we will always be enslaved to it. The more we break into the “likeminded” communities the more disgusted we will be with others. And the most disgust we experience the more we will expel.

At which point it is only a matter of time before we expel Christ from our churches.

Christians Following Nietzsche

If there is a saying of the desert tradition that summarizes our time, I nominate the following:

Abba Anthony said, “A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him saying, ‘You are mad, you are not like us.‘”

Each week there is some news that comes up through the United Methodist Church news cycle that just baffles me. It is clearly much more complex and complicated than I could possibly understand and I feel like I am going mad (crazy).

Nietzsche is alive and well in the Church. Almost as an “unholy” spirit.

Where is the specter or Nietzsche you ask? Maybe you can piece it together when you read what Nietzsche says about power in his writing called “Antichrist”:

What is good?—Whatever augments the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself, in man.

What is evil?—Whatever springs from weakness.

What is happiness?—The feeling that power increases—that resistance is overcome. Not contentment, but more power; not peace at any price, but war; not virtue, but efficiency.

The acquisition and retention of power shows up in all sorts of obvious ways in the Church. When the pastor is the gatekeeper of all that is “godly” or when the church marries herself with government (such as Christian Nationalism). We see the elevation of power in the church in less subtle ways as well when the church leads by “empowering” others. To be clear it is not that empowering others goes to far, it is that empowering others does not go far enough. The Church of Jesus Christ is not to settle for empowering people but working to liberate people. Christ’s power liberates in service of the weak, Nietzsche’s power binds the weak to be in service.

When power becomes the chief value we seek we have to ask if we are following Christ or Nietzsche? Are we following the one who divested all power and became obedient to death (Philippians 2) or the one who said that happiness can be found through war and efficiency?

In case you wanted to know the last part of the Nietzsche quote here those lines ends:

The weak and the botched shall perish: first principle of our charity. And one should help them to it.

What is more harmful than any vice?—Practical sympathy for the botched and the weak—Christianity....

To that end, anyone in the church that is calling for the dismantling of the church. Anyone who is leading people to harden their stance and shun weakness. Anyone who is arguing for a church that is without any flaws or inconsistencies. Anyone who is lacking charity of spirit or presuming the worst intensions of another. These may be followers of Nietzsche.