There are a lot of us out here who imagine letting our faith crash to the floor as we walk out the door. We are either cannot believe in old things or our trust has been put through a paper-church shredder, or we feel compelled to leave for other reasons. In the old days, we probably would have simply abandoned Christianity as a phase and pressed forward with our lives, a little lighter, yet empty in our bellies, having given birth to Christ within us only to flush him down the toilet with the bathwater. Perhaps the bathwater is all bubbles and warmth and a feeling of squeaky-clean for lots of evangelicals. For those of us who feel deadened by traditional modern Christianity, the bathwater somehow seemed grimy, perhaps with the dirt that got washed off other people hanging out in the tub. We felt it was toxic and we felt pain. So we would have left, rather than die for something that no longer held life for us.
The emerging conversation is hopefully not a monolith of beliefs or a reactionary faction of disillusioned, bitter people, although any movement tends to calcify with time. I don’t think any one person or movement has a final say in the truth. God’s perspective is God’s alone.
Yet for all its imperfections, the emerging conversation is a safe haven for us to go, a place where we can Be.
A place of grace offered by letting us open to the questions we have and find the mystery of Christ pulsing in the space of unknowing, rather than a being slapped with a stern doctrine of grace through faith, which leaves us certain that our faith, being inadequate, will not be sufficient to land us in the palm of God.
Yet even though our faith is clearly inadequate, we sense, even in our Life outside certainty or intellectual orthodoxy, that we are held in the palm of God. We long to keep traveling with the Spirit. We want to know God. We want Jesus (but we are not sure what Jesus looks like all the time.)
And through networking with other people traversing a similar path, we are able to continue in the Spirit of Christ, in community with other orthodox heretics, loving Jesus who said that someday we wouldn’t worship on this mountain or that, but in spirit and in truth.
If you are an evangelical, thank God for all the people who’ve continued traveling with God because through the emerging conversation they understood that their Shepherd has a bigger pasture than could be imagined. A pasture with enough room for white sheep and black sheep, even sheep with purple wool, if there were such a thing.
As a new favorite author of mine, Geri Larkin writes, “Whoever wants God gets God.”
And I guess this would be true even if I walked away from Christianity, which isn’t after all the same as walking away from God.
I may yet.
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