"Not really, but I love Jesus."
I'm not really comfortable with saying anything more. I go to church, I do subscribe to many forms of religious practice, but I'm apathetic to all of these peripheral things. A teacher, though not one of mine, once said, "It's easy to prophesy from the periphery you need to come back to the center." I can't prophesy about the periphery anymore. Maybe it's because I'm busier than I used to be, or have traveled down enough side roads to see they don't get you anywhere. But I just don't have the urge to tell people about how good worship was last week (saying this is hypothetical, I haven't been to a service in the last 3 weeks) or what the pastor talked about, or how they should come to my church, because we've got it right over there.
I don't want to identify with Christianity, these days (as in, since the first century church was established) it does me and Jesus more harm than good. At this point I could say you should stop talking about stuff other than Jesus, but I don't even feel secure in deviating that much from just saying, "Jesus" (I may blending Jesus with Tao a little bit here). I live within a network of people where the ones who don't go to church or more kind, supportive, friendly, even sane, than the ones who do (what was I expecting though, that church would fix these people?). I think all of us do really, except for the ones who don't know anybody who doesn't go to church (which you would think would be impossible, besides unbiblical).
I'm not sure I'm doing anything but stirring a pot that doesn't need stirring, or throwing a rock in a hornet's nest. But I've got this weight on my shoulders that presses on me every time I stand still long enough for it exert enough force to be recognized. I just can't resolve God, the Universe, and Everything...with me and all these pompous Christian jerks. Here I am, a lover of Jesus (not the noble faithful variety, more like the "I love my new fashion accessory it's called Jesus!" variety) who is sick and tired of being lumped in with all these...these Christians. And it's not because they're all bad people (of course they are), but because they think, in fact are convinced, that they aren't. Maybe like Will Smith in I, Robot I'm the one sane person on the face of the earth (making me crazy) but can I get an Amen for admitting that I don't have it all together without adding but God fixed that and now my crap don't stink no more?
Let's face it, whatever imputation (read granting or gifting all you lay people) of righteousness there is in salvation (all you new perspective on paul people are listening now right?), I think we need to stop kidding ourselves and just say God loves you now, he hasn't turned you into the 24 karat limited edition version of you, but he loves you. If we could destroy the cliche that becoming a Christian is supposed to fix you we would solve a lot of problems. We wouldn't have to spend every waking moment of every day back-tracking...well, that pastor that molested that girl wasn't really a Christian or well, the people in the crusades and the inquisition were really misguided.
I mean come on, do you think the average nonbeliever would look at you with those raised eyebrows if he knew you knew that Christians are just as jacked up as everybody else? I mean not only that Christians are as jacked up as everybody else, but they know it and are trying to focus on the one thing in this planet that will facilitate change and satisfying endless longing? We'd be a valid system of belief instead of a coalition of willing self-deceivers. Jesus said you should remove the plank from your own eye before talking to your brother about the speck in his eye. This doesn't just mean we should live a perfect existence without wrong or evil, petty argument or depravity before telling somebody how to straighten up their act. It also means we need to see ourselves as the thief, murder, rapist. Both of us have wood in our eye, I've just got about twenty times as much as you do.
Christians have got this screwed-up vision of the world (myself included, 90% of every time) that they sin and we need to reach them. We don't even have the upper body strength to lift a pencil and we think we need to be pulling drowning people out of a rushing river.
In closing, I just want to say that I don't have an answer for any of this...except Jesus. He wouldn't be described as the way, the truth, and the life (or as I like to think of it: God, the universe, and everything) if he wasn't the be all end all solution to all our problems. I hate the WWJD slogan because it distorts and commercializes the most important lens we have to view the world, but seriously if you want to know how to complete X+Y=Z you need to know that all variables are Jesus, Jesus, Jesus...there's just something about that name, that guy, that king. Now I'm going to go find a way to turn this thing into a self-help seminar so you people can get your act together...
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