Tag: christianity

There’s Nobody there to take the Wheel

On By Jason FIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Let go and let God.

Jesus, take the wheel.

It’s in God’s hands now.

At various points in my life, when the chips were down and I was struggling with whatever the seemingly cataclysmic issue or event, I would receive the above advice. Usually delivered lovingly and with a sense of profundity, these platitudes never really helped. With a sigh of long suffering, I would accept that the problem, whatever it was, was not in my control, god knew what he was doing, and I was to renew my focus on staying obedient to him and everything would work out. Whatever the result, it was god’s will. Pray fervently for the strength to endure, and the wisdom to know what to do. Pray for god’s will to be done. Don’t fall into sin, or god will remove his blessing. The outcome may be worse.

Any natural consequence can be explained away as god’s will. He gets credit for the good, and is absolved of the bad. The underlying belief is that god is in control of everything, and he is working all things toward some master plan that we cannot possibly comprehend. Our suffering, in the meantime, is for his glory – our character is being built and shaped. We may not understand what he is doing now, but we will in time, even if that takes until we go home to glory.  When we get to heaven, we’ll finally know why all those children had to die of cancer. Trust and obey, for there’s no other way.

There have been times in my life that I trusted and obeyed, as well as I could, given the labyrinth of scriptures, doctrines and commandments one has to navigate in order to pursue holiness. Then there were other times. I got trapped in a cycle that went like this:

  1. When things are good, I must be in the Lord’s favor. Rejoice!
  2. When things are bad, I must be out of his favor, because of some sinful condition. This phase was accompanied by crushing shame, depression, and hopelessness.

What I started to notice as the years stretched on is that the only tangible result of any given behavior was its natural consequences, whether good or bad, helpful or hurtful. Both good and awful things happened to me regardless of the status of my faithfulness or faithlessness. In fact, I started to see that many of the decisions I had made in the past, out of a sense of duty to obey god’s will and commands, were resulting in unnecessary present day pain and consequences. I made a lot of decisions over the last thirty-nine years based on a sense of duty and obligation; decisions I never would have made had I been true to myself and viewed all the details and considerations rationally, as opposed to seeing them in a Christian funhouse mirror that others had built and put in front of me. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, especially when you take off your blinders.

It took a surprise, high-conflict divorce after fifteen years of marriage, with three children, to realize I didn’t even know who the person closest to me really was. To acknowledge that I was in an abusive and treacherous situation, with a liar and a cheat. I was so wrapped up in what should be, flogging myself for my failures, that I was blind to reality. That is a dangerous place to be. During the divorce, I reviewed how I had felt since year one of my marriage. I felt trapped already, at the outset. I wanted out. I got married for the wrong reasons – I felt a sense of obligation, because my wife and I had become “one flesh” already. The marriage was a mistake. Not all in the Christian community would have counseled us to get married, so it was MY mistake. I believed I had a responsibility to this girl, and to god.

We could have corrected the mistake easily, shortly after we made it. But divorce is biblically forbidden, except in the case of adultery (although some would argue it’s forbidden even then). Being in the marriage wasn’t good for me, and it wasn’t fair to my now-ex-wife, either. But hey, the Bible says we do this no matter what, so let’s hang in there until kids are involved and it gets much worse!

If I had been honest about who I was and what I really wanted – if I sought truth instead of submitting myself to authority and dogma early in life… Things would be much different.  I would have made decisions that were healthier for me and others, and saved a world of hurt. The best thing to come out of all this is my wonderful kids – but they have experienced the pain, too. They continue to experience it. I wish that wasn’t so.

Some things are good to let go of. Bitterness, anger, resentment, control over things you have no control over. Let those things go.

It’s the “let god” part that I have no faith in anymore. There is nobody there to take the wheel. If you trust god to tell you who you are, make your decisions, clean up your messes, bring all the right people into your life and work everything out in the end, you are likely going to be brutally disappointed, and probably highly deluded. You just might waste the only life you’ve got.

I reached a point where I couldn’t stand the cognitive dissonance anymore. I had to become intellectually honest. I had to let go of god, and embrace the responsibility that comes with freedom. I do not regret it for a moment.

Heavy Metal Albums are Demon Possessed

On By Jason FIn Uncategorized2 Comments

At my eleventh birthday party, I received an unexpected gift. It was a pool party, and my guests and I were laughing and splashing and getting our fun on, sunlight glittering like diamonds on the surface of the pool around us. Aaron, my only male friend with long hair, walked up to the edge of the pool where I was treading water. He gestured me out of the pool, and curious, I climbed out. The time for opening gifts was past, but I could tell he had something for me. He pulled me aside into the shadow of a nearby tree that overhung the poolside fence, and his demeanor became just as shadowy as the shadow we were standing in. He produced a small gift from behind his back. “Happy birthday,” he said, followed by “don’t tell your mom about this.” He handed me the gift. It was a cassette tape. Metallica: Master of Puppets, it read. The cover was a series of rows of white, cross-shaped headstones, receding into the distance over a dark landscape; tumultuous, red, cloudy sky above, with the band name floating in the air, in the most sinister font face I had ever seen, with a puppet master’s hands manipulating strings attached to each headstone. The way this gift had been presented to me, coupled with Aaron’s dire warning, convinced me: this thing was pure evil. I thanked him, a bit shaken, and nervously tucked it away in one of my other gift bags. I had a dirty secret. I felt like I had already committed a sin.

My parents, our church, and many figureheads in the fundamentalist Christian movement at the time taught that music was the devil’s tool. Artists like Ozzy Osbourne were said to be inspired by demons, or Satan himself, and music was the vehicle through which they would twist and pervert the minds of people, especially youth. Listening to such music was tantamount to allowing the devil a foothold, creating a doorway through which demons could enter. The year was 1986, and the “Satanic Panic” of the eighties was sweeping across the nation.  The Geraldo Rivera Show aired their infamous “Devil Worship: Exposing Satan’s Underground” special (if you haven’t seen it, it’s worth a watch to get a sense of the hysteria, and can be see for free on YouTube in multiple parts starting here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qocBf3_mmic). Satan worship was said to be on the rise, with pen-and-paper role playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons being targeted as an influence, alongside musical artists such as the previously mentioned Ozzy. Satan could infiltrate your life in any number of ways – my parents also learned that Cabbage Patch Kids were individually named after evil spirits by occultists in a foreign country, as a way to secretly open doorways in the homes of families across America.

An occult object now in my possession, I was fearful. Had I knowingly brought Satan and his demons into our home? I took a peek at the cassette tape from time to time, but I was terrified to give it a go in my tape deck. Would the act of playing it release the evil within? What would happen after that? What would I become? No, it was too risky. I would seek the counsel of a close friend.

I packed the evil cassette tape with my things, headed out for an overnight at my friend Kyle’s house. His family attended my church, and between the two of us, maybe we could figure out what to do with this hellish abomination. Once in his bedroom, I revealed Master of Puppets. Behold – an artifact of the devil. Kyle instantly understood the gravity of the situation. “What should we do with it?” I said.

“Maybe we should burn it,” came his reply.

“Yeah, but what happens then?” the possibilities were endless, and frightening.

We decided burning it was the best way to go. I wonder if the Puritans had a similar conversation during the Salem Witch Trials. Kyle and I were convinced that once we set the cassette tape afire, we would likely be witness to the release of demons into the air; shrieking, swirling, soaring up into the atmosphere, looking for a new home. We agreed that they could not touch us, because we were saved. We belonged to God. We would be safe. We rode our BMX bikes out into the woods and found a quiet place, where nobody could be harmed. I laid Master of Puppets on the ground, in the dirt. I knew what we were doing was the right thing. The Christian thing. I felt bad that Aaron didn’t understand, and wondered if he understood that he was unwittingly a part of something nefarious, Satan’s operative. I would try to save him someday. It was my duty.

I flicked my Bick lighter, and the flame sprang forth. I touched it to the plastic cassette cover. The flame took, and slowly, the entire think caught fire. I prepared myself for the worst. Tensions were high as the black smoke licked up into the air, the smell of burning plastic surely only a prelude to what would soon be a raging hellscape to which one we would be immune. And then…

Nothing happened.

Nothing.

“Hmm, that’s weird,” I said. Maybe you couldn’t see demons, or hear them.

I wasn’t sure how to interpret this, and I didn’t give it too much thought at the time. We had done the right thing, so I thought, and that was that. I would never be corrupted by Metallica: Master of Puppets. One less doorway in a world of doorways.

In retrospect, I mark this as the first time it registered with me that what my parents and people in the church were teaching me might not be true. I think some part of me wanted to see evidence of demonic activity that day, tangible evidence that what we all believed was real.  I have been looking for evidence ever since, and I have found none. Maybe the nature of demons is such that there is no way to produce evidence, and maybe they don’t exist. Some would say the evidence is more subtle and personal, but among the host of explanations for the things that happen in our lives, the messages that run through our heads… Is the influence of demons the most probable explanation?

Here’s what I know for sure: Metallica’s Master of Puppets is one of the greatest thrash metal albums of all time. It is a landmark achievement in music, and one of my favorites. Thank you Aaron!

Listen to it in full, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6LA7v1PApU

 

Good Things

On By Jason FIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

It is not all bad growing up in a fundamentalist evangelical Christian home and community. I took a few moments recently to reflect on the things that I appreciate about my religious upbringing, in order to share them here.

At the end of the day, Christianity is about love. Loving your neighbor, putting other’s needs before your own (there’s a dark and co-dependent side to this particular coin, but I’ll get to that later), self-control, self-sacrifice, humility; these are values I learned, and learned well. To their credit, many followers of Christ put these values into practice daily. They are more important than lists of do’s and don’ts, and condemnation of behaviors and lifestyles that are considered sinful, such as homosexuality and abortion. Don’t get me wrong, those things are condemned, but the Christians in my life are not Westboro Baptist Church types, known for hateful rhetoric (see the Westboro web site here, if you are unfamiliar: http://godhatesfags.com/). In fact, the Christians I know would condemn Westboro Baptist Church and their tactics, and so do I. Westboro is not the face of biblical Christianity, though it is one of the faces that anti-theists like to call attention to when arguing that Christianity is harmful; and let’s be fair, people claiming Christianity have done awful things over the centuries. Finding examples of those who give Christianity a bad name is easy, dating all the way back to the first century A.D. People are people, and you can find bad apples in any basket. Any group of adherents to anything is going to have a contingent of hateful people (see supporters of any political candidate, left or right). I do not identify with those who search for the worst, find it, and paint an entire community and its figure-head with one brush (see the 2016 election cycle).

Christianity taught me about forgiveness. I learned to let go of blame, bitterness, and anger – all are toxic if indulged, though there are healthy and proper expressions at times. I learned to give charitably. I learned to be a good listener. I learned that I can be just as wrong (if not more-so) as those at whom I’m pointing my finger, and I learned to examine my thoughts and motives carefully. I learned to grieve for and encourage others. I learned that hope springs eternal. I learned to stand up for what I believe in, even when the chips are down.

Could I have learned all these values without faith and religion? Arguably, yes. Such was not the case though, and here I am.

I will carry many of the values I took from Christianity for the rest of my life. I have some wonderful friends, many of whom will spend time praying for my soul when they hear that I no longer place faith in their doctrines.  They will call me spiritually blind. Many will choose not associate with me, or think of me as a sad, deluded individual. I will be grouped with the Lost… I am okay with all this, because I must be honest with myself and others. I am open to whatever honest inquiry reveals.

I am grateful to Christians, and Christianity, for much. That will never change.

I am also saddened by much. I will deal with that in the next post.