Christian cultural warfare

Let me be clear about something for a moment. No more nuance. No more metaphor. No more poetic adaptations of spiritual revelations. Just straight up honesty…right…wrong…or otherwise. Pure individual opinion and preference.

Today’s brand of western Christianity sucks ass!

If you’ve been brainwashed with the message of fanaticism that HATES Obama or HATES gays or HATES immigrants (legal or illegal) or HATES anything then you need to stay the fuck away from me. I’m trying my best to be a godly man.

I want to be loving. I want to be joyful. I want to be peaceful. I want to be patient. I want to be kind. I want to experience all the “fruit” (or byproducts) of a life lived according to the Holy Spirit of our God, but you assholes keep pissing me off.

I want to be non-violent, but every time I hear a “Christian” spouting hate, disrespect, and malicious slander I want to kick them to sleep. I want to be gentle, but every time I hear a “Christian” reciting their pastor’s particular flavor of scriptural interpretation which clearly runs cross-grain to the life of a peaceful loving Christ I want to bash their teeth in with a Maglite. I want to be respectful, but every time I hear a “Christian” speak with authority about politics, spirituality, and sexuality that they have NO personal experience with I have to fight back the urge to fold their knee backward with a well-placed heel kick. I want to be humble, but it’s hard not to think everyone around me is a complete dumbass when it seems clear that all the noise of the culture war around us is obviously drowning out human suffering in every corner of our world. I don’t want to let these things get to me. I don’t want to be angry. I don’t want to rant. I want peace.

But today’s most visual and vocal brand of a provocative Christianity is THE biggest stumbling block for me. I’m guessing it’s quite the stumbling block for others as well. Either that or I’m the only one out here psychotic enough to be affected by these lunatics. Yes, I can call them lunatics because I was once one of them. I taught the same garbage. I worshipped the same idols of religion, politics, doctrine, and selfish interpretation of scripture. I was fully dialed in to the frequency of status quo mainstream Christianity. But then God saved me.

I’m certain that the greatest salvation I’ve ever experienced in my life has been a salvation from what I thought Christianity was. I know now that Jesus died on that cross for me that day not to save me from my sins, but to save me from my religion. He sacrificed flesh, bone, blood, dignity, and life so that someday Bonar Crump would be saved from the hell of 21^st century western Christianity.

Obviously, everything in me isn’t fixed if I truly have these tendencies of violence toward jackass 21^st century Christians, but I’m really really trying and praying and seeking and working on it. This is why I keep ALL forms of organized Christian religion at arm’s length. This is why I try to debrief my daughter each time we attend church. This is why I confer and seek council from my wife anytime the noise of Christian cultural warfare begins to drown out my sense of peacefulness and joy. This is why I write this stuff as I attempt to release it from my brain via verbal processing. I have to verbally vomit into my laptop from time to time just to keep the noise level in my head to a dull roar.

Is it any wonder that I cling so tightly to the biker subculture that I embrace? See, there is peace in being a part of a subculture that the jackass “Christians” don’t want any part of. Don’t get me wrong…there are plenty of Christ followers among the ranks of us bikers, but the really nasty “Christians” stay very far away from us. As a matter of fact, they lock the doors to their cars when we pull up next to them at intersections. That suits me just fine.

The curious thing to me is that there is a lot of the same kind of hate speech within the biker community, but it doesn’t bother me nearly as much. You’ll find a fair amount of bigotry, misogyny, and political fanaticism at any of our large biker meetings, but these are mostly folks exercising their freedom of belief, speech, and lifestyle guaranteed by our Constitution. What appears to me to be intolerance and anger is based on their own authority. It’s their opinion and right to have and express whatever they like. I get it. But it’s different for me when I hear someone reflecting the same exact intolerances while wearing a shirt that says, “Jesus said so.”

You know what! If you’re wearing that shirt today I have one very important thing to say to you: go fuck yourself. That and stay the fuck away from me. I respect your right to your freedoms of speech, action, and lifestyle, but NOT if you’re going to cover it all with a self-serving coat of Christian paint, thereby, presenting the message to the world that you are merely following the directives of your God. You are not! You are following the guidance of your idols. You just don’t know it yet.

I’ve been told that I am actually a very nice person. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I do know that it’s a lot easier for me to be nice when I’m not surrounded by mainstream Christians. Wondering why church attendance all over the western world continues to drop off at an amazing rate? It’s because no one wants to hang out with assholes. It’s really not all that complicated. Figure it out!

Herd versus Tribe

A close friend of mine recently told me that mainstream Christianity had made her an asshole. The more we discussed the subject, it seemed to draw toward what happens to an individual when they become part of the “herd”. We discussed our individual rejections of the “herd”. We wrestled with the defiance of “herd mentality”. We resolved to maintain our independent critical thinking and never again follow the “herd.”

The victorious defiance that we shared was real. But…the more thought I put into the matter over the next couple days, the more I began to question if we were trying to function as fully autonomous disciples. It seems counter-intuitive to completely reject the herd as a means of redeeming the herd. (That sentence makes a lot of sense to me and, yet, when I read it the meaning gets tangled up in the syntax.) What I mean is that those of us on the front edge of a Christian reform movement which is driving the post-modern, missional, socially responsive changes that we are witnessing today in the Church have to sell more than just the message of “damn the herd”. Because everyone that buys that t-shirt automatically defines themselves as one group rejecting another group’s dynamics based on the precept that being a part of a group will always make you an asshole. Do you see the insanity of it? I want to be a part of a herd that rejects herds.

Over the last couple of days as I’ve processed our discussion, I remembered writing quite a bit about rejecting the herd and seeking a new tribe in my book. So that got me thinking about the differences between a tribe and a herd. I don’t think I need to drone on and on about the differences, but I will say that the most obvious distinction is that animals form a herd and people form tribes.

Maybe the real discussion is about being a Christian animal versus being a Christian human. I would argue that the Christian animal is concerned with little more than survival (receiving sustenance), procreation (increasing numbers), and preserving the integrity of the herd (worship of religion). By contrast the Christian human embodies the burning desire to question and reason—to seek knowledge and truth—to sacrifice safety and security for the sake of humanitarian efforts—to save and rescue other tribal members from the savages of neglect, abuse, and hunger.

Personally, I reject the institutional church because I don’t want to be fed from a trough—I want to feed from the land. I don’t want to be led by professional shepherds—I want to be interactive in the direction and goals of the tribe. I don’t want to be fenced in by traditionalism and culturally irrelevant ethos—I want to explore uncharted regions of faith and risk injury from time to time. I don’t want to be labeled a Christian beast—I want to be known as a critical thinker even if I’m wrong sometimes.

I want to reject the herd for the sake of being a part of a tribe. Maybe you don’t see the distinction, but there is one. The difference is huge! The tribe is an organism that works together and relies upon one another to meet the collective needs of the tribe. I like to think of primitive indigenous tribes and how they live with one another and for one another. I like to think about my tribe as one that is nomadic, dynamic, and culturally savvy. I like to look around me and see the tribal tattoos and piercings. I like to look around me and see a tribe that celebrates diversity and compassion. I like seeing a genuine acceptance of racial, sexual, and economic diversity in my tribe. And when I say it’s “my tribe,” I don’t mean that it belongs to me. I mean that I get to belong to IT as a contributing, learning, respectful member happy to be a part of something bigger than myself and more powerful than any of the single members of the tribe are independent of one another.

Are you a part of a herd or are you a part of a tribe? The answer will have a profound effect on your heart and soul. Jesus had a tribe of disciples that He led. He was also often found trying to get away from the herd of curious folks looking for healing, food, or hope without the understanding that Jesus was offering them entry into the tribe. He was NOT offering them admission to a herd.

If you’re suspicious that you might be mingling with the herd instead of participating in a tribe then chances are you don’t know yet how to engage scripture, religion, and fellow herd members with independent critical thought. It’s difficult to transition. It’s hard to reject something that has always been a part of your life. It’s physically, emotionally, and psychologically exhausting to engage the members of your herd with the message of a tribe. All you can do is leave the gate open when you escape. Some will find their way out. Some will do everything in their power to shut that gate back up.

The herd and herd mentality are powerful agents of persuasion. Do not underestimate their appeal. Most members of my tribe have experiences anything from 2 to 5 years of soul-searching transition, conflict, and self-doubt before ever finding our group. One member that I know of was subjected to such ridicule, shame, and spiritual abuse that he contemplated suicide. That’s right—educated and trained at Southwest Theological Seminary; this guy started asking too many questions about herd mentality and was shamefully cast to the curb without an inkling of concern for him or his family, how they would survive financially, or how it would affect every single aspect of their future. Another is a family member of mine cast aside by a church herd where the pastor of the institution wept at his shameful dismissal but in the end threw up his hands because major financial benefactors in the herd required his head on a platter because this family member had questioned the necessity of a new organ and sanctuary remodeling when 1/10^th of that money could have funded an established program to house and feed several dozen homeless families.

We’ve all heard the stories and seen their effects, but we tell ourselves, “wow, THOSE guys are really messed up.” All the while the same things are happening in your herd without you even knowing it. Wake up! Analyze, pray, research, ask questions, seek, find, knock, open, pray again, and be sure to listen this time. Because the thing about being a member of the herd is that you don’t realize it’s a herd. Just like an asshole justifies being an asshole because they always have an excuse for their behavior. You have to separate from these things in order to really allow the blood to begin circulating to the independently critical thinking parts of your brain.

The gospel will not make you an asshole. Jesus will not make you an asshole. Even the being a member of the herd doesn’t make you an asshole. It is the hardening of one’s heart that creates the asshole, and that, my friend, happens when the complacency, laziness, and self-centered nature of the “herd” sets in. It’s simply that WE aren’t designed to be a herd. We are designed to be a tribe.

I’m looking forward to the next conversation with my close friend. I want to explore these thoughts and see if there is somewhere to settle on how to make the transition from herd to tribe more efficient and less damaging. It’s great once you get here, but the trip is murder. Maybe she’ll be able to help me release the anger and resentment I feel toward the herd. Maybe that’s my barrier of forgiveness that I need to breach in order to be a better member of my tribe. Maybe I’ve transitioned to the tribe but still maintain my asshole status. Maybe we’re all living in a constant state of uniqueness transition. Maybe God likes us that way. Maybe the potter likes molding clay more than He does putting it in the kiln. Maybe the journey is everything and there is no destination. Maybe I should wrap this up.

The Boys of Summer

Every year at this time I try to convince myself that this will be the year I cultivate a love for baseball.

It is beyond me why I’ve never caught the baseball virus. I’m built like a baseball player. Most people assume that I played baseball in college. It’s a game that seems to encourage statistical analysis. Baseball mixes power, finesse, bravado, and steely-eyed competition into a beautiful confederation of colors set on a field of grass and dirt that emit a sense of puckish youthfulness.

I want to love it. I should love it. By all accounts I should be a complete fanatic about the game, but it cannot hold my interest for long. I can find no fault with baseball that would preclude a passion for the game. I think that it is a game I was probably meant to love but for some reason cannot.

I think that for one to truly be a fan of something does NOT mean that they must be a fanatic. I mean…I think I could argue that I’m a fan of baseball, but to do so in the proximity of a few of my closest friends that are fanatics would earn me the label of HYPOCRITE.

These guys that I speak of consume the game. They adjust their schedules around the game. They spend a considerable amount of time and money attending games. They watch the games, analyze the games, and then read someone else’s analysis of the same games the very next day as they are watching the current games. These guys invest the kind of time, money, and heart into the game of baseball that makes me feel hypocritical when I describe myself as a fan.

I don’t deserve to wear the same cool stuff they do when they invite me to the games. I don’t know who the legendary announcers are that have nurtured their love of the sport. I don’t understand the nicknames and histories of individual players (see Fat Elvis). I get it, but I just don’t get it. I get it when I’m watching a game with these guys, but when I’m watching a game by myself I don’t get it.

Passion is a funny thing. It summons enthusiasm that cannot be faked. It invokes emotion that cannot be faked. It induces desire sometimes distinct from reason or intellect. It arouses love, joy, hatred, anger, jealousy, et. al.

Sometimes I envy my good friends that are passionate about baseball. This is an exciting time of year for them. From the moment that pitchers and catchers report to camp until the last game of the World Series these guys gleefully grin and toast and argue and cheer for a game, a team, and for individual players that throw, hit, and catch a ball. It’s quite a zen-like thing to watch as a non-fanatic wannabe baseball fan.

Having passion is good, I think. Your passions help to mold you and define a piece of who you are. I love that passion can change us at our core. I love that passion is somehow reliant on hope. Whatever we are passionate about will get the majority of our time and mental RAM.

I want more passions in my life. My passion for Jesus, my wife, my daughter, my Harley, and my running should be enough. But I’d like more. I’d like to be as passionate about people, in general, as I am about people’s ideas. I’d like to be passionate about child abuse and human trafficking and hunger and need. I’d like to be passionate about grace, mercy, and peace. I’d like to be passionate about injustice. I want to be passionate about the things that Jesus (one of my passions) is passionate about. I feel hypocritical being a fan of these things when I’m in the presence of those that are passionate about them.

Maybe I’m a fraud. Maybe we’re all frauds. Maybe we all want to take sides on the Trayvon Martin issue without understanding that Godly passion is laced with hope not hatred. Maybe we all want to be passionate about our political agendas without considering that righteous passion loves—it does not destroy or discredit. Maybe we all want to formulate exhaustive opinions about anything and everything as a means of convincing ourselves that we are not living lives void of passion. Maybe we all suck. I suspect that we most certainly do.

I hope we don’t all suck. I don’t want to believe that we are all frauds, phonies, and hypocrites. I want to believe that we all have passions that might be misguided instead of believing that we are absent of passion. I’d much rather think of us all possessing misplaced passion rather than being passionless. Passionless means dead. I don’t want to be dead. I don’t want to have misguided passions—but I know that I do. Still, I’d rather know there is passion in my life than to be dead inside—absent of hope—eyes at my feet instead of on the horizon.

Here’s to passion and all the messiness that it brings with it! I do love people, but I hope to become passionate about their lives and their suffering. I want to be infected with the passion that I see in Jesus. I’m not interested in the passions of His followers. I want the real stuff. I want to know that what I’m passionate about matters. I don’t want to be a fraud. And as these righteous passions grow inside of me I’m hoping that there isn’t a limit on the number of things one can be passionate about.

I still want to be passionate about baseball. That part is real, too. It’s just that I want to be equally as passionate about people’s heart as I am about the Cardinals. It’s much less messy to be a Cards fanatic than it is to be a fanatic of suffering, environmentalism, economic disparity, and the elimination of hate. However, I still think baseball might be my gateway drug. I sense that the green grass and rosin and smell of beer might represent the pleasant hopefulness necessary to dive into the messier passions of human existence.

I want to know what a RALLY SQUIRREL is. I want to put 20,000 miles a year on my ’07 Dyna Lowrider. I want to run 4 full marathons a year. I want to be fully engaged in the everyday miracle that is my wife and daughter. I want to “seek first the kingdom of God.” And through kingdom seeking I hope to add the passions of Jesus to my growing list of passions.

All of that and I’d like the Texas Rangers to win the World Series. But don’t tell all my buds that are Cardinal fanatics. The reason they all say that the Rangers didn’t win the 2011 World Series is because Ranger fans aren’t the same caliper as Cardinal fanatics. The say Ranger fans only show interest in the post-season. They say a team without passion can never ultimately achieve their goals against adversity. Maybe they’re right. Maybe a group of fanatics CAN raise the level of play of the team they’re passionate about. I’d certainly like to think so. 

KONY 2012

Spiritual Awakening in the Desert

It was a long hard run into the arid region of far West Texas. We ran a consistent pace along the Rio Grande for hundreds of miles. Three rows of barbed wire separated us on both sides from scrubby mesquite and cacti as we thundered West on two cylinder steeds with rubber hooves.

“West” always makes me think of adventure and survival and Josey Wales. In my mind, “West” is where there is newness and hope of something better. It’s where the daring (and sometimes crazy) go to escape preformed existence. “New” lives out West. “Old” is wherever you’ve been long enough to exhaust all of your resources and have explored all of the contemporary modes of advancement.

As long as you’re travelling West you know what lies to the East. You know which towns to the East show promise of fuel and which are ghostly reminders of lives long since departed. You know where the “road dragons” are to the East (road dragons—long curled chunks of tire tread that mark spots in the road where someone has blown a tire). “Been there Done that” is to the East. You’ve already conquered the East. You’ve already absorbed the scenic pleasures it has to offer and have survived the hazards it has thrown at you. Even the sun loses interest in the East and is constantly trying to escape it to no avail.

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I’ve been writing, researching, and cajoling people to embrace the spiritual West for half a decade now. At first, I thought I was the only one spending my evenings with a glass of whiskey meticulously reviewing roughly-drawn prospector’s maps of the spiritual West. I kind of thought I was the only one foolish enough to point my horse in that direction. I remember at one point thinking I might have to turn around because all I was finding the further West I went was miles and miles of barbed wire and seemingly uninhabitable land.

But something has happened.

Something has changed.

Others have felt the call of the spiritual West and have been heading that direction. You run into them the further you go into the unknown West. The spiritual pioneers are out West seeking, exploring, finding, and sharing. You see them up ahead and you quicken your pace to catch up. You are invited to ride in formation with them because there is protection, power, and energy in numbers. You share each other’s resources. You learn from each other’s stories. You build confidence in knowing that your desire to discover the spiritual West hasn’t been about escaping the East—it’s been a call TO something instead of AWAY from the past.

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When we discover what lies West we discover a new level of potential. We discover a new perspective and we realize that although the old perspective works fine to the East, the new perspective of the West requires a different set of eyes to see and ears to hear. Not everyone is ready for it. Not everyone is capable of making the journey. Not everyone is bold enough to reject the cautionary tales of Easterners and quietly travel West. And to be honest, not EVERYONE is being called to travel West.

But if you hear the call of the spiritual West (and you know it if you do), you need to heed that call. You need to pack as little as you can into your saddlebags, backpacks, carts, or buggies and start following the Son.

We need you out here. We’ve begun to establish some communities out here. We’ve discovered water and food sources and we’re beginning to figure out how to use these new eyes and ears.

The stars are much brighter and not an inch of the sky isn’t owned by one. Those stars were always over your head, but you couldn’t see them. You needed a new perspective.

Resources are harder to find out here, but you appreciate them so much more than ever before. Succulent tiny quail hiding under the very same mesquite that you use to cook them with—powerful winds that bring the promise of rain—mountains to look up at and valleys to view from above.

Changes in perspective require movement.

New ideas, dreams, challenges, and hope require effort and time and loss and sincerity.

We don’t go to tame the spiritual West! We go to learn how to be a part of it!

That’s why we pack so little. It’s because with every bit of spiritual baggage we bring along, we risk missing out on the full scope of a REAL perspective change. If we bring our old eyes and ears with us then we cannot survive out here. It’s a place that requires adaptability, freedom, and most of all it is a place that requires faith.

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My recent 1,000 mile roundtrip out West recharged my faith in new sunsets, ghost towns, prickly pear, and that a new tire may be hard to find, but somebody’s out there with just what you need. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s okay. If you DO know what I’m talking about then you GET IT. Sometimes spiritual changes at our core occur because we’re standing somewhere we’ve never been before. We can be dramatically changed by our surroundings. We almost always are.

As I relived three days’ worth of riding to my wife it sparked a thought—we depart home with the excitement of visually experiencing a new environment, but we arrive back home telling all our stories about the people we met along the way.

I’m not exactly sure what that thought means just yet, but it’s definitely fermenting in my brain.

I couldn’t wait to clean all the dead bugs off my Harley. I couldn’t wait to check all my fluid levels, air pressures, and snug up all the loose bolts. I couldn’t wait to ready everything for the next opportunity to ride West. I couldn’t wait because once you begin to satisfy the yearning in your soul to travel West you become addicted.

Yes, it’s about riding the Hog. Yes, it’s about finding those long stretches of rode where you can run 115 mph before you crest the next hill. Yes, it’s about challenging your ability to adapt and problem-solve. But most significantly, it’s about the subtle change in vision and the noticing of embedded sounds you’d never noticed before.

It’s called living.

It’s called joy.

It’s called peace.

It’s called faith.