A New Series...

God has had me on an amazing journey.  I love watching the Scriptures come to life for me in new and profound ways.  But this has begun to come at an interesting cost that I was not aware was happening but is becoming more and more profound. I am finding it harder and harder to join in the conversation with people when they are sharing what they are finding in Scripture.

Here is the equation... The Bible is written by people with an Eastern mindset.  More importantly, an ancient near eastern mindset.  This is radically different than a modern western mindset and while we will openly admit that this notion is true, I have rarely found people who will actually do the work of figuring out the implications.

The only way that I have found to describe what I continue to experience in my life is that Hebrews 4:12 says that the Word of God is living and active.  I never got that until I began to see the Bible through the lens of those who wrote it. Gaining an understanding of their context, thoughts, interpretations, and the conversation that had already been going on around the topics has taken what I have always seen in black and white and made it color.

Think about this, pretend for a moment that a person could only see in black and white.  And all of a sudden you began to see in color.  Maybe a bit like the Wizard of Oz...

How do you describe what you see to a person that can not see color nor do they have any context for what color even is?  This has been a dilemma for me for a few years now.  And I think I have come up with at least a partial solution.

I want to write a new series called, "My questions about American religion."

I have no interest in bashing religion per se, or in even being defiant towards the establishment.  But I want to explore the precepts that I believe have led to my own transformation.  And the reason why I believe that while most American Christians will talk a good game about the power of Jesus, they do not experience that in their lives very much.

Where is the disconnect for people who say they believe that Jesus is real but do not experience Him in their daily lives? Perhaps the roots of this are much deeper than we realize.

So I want to cover several topics.  And the list will probably expand as we go along.  But I want to talk about where our story begins and how that influences the story itself. I want to talk about why we want our church to grow, but it feels gross to talk about it. I want to talk about relationships and why we struggle to have them and to trust them.  I want to talk about some theological things like redemption, atonement, and covenant. I also want to talk about how we interpret Scripture and how that helps and hurts us.

Let me be clear, I do not believe that there is a right and a wrong in the conversation concerning Eastern and Western thinking.  The goal is not to figure out who is good and who is bad.  The goal is to explore the way that those who wrote the Bible think so that we can perhaps get a clearer picture of what they wanted to convey to us today.

Lastly, I am not so concerned with resolution. I want to honest with the tension that western religion creates. And while I want to be sensitive and kind about that conversation, sitting in the mess of it can make a person long to resolve it. I want the conversation. I want to be a part of the conversation, and I want to see and hear about people talking these ideas with others.

So help me out with this... What is a tension or contradiction that you see in western religion? Don't express your frustration with a certain person who did things a certain way.  But where are your questions? Because perhaps, one of the first lessons that we need to learn is that God doesn't challenge us to have the best answers.  He loves the one willing to ask the best questions.  May we all be blessed in this pursuit.