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contents stages of faith 5 the quest for truth 8 on right belief 9 is spirituality magical or mystical 11 inspire me 12 hell 14 the river 15 freedom 16 clarity 18 balance 19 reading scripture 20 choose life 22 be the change 24 be the change prt 2 26 be the change prt 3 28 adopting the golden rule 28 spiritual squirrels 28 practicing the golden rule 28 ties that bind 29 be the change prt 4 30 scrapping the presumption of basic rightness 30 bin laden like you and me 30 the problem is ignorance 30 comparing 30 be the change prt 5 presence 32 there but unaware 32 presence awareness 32 presence is observing yourself quietly at all times 32 presence removes the presumption of basic rightness 33 how to know god in exactly 1000 words 34 desperately seeking my soul 36 2[close]
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the hopeless believer 37 the shadow 39 openness 40 the case for being closed 40 openness as a key aspect of spiritual maturity 40 every appropriate no begins with a yes 40 carrying the tension 41 love 41 love or correct beliefs 42 things i don t know 45 god and me 47 on changing 48 the prayer of faith 50 dismissing religion 51 the shame that drives us 54 goodbye to moralism 56 the almost-gospel 58 i m think i m gonna puke if 60 weakness 63 can god use people who don t serve him 65 the only thing you need you already have 68 count me in with the crooks and whores 70 growing up 72 become what you believe 74 making the spiritual world real 76 afterword 80 3[close]
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foreword what follows on these pages is adapted from many blog posts i wrote over many years in 2011 i compiled these posts for another post entitled a primer for those struggling with faith i have put them in print form because i believe that taken together they represent my best thoughts on christian spirituality even reflecting parts of my journey with which i no longer identify today my hope is that whether you identify as christian some other religion or no religion at all these essays can help you think through many of the things that matter most about how we live in the world of course the final word is never spoken it s all in the journey it is in that spirit that i hope this collection can be helpful encouraging challenging and perhaps a bit provocative in all the right places even when and perhaps especially when you think i am wrong thank you for reading my work i hope to see you more on the blog david k flowers june 13 2012 4[close]
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stages of faith james fowler is best known for his pioneering work on stages of faith showing how faith progresses over time here is my summary of his faith stages stage 1 ages 3-7 the first stage of faith is characterized by imagination unrestrained by logic at this age santa and jesus both exist primarily in the imagination of course so also does the bogey-man and thus this stage of faith commonly features both imaginary delights and imaginary terrors stage 2 this stage is characterized by belief that the universe is a just place bad people will always be punished and good people will always be rewarded myths are not understood as myths but as actual events because the person at this stage has not yet developed the capability of extracting and understanding general principles this faith stage is characteristic of school children but some adults remain at this stage all of their lives people at this stage tend to be rigid and perfectionistic stage 3 the vast majority of adults find their permanent home in this stage here faith becomes central adding a sense of meaning and purpose to one s life it is characterized by conformity where one finds identity and comfort by aligning one s self with a certain way of thinking once one has done this one then lives according to this perspective with very little ability to see the perspective itself clearly as a world view at this stage one might not even understand that one s beliefs constitute a world view but will instead take it for granted that what one believes is simply the way it is believing that those who do not share the same views are ignorant or morally inferior this is why fundamentalism always looks the same whether you are talking about fundamentalist christians muslims scientists or whatever in all cases the position is i bear the truth and you do not therefore you are ignorant depraved etc stage 4 many people living comfortably in stage 3 suddenly find themselves faced with a crisis that seems too big for their faith to respond to or they are confronted with evil on such a personal level that they can no longer take comfort in the faith that used to work for them other times people become aware of religious hypocrisy on the part of themselves or others that they cannot explain sometimes people simply become deeply disillusioned with the responses that faith often gives to science and to difficult issues like suffering at this point they either shrink back into rigid stage 2 or 3 faith or else they move into stage 4 which is characterized usually by doubt uncertainty and questioning and usually the corresponding emotional and mental suffering that come with such things some may begin to identify as skeptics/atheists/agnostics others 5[close]
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don t know how to identify with faith anymore and continue to struggle although no longer within the ranks of a faith family from which they once drew comfort stage 5 assuming one does not fall back into the fundamentalism of earlier stages or remain in the doubt and skepticism of stage 4 one will move on to stage 5 here the individual begins to make room for mystery and paradox one no longer needs certainty and clarity the person with stage 5 faith in fact begins to realize that this essentially is what faith is not having all the answers and not insisting that one must have them one comes to see quite clearly that his previous faith though sincere was faith more in an organization or institution or doctrinal statement than in a mysterious and transcendent yet imminent god stage 6 i ll let fowler speak for himself here persons described by stage six typically exhibit qualities that shake our usual criteria of normalcy their heedlessness to self-preservation and the vividness of their taste and feel for transcendent moral and religious actuality give their actions and words an extraordinary and often unpredictable quality in their devotion to universalizing compassion they may offend our parochial perceptions of justice in their penetration through the obsession with survival security and significance they threaten our measured standards of righteousness and goodness and prudence their enlarged visions of universal community disclose the partialness of our tribes and pseudo-species and their leadership initiatives often involving strategies of nonviolent suffering and ultimate respect for being constitute affronts to our usual notions of relevance fowler 200 sounds an awful lot like jesus to me and isn t it interesting that not one universally respected religious figure has ever been a fundamentalist from jesus to buddha to gandhi to martin luther king jr to nelson mandela to desmond tutu to mother teresa to billy graham not one stage 2 and 3 faith simply do not allow to grow into reality the kind of love that jesus taught a person in stage 2 or 3 might speak of it claim to believe in it and passionately and sincerely attempt to live it out but will ultimately be constrained and prevented from doing so by their own vision of the world their own way of seeing understanding and practicing faith it is interesting that many religious martyrs throughout history have been killed not by evil pagans but by well-meaning people at earlier stages of faith who were shaken to the core and deeply threatened by the seemingly sacrilegious and heretical vision of the world these strange people held to the crucifixion of jesus is a perfect example of this of course some of the people calling for his death were clearly malevolent but 6[close]
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clearly most were ordinary observant religious people who sincerely believed they were doing god a favor by getting rid of jesus the same of course is true for hundreds of people burned at the stake by the catholic church in the middle ages the church often speaks deeply and meaningfully to those at the lower stages of faith but tends to organize so as to actively prevent people from moving through stage 4 and onto the later stages this i believe is what jesus was referring to when he said to the religious leaders of his time you have a fine way of setting aside the commands of god in order to observe your own traditions mark 7:9 niv 7[close]
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the quest for truth if you had a write a story about your life what would the plot of that story revolve around try finishing this sentence the story of my life is a quest for the story of my life is a quest for truth my grandmother prophesied some might prefer the non-religiously-loaded word predicted that i would be a minister on the day i was dedicated as a baby i cannot think of a time in my life when i was not searching for truth i can think of many times when my method of searching for it changed and many times when part of my greatest problem was that i was uncertain it could ever be found or if it could that i would ever find it but not a single day of my life has passed since i was a very small child that i haven t been thinking about truth and desiring to know it and live according to it of course i have thought about truth in different ways as i have grown as a child truth was about what was right and wrong as defined by my parents not much later it was about right and wrong as defined by what i understood as god for about three years the truth appeared to be that there was no god at all then truth was that god was much bigger much further beyond me than i had ever imagined today truth is that god is much closer much more intimately a part of my life and this world than i have ever understood my quest has been the grand narrative of my life it has never varied never disappeared never taken a vacation the further i go on my quest the more i realize it is naive to ever think i ve arrived at the end only those just starting the journey think they might soon near the end those who have traveled a while always know the road continues over every horizon what i believe passionately today will continue to change and evolve just like i do not believe anything close to what i believed five or ten or twenty years ago i know beyond doubt that i will not be tomorrow who i am today if i am i shall be disappointed yet even as i expect to continue growing and moving i am learning to enjoy the present moment for i will never pass this way again nothing is more truthful than that what is your quest what are you all about if you disappeared tomorrow and someone had to write a paragraph or two about your life what would they write what hills still need to be taken what critical tasks remain undone what needs to be shouted out loud in your unique voice in order for your corner of the world to really understand it try finishing this sentence the story of my life is a quest for 8[close]
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on right belief don t be afraid the word orthodoxy probably scares a lot of people orthodoxy is simply the state of holding right beliefs sound in opinion or doctrine especially in religious doctrine hence holding the christian faith believing the doctrines taught in the scriptures opposed to heretical and heterodox as an orthodox christian [1913 webster the older i get and the further i go on my spiritual journey the more this notion bothers me it is so obvious that it barely deserves mention but i must mention this because billions of people are now living as if this is not true there is no one proven universally acknowledged/understood/accepted way to live believe or understand holy scripture my leader and spiritual guide jesus came to a people who thought they had all their theology down and showed them that their certainty was actually making it harder for them to see him for who he was and to hear him clearly the christian religion sprung up presumed to codify and clarify everything jesus taught declared that the jews didn t get it and crowned itself as the new group to which god had truly revealed himself same ditch other side of the road proof the lives behaviors and practices of most people today who call themselves christians this very certainty this very sense that we get it that we are the possessors of the correct understanding of god surely must be as dangerous to us today as it was to the jews 2000 years ago or to anyone who presumes to have it all figured out this is the reason i do not engage people in theological debate on this blog it is not because i do not have my opinions on things and not because i do not know how to defend them it is because i reject the very assumptions upon which most of these debates are based the ideas that a the faith journey is primarily about rightness and wrongness of belief b someone else s perspective on a biblical issue can in some way prove that my perspective is incorrect which is possible of course only if i accept and understand that person s interpretation and assumptions upon which it is based c someone else gets to decide whether or not i get it and whether i m really with god based on their assumptions i don t care to argue the details i d love to argue the assumptions but very few people are interested in doing anything with assumptions other than assuming them taking them for granted and then building elaborate systems of belief on them precarious as they may be we can argue about details all day but when we start dealing with the assumptions on which they are based that s where things start getting scary 9[close]
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the state of theological debate in the christian community reminds me of two lovers who stand yelling at one another i love you dammit no dammit it is i who loves you no i love you dammit ridiculous it is you who are loved by me dammit with each of them making lists of why their love should be self-evident to the other person and how they are therefore entitled to resent the other for not acknowledging/noticing their love more profoundly it is truly a ridiculous exercise and sure to lead to nothing but increasing hostility as each so loudly declares their love for the other of course at some point one of the lovers says we should be arguing in love to which the other wholeheartedly agrees the furious debate commences now only without use of the word dammit as if it is merely the word and not the entire conversation that is without love what have you accepted as orthodox who made that decision for you where is god 10[close]
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is spirituality magical or mystical it seems to me the fundamental divide in the christian church right now comes down to whether we see god as working magically or mystically in our lives and in the world in a magical religious understanding i say some prayer of repentance accept christ as my savior and god stamps my ticket into heaven cancels my ticket to hell and gives me at that moment the gift of wholeness and holiness of course theologians who believe this must go to great lengths to explain why most people who have this experience are in fact not significantly transformed and not able to live according to god s standards of holiness and of course they in fact do go to these lengths in a mystical understanding god shows me what holiness looks like and why it is good and then produces that holiness in me as i learn to increasingly cooperate with him both magical and mystical thinkers believe that human effort in transformation is necessary magical thinkers will tell you that transformation is something that god is producing but will spend hours talking about defeating sin or making other efforts to stop this or start that mystical thinkers do not deny our cooperation with god but the efforts mystics make are not usually efforts to combat any specific sin my efforts are aimed at clearing my mind and heart and life of clutter so that god can spring to life in me producing the life god desires for me magical thinkers think mystical thinkers aren t aggressive enough in defeating sin and tend to wonder if christ is even really in them at all mystical thinkers tend to wonder if magical thinkers know where transformation actually comes from since we see real transformation in our lives and believe all transformation into love is from christ jesus said a tree is known by its fruit if we can trust and believe this we can easily identify god at work in and around us if we cannot believe it we must build elaborate theological systems to justify why so often the apple tree isn t producing apples i do not doubt that god changes lives in many ways i just happen to believe that it will happen more often through mystery than through magic 11[close]
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inspire me next week on grey s a two-hour television event you ve never seen anything like this before this week on the biggest loser you ve never seen a contestant this huge prices will never be this low again is a terrorist driving your child s school bus in a world where tv shows are events where news is amped up and hyped up with emotional words and slick graphics where panic is sold on the open market all while we are of course warned not to panic do words have any meaning anymore as jon stewart recently observed when everything is pumped up to full volume we can t actually hear anything i m tired of the loudest voices getting my attention i just want to be inspired as brett michaels sang years ago give me something to believe in i m not saying you have to make me feel good it s okay to challenge me provoke me maybe even offend me a little bit i just want something to believe in a cause to rise to something to embrace and be part of even religion doesn t usually inspire because for too long we have done religion the same way we have done everything else coming to detroit this february the passion worship event of the century listen to our message or spend all eternity in hell come to our church we re the coolest church in town when the way we deliver the most important message in history god loves you and is with you is the same way we sell soap and news and diapers and tampons and used cars something has gone horribly wrong speaking of cars ever bought a car remember how it felt to test-drive that car remember how it felt after you got it home and you piled your kids into it with your spouse and you looked into the rear-view mirror and saw your family there wasn t that amazing wasn t it inspiring didn t that moment capture something really important about your life and about who you were 12[close]
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but remember the paperwork remember getting financing remember that yellow piece of paper about eight feet long they folded up and placed neatly in an envelope in your glove compartment ever go back and read that piece of paper of course not because it s not inspiring it has nothing to do with why you drive a car or what you love about it it s dead letters so are most of our sermons and many of our religious books so is much of the way we think about and talk about sacred scripture dead letters things that are interesting for religion wonks but have little or no bearing on who people are or believe they are or aspire to be 6.5 interest over 4 years that comes to xxx dollars and xxx cents sign here please close your eyes and say this prayer and you will get x and y and z sign here please yawn for some people in a certain place in life this can have deep significance and so it should not be entirely dismissed but so often we have utterly failed to understand why people think about god and what they are seeking when they come to church or why they choose not to because we have assumed we already know what they need as my teenagers would say epic fail inspiration and information are two completely different things we are up to our necks in information in our society all being screamed at us at top volume from a thousand different sources but there is precious little to inspire us to connect us to what it means for us to be parents and husbands and wives and students and seekers of god to begin with a church a friend a tv show a book a counselor anything that connects to this meaning will be extremely powerful and carry the air of authenticity to a person it will be deeply inspiring and although information may provide the plans that we need to change the world only inspiration makes us care enough to give it a try 13[close]
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hell i have never written about hell i have never delivered a sermon about it i have never taught a single lesson on it there are two reasons for this the first is the obvious fact that i have never been there and don t know much about it the second is that there is a sense in which i don t think it is very important this is not to say i do not believe in it i do but i do not believe it is a place of literal fire and physical suffering in fact i believe that it is absurd to believe this but i do believe in hell as a place of separation from god this separation is self-imposed every person in hell is there by choice who would choose to go to hell you might ask the answer is to simply look around at those who are choosing to live there now we all know people who refuse to acknowledge and accept the truth about who they are who will not face their stubbornness their anger their pride their general meanness and lack of compassion etc it is too painful to see the truth about themselves so they choose to cover it up certainly from others but mostly from themselves this keeps them locked in a state of perpetual falsehood that is how those who end up in hell have chosen it since god is truth and therefore dwells in eternal light to cut one s self off from truth is to cut one s self off from god when jesus speaks of god separating the sheet from the goats god is not deciding which is which but simply acknowledging and honoring reality this is why i reject the idea that anyone ends up in hell accidentally it is not a matter of choosing the correct beliefs from an infinite number of possibilities or being in with god somehow or doing some kind of jesus name-dropping mt 7:21-23 rather it requires a continual and conscious rejection of what one knows to be the truth god is in the truth business and human beings will have to work pretty hard to avoid the truth and end up separated from him which is why i don t believe hell is very important if one wants to avoid hell all one need do is acknowledge and live according to the truth in the present moment if one remains always open to truth always seeking it and always determined to live according to it god will certainly reveal himself and indeed is already doing so since truth in all its forms can be nothing but god where there is truth there is god certainly not all of god but a part of god and where there is falsehood there god is absent 14[close]
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the river spirituality understands true transformation not as something that happens when you do something or desire something but when we are at last willing to stop doing and simply be still it is in neither action nor inaction that we find god it is in cooperation this is what most christians don t get and what eastern religion teaches far better.god does and we respond always we are always in the words of eugene peterson seconding the motion there is a beautiful verse in hebrews that says there remains then a sabbath rest for the people of god let us make every effort to enter that rest the only effort we need to make is the effort required to stop making effort and that can take many years imagine a rushing river and i am hot and exhausted and i think it would be a great idea to take a swim there you say that river is out of control if you try to swim in it you will be lost if i am wise and wish to be refreshed in the river i will enter it cautiously not attempting to swim in it but simply standing in one place and allowing the water to do the moving if i start exerting my own efforts i will be carried away for here my efforts are a hindrance not a help stage 1 of religion is learning there is a river stage 2 is thinking wrongly that by believing there is a river one is therefore standing in it stage 3 is entering the river for refreshment and frolicking around in it this is where most christians dwell from this stage proceed most of the silly but well-intentioned attempts to possess the river to get god to make god draw close while one is focused way more on one s own exhausting efforts in the river than on experiencing the river itself this is a stage of religion everybody has to go through and important things do happen here stage 4 is where one is finally so exhausted so sick of one s self that the religious person either leaves the river entirely or slowly begins to learn how to stand still and let the river do the work to locate one s self in god allow god to do whatever needs to be done including making the determination about what needs to be done those who argue that spirituality is simply one more way for human beings to exercise self-will simply don t get it no doubt there are times we are doing and making things happen but primarily there is a dance going on we have entered the river and something is being done unto us that is changing us bringing peace slowly and surely growing certain fruits in our lives without us having to act or pretend or force anything this is the experience of those who learn to stand in that river 15[close]
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