I was listening to a podcast today from The Table UMC about the growing trend of people who identify themselves as "spiritual" but not "religious". The pastor, Matt, was using Anne Rice as an example of someone who became disgusted with Christianity and decidedly left the church but still follows Jesus.
Now ever since reading The Witching Hour series and subsequently the vampire chronicles up through Tale of the Body Thief, I have fallen in love with Anne Rice. She wrote these before she even joined the church but the religious themes in them speak to me on such a basic level of my being. I feel like she gets it and she has a lot of amazing things to say to not only the modern christian, but the modern human in any walk of life.
I was just thinking about how I used to feel like the church was unchangeable. I used to think the church had these set of rules to follow and this whole belief system that was set in stone. We as followers were just supposed to accept the structure that was in place and if we didn't like it, then Christianity was not for us.
I feel this way about the government too. It just seems too big to change. Giant corporations seem too big to change. Everything in our world is so big and so unyielding to change. Of course this isn't true; things change all the time. People make things happen. Giant companies are started by one visionary.
I believe this is happening in our church today. A lot of Christians don't appreciate the old narrative of what we are and how we should act, being judgmental and close-minded. It seems the terms of large scale Christianity is that we continue to perpetuate old ideas of morality and sexuality that just don't make sense to this culture.
My point is just this: We can change it. We are changing it. There have been many revolutions in the history of our faith tradition and it continued to thrive. We will successfully change the narrative of Christianity and hundreds of years down the road, new generations will change it again. What is a structure without people? Nothing is unchangeable. Christianity is ours. Jesus gave his words, his wisdom to us. Religion was never supposed to be so unyielding.
So, I am spiritual AND religious. Our church is changing and I'm going to be there to see it happen.
Angela
Now ever since reading The Witching Hour series and subsequently the vampire chronicles up through Tale of the Body Thief, I have fallen in love with Anne Rice. She wrote these before she even joined the church but the religious themes in them speak to me on such a basic level of my being. I feel like she gets it and she has a lot of amazing things to say to not only the modern christian, but the modern human in any walk of life.
I was just thinking about how I used to feel like the church was unchangeable. I used to think the church had these set of rules to follow and this whole belief system that was set in stone. We as followers were just supposed to accept the structure that was in place and if we didn't like it, then Christianity was not for us.
I feel this way about the government too. It just seems too big to change. Giant corporations seem too big to change. Everything in our world is so big and so unyielding to change. Of course this isn't true; things change all the time. People make things happen. Giant companies are started by one visionary.
I believe this is happening in our church today. A lot of Christians don't appreciate the old narrative of what we are and how we should act, being judgmental and close-minded. It seems the terms of large scale Christianity is that we continue to perpetuate old ideas of morality and sexuality that just don't make sense to this culture.
My point is just this: We can change it. We are changing it. There have been many revolutions in the history of our faith tradition and it continued to thrive. We will successfully change the narrative of Christianity and hundreds of years down the road, new generations will change it again. What is a structure without people? Nothing is unchangeable. Christianity is ours. Jesus gave his words, his wisdom to us. Religion was never supposed to be so unyielding.
So, I am spiritual AND religious. Our church is changing and I'm going to be there to see it happen.
Angela
No comments:
Post a Comment