It's been a while since I posted. I got a little depressed with my kids all leaving home. The last one left just Sunday.
Also, I saw a story on the news the other night where a blogger like myself was fined thousands of dollars for using copy-righted images. That was another blow. I need to come back and take down all the images that I don't have the rights to . . . which is a lot. I can't afford to buy the rights. I could take my own photos but that will add a lot of time and effort.
So, once again I'm at a cross-roads of what to do with this blog. I have such a busy life, or at least it has been. Many people write better than me, design blog pages better than me and have more interesting topics. I only decided to do this blog when I felt that there was a niche.
Mike Spencer had a posting on his blog on "Why I Don't Read Your Blog." I responded that I really am not writing for others, although they are welcome to come and read and comment. But this blog is my Wilson (from the movie Castaway). I wanted to use an image of the bloody volleyball but again it was a copyrighted image.
But there are many days that I feel like pulling my hair out. I feel like the entire Evangelical world is freaken insane and I have to go somewhere to talk.
So I will decide if I continue or not.
Mike
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Key Words: Post-evangelical, disillusionment with Christianity, spiritual abuse, Christian Dualism, Francis Schaeffer, Christian Decision Making, Honesty and Christianity
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God's Glorious Creation
Seeing the entire universe, the seen and the unseen, as all part of God's wonderful creation.
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Key Words: Post-evangelical, disillusionment with Christianity, spiritual abuse, Christian Dualism, Francis Schaeffer, Christian Decision Making, Honesty and Christianity
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What A Christian Monist Believes
A Christian Monist is simply a nudging of the mainstream Evangelicalism back towards it Biblical-philosophical roots, which we think is Monistic rather than Dualistic.
This may sound complicated but it is not. Scripture says that God created man, woman, the creatures and the cosmos . . . then said it was good. Yes the Fall did happen, tainting this world (and ourselves) but it didn't decimate the cosmos, rendering it as totally worthless or even evil.
The old Dualist (such as the Gnostics, which influenced the early church) believed that this physical world is evil. They also believed that Satan is the Lord of the darkness, juxtaposed, to God the Lord of the world of light (and the forces were almost equal). C.S. Lewis disagreed with this view, stating that evil was a lowly parasite in the shadows of God’s wonderfully created world.
The practical implications of this change in perspective is immense and we believe accounts for almost all that ails modern, American Evangelicalism. These implications are too many to discuss here, but to mention a few examples.
American Evangelicalism, which had been greatly influenced by forms of Dualism, from Zoroaster to Plato and others, sees things in black vs. white. The spiritual (invisible) is superior to the seen (the physical cosmos). So to an Evangelical, everything is divided between the spiritual vs. worldly and is almost along altitudinal lines. The earth, our physical bodies, art (especially art by non-Christians), emotions, our brains (eg. psychology) . . . all are inferior to the unseen spiritual.
Therefore Evangelicals believe that events must be understood by their unseen forces or they have no value. In other words, Aunt Martha’s cancer wasn’t caused by a cell mutating but by Satan’s attack. Her cancer wasn’t cured by the smart doctors who developed chemotherapy but only by a “super-natural” hand of God.
But that is only the tip of the iceberg. Evangelicalism has become very dishonest in places and the younger people (both within and without the church) often see it as a farce. I feel very passionate about this because 85% of children, reared within the Evangelical church, leave it before they are 25. Evangelicalism is on the wrong path. They see the great evil as humanism or evolution. The real great evil (and many young people have told me this) is the phoniness withing the church.
This may sound complicated but it is not. Scripture says that God created man, woman, the creatures and the cosmos . . . then said it was good. Yes the Fall did happen, tainting this world (and ourselves) but it didn't decimate the cosmos, rendering it as totally worthless or even evil.
The old Dualist (such as the Gnostics, which influenced the early church) believed that this physical world is evil. They also believed that Satan is the Lord of the darkness, juxtaposed, to God the Lord of the world of light (and the forces were almost equal). C.S. Lewis disagreed with this view, stating that evil was a lowly parasite in the shadows of God’s wonderfully created world.
The practical implications of this change in perspective is immense and we believe accounts for almost all that ails modern, American Evangelicalism. These implications are too many to discuss here, but to mention a few examples.
American Evangelicalism, which had been greatly influenced by forms of Dualism, from Zoroaster to Plato and others, sees things in black vs. white. The spiritual (invisible) is superior to the seen (the physical cosmos). So to an Evangelical, everything is divided between the spiritual vs. worldly and is almost along altitudinal lines. The earth, our physical bodies, art (especially art by non-Christians), emotions, our brains (eg. psychology) . . . all are inferior to the unseen spiritual.
Therefore Evangelicals believe that events must be understood by their unseen forces or they have no value. In other words, Aunt Martha’s cancer wasn’t caused by a cell mutating but by Satan’s attack. Her cancer wasn’t cured by the smart doctors who developed chemotherapy but only by a “super-natural” hand of God.
But that is only the tip of the iceberg. Evangelicalism has become very dishonest in places and the younger people (both within and without the church) often see it as a farce. I feel very passionate about this because 85% of children, reared within the Evangelical church, leave it before they are 25. Evangelicalism is on the wrong path. They see the great evil as humanism or evolution. The real great evil (and many young people have told me this) is the phoniness withing the church.
Evangelical Church Exit Interview--Fictional, but Possible
God's Glorious Creation
Genesis 1:31 (New International Version) 31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
6 comments:
Hi Mike-
found you through your comment on iMonk. I'm 52 as well, am a medical transcriptionist, live in N. California and have three children- who all well and truly moved out within this past year, instead of gradually, like it says in the script... It still brings tears to my eyes sometimes.
I appreciate your thoughts on fate, superstition, etc. The stupidity (no other word for it) of some evangelicals about this is one of the things that drove me into "the wilderness" about ten years ago. Thank God I found Dallas Willard's "Divine Conspiracy" and the writings of NT Wright.
Long story short, my search for a seamless view of life, the universe and everything :) led me to a very surprising place: Eastern Orthodoxy. I am not yet a catechumen but am moving toward that. My husband doesn't understand and won't even talk to me about it, but he's not trying to prevent me, either.
You might find value in Fr. Stephen Freeman's blog:
www.fatherstephen.wordpress.com. He has a great deal of insight in writing about what he calls "a one-storey universe", and I think you would resonate with that. (I'm not trying to convert you- zealous converts give me the Willis! I've been churched all my life and I don't have time for that business, or any illusions of any kind about church life...)
May God grant you joy however you are involved in the life of your grandchild, and continuing to be involved in the lives of your children. The sadness and joy do coexist- that's how life is. It's ok.
Dana Ames
Thanks for your comments.
I've had other friends go to the Orthodox Church. I was around LAbri and I know that Franky Schaeffer has become part of the church.
I agree. Joy and grief can co-exist in the same nano-second.
Hello. I've been going back and reading your previous blogs today. I had some extra time and i'm always interested in what you write. That leads to why i'm commenting. you mentioned not writing anymore and which doesn't seem to be the case because i have been reading your current posts too. I hope you continue to decide to write, because Bryan and i really enjoy reading your blog.
Thank you Renee. I'm grieving for your loss and may you heal soon.
But there are many days that I feel like pulling my hair out. I feel like the entire Evangelical world is freaken insane and I have to go somewhere to talk.
Back when years AD were in the low three digits, there were these eccentric hermit monks in North Africa called the Desert Fathers.
My writing partner (a burned-out preacher-man from rural PA) has a favorite quote from one of them for times like this:
"There will come a time when men will go mad. And they will lay hands on the sane among them, saying 'You are not like Us! You must be Mad!'"
-- Headless Unicorn Guy
H.U.G., thanks for all your comments today. When you have an overview of the entire thing, I would be grateful for a thumbs up or thumbs down if I should make the effort to polish it up (fix the typos, rewrite part etc) and seek publication of my story.
You've made some really great insights an I appreciate them. I won't go back and comment on each one.
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