This morning I felt led to pray the following for BeDeviant:
Help me to maintain biblical fidelity while challenging institutional rigidity.
I want to ask you to join me in that prayer. For this site, specifically. Pray for the mission of BeDeviant, “Bridging the gaps between church and culture.”
You have allowed me to post and write and think “out loud” on this site for almost two years and I feel like we’re just about to turn the corner.
My alma mater, the University of Northern Iowa, recently won the Missouri Valley Conference championship. It’s the second year in a row they’ve done it, but this season was sweeter. They beat a team in the Wichita State Shockers that had given them two tough games earlier in the season, each team claiming a victory.
As I watched the final minutes of the championship game on Sunday, something hit me. How we read Scripture is a lot like basketball commentators–they’re all watching the same game, but the way it’s interpreted varies from person to person. Sometimes greatly.
Allow me to explain further. . . .
(more…)
I felt compelled to share the reason why BeDeviant.com exists.
Here’s the thing: Most of us have no idea what we believe. We think we do. We may even believe that we do. We will passionately defend what we believe we believe. Sometimes to the death. But truly, most of us do not have access to what we really believe.
Why? We believe what we’ve been conditioned to believe.
What we believe is so influenced by our families, our cultures, our race and ethnicity, our socioeconomic status, that we have no access to our actual beliefs and values. There are too many hurdles to jump, so the hard work of “jumping” never gets done. Staring down a long-held cherished belief and declaring, “False!” is too painful. We’d rather live in ignorance for, as they say, “ignorance is bliss.”
It is only after we learn how we have come to believe what we believe that the true work of forming an honest belief system can begin. Phew.
This is why I write. I write to challenge people to look at not just what they believe, but why they believe it. As Socrates famously stated, “An unexamined life is not worth living.” I write to challenge people to look at things differently.
However, this is much more the philosophic fodder. My ultimate model in “being deviant” is none other than Jesus. When we see Jesus, we see a man who challenged nearly every cultural and familial tradition of his day,
And those are just the ones we know about.
Jesus was a man who jarred the soul–violently at times–in order to free people from the bondage of mindless, man-made religious tradition. Jesus freed people to believe in the One True God, not just believe in their beliefs. Jesus gave people access to the Truth and, as he famously stated, “the truth shall set you free.”
As a Christian, we are “little Christs.” We do what we see Jesus doing, both in life and in death.
I see Jesus challenging the this-is-the-way-we’ve-always-done-it-status-quo, so that’s what I do.
I see Jesus challenging our notions of who God is, so that’s what I do.
I see Jesus challenging the religious arrogance of those who believe they have it all figured out, so that’s what I do.
I wouldn’t have necessarily chosen to be this expression of Christ’s Body, but providence is particular. I write because I feel it’s God-in-me, calling me to do so.
My mentor once told me that when you throw a rock into a pack of dogs, the one who gets hit is the one who yelps the loudest. Writing for BeDeviant.com is kind of like that. We need to be smacked in the head once in awhile to be jarred loose from the death-grip that the suffocating religious spirit has on our souls.
This–for better or worse–is why I write. Come what may.
I’ve closed the comments on this post because what I wrote is not up for debate. It’s my story of the Spirit of God intersecting a human life and the beauty and chaos that results.
It’s been an interesting 24 hours, to say the least.
This may sound unbelievable to some, but I believe the post from yesterday, “Why You’ll See Ellen DeGeneres in Heaven” was Spirit-led. A further explanation of how it came into being is later in the post.
Having said that, I feel some clarification is in order. I’m a huge fan of clarity. So, for the people who won’t read any further than this first paragraph, allow me to make crystal clear what I believe:
Conservative talk show host Michael Savage calls her, “Ellen DeGenerate.” I call Ellen DeGeneres “heaven-bound.”
Why?
When describing the actions of those who will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus says,
For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.
Simply put, Jesus says the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who move with compassion. With mercy.
Jesus’ half-brother spoke clearly to what it means to be a “religious” person. James said, “Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.” Seems pretty vague doesn’t it? Perhaps that’s on purpose.
(more…)
This is a guest post by Nicole Unice.
I have a confession to make. I like pop music.
And not just the Miley Cyrus, High School Musical flavor. I like the beat thumping, chorus humming, and—dare I say it—booty-shaking kind. There it is. I am a woman in my early 30s, with three children and a minivan. I run a Christian counseling practice and a women’s ministry. People look to me for soul direction and depth, and in my spare time, I like to dance around and get low, low, low.
The best part? I think that’s OK with Jesus.
My senior pastor plays tennis on a team with my husband’s co-worker. Last week, the team finished a game and had some beers in a cooler. One of them offered my pastor a beer and (gasp!) he took it. Later, the co-worker told my husband that he cringed because his teammate must not have known he was offering a beer to a pastor. The co-worker reported. “Wow, I was surprised he had a beer with us. That’s cool.” (more…)
This is a guest post by Andy Whisenant.
I love to read. (I guess it helps that I work at a bookstore.) It feeds my addiction.
If you walk into any bookstore and head to the Christian book section, you’ll likely find,
Another group of books you’ll likely find includes books all about finding God’s will for your life, complete with formulas and fill-in-the-blanks. It’s all tied up really well in a nice package with a cool cover and a catchy title.
For a long time, I thought that was how I was going to find out God’s will for my life. (more…)
Jesus is simple.
You must love the Lord your God with all that you have. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is just as important: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.
It’s simple. Love God. Love others. This is what it means to be a Christian. This is how you know you’re “saved” (if there is such a thing).
Don’t complicate the Gospel with your need to be right.
I was at Starbucks this morning ordering a new creation. Some friends have been tweeting about a venti toffee-nut Americano and I knew I needed to try it.
I ordered, plunked my dough down and made my way Soup Nazi-style to the end of the line to wait for my drink. The guy behind me ordered a latte and found his way down by me to wait. We were both milling about when I noticed the barista making a drink that looked very different than what I had ordered. It didn’t very much look like a latte either.
The barista was making a very big, very chocolatey, very caffeinated venti mocha. “Maybe she needs an extra boost to get her through the morning,” I thought to myself.
I noticed there was a third guy in line who was eyeing this drink pretty hard. I didn’t hear his order, but you could tell he was wondering if the diabetic-coma-inducing mocha waiting in the on-deck circle was for him.
The anticipation was thick–you could see it in his Coke-bottle-bespecled eyes. “Is it? Could it be? Is that drink ….. for me?” he seemed to be saying.
Then the barista handed the mocha to her co-worker at the cash register, who in turn handed it to the man-in-waiting. His eyes sparkled and his mouth grew into a smile a mile wide. Then he said something that struck me:
“She knew. She knew what I wanted all along!”
Before me.
Before the next guy in line.
The barista saw this man in line and automatically began making his drink because she knew him. She knew what he would order, what he likes, so she took the initiative and made it without him even asking.
The response from the man was more than simple appreciation. This was a person who felt as though someone–even a barista at Starbucks–knew him in some way. It probably changed his whole day.
One simple act.
It hit me as I was watching this unfold that this is what life with God is like. We sit in line, waiting to get to the front so we can make our demands known. We impatiently wait on the line to shorten so we can say what we need to say, get what we need to get.
Once we get to the front of the line, before we can even finish our order, we see that what we were going to order is already made for us. Lots of times, what we get is way better than what we were going to order. God knew what we liked and already had it ready for us. He thought ahead and acted intentionally.
Piping hot. Fresh. Sweet. Made specifically for us. This is the goodness of God.
Kind David said, “I will see the goodness of Yahweh in the land of the living.” I can officially say to you that I saw the goodness of God today. All while waiting in line at Starbucks.
What about you?
From “The Incarnation of Thomas Merton” by Charles E. Kinzie:
Perhaps the peculiar mark of the modern saint is that he or she faces the crisis [the crisis that forms our existence] in his or her own life, and is therefore driven at least by the desire to experience Christianity in a pristine form beyond the decaying cultural forms that no longer serve to bring us to conversation. There is about such a life a minimum of self-betrayal.
I was fortunate to come across this passage today. I had to read it multiple times before the, “wow!” kicked in. It describes, in two sentences, the mark of a deviant.
A deviant knows that there is cultural baggage that needs to be shed in order to experience the fullness of God in the person of Christ
A deviant is always looking to rid herself of those beliefs which no longer bring her closer to Christ, but limit her ability to see him.
A deviant knows that what meets the eye isn’t the last step in reality.
A deviant is looking to live according to Spirit-led promptings, not rule-bound religion.
A deviant is so undeniably firm in their “non-negotiables” that he is willing and able to enter into discussion with those who don’t believe the same way he does.
A deviant knows what they believe–but more importantly why and how they came to believe it.
This is the life of a deviant. Is that you?
Discuss.
SOCIALIZE:
SUBSCRIBE: