Strange day today is. I’m not sure what to make of it. For some reason, I want what I believe about the world, what I believe about God, to be solid. I don’t want to hang on to a bunch of fluff. As my friend, Josh, from decon said recently, it needs to be true. I want to think rightly. I want to believe rightly. I don’t want to be hanging on to things just because they are tradition or just because so and so said it or because I am fearful. I want to be solid.
Maybe that is asking too much. Maybe I’m searching too aggresively. Maybe that is impossible. Maybe I have just gotten myself confused. I don’t know, but today I have a profound, almost agonizing sense of loss. A sense of loss like I have never felt or known. It has waxed and waned throughout the day, and I am not at all sure why it is there or what it means.
It started this morning. I was asked essentially how I know Christianity to be true. My answer. I don’t. I don’t know along side any other religion or system of thought why it is more true than them. My Christian friends will say that no other faith preaches redemption by faith. But that doesn’t really prove realness or truth. I have Jewish friends who passionately feel that they do not need Christ. And they are good people. What is redemption going to do for them? I have atheist friends who likewise are good people. They are moral and compassionate and at peace with themselves and their lives. What does redemption mean to them? I have deist friends who likewise are very good people, at peace with themselves and the world. What does redemption offer them? None of these people need Christianity to have good, peaceful, happy, moral, rich lives. And in many cases they have been Christians and found it lacking. It doesn’t take Christianity for people to love and for people to be in community and for people to be moral and for people to forgive. In fact, since the same problems exist within Christianity that exist within the rest of the world, it doesn’t seem like Christianity is a solution for any of that. We may all look cleaner, but we aren’t, and that facade may even make the problems within Christianity worse.
Is all that Christianity offers a path out of hell? Is that all it is reduced to in the end? Is that the only difference? Is that all it accomplishes? If so all the talk about us loving God and God loving us seems like a big charade. In the end we are just beating ourselves about to save our own skin.
I don’t know why this came on me today so suddenly. I’ve actually been feeling pretty solid working through my beliefs and what I belief. In fact, I’ve been enjoying it to a large extent. Maybe I’m afraid of something, losing something. I don’t know.
It’s odd that I heard a song on Saturday that I had forgotten for quite some time. My ingenious little iPhone with the Pandora internet radio app played it for me. It is appropriate for today. Soundgarden. “Fell On Black Days.”
Whatsoever I’ve feared has come to life
Whatsoever I’ve fought off became my life
Just when everyday seemed to greet me with a smile
Sunspots have faded
And now I’m doing time
Cause I fell on black days
Whomsoever I’ve cured I’ve sickened now
Whomsoever I’ve cradled I’ve put you down
I’m a search light soul they say
But I can’t see it in the night
I’m only faking when I get it right
Cause I fell on black days
How would I know
That this could be my fate
So what you wanted to see good has made you blind
And what you wanted to be yours has made it mine
So don’t you lock up something that you wanted to see fly
Hands are for shaking
No, not tying
No, not tying
I sure don’t mind a change
But I fell on black days
How would I know
That this could be my fate
I’m not sure where to go from here. This is a new place for me.
