SHARP IRON

The Confession of an Ex-Fundamentalist

(originally posted on September 4, 2006)

Not too long ago, in my early forties, I finally surrendered to Christ.  I’d been putting up a pretty good fight, all through my Catholic upbringing and then for the next 20 or so years outside of the church. The last person I’d have identified with would have been Jesus of Nazareth. If you’d asked, I would’ve described myself as a politically conservative Republican, a pantheistic/agnostic-nature worshiper and sometime Zen atheist. A pretty muddy brew.

I let my guard drop just one time and Jesus sucker punched me. Flat out on the mat, my life changed. I was ‘born again’, as they say – a new creation in Christ. Unfortunately this new creation hung on to quite a few old worldly ways.

I am not talking about what some might refer to as my sinful nature. There is still plenty of that to deal with. Every day I make choices that I am later ashamed of, an ongoing project for Jesus and me to work on together. What I am referring to here was the almost inevitable (for my personality) morphing into what is commonly referred to as a ‘religous fundamentalist’ (although these days I am not too terribly comfortable with labels)

As a new Christian, I was blown away by the lightness of spirit that I now enjoyed. I was exultant, exuberant, ecstatic and excited. ‘Witnessing’ to whoever would stand still long enough, I wanted the world to know about this awesome new experience. I stopped swearing overnight and my vocabulary took on new dimensions. My conversation was now peppered with words and phrases like ‘born again’, ‘redeemed’, ‘holy’, ‘righteous’ and ‘godly’. It seemed that every discussion I joined soon turned towards whether or not  someone, based upon his or her behavior, was ‘saved’ or ‘not saved’.

I plastered my car with fish and bumper stickers (the slogans of which were often a bit combative). Christian tee-shirts and ball caps became my preferred sartorial choice. I stopped listening to rock, blues and my beloved jazz (although most of my jazz albums have no lyrics at all, much less of the “satanic” sort). My CD collection became dominated by Christian artists (a few of them were quite good). Christian fiction tried to find a larger place in my library but I liked little of it. I socialized almost exclusively with fellow Christians [some wonderful people-some became my closest friends]. I spent more time with my church ‘family’ than I did with my own and loved telling everyone how this little church had become the center of my life. My family and old friends now found themselves, as the Newsboys sing it, ‘on the outside looking in’.

To many people it looked as if I had become ‘born again’ just to become a great big “bore…again”.

Even worse, I had become a terrible example of what a follower of Christ should look like. I began to identify sinners with their sin, promoting church exclusion and railing against those who failed to agree with my version of the Gospel. Other faiths became heretical sects and cults, including the faith of my family, Roman Catholicism. ( Ironically, I was extremely offended when I saw Fundamentalists listed as cult in a Catholic book on the subject.)

Thirsty for more, I read the Bible ‘religiously’, taking it to heart as an owner’s manual on life and often missing the story enveloped within. Listening to every evangelical radio preacher on the air I consumed as many of their books as I could find. Some of what I learned from them was this: the Bible is the inerrant Word of God (and maybe a science book, too) and should be taken literally at all times. People who did not agree with the prior statement were probably members of the ‘unsaved’ majority and we should pray for them, though unless they uttered some version of the “Sinners’s Prayer” there was little hope for their eternal souls. Tolerance and acceptance were bad words, homosexuality was threatening our nation (sexual morality itself was a sort of ‘holy’ litmus test of salvation), tithing was not an option but expected, we were living in the ‘End Times’ and if God wasn’t a Republican (like me!) he certainly could be found on their mailing lists. (To be fair, I did learn a lot of good stuff about God and the Bible as well – but that’s another story). I was fortunate enought to join a group of sober, mature Christian men and women who helped guide me through the rough waters of my young faith. I learned quite a bit about discernment from these guys-thank you Lord!-though I have now learned to discern things rather differently than they do.

All along, though, something was never quite right. More than a few of the religous credal statements did not settle well with me. There were some church doctrines that I attempted to take on faith, trying to sweep my objections under the intellectual rug, but like buried splinters they continued to prick at me. Why did women need to submit to men? Why were some of the Old Testament laws still followed so religiously when Christ had come to fulfill the law and set all mankind (not just the ‘saved’) free? Were some of Jesus’ commands more important than others? Would he forget his own teachings of peace when he returned to Armageddon? But most disturbing to me, how could Jesus permit so many of his children to suffer eternal agony in hell, perhaps their only crime being their ignorance of the Gospel?

Thank God, I soon became bored with the standard fare found on the shelves of evangelical bookstores and decided to check out the religion section of Barnes and Nobles. There I was exposed to the more challenging material of writers like Francis Schaeffer, RC Sproul, John Piper and others. Though I found them to be interesting, they also tended to prop up my fundamentalist leanings, making the Scriptures seem even more arcane and convoluted in the process. Then I stumbled into the path of Mr. Screwtape and his pupil Wormwood.

CS Lewis enabled me to see more clearly the mission and message of Jesus, helping me to look for the answers to my questions, rather than telling me verbatim what I should believe (as the ‘Puritanical’ authors and preachers tended to do). Lewis led me to Chesterton, Pascal, Kierkegaard, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky (I never knew that these famous Russians wrote of the Gospel!) I discovered contemporary writers like Brennan Manning, Henri Nouwen, Dallas Willard, Phil Yancey, Jim Wallis, Richard Foster, Tony Compolo, Leonard Sweet, Peter Gomes and Brian McLaren. These men pointed me towards the spiritual and lyrical prose of Frederick Buechner, Annie Dillard, Walker Percy and Ann LaMott. (God bless their irreverence!) Revisiting my Roman Catholic roots I learned about Christian mysticism and contemplative prayer from the works of Thomas Merton, Theresa of Avilla and Brother Lawrence. They all helped me to overcome my prejudices, thus enabling me understand how Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi and Desmond Tutu were a few of those very rare leaders that have put the Sermon on the Mount into action.

I began to realize that the transformation that took place at my conversion was merely the beginning, that God was not through changing me into what he wants. As Jim Wallis so simply explains; God is always calling us to conversion, to renewal, and we need to be open enough to heed the call. Not only have I come to embrace a more liberal orthodoxy but in the process I’ve revisited old friendships, relationships and hang outs. I am listening ro my favorite musicians again, but now I am hearing the Holy Spirit on percussion. (My family was only mildly happy at my return to their fold because in some of their eyes I had become a ‘crazy liberal’.  Jesus will do that to you.)

It was kind of tough leaving my little church’s congregation, where I had first come to know Jesus. I briefly considered trying to bring some of them along on my journey but thought better of it. After all, who was I to suggest that my understanding of God was better than theirs? Still, I wish they could see the great opportunities that lie outside of their church walls, to serve and enjoy the Kingdom, as it exists Here and Now on this planet. There is a whole world out there made up of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Evangelicals, Liberals, Conservatives, Catholics, Protestants, Pentacostalists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Wiccans, Pantheists, Agnostics, Atheists and yes, even Fundamentalists. Because Jesus is The Way, he is speaking, sometimes whispering, beckoning to everyone on this planet, especially those that seem the least likely.

Could it be that the lambs are finding it hard to hear the shepherd’s voice above all the Christian clamor?

Filed under: Biography, Culture, Emergent, Faith