Tag Archives: Christianity as true

Love and truth: the road and the destination

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Before going further I think it important to indicate why I’m writing about this topic: why I think it’s an important topic and what I hope to gain by writing on it.

First, my general topic is evangelical Christianity.  More particularly, given my experience of God “showing up” in my existence, I’m interested in why evangelical Christianity is a good thing and what “works” about it.  However, in order to get there much of what I’m going to write about is why evangelical Christianity is a bad thing and what doesn’t “work” about it.

For some people, holding such a contradictory stance (because I really do mean bad—not just “misunderstood” or “regrettable”—and I really do mean doesn’t work—not just “in process” or “fallible”) is a non sequitur.  This is because in many cases Christianity as a whole is either a very good thing or a very bad thing.  And the matter is settled.  If you are in either of these camps, I hope in the course of my writing to change your mind about this.

Literally.  In other words, if you are a Christian (or are well-disposed towards Christianity) I hope to have you see the very real problems and failures with Christian belief and practice and to embrace better ways of believing and living: ways that orient you toward yourself, others, your world, and God with more truth and greater love.  In essence, “better” because they are more Christian in being more authentically human, and more human in being more truly Christian.

And if you are a non-Christian (or are ill-disposed towards Christianity) I hope in the same course to have you re-consider the possibilities and value in Christianity—I hope to re-open what is likely, for you, a closed discussion.

I hope to do this by offering resources such that accepting these possibilities is not an act of stupidity or desperation but is legitimate and valid.  “Legitimate” in that it is commensurate with your best aspirations for selfhood and your clearest understanding of truth about the world and your existence.  “Valid” because it engages an essential interaction of affirming (you and your beliefs) while yet critiquing (them in direction of your / their ownmost possibilities).  Legitimate and valid, in essence, because their acceptance completes selfhood, understanding, and relationship in the direction of more truth and greater love.

Throughout this writing one of my key presuppositions is that these two things are co-central to both human existence and Christian faith (or more so, to the Christian God): truth and love, love and truth.  Yet this is not only where I’m coming from but, actually, where I’m ultimately headed.

Yes, literally.  As Augustine believed that the goal of human life was happiness (not God or relationship with God), so I believe that that which is most essential to human existence is love and truth (not God or relationship with God).  Now I too, like Augustine, believe that God (the Christian God, whose identity and character do need fleshing out, though we’ll put this off for now) has a good bit to do with how this works out—more on this too, later.

But suffice it for now to indicate my belief that love and truth are the two key constituents to the topic under discussion, both as its goals and its means.

Two roads not to take

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It is difficult at the outset to know which direction to take: to discuss how/why evangelical Christianity has value, or to begin by examining how (and how much) evangelical Christianity is broken (and indeed, dysfunctional).  I’ll explain my choice by way of analogy.

After completing my graduate studies I ran across something that I had never experienced or had an interest in: a community dance.  I fell in love.  After so many years of living “in my head” I was suddenly aware of just how much of me simply could not be expressed through my intellect, or even my voice or pen.  Unlike church (which I found alienating and problematic on so many levels) I attended regularly for several years, finding it a catalyst for catharsis: within my dance I could bring out my pain, my frustration, and loneliness.  I did not dance them away, but let them be.

Before I left Vancouver I had a chat with the founder.  He had started this dance—a family-friendly, no drugs / alcohol, not-for-profit event—because he just wanted to dance.  No club scene, no strings.  I was considering starting a similar community dance in my new town but had no skill as a DJ.  The best tip he gave me was this: play what you like.  You won’t please everyone, so if you can’t get into it then it’s not worth doing and, really, it won’t work.

As with dancing, so too those who read these entries may have diverging views about what should be said first in a blog making such big claims (i.e., Christianity is real—prove it!  Evangelical Christianity is deeply flawed—prove it!).  Yet in keeping with my favourite DJ’s perspective, I’m going with what’s on my front burner at the moment and will move on from there.

But my story about dancing is more than a long-winded analogy.  Beyond being cathartic for my negative emotions dancing was also the space where I could best express my response to the fullness of the love and truth that I encounter: through my existence, my family, my world, and my experience(s) of a God who actually shows up.

Joy.

And that too is why I’m doing this—why I’m writing.  (As an aside I think it should be odd to us, and evoke some suspicion, that the word joy itself is “weird” nowadays and that its connotation seems, somehow, deeply awkward).  So if you’re expecting me to start by laying down proofs you’ll be disappointed, or perhaps happily surprised.  Because being intellectually convinced of something, as important as that is, comes second.  Or rather, where any truth claims to be “full”—making a claim on both my existence and all of existence—and also to be supremely about love, it must be as philosopher Søren Kierkegaard notes: truth that is “for me.”  And intimately so.

In my own experience the greatest “truth-for-me” is to be deeply beloved by one who knows me truly, and whom I deeply love in return.  Thus my view that truth and love are co-central to both human existence and Christianity / the Christian God comes not only out of intellectual examination or theological interpretation but because it has been my experience, and this experience has transformed my life.  Absolute (or ultimate) truth may indeed exist, but as I have no absolute (or ultimate) access to it, it means nothing to me unless it is true for me.

So which road am I taking?  Neither.  I refuse the view that the binary opposition between proving Christianity or disproving it is the only way to go, nor do I believe that “proving” in any modernist sense even represents a valid option.  Instead the path I choose, full of detours and discursions, will take love and truth as joint polar stars towards a way of being that looks for validation through reason and experience, even the experience of joy.