Leading up to and through Easter was a thing of things. There was a lot of processing and unease internally. Good things were happening. More of my layers of insecure woundupness had begun to unfrazzle. It was freeing and terrifying. A lot of the noise I’m use to managing was gone. While a lot has changed in a couple of years of sobriety, it’s far from done. I was trying to sort through the things I felt I “had” to do. It was only becoming clearer but also I didn’t know what it was. It was just coming into focus. Looking back, I can tell I was trying to face the world again and sorting through things personally.
Deconstructing & Keeping The Lumber
There were some things certain as far as my identity, inner work, beliefs, and behavior. There were still things that hadn’t been fully integrated and connected yet. Ego and Self have been an important topic in my life and it felt like the gap between Ego and Self was diminishing. Psychology and mindset matter a lot more in my systematic theology than the systems of most denominational theologies. While I still unhesitatingly claim my faith as Christian, it wasn’t like my brothers and sisters I failed to start a church. I had beliefs that would be counted as heresy to the American Evangelical church. I felt a bit stuck between my story as an alcoholic pastor and who I am now.
Gospel vs gospels
Truthfully, I was stuck because I had made a plethora of decisions to put me on such a path as this. While my recovery started with a solid network and plan, it erupted shortly about 6 months in. Alcohol was gracefully not an issue (don’t ask about sugar and nicotine). Since then, my recovery and life have been pretty much on my own. I didn’t stay connected to people who loved me. I had friendships and a network of people I relied on but it was still from a safe distance.
I was also seeing a lot of past behavior differently, including how I should have been a better friend to those who love me. Coming to terms with how I was as a partner to my ex-wife and father to my children has been humbling nor is it finished. During that time, I read, studied, worked, attended AA, and taught a bible study for a while. No longer being employed by a church meant I was free to ask questions and keep exploring my beliefs.
I went to an Easter service with the intent of hearing what’s happening in churches. I also really wanted to sort some things out with my faith and Jesus. I was able to see how Christians’ faith works for them and what it does. I understood the gospel presented to me wasn’t the Gospel. The Church’s inversion of the Gospel was something that couldn’t be unseen. With the American Church out of my way, what was left over was a rather simple but difficult Gospel. I had a moment near the end of the service, listening to the preacher’s gospel presentation, where I said something like, “Ok, Jesus….you know my beliefs. If this is what it’s about, I’ll try it.” I was in.
Construction After Deconstruction
Blogging started up again just before Easter. It was quickly obvious that I had lost my voice. I was trying to speak from a different place, a healthy center rather than a disjointed ego. What I was saying had to change because my Why and my How had fundamentally shifted.
At the same time, I am a recovering alcoholic with still work to do to clean up his wreckage. I also knew I would be engaging with Christians on passionate matters we didn’t see eye to eye on. Reading some of my posts, I can hear to chip on my shoulder and my ego trying to prove something.
Ego death has been a topic in my life since October of 2022. The psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy of it fascinate me and call me. Every alcoholic is a narcissist and I have my arrogant and defensive side. Ego death seemed to be something missing both for my growth and for my faith. It seemed like Jesus talked about it a lot.
My understanding of some ideas that had been developing in isolation was growing out. Virtues act are judges by which we measure ourselves against. To live one way according to an ideal means to submit oneself to it. Jesus on the cross, praying for the forgiveness of those killing him, seemed to be tailor-made as a symbol of ego death. To take up our cross and follow Him, to be sent in the world as He was, to continue His mission, to die to self daily, to live in the fruit of the Spirit, and the entire biblical narrative screams about how our egos are what are in the way.
Writers like Kierkegaard, Jung, Marcus Aurelius, Wright, Girard, Hegel, Nietzsche, Victor Frankl, and others have given me a lot to work with on top of what was already there. Then there’s the recovery and trauma side of things I’ve come to learn. My one censured faith had already been on the edgy side. I am no longer an Evangelical and haven’t been for over a year. I knew that being open and trying to engage with the Evangelical church could stir things up.
Caging Fear Instead Of Myself
In the last few weeks, I’ve come to terms with a lot of things about me. There’s one particular thing that seems to have been a part of me from early childhood. It’s been a central problem with me trying to find a voice again. What other people think about me scares me. I remember being told a decade ago that I struggle with the “fear of man.” Proverbs 29:25 says, “The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is safe.” The truth is that I feared everyone, myself especially.
My inner child’s need for validation and belonging has been a central issue in my life. Decision-making as a subject is something I have a bit of sweat and blood in. Things have been becoming clearer and pointed. Other things have faded away or blended into a whole. The call on life was undeniable but I was still just trying to come out of my shell.
I used to fear people a lot, all of them. It kept me from them. It distracted me from sending a text or making a call. I was afraid of saying what I thought and believed. I also was so often in a place of insecurity that other people felt like threats. The “fear of man” is a snare, a trap. It’s a trick that is made of other humans’ thoughts, even if the people are a “church.” It required that I fall for it. I still do just left often.
On the other side of the proverb is “but whoever trusts in the LORD is safe.” It is in contrast with the fearing people. Here’s the thing then: if the fear of man is a trap it is also avoidable. To trust the Lord is to trust that the world is in good hands, specifically my life. What is is. What will happen will happen. Just like a a passenger in boat, the storm may rage and the waves thwart, but I am still here and existing. I am already “safe” from the opinions of others. Their validation or disapproval exists outside of me. It isn’t me.
When I approach things this way, I am better able to be open, to listen, to understand, and to see myself in the midst of the storm. There is some clarity and even peace in letting the storm stay outside of the boat. People are people rather than objects. It’s a mindset I’m just barely able to hold to and it’s been an empowering one.
Egongelical
I’m a Egongelical. There is a draft post outlining what it means. Labels like Deconstructionist, Exangelical, or Liberal were missing things. My problem with them is they’re more reactions or rather exoduses. They’re leaving something but to what? It feels more like a denial than a confession. I believe the Gospel narrative does communicate something powerful and profound. The first step had to be for a bunch of Evangelicals to start calling “B.S.” on the American Church. I’m definitely in that ire.
God calls us to something else, something more. Call it the Universe, Fate, gods, or the Unknown God. It’s what calls us to live, hope, love, dream, and risk. It’s what calls us to heal, to face ourselves and others. I think the American Church for hundreds of years has confused us into seeing Jesus, God, Scripture, and Reality wrong. I think Evangelicals are a part of our society’s problems. Trump is a clear indicator the Evangelical Church has lost its way and is making things worse. Many see it and more will. Something has to change. Something is already changing. I believe there’s a better way of living than most of us hold to now. I had to find a better way of living than the way I was before 9/11/2021.
