no perfect people allowed, part 1

Today is the perfect day for soup.

For the past week or so, it has been uncharacteristically cold here.  The technical term we Washingtonians use for this kind of weather is Butt Cold.  Or, to be more accurate, Butt Cold with a wind chill factor of Super Butt Cold.  Since the sun has been shining bright and I can see my mountains, I don't mind so much, but yes, my mmm-mmm good Tomato soup is hittin' the spot.

Plus, I'm a little off-kilter due to attacking an antique glass doorknob with my face yesterday.  I reached down to grab something off the bathroom floor yesterday and -- WHOMP!  Instant goose-egg just above my right eye.  Instant weekend-long headache.  Sweeeet.

So yeah.  Enjoying the soup.  (Glad I shared that.  I'd hate to take up space on the internet discussing something arbitrary and unimportant).

Ow.  Scratch that.  Just burned my tastebuds off.

I am so cool.

Anyway, on to what I actually wanted to talk about.  I am reading a fantastic book that I am forcing on everyone I can get to listen to a passage or two.  Last book that I loved in this way was Bono's spoken biography -- I highly recommend it.  This new one is called No Perfect People Allowed (John Burke), and it is resonating with me big-time.

Before I jump into the specifics, let me share a bit of history.  If you've been reading here for any length of time, you know that while I was raised in the church, I didn't really have a good understanding of grace until much later on in the process, and that I'm right now in the midst of re-learning what it means to be a follower of Christ.  This means unlearning some things and learning others for the first time.

(Geez.  Took me long enough to be able to condense that into a few sentences.  Score!)

I cannot emphasize enough that I often feel like a new Christian all over again.  To be honest, I hope I never lose this sense of newness with regards to my faith.  There are things I am capable of understanding now, at twenty-five, that I obviously couldn't fully grasp at the age of four, when I first asked Jesus to lead my life.  As I get older, I don't expect this pattern to change.  If I ever get married, if I am ever a Mommy (or if I end up the cutest old maid/auntie there ever was, perhaps), there are new facets of my faith that will emerge, and I never want to be so sure of having figured it all out that I'm closed off to a new, deeper understanding of Jesus and his work in me.

That said, there are new questions that have arisen this time around.  Not so much in the realm of Is God real? or Are the claims of Christianity true? -- I've seen too much in my life to think that everything happens by chance and accident, and while the actions of Christians don't make too much sense to me sometimes, the claims and actions of Christ ring true (i.e., turning religious rulekeeping on its head, exposing the inner nastiness of the religious elite, loving and healing those who had always been excluded -- the tax collectors and the prostitutes and the poor and the sick and the racially different)...  No, my questions were more along the lines of If God is real, and the claims of Christ are true, then what about ________?

That blank represents many unanswered questions for me.  Not that no one ever attempted to answer them.  It's just that the pat answers I received -- and often accepted -- when I was younger no longer satisfied me.  I had been forced to venture outside the Christian subculture (and for this reason I thank God that I flunked out of Bible college); I'd seen way too much that didn't fit in my nice, neatly packaged Christian paradigm (and for this reason I thank God that he allowed me to go to hippie-ville Western and grow friendships with people whose world-views were decidedly different than my own).

The world was no longer flat, so to speak.

And while Jesus remained real to me as ever, so did all those blanks.

Among them, here are a few:

What about other religions?  What about people who have never heard about Jesus?  Yeah, I got lucky and was raised in a home where I was taught about Jesus -- but what if I'd grown up in Saudi Arabia or something?  What then?

Why are Christians known more for being arrogant, judgmental and hypocritical than for being loving and accepting, as Jesus was?  (How in the hell did Pat Robertson install himself as our spokesman)?

If Christ died for all, why are Christians so ugly toward certain groups of people, most specifically the gay community?  Why are Christians so unconcerned for the poor and the sick?

Is it possible to be a Christian and not vote Republican? (snicker)

This time around, I found myself asking the same questions that came up in different arenas all throughout my school years.  Questions in my debate class.  Questions in World History.  Questions in Philosophy of Religion.  Questions in Red Square or at Starbucks or in my dorm room -- questions that were asked of me.  I shudder when I think about what my answers may have been... when I consider that I may have simply repeated those same trite, unfeeling, unsatisfying answers to seekers before I'd ever really been a seeker myself.  I claimed certainty and authority where I had none.  God forgive me.

Tomorrow, time permitting, I want to deal with the first question in my little list.  The answer I'd been taught when I was younger was of the Too bad, so sad variety: God is gracious, God loves the whole world, but God is also holy, and the only way to be made right with him is through Jesus.  If you grew up in the Middle East or on some deserted island where they haven't heard of Jesus -- if your time's up and you haven't said the magic words, it's a real bummer -- but you're screwed.  Needless to say, this answer wasn't super palatable.  I used to think that it wasn't palatable because I wasn't strong enough in my faith.  Now I realize it wasn't palatable because it shouldn't be -- not to anyone with a heart and any remote understanding of God's own.

I am happy to have found in this book the most thoughtful, fearless, scriptural treatment of this question that I have ever come across.  It doesn't claim to be THE answer to the question, but it does address what we know from scripture -- and what we don't know.  I'm still processing it, but so far, so good.

Finally.

Til tomorrow then.