Yesterday, I went to church, feeling relatively unconflicted about my presence there, and an amazing thing happened: I continued to feel unconflicted about my presence there through the entire service.
I know. I could hardly believe it myself.
Sometime in these months, especially these past few months when I've been mentally arguing with myself against needing to go to church -- "Do not give up meeting together as some have done..." versus "But the restrictions they're always talking about don't make sense to me anymore, or right now; am I not supposed to follow my own soul?" only gives up when I have other plans (like going out of state, which I've done four of the last five weeks, and will do again this coming weekend) -- my church, or perhaps my pastor, seems to have changed.
I don't think it was me. I mean, I know I've changed, but I don't think I changed to be more like church.
The sermon was on Romans 8:1-2, and a few other verses farther on, which good Bible students will know is the "no condemnation in Christ" set of verses. I listened to the part about stunning and complete lack of condemnation, lack of guilt, lack of shame, and waited for the other shoe to drop -- ONLY if you do such-and-such, ONLY if you're a so-and-so kind of person, ONLY ONLY ONLY...but it never did. All we got was the removal of condemnation, not the putting-back-on. To evangelical Christians, this is like taking a shower and forgetting to get dressed before heading out again: What is there to keep us in line but guilt?
But no, we weren't told to tow the line. We were told the line didn't really exist anymore, so we might as well all stop faking it.
Well, I thought to myself, now I remember why I liked this church stuff so much.
My pastor even pointed out that external requirements don't change the internal reality of our souls, and that this is what's wrong with "the Law." Well, yeah. That's what I've been saying. This perfectly summarizes my current working theology.
It was so astonishingly relevant.
Not that it was a huge revelation, or that what I've described is really the only, or the primary, reason that I've been a more-or-less lifelong church attender, but it was such a fitting sermon that it made me wonder. Am I not-attending church in vain?
When I can walk into church after months away and hear a sermon that sticks to every relevant part of me and no others, as though tailored -- as though vaccuum-sealed -- to me, does that mean that all my efforts to be apostate are meaningless to God? Maybe this is predestination.
Maybe the anchoress of Julian of Norwich had it right when she said "all shall be welle and all shall be welle...Thou shalt see thyselfe that all manner of things shall be welle." She was accused of heresy for the implication in this statement -- that everyone would end up in heaven -- and she avoided excommunication by declaring that she did not believe that everyone would reach eternal bliss.
I'd like to think she did, anyway.
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Large ungulates like elk get a parasite called "brainworm" from the grass.
while they crop, the worm crawls up their nose and finds its way to their brain. the worms then gravitate to the portion of the elk's brain that affects locomotion. they lay their eggs.
the eggs hatch, and eat away at the pertinent brain tissue. the elk staggers around in circles, unable to eat, until if falls over and dies. the laravae infest the grass, mature, and the grand circle of life continues.
i've been an atheist at least twice since i've been a christian. i mean, honestly believing that god DOESN'T MATTER one way or the other was a level that not even douglas adams went to.
and yet my convictions haven't mattered. here i am, in church. again.
i increasingly suspect that i might have a god-worm. i will just live my life in circles around god until i fall over and die. i tentatively suspect you might be infected, too...
anyone care to draw a god-worm?
First of all, eew.
Secondly, you're probably right, although in my case, I think the parasite has taken over large portions of my brain and replaced them.
I feel I've been fundamentally re-built by the church, which begs the old question "If a ship has been replaced plank-by-plank, is it the same ship?"
I think the answer is probably no, which is why I don't think I'll ever really make it over to atheism -- and if I do, I'll still believe I'm going to hell.
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