Grace Archives

Michael Spencer has the Doubts, or the Beliefs

From time to time, I go over to Michael Spencer's site at the Internet Monk. I don't know Spencer, and we've never corresponded. So I don't go because I know him. I just find him interesting. And usually reading his work has the consequence of me considering Jesus. Not always, but often: this probably explains why I don't drop by more often.

Recently, he thought again about his doubts about this whole God business. (Also, see Spencer's introductory remarks about his doubting and the comments left.) He does it in a well-written piece, and even gets around to citing Luther.

Take a moment here. Spencer's not a nutcase or even slightly insane, at least not much of the time. He's a "full-time Christian worker" which translated into normal English means that he gets paid to do church stuff in a forty-hour a week or more job. (Normally more.) He went to seminary and did the time necessary to get ordained. He lives onsite at a Church-affiliated boarding high-school in what even my ancestors in the Hatfield-McCoy feud would have considered "The Boonies". He writes a great deal online, perhaps because the closest hardware store and major league ballfield is too far away.

So he's not your run-of-the-mill Christ-blogger who shouts about this and that but who doesn't really have the stomach to do anything with his life that matters. You can say what you will about church work, but dedicating your life to the kids that they get out there is something I would put in the bucket as "doing something that matters".

So, when he writes about his doubts it's bound to be interesting. Mostly because most people in his position have the good sense to stay out of the rain and keep these things to themselves until they announce to their congregation in a letter on Thursday that they are converting to another religion as of last Saturday and last Sunday's eucharist was just keeping things moving. It keeps you from getting people questioning your ability to be a man (of God), whatever that means.

Me, I'm just this guy who works with kids real part-time, writes some church plays, and worries about his own a lot. So his expressing his doubts make it easier to live with my own.

For N, In Your Darkest Hour

So, you have asked me what I did when I was drowning, when I fell and saw no light. Like you have, you say.

It is a good question. For this is a good time for you to learn new things. And to learn a new thing is to be alive, to live as an image of the Increate, as a glove is the image of a hand.

Here we find something hard. You hold onto these things, things that we will not keep for all is but grass. Love deeply and do not hold them. A paradox, I suppose. We give up needing to live in the depths of desire, a desire finding its true joy in Him.

So, what then?

An Addendum to Spencer's "A Letter To Andrew and Other Young Artists Injured By The Church"

Before I go off the grid for personal reasons, I'm posting some of the unfinished pieces I had laying about the MT database. It's not something I would normally let out, but, hey, it's the Olmec new year.

Michael Spencer, the inimitatable Internet Monk, is probably my favorite writer in the Christian blogsphere. He's often wrong, sometimes pigheaded, and even vainglorious in his worst moments. He's probably even got a streak of persecution complex, although having read some of what people say about this obscure hillbilly, it's hard not to feel he's got a point. All of which still classifies him well ahead of me on any righteousness scale. He seems to be someone who truly cares about his world, his God, his family, his life. He struggles with a variety of doubts or confusions on certain deep topics. He can complain about Focus on The Family's list of 10 Things That Mean Your Son Is A Fag and still compliment them for their fine work on parenting.

In my own vaingloriousness, I'm adding to his thoughts on Christians with art in "A Letter To Andrew and Other Young Artists Injured By The Church". He really does carry the day with an excellent piece, well thought out, and characteristically showing his years of thoughtfully considering this issue. Only a fatheaded jerk would feel he has anything to add to it, but I'm a blogger, so that goes without saying.

So my addendum to Andrew:

Drowning Daily in the Unstoppable, Merciless Grace of Christ

It's Sunday, after church, after lunch, slush all over the ground and roads, beautiful L (now my age for two months) napping on the couch. So my mind naturally turns toward the Evolutionist vs. Creationist debate. But I will desist and pause, for the debate — which rages even more because Michael Spencer at Internet Monk is thoughful and provocative in describing his own life — has got me thinking again about who I am and why I am. It has gotten me to think about my beliefs, my position with Christ.

My beliefs on the issue are complex and therefore not interesting to almost anyone. I have seen arrogance and emnity on various sides of this issue, including coming from me. Most of the time, I don't think about it.

In a recent comment to a recent post by Spencer on the creationism vs. evolution issue at Boar's Head Tavern, Steve said that he feared that if he accepted evolution, he would give up all his Christian beliefs:

An Apology for Graceless Behaviour?

Rob Schläpfer has an interesting apology for his graceless behaviour in his work as a Reformed Christian. I have not followed the controversy but find the article interesting anyway.

Gifts Freely Given

I don't know if y'all have been following the conversation between Jason and APFG (see "Childhood and How It Affects You Now", for example), but it has been getting very interesting. They are both very strong people and I have appreciated their back and forth. I think that Jason is younger and APFG is older than me, from what I can guess.

I wish that I was as gracious as APFG. I've really appreciated Jason's comments, for a variety fo reasons, including getting some powerful personal talk from APFG. And I've appreciated the things that Jason and APFG have been discussing.

In the Childhood page, APFG said:

...although I have truly got that you do not wish to be a victim until you move the ownership of the problem from him to you, it is a virtual impossibility to derive a sense of completion for yourself. Whether or not you choose to do this is entirely your choice and the choice need not be made now, it can be made later.

..................

You might decide in the future to accept the gift, and then again you may not. It's your choice of course and it's one that may only be distinguished as a gift some time in the future and it's not as though it needs to be returned to the store, thus I suppose it's kinda sitting on the shelf.

I know that APFG is an atheist, but I hope that he doesn't mind me using this to springboard into a discussion about Christ. It just popped into my head when I read it.

These two ideas are important for me, and I think that they underlie the love of Christ in the Christian faith. That's Christ's love for us, not our love for him that I'm thinking about.

From the Christian's perspective, God ended up being let down by someone else: us humans. He created us and we tried to hedge the deal in the Garden of Eden. And continue to make sidebets. I know that a lot of you don't believe in God, or Jesus as Christ, or the Garden of Eden. You don't have to for this to be interesting: just think of it all as a grand myth that I am taking as true for this argument. Because I think that it's interesting.

God then, in a very odd way, gets victimized. More like a parent gets victimized by a thieving child than a child's victimization by his or her parents. He got a raw deal. He gives humanity perfection and we want a little bit more. "I do and I do and I do for you, and this is the thanks I get?!"

"Are you ready to leave your family behind?"

A friend asked me this question yesterday. I hate having people ask me questions that cut to the heart of the matter. Earlier, a friend asked me a similar question: "What's it going to take for you to get off your ass?" He's from New York: they're less subtle out there. Something to do with the water.

"It's obvious that you can pick up the ball and run with it. I'm not seeing you pick up this ball. You don't have to pickup this ball, manasclerk, but you've got to pick up a ball!"

I'm at the "inflection point", at the point to stand up and be counted. I'm standing before the burning bush and saying that I don't speak clearly enough to do the job. I've got the fire by night and the cloud by day and I'm saying that I don't have enough.

When am I going to leave my parents?