As long as I live there will be something worth fighting for, worth writing for, and worth dying for.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Spoon Fed Faith

Two days ago, I happened upon a video about The Naked Gospel, a recent Amazon.com best seller about the truths of the Christian faith. I haven't read it, but the video itself was, at first, offensive. The author of the book, Andrew Farley, is a minister, though I question his adherence to Scripture since he states in one of his sermons that he once married a woman to a corpse (something just seems off about that). At any rate, in this 'teaser' video, he asked ten questions about our faith. Ten questions that most Christians would answer "true." For instance:

Every time we sin, we must repent and ask forgiveness: True or False.

Christians must give ten percent of their income to the church: True of False.

The answer, in his opinion, to every one of the questions was "False." Now, I am not saying that I agree with the first glance of that, but I also know, as a writer, that we purposefully create controversy in order to grab the reader's attention. As I looked up reviews for the book, it seems that Mr. Farley based his answers on different perspectives and definitions of words. Still, the controversy was well appreciated, especially since I am in the beginning stages of writing a book entitled, "True Loves Does Not Wait." I picked that title on purpose, for two reasons:

1- it will draw in those who say, "Oh finally, a Christian who supports premarital sex!" (Which is definitely not the case.

2- to draw in the critics that say, *gasp* "How dare someone attack our doctrine of purity."

At any rate, since watching that video and writing for my own book, I have been increasingly disgusted by how much we are spoon fed our faith. Even the 'core' beliefs of it.

I just read through part of Ezekiel this morning. I don't know that I have ever heard a sermon on anything in Ezekiel except the dry bones. Everyone loves the dry bones story. I am not there yet. Instead, I just finished reading through when God basically calls Israel a whore and says, "You know, you have slept with everyone else, but hello! you are mine! I chose you, remember?" The specific chapters I read this morning showed a foreshadowing of grace and asked the question many ask today, "Is God's way unfair?" to which God replies, "Don't question whether or not my ways are fair. You are the unfair ones." As I read, I thought, "Now why haven't I ever heard of this passage before? Why hasn't this ever been taught??"

How much of our faith is just mashed up and pureed so that it is pallatable? How much of our faith do we actually own? Do we actually know is true?

Yesterday, in church, the entire sermon was on tithe. The pastor never once brought up a Scriptural support for a tithing mandate. There isn't one for the New Testament church, so preaching it as such is unBiblical. Does that mean we shouldn't give? No. We should. But does God still mandate ten percent? No. At least, not from my personal study.

In Sunday School yesterday, we talked about purity and I listened as one of my co-teachers read a passage from Genesis and somehow twisted it to prove that every person on the face of the planet has someone made specifically to be their mate. She should get a Pulitzer, really. That doesn't have Scriptural basis either. Still, the girls were taking it in. She had used God's word to promise them that some day they would get married. Now, all they had to do was wait. True love doesn't wait.

Is it any wonder our faith is so weak? We pick Scripture to skip, and others to twist. Still others we mash up and flavor until it is barely recognizable. We ingest it and become sick, because it is all wrong. It isn't God's word, it is ours- our spoon fed faith.

5 comments:

Katy said...

In response to the second to last paragraph, my Foundations of Education professor brought up an interesting point the other day. Let's just say that there is a "the one" for everyone on the planet. Now as humans, someone is going to screw that up. So, Johnny is the one for Sue, but he messes up and marries Angela, so now Sue can't marry her "one". So, Sue marries Bill but Bill was supposed to marry Laura. Now Laura marries Frank, who was supposed to marry Rachel. Rachel was supposed to marry Zach, but now Zach marries Claire, etc.,etc.,etc. So basically, it's like a domino effect. One person marries the wrong person and it messes eveything up for this huge long chain of other people.
I hadn't really been a "the one" person before, but I'd never thought of that as a reason to back up my view.

Jessica said...

Well, Katy, I have to say I disagree, with Biblical basis. There is a verse (pardon me for not having the reference handy) that states that man is unable to thwart God's purposes. Therefore if there were a specific one that verse would not hold true. That and the fact that if there were a specific one for Susie and Susie did not marry him, Susie would be outside of the will of God. If she married someone else, she would still be outside of the will of God.

It's actually this mindset of "oops, I married the wrong one" that leads to organizations like the online adultery services. They basically operate on, "Ooops! You didn't find your soulmate the first time. Here- we will help you."

What do you say when, let's say, you realize you married the wrong one. If it was God's will for you to marry Jake, but you married Tom and realize later that you should have married Jake, are you justified in leaving Tom? Aren't you out of God's will either way.

There are major holes in the "there's one just for you" philosophy.

Kay said...

I'm confused. You say there's major holes in the "there's one just for you" philosophy, but your first paragraphy sounds like you agree that there's one for everyone? I'm confused.

By the way, not sure if you got the point of my comment. The point is that is a though of why there is not "the one".

Jessica said...

No, I understand what your comment was saying. It was saying, "Well, there used to be 'a one' until someone screwed up." I'm saying there never was "a one." Never. You'll notice, I used "if" in that first paragraph. I was giving reasons why God wouldn't make a "one" for us. We didn't mess it up, because we couldn't have. There is not one specific mate designed just for us.

Katy said...

I thought I'd commented on this again...oh well. Take Two!

That's not what my comment was saying, actually. I definitely do NOT believe there was ever a "one" (and neither does my prof, btw.)!!!!!! My little scenario was also a reason that God wouldn't make a "one" for us. We actually do agree on this, dear. :) I just didn't explain myself well.