As more and more evidence emerges of the painful ways people in positions of spiritual authority react to the “Deconstruction Movement” (which is not actually a thing per se, but has become a thing because of the increasing numbers of people disenfranchised by the American Church/ Evangelicalism/ Fundamentalism) I am reminded of a time when in my teen years, I first realized my spiritual authorities *could* be wrong.
I don’t know if you’ve had that moment in your life. I’m guessing you have because you’re reading Outside the Gates, or you’re at least sympathetic to its mission.
It was a strange, sinking feeling. What if everything I’ve been told is incorrect? What if what they’re saying right now about the topic we’re discussing is just one indicator that every other take on every other topic is also largely unfounded and even Unbiblical? Even when -maybe especially when- they insist it’s in the Bible but when pressed for references, they instead turn on me and my faith?
For me, it was suicide.
I was 15 and my BFF had killed himself. He had been my friend since we were 3. Our families went to church together, took vacations together, and for the prior 3 years, I had gone to the same Christian school with him. We shared everything. He knew more about me than anyone else on the planet at the time. He even knew of a sexual assault which I had never told anyone else about for decades.
I’ve learned a lot about suicide since then. One of the many things I learned was that in no way does the Bible say all suicides go to hell. Dante’s Inferno says it. But if we’re basing our entire theology on Divine Comedy, we are all, in a word, screwed.
But that’s exactly what I was told back then and since then. One of my good friends, who went to a Church of Nations denomination and learned how to speak in tongues, told me that our friend was in hell and it’s really sad but it’s true. A christian counselor that I spoke with at the time told me that my friend didn’t have enough time between death and the afterlife to confess and repent, so unrepentant sin would bar him from eternal life with Jesus. Years later, when I told a Christian counselor at a Bible school that I was struggling to be close to anyone because of my BFF, she told me that it was because I was sinful and resisting God’s plan for my life, that I was bitter because of my adoption (I am an adoptee from South Korea) and that I was allowing my anger to quench the Holy Spirit.
I wasn’t strong enough then to recognize all of that for what it is. LIES. All of it. Lies from the pit of hell itself – where my friend is certainly not.
This was the beginning of a kind of revelation for me. People who shouldn’t be wrong can actually be wrong. It just hadn’t occurred to me. You could say it was my naivety and innocence. I had a family who loved me, a church and christian institutions that all “did their best” – that is always what some say in their defense. But it was a question of WHEN I would break out and be free, not if. If I was naive up until then, it was because I kept giving everyone else in my life the benefit of the doubt, the constant shame-based acquiescence that is required to keep the system running.
I’ve recognized since then it was my entire upbringing. It was the constant diminishing of questions that adults could in no way adequately answer. It was the silencing of my doubts as sins against God. It was the gaslighting of whether or not I was truly experiencing what I experienced like racist micro-aggressions or blame for “letting” a good christian boy make out with me.
Suicide became for me that one exercise, that one block, of a christian faith that had to crumble under examination. What came out of the examination was a faulty view of sin and repentance. What was revealed in the examination was a lack of careful study of the Bible, digging in to what we say we believe and how exactly we arrived at such conclusions. What I discovered was many who had such adamant “doctrines” of all the things had no corroborating evidence to back these ideas up, that the evidence almost always included…
Some white dudes. Often wealthy. Always powerful. Always writing books and speaking at conferences. It was my entire childhood and until I left the church for good (well, at the time I thought so) at the age of 23, I couldn’t help but notice the patterns. I couldn’t help but wonder, sometimes out loud to anyone who would listen, why we buy into some ideologies so readily? What if we asked more questions first? What if we went back to the origins and retraced their steps to see if they stayed on the ancient paths, or discover where they strayed off?
I was determined to eschew all such histories back then. I left everything. I pursued other schools of thought and no thought at all. I’d spend all my energies on trying to find something that ended up being right in front of my face the whole time. But I didn’t see it at the time.
Some would attempt at that point to say it was my arrogance and sinfulness that kept me from Jesus. What I would learn was that the blocks I was given were manufacturer’s errors and they were never going to help me. I needed new blocks. I needed better instructions. I needed the Jesus who makes all things new. The Jesus who turned over tables built out of lies. The Jesus who ripped a curtain in two that separated his people from experiencing the joy and awe of God himself. The Jesus who broke down walls between enemies. The Jesus who spoke to women, and foreigners at that. The Jesus who rebuked religious leaders publicly and also rebuked the wind and waves. Only the wind and waves responded correctly.
Jesus came to build a new kingdom, built on a new covenant, building on a love that always was and is and is to come. He himself was the Cornerstone, the only one. And he told us he would make some stumble and fall. He also said it would crush any who rejected him.
Therefore thus says the Lord God:
“Behold, I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation,
Isaiah 28:16-17 NKJV
A tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation;
Whoever believes will not act hastily.
Also I will make justice the measuring line,
And righteousness the plummet;
The hail will sweep away the refuge of lies,
And the waters will overflow the hiding place.
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Asking For Me 
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