Heavy

When you are a baby, you cannot walk. You cannot run and you cannot jump.

Most grown-ups, unless they are disabled, can jump.

Somewhere along the line, you learned to jump. How does that happen? How do you explain it to someone who doesn’t know how?

‘I need you to bend your knees and lower your centre of gravity – now I need you to straighten out your quads and exert a force greater than your body weight downwards so that the energy will carry your weight in to the air and prepare yourself to land by keeping your muscles relaxed for impact.’

When you jump, you just jump.

Christianity deals with emotions and with God. It can be pretty difficult, when you take it seriously, to figure out how to do it right. And faith of all kinds should be about doing. Doing is not just about the way you treat other people – although that is important – but it is also about the way you handle your responses to other people and to God. It is about structuring your inner life. Sometimes you read an explanation of jumping without knowing what it is and it makes you think, ‘well what is that supposed to look like?’

Take this for example:

Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. – Matthew 11:28 (ESV)

What does that mean?

So Jesus Isn’t God

I have just finished reading a book about the history, the story of the formation of the Christian Creeds. For the first time, I have started seriously engaging with theology and I have realised that it can do a lot of strange things to your mind. I realised two and a half things:

1) When you start to pick apart Christianity you get to a whole bunch of paradoxes. This reminds me that (1.5) theology is not supposed to make you believe in God, but to explain Him.

2) We believe a lot of things which are over-simplified versions of much more difficult to explain things. My example of this is that Jesus is not really God despite that fact that this is what almost all Christians believe.

D- D- D- Dating

I have decided that it is time.

My church hunt is over, and I have settled not for the MCC, Quakers or liberal High Church, but for my local Evangelical church. It is fairly conservative, without an LGBT ministry. My hopes that I might find a boyfriend through my Church (yeah, that was a real hope) have been deferred. I’m not disappointed, but my last window on meeting a nice, single gay guy has been closed. This moment had been approaching for a while, and my head and my heart have been guiding me towards one conclusion. I need to meet gay guys. I need to start d- I need to start d-d-d-dating..!

Tony Campolo

I love this guy.

Processing Jesus: Pt III – Way, Truth, Life

I have been trying to put my faith into words. It’s been hard, because I often find that when talking about Jesus, my words carry meanings that I don’t want them to. Words like being “born again” or “saved” just don’t do it justice. But by carefully defining the words ‘faith’ and ‘belief’ I think I’ve started to make some progress.

I decided in the last couple of days that simply saying ‘I believe in Jesus’ is enough. That expresses my religious faith at the moment. If I had to explain why I believe in Jesus it would get harder, but for now I have a formulation that I like.

But I still have problems.

This is part three of a three-part series. Part I here and Part II here.

Processing Jesus Part I: Belief

Christians believe in Jesus, and Christians are saved by faith. This is how many people see it. If you don’t believe in Jesus, or if you don’t have the right faith, you are not saved. Now that I’m starting to see myself as a Christian I have to process this and decide where I stand on it. And I’ve decided to blog on this in three parts. First I want to look at the word ‘belief’ because there is a lot that people don’t understand about this idea. Second, I want to look at the idea of ‘faith’, because it is so central to Christianity – and all religion – and it can be seen in a lot of different ways. After that will I be able to explore my faith in and belief about Jesus more clearly.

WDJD: What does Jesus do?

Recently I have been thinking about what the meaning of being saved by Christ is. What is the meaning of being made right before God if my sins still hurt those around me?

What kind of power does God have to save us? What kind of power does God have to make us righteous? Even if we really really want it – doesn’t the decision to do and be good ultimately lie with us? Then, what does Christ do for us? Why do Christians still do bad things? Is Christ just a ‘model’  or ‘inspiration’  to do good? What does Jesus do?

Foolishness

For the message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

– 1 Corintians 1:18

Every time I try to think of how I might communicate my belief in Jesus, I feel like a fool. My head tells me that what I am saying, or thinking, sounds ridiculous. But my heart says, you know what happened – why can’t you say it?

The Ex-Gay Debate: Part III – Change and Choices

When I first began to recognise the attraction I felt towards men as a real part of my life, I was sure I could do away with it. Many forces in my life, social and religious, had assured me that homosexuality was undesirable and evil and I was sure that God or society would provide me with a way out. I have tried reconstructing the journey that took me from where I was then to where I am now, and have found it hard to put the pieces all in place. I went through so many extreme emotions, so many confusing ideas, that to retrace it is impossible. But I have kept tabs on a few of the major landmarks I passed and here they are, along with a whole bunch of web resources that I found along the way.

Q 1) Why am I this way?

Prodigal/Lost

The parable of the prodigal son (also known as the lost son) is a famous story. A father left his inheritance to two sons. The younger of the sons was itching to go out and use it, to spend it: so he went abroad, and wasted his money on whores and fast living. Meanwhile the older son cautiously bade his time and tended to his father’s land. Eventually, of course the younger son ran out of money, so he took on back-breaking work. But the pay was barely enough to live off. He was starving, and eventually came to the realization that if he were to survive, he would have to return and repent to his father.

So he came home. And rather than facing the wrath of a very angry man, his father was overjoyed and held a massive celebration for the returning son. But his brother was less pleased by his reappearance. “You never allowed me a calf so I could celebrate with my friends. What gives?” To which the father replied, “I always have you around. But we had to celebrate: your brother was lost and now is found.”