Category Archives: Faith

Jesus, Why Can’t I Be A Secular Humanist?

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[Word count: 877. Approximate read time: 4 minutes]

“I visited a church in the suburbs, and there was this blowhard preacher talking about how television rots your brain. He said that when we are watching television our minds are working no harder than when we are sleeping. I thought that sounded heavenly. I bought one that afternoon.” —Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz

Wading through currents of social media recently, I came upon a Christian preacher declaring we only pray to God, not the universe. He said, “If you want to address God, don’t talk to his handiwork. Talk to him.”

I felt inclined to counter. (I usually always feel inclined to counter, really.) So I offered, “If God IS all and is in all, then how can anybody but God be The Universe? If instead of calling the name of Jesus, someone calls Yeshua or Emmanuel instead, does God ignore them? ‘The Universe’ is not one of your names for him. But it could be someone else’s for the same God you worship.”

The man responded, “Those are his names: Yeshua, Emmanuel. But God never called himself the universe. Humanists did that. Research Secular Humanism and you’ll see this is not semantics. It’s a human attempt to eliminate GOD.”

And so, I did. And the next day, when he asked me what I found in my study, I told him, “What I found was surprising. The surprise was, I think I want to be one!” Continue reading →

What Do You Do When God Disappoints?

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I’m not the only one working out my salvation with fear and trembling. Today’s post comes from P_Heir, a long time friend and co-laborer in ministry. We served on the same worship team for years. So many of our experiences intersect each other. He’s putting his pieces back together too. It’s an honor to have him share some of his story.

[Word count: 676. Approximate read time: 2-3 minutes]

I’m a preacher’s kid. PKs are trained to look as if they have it all together. “Grin and bear it.” “Fake it ‘til you make it.” But I lost my ability to smile as if everything is okay. While in the midst of planning one funeral, I found out I lost a dear friend. A day later, my father dropped dead of a heart attack. After getting that news, I had just enough strength to have this discourse with God:

“Why would you do this? My whole life is yours… I’m on your team! You’re foul! You murdered my father. Murderer! What kind of compassionate God would make a person endure three deaths in one week?”

No bolts fell from the sky, but when you call God a murderer, it’s safe to say you are upset with Him. Here’s my dilemma. I’m completely aware I fall short of His glory daily. Okay, okay… hourly. But what do you do when you feel God has fallen short? Continue reading →

How Titties Almost Got Me Saved

[Word count: 578. Approximate read time: 2-3 minutes]

Titties

I don’t know why I went to church this morning. Usually, I wake up on a Sunday and I just know, “today is not the day.” But I decided to drop in on a small church near me. When I arrived, the music was great, but I wasn’t interested in the pastor’s pleasant banter, so I tuned out to engage friends on social media.

“You know how you automatically tune in
when someone mentions something you care about?
I’m waiting for that. It’s not happening.”

“If the Lord really wanted to speak to me today,
he would make the pastor
work the word ‘titties’ into his sermon.”

(Between this and the hilarious responses, I’m just trying not to disrupt the service with an out loud guffaw.)

“I swear if he does it,
I will walk down the middle aisle and
rededicate my life to the Lord TODAY.”

“If God can speak through an ass,
I don’t see why he can’t
deliver my soul through titties.” Continue reading →

REVIEW: Tye Tribbett’s “Greater Than” Lives Up To Its Name

TyeTribbettFinalCDCoverApril20131

[Word count: 592. Approximate read time: 2-3 minutes]

People are so dramatic. We love to see our stars make sweeping, meteoric rises. And then we love to see them fall hard from that height and leave a meteoric crater. If you pay any attention to gospel music, Tye Tribbett has given you both in the last 5 years. It looks like we’re about to get the former again with his new album Greater Than.

I need to give this caveat. I still don’t like gospel music. There’s usually so much yelling, emotional manipulation, and pomp and circumstance that it becomes a circus of entertainment. Too often when it boils down, it’s no different than secular music, vying for the same popularity, market share, and control as any mainstream artist. So I’m not taken in by its cloying sentiment. What I look for is truth. And I found a lot here. Continue reading →

4 Ways Christians Can Cope With Gay Marriage

[Word count: 628. Approximate read time: 3 minutes]

SameSexCake

The Supreme Court has struck down part of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) which will allow national recognition of same-sex marriages. This also snatched the rug out from under California’s Prop 8, making gay marriage legal. I just know somebody is gonna lose sleep over it. So I’m here to set your mind at ease.

Losing freedom of religion. Having privacy infringed upon. Being denied the right to vote. These are reasons to lose sleep and file lawsuits. Same-sex marriage isn’t that big a deal. But here’s something you can do about it: Continue reading →

God Is Not My Mother

[Word count: 855. Approximate read time: 4 minutes]

Actress Sandra Bullock with adopted son Louis. (Photo taken from People Magazine.)God is not my mother. The two are not the same. They’re different. They are different.

Jesus was born in Bethlehem some two-thousand odd years ago, not Bakersfield in the 1950’s. Most depictions show him as a white man with a mellow expression and Clairol-ad-worthy hair. Not a black woman with luxuriously extended eyelashes, high cheekbones, café au lait skin, and a shy, affable smile.

They are not one and the same. It took years of work to convince myself of this. And it seems the maintenance on this work is never done. Continue reading →

Please Don’t Leave Me

[Word count: 635. Approximate read time: 2-3 minutes]

On Father’s Day, a sermon in a Black church usually needs the disclaimer: “Because we have problems with our earthly fathers, relating to God as a ‘heavenly father’ is difficult.” That’s because we view our relationship with God through our experiences with people. This guarantees a warped view.

Among my own warps are some weighty abandonment issues. And lately, they’ve become inflamed like a habanero on the tongue. I basically believe leaving is just something people do. People become disinterested. People get distracted. People take offense. Sometimes they die. But one way or another, they leave. And since God seems to do whatever he wants whenever he wants, this feeds a nagging suspicion He may do the same.

Still frames from Pink's "Please Don't Leave Me" music video

  • “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world” (Matthew 28:20 KJV)
  • “I will never leave nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5 NKJV)
  • “I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you” (John 14:18 KJV)
  • And this is my favorite: “Neither height nor depth nor principalities nor powers nor past or present nor future shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:38-39 KJV)

Through my warped filters, I hear these scriptures differently. They may say nothing can come between us, but what if that “nothing” has an asterisk? This scares me. Por favor, no me abandonas. S’il vous plaît, ne me quitte pas. How many ways can I say… please don’t leave. Continue reading →

Stop Making Sense

[Word count: 623. Approximate read time: 2-3 minutes]

“For so long, all I wanted from Christianity was for it to make sense.” —from For Believers Who Have Considered Apostasy When Faith Isn’t Enuf (Junkyard Salvation, March 28, 2012)

I’m getting into Talking Heads. Their music is aloof and funky and odd. It’s only for your ears… not your mind. One should clearly not look for intention or meaning in these songs. Their non sequitur titles and absurd lyrics warn me to expect no Grand Design. Nothing makes sense. When I realized this, I breathed a sigh of relief, and a usually overactive part of my brain took five.

My friend Joshua writes poetry. Good poetry. It doesn’t matter how good it is though. I hate poetry. I have a personal vendetta against it. It loses me at “hello.” And I hate feeling lost.

Mostly, I lack patience. I don’t want to wait for the words to wash over me and leave their impression. Poetry is like traditional photography. You have to sit in the dark with it awhile before any recognizable images appear. Ain’t nobody got time for that. Continue reading →

People Get Ready… Chaka Is Coming

[Word count: 650. Approximate read time: 2-3 minutes]

Chaka Monochrome

I am a huge Chaka Khan fan. Really big. I’ve met a lot of the artists I respect, but Chaka has eluded me like a ghost for nearly 15 years.

Back when the internet was young, I built a comprehensive website called Chaka’s House. It attracted a core of fans and established an internet presence for the fiery-haired songstress during an important time. Her management team, headed by her sister Tammy, caught wind of it and contacted me. I was thrilled! I would’ve gladly turned the site over to them to carry forward, but Chaka did not want to commercialize it.

Ain’t nothin’ but a maybe

As a consolation prize, Tammy invited me to the video shoot for “Don’t Talk To Strangers.” This was before the age of cell phones, so I had them call me at work. In a comedy of errors, my bungling co-workers didn’t pass me her message until the day after the shoot happened.

So Tammy tried again. She scored me an invitation to a scientology benefit held by Kirstie Alley featuring Chaka as the mainstage entertainer. I received the invitation in the mail the day after the event happened.

Third time’s the charm, right? Tammy called to invite me to a Prince concert Chaka was opening at The Forum. I would have loved to meet them both; however, as a struggling college student, I couldn’t afford the tickets.

Pretty frustrating. I still love her though. Something about the frequencies and vibrations she generates stirs my soul in all the best ways, but I unofficially resigned that maybe it wasn’t meant for me to meet her.

Continue reading →

The Darkest Night

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“Skepticism is the beginning of faith.”
—Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

What if, some glad morning when this life is over, none of us fly away? What if the lights go out and our stories just end?

More than a few occasions in 2012 found me devolving into a non-violent, slow-motion panic—mostly over my God and his perceived absence. Enough flummoxed descriptions of my mounting crisis of faith and someone finally put a name to it: the Dark Night of the Soul, a temporary spiritual crisis marked by doubts about the afterlife. Reportedly, Mother Theresa was a notable sufferer, having spent nearly 50 years of her life in this state. Though technically correct, nothing that lasts 50 years should get to call itself “temporary.”

For someone outside Christianity, a more accessible term may be existential crisis. Whatever you call it, I’m just glad it’s identifiable. If someone recognized it, then it wasn’t some new mystery disease with no treatment, no cure. Someone lived to tell the story. Continue reading →