I'm a Christian. And that makes all the difference.
I was talking with a friend yesterday about certain tragedies in my life, and how I respond to those.
This got me to thinking. Being a Christians isn't obviously different in our culture -- unless, of course, one takes that difference seriously. As I do. I've said numerous times in the past twenty or so years that "being Christian" is not synonymous with "being American". Because "being American" means one is committed to "freedom", conceived in America as "the ability to make yourself whoever you want to be".
The American response to that paragraph, of course, is disbelief. So let me assure you, I'm serious. I'm against the idea of "freedom", because I think it names a Very Bad Thing. I think that "freedom" is a Very Bad Thing precisely to the extent that I believe that "freedom" is a lie.
Let me put it this way.
As I've said before, I did not intend to be "Julius McCarter". The idea that we should make our lives our own turns out to be nothing more than "fate". And I'm no stoic. Like I said, I'm Christian. I didn't choose to be a Christian. In my life, God has pursued me, hounded me, in a way that I just can't get away from God, no matter how hard I try. (I've tried.) Instead, I'm a Christian because I trust that this God who loves me, likes me, enjoys me, well enough to pursue me, is serious about his promises. There is no intellectual assent here; individually, I don't have to check off some boxes about the content of things I believe. (Though, to be honest, I do assent to quite a lot of orthodox things -- so I'm a bit of an enigma to my liberal friends, even as I'm committed to an ethic of discipleship, which means socially and politically I sound quite liberal.) Faith is like resting in the presence of someone who genuinely enjoys you. That, I think, is precisely what Habakkuk and Paul mean by "the righteous will live by faith".
No, "Julius McCarter" is someone who has discovered that "freedom" is rightly worshipping God, not writing his own life. Being Christian is a countercultural claim to the social orders built upon the presumption that we only become free when we've chosen to write the story of our own lives.
I don't choose what it means to be a "Christian". That's the deepest radical thing I'll ever say, because in our culture I insist my life -- all of it, the good and the bad -- is gift. It's not that I exist to receive a gift (nearly always, in turn, thought of as "good things"). My very life is gift. What it means to be a "Christian" is to receive that life as gift without regret.
Because to learn to receive life as gift without regret has a name for Christians -- joy.
The absolute wonder at that gift I have been given to be a good creature of a gracious God.
My life hasn't been without struggle. But my life is not defined by those struggles because it is defined by God.
I was talking with a friend yesterday about certain tragedies in my life, and how I respond to those.
This got me to thinking. Being a Christians isn't obviously different in our culture -- unless, of course, one takes that difference seriously. As I do. I've said numerous times in the past twenty or so years that "being Christian" is not synonymous with "being American". Because "being American" means one is committed to "freedom", conceived in America as "the ability to make yourself whoever you want to be".
The American response to that paragraph, of course, is disbelief. So let me assure you, I'm serious. I'm against the idea of "freedom", because I think it names a Very Bad Thing. I think that "freedom" is a Very Bad Thing precisely to the extent that I believe that "freedom" is a lie.
Let me put it this way.
As I've said before, I did not intend to be "Julius McCarter". The idea that we should make our lives our own turns out to be nothing more than "fate". And I'm no stoic. Like I said, I'm Christian. I didn't choose to be a Christian. In my life, God has pursued me, hounded me, in a way that I just can't get away from God, no matter how hard I try. (I've tried.) Instead, I'm a Christian because I trust that this God who loves me, likes me, enjoys me, well enough to pursue me, is serious about his promises. There is no intellectual assent here; individually, I don't have to check off some boxes about the content of things I believe. (Though, to be honest, I do assent to quite a lot of orthodox things -- so I'm a bit of an enigma to my liberal friends, even as I'm committed to an ethic of discipleship, which means socially and politically I sound quite liberal.) Faith is like resting in the presence of someone who genuinely enjoys you. That, I think, is precisely what Habakkuk and Paul mean by "the righteous will live by faith".
No, "Julius McCarter" is someone who has discovered that "freedom" is rightly worshipping God, not writing his own life. Being Christian is a countercultural claim to the social orders built upon the presumption that we only become free when we've chosen to write the story of our own lives.
I don't choose what it means to be a "Christian". That's the deepest radical thing I'll ever say, because in our culture I insist my life -- all of it, the good and the bad -- is gift. It's not that I exist to receive a gift (nearly always, in turn, thought of as "good things"). My very life is gift. What it means to be a "Christian" is to receive that life as gift without regret.
Because to learn to receive life as gift without regret has a name for Christians -- joy.
The absolute wonder at that gift I have been given to be a good creature of a gracious God.
My life hasn't been without struggle. But my life is not defined by those struggles because it is defined by God.