Liberal Fundamentalism

I'll tell you one reason I'm pretty excited for the fall. And it's not Pumpkin Spice Lattes (though I do typically allow myself one per season...they are just so gross/unnatural/addictively delicious, are they not?). Anyway what I'm really pumped about is the return of Greek Bible Study.

Last spring, through a strangely serendipitous chain of events, I was invited to attend a study of the Greek New Testament with some VERY conservative, evangelical seminary students. And I decided that my desire to geek out about New Testament Greek trumped my desire to remain at all times within my tiny liberal Protestant Christian bubble. So I went. And it was fairly awesome.

Now this is a group of people whose faith and training has led them to drastically different conclusions about the bible and its meaning than mine have and whose lives are based on some radically different assumptions than my own. (For instance, the idea that there is a devil who is actively involved in nefarious campaigns to thwart our best intentions and ruin our progress toward global Christian domination is not something we discuss regularly in Presbyterian circles. But who knows? Maybe we should!)

Over the course of my involvement in this group, as we discussed a broad range of topics from scriptural authority to women's leadership in the church to the validity of pentecostal experiences, I learned many things. Most prominent among them was the realization that many conservatives are not nearly as unthinking, callous and irrational as liberals often make them out to be. Rather, they are curiously ordinary and well-intentioned people living their lives as best they are able based on a certain set of assumptions about the world. And though I might disagree with those fundamental assumptions, I have learned to recognize that my life is also predicated on a set of assumptions with which they disagree just as heartily.

And so as I prepare to enter the fray of biblical literalism once again this fall, I present here a David Letterman-esque guide to recognizing one's own fundamentalist tendencies, in hopes that it might create not only a few laughs but a softening of our partisan hearts.

How to Tell If You're a Liberal Fundamentalist*

10) If you audibly sigh, curl your lip, or breathe in sharply at any mention of Walmart, you may be a liberal fundamentalist.
9)  If you rely on NPR as your exclusive news source--especially if you refer to its hosts with familiarity ("You know Tom Ashbrook says...")--but judge the partisan bias of Fox News, you might be a liberal fundamentalist.
8) If you live more than 1000 miles from the equator, claim to prioritize purchasing local products but begin each day with a cup of coffee--a crop grown nearly exclusively in equatorial regions--you might be a liberal fundamentalist.
7) If you find yourself even the slightest bit judgy about a woman staying home to raise children, but think it the ultimate statement of liberation, equality and progressive values if a man chooses to do so, you might be a liberal fundamentalist.
6) If you drive a Prius, but mow your lawn with a gas-powered mower, dry your clothes with a gas-powered dryer and regularly travel by fossil-fuel powered airplanes without reflection or hesitation, you might be a liberal fundamentalist.
5) If you have ever considered purchasing a product as ridiculous as organic honey, you might be a liberal fundamentalist. (How can they tell where the bees have been?)
4) If you count yourself as part of the 99% of this nation, but are unwilling to recognize your status as a member of the global 1% (and are likewise unwilling to take steps to equalize your life setting with that of, say, someone living in a hut in Namibia), you may be a liberal fundamentalist.
3) If you think big corporations are ruining America, but have your retirement savings invested in the dividend paying, growth-oriented stocks of big corporations, you might be a liberal fundamentalist.
2) If you think tolerance is the most important value, but are loathe to tolerate Republicans, Libertarians, people who believe God created the earth, people who own guns, people who attend mega-churches, or anyone who read Sarah Palin's biography Going Rogue, you might be a liberal fundamentalist.
1) If an Obama victory is more important to you than Christ's return, you might be a liberal fundamentalist.




*I should be clear, these are not judgments really, but confessions; I am guilty of nearly all of these. 
**I really wanted to include this image as a cover shot, but figured it was a little too much. Hilarious, though, no? I really do love America.

Already....and Not Yet

Look at this craaaaaazy diagram. Does this diagram help you to understand salvation? Me neither. Isn't fundamentalism so terrifying/fascinating at the same time?

One other thing I did this summer was to read a lot of books. Some were good and some were terrible. (And speaking of, I need to come up with some sort of book rating system for my booklist side bar. As it stands, it is just a list of what I happen to be reading and is not intended as an endorsement of any kind. But after some feedback from blog readers who read books listed there and hated them--MFT, I still feel profoundly sorry that you read Midwives while pregnant with your child which probably traumatized you forever. Not sure how to remedy that, but sorry--I realize I need to make that more clear. Until such time as I figure out a system and get motivated to implement, please refer to amazon.com or some reliable source for legitimate reviews of anything you see here.) ANYWAY, one of the books I read this summer was particularly terrible, but nonetheless caused me to have an existential crisis. Its basic premise is that you can fix your life in 10 easy steps (and by easy, I mean: Let go of your baggage! Stop being angry! Make new priorities! Celebrate yourself! As if those were actually easy tasks, which I can tell you after some serious therapeutic experience, they are NOT.)

But one part of the book did jump out at me and no it wasn't the suggestion that I "have a party with friends that treat [me] like a diamond and put thirteen candles on the cake that represent the divine [me]."* That part just made me throw up in my mouth a little bit. What struck me was this:

"I find many people expected their lives to be extraordinary, yet they wind up feeling really ordinary. In our dreams, we are the best. We will not just be a doctor, we will cure cancer. We will not just be an entrepreneur, we will found the next Microsoft. We will not just have children, we will have children who are angels. Except in real life, getting into medical school is near impossible. Bill Gates would not even hire us. And the devil is no match for our children."

My thought process while reading this paragraph went something like this: 
Wait, OTHER PEOPLE feel this way?
No!
Noooo!!!
But maybe.....
DAMN IT.

I have previously admitted that I had, early in my life, harbored a premonition that I would be "one of the greats" and that I have experienced great disappointment at that prediction's failure to come to fruition. In fact, quite often when I read of folks my age or younger doing outrageously great things--such as the 24 year old Michael Wear who was hired to direct the Obama campaign's outreach to religious groups--I think, "that could have been me!"**

But now that I have reached adulthood--when does middle age begin, by the way?--how am I to know what to do with those expectations? Which ones should I hold onto and which should I release as the wildly irrational expectations of youth? That is the conundrum that I am currently trying to solve in my life, though not in any direct or productive fashion.***

The Already and Not Yet is a witty little quip coined to satisfy Christian churchgoers who dare to ask how it is that Jesus came to fix everything, conquer sin and beat death, but who notice that we still have some broken shit, are pretty sinful and still die. To that question, many a charismatic clergyperson has said, "We're living in the already...and in the not yet." and hoped that little rhetorical flourish would throw the inquisitors off the trail of the fact that really we have no idea why everything is still screwed even after Jesus.

All that to say, I really think I'm in an "already and not yet" phase at present, figuring out where to go from here. Any ideas from the vast readership here are more than welcome.


FYI: The book was We Plan, God Laughs by Sherre Hirsch, so you can avoid it if you ever come across it.


*When I read this to Mr. L, his response was, "I can't tell what is funnier: that suggestion being so stupid or you reading it in such a stupid voice to make it sound more stupid and prove your point."
**Okay, but let's be honest...what I actually think is "That could have been me!" and "I probably would have done a WAY better job than that guy." OR "He probably just has a rich family!" I'm such a jerk.
*** Which I'm sure makes you very jealous of Mr. L who he gets to hear all about it all the time but not offer solutions.

Wow! How Time Flies...

If asked what I did this summer, I could either answer "not too much" or "tons," depending on how one assesses the relative importance of summer activities.

I did not take any epic summer vacations. But I did make it around Crater Lake on my bicycle....

...and across all 10 bridges in Portland, OR. 

 I did not make any new friends. But I did reconnect with some old ones...

  ...and got to know the frog who lives in the plant next to our barbecue.

 I did not eat at many fancy restaurants. But I did learn to grow delicious things....

....and to preserve the things I grew.

I did not write on this blog. But I did write. In fact, I went to the place where they made this...

....and discovered that writing is a greater passion of mine than I had ever imagined when I started this blog.

And now I am in the process of figuring out what that means, what role writing will play in my life as I go forward, and how this blog will fit into that. I can imagine that like my summer it could either be "not much" or "a lot" both at the same time.