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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Jeff Chu
Read between
April 19 - May 23, 2019
What I found was a country that deeply wants to love, but is conflicted about how to do so. I encountered a church that’s far more divided than I imagined, led in large part by cowardly clergy who are called to be shepherds yet behave like sheep.
The theme of the first chapel is supposed to be what the Bible says about homosexuality, but really, it’s what conservative evangelicals say the Bible says about homosexuality.
Students need to be able to put themselves in the position of being a long-term, unconditional friend to one whose attempts to follow God make them feel worthless and inherently broken.
To have homosexuality discussed in a way that sets aside the question of the gay person’s (potential) sin and instead addresses the question of the allegedly Christian community’s (potential) sin is perhaps unprecedented here.
“We all look for validation in our lives, and we all put ourselves against each other—white folks versus black folks, straight folks versus gay folks. We think it’s a continuum, but it isn’t. It’s a sphere. And we are all over the place.”
diverse, able to deal with complexity, and open to addressing the grays of life.
“God explains to Jonah that the essence of love is to labor
for something and to make something grow, that love and labor are inseparable. One loves that for which one labors, and one labors for that which one loves.”
“Having vision is being able to forecast the future and spark passion in the followers.
“He’s going through a time of working in the secular world and reassessing his theology. I would not be surprised if, when he gets himself reconstructed, he goes back into church ministry. He knows the evangelical world so well, and I think he’s equipped to help reform it.”
“If God made people inherently sinful, that would be unfair. He has to give us a choice between right and wrong. And if I didn’t have a choice to be gay, how could it be wrong?”
I don’t think the number one issue is whether the church agrees with my sexual views or not. I think it’s: Can I develop a relationship with Christ and his body in this place?” he says. “We owe each other a dialogue and a discussion.”
“Tell me if I’m wrong.” “Would it be fair . . . ?” “It’s interesting.” “What I’m hearing you say is . . .”
“I had this unspoken contract with God. If I did everything right, everything would be right. And I had done everything right. Then this thing called divorce hit me. And what I learned is that pain is part of life. It happens. It’s just the nature of the universe. Relationships are relationships—they’re complicated.
“He says, ‘This is not about controlling the process. It’s not about figuring it all out.’ I guess sometimes you have to let go. You just have to.”
You don’t really know what Christianity is when you first get into it. The rubber is starting to hit the road, and you start trying to figure out what it means in reality, rather than the fantasy of it. That’s kind of the way I describe a lot of those conversations. It’s trying to figure out how to get beyond the surface and get into the real tangibles.”
There’s a lovely passage about the pain of spiritual doubt in a letter that Flannery O’Connor sent in 1959 to her friend Louise Abbot. “I think there is no suffering greater than what is caused by the doubts of those who want to believe,”
and are told by others that they cannot.
“You just want to tell them it will be okay, even if it may seem hard or scary. I want to give her permission. I want her to know: You are a person of value. You are a person of worth. If you’re crying because this journey has been incredibly painful, cry it out. Let it out. Let it go. And move on to the next step, whatever it is.”
The first is cosmic evil. The second is systemic evil—I talked about racism, sexism, homophobia.
And the third is personal evil, which we call sin and individual temptation. But we are all God’s children. God loves us as the people we are.
He rolls his eyes. “When they sing that, the congregation
“By reading the Bible as if it were fundamentally about us,” he tweeted, “we’ll totally miss Jesus.” And by building the church as if it were fundamentally about making ourselves feel better, I wonder if we also totally miss God.
What it comes down to for Mark is an acknowledgment that when we read Scripture, we are always filtering it through a lens—or perhaps multiple ones.
What does “love” mean
to me? How is “justice” interpreted? What cultural biases do I impose when I read about biblical rules for women, or laws about food, or regulations about sex? What societal mores existed then? Mark explains, “I run into people all the time who say, ‘The Bible says . . .’ They never say, ‘ . . . as it has been translated and interpreted.’ There is no herme...
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We can—really, must—be firm in our faith and yet kind and open. We must personify grace. We must recognize our limitations and leave to God what is God’s.
most amazing thing is that even though God has seen all the nonsense in the church, he still loves it and works through it. And I might add, that despite all the nonsense in my own life, he still loves me and works through me.
I have come to value skepticism more than ever as a key part of faith.
“Although Thomas did not believe in the resurrection of the Lord, he kept faithful to the community of the apostles. In that community the Lord appeared to him and strengthened his faith. I find this a very profound and consoling thought. In times of doubt or unbelief, the community can ‘carry you along,’ so to speak; it can even offer on your behalf what you yourself overlook, and can be the context in which you may recognize the Lord again.”
