Russia and School of Religion (aka, what i always blog about)
The past few days I have been sending and receiving emails from Russia like nobody's business. I've been obsessed with certain pictures of a certain baby girl:
Her name is Tantiana and I love her. She doesn't know it yet, but I do.
Her parents, Sasha and Nadya, and Slavik and Tanya have been having a really hard time lately, so I'll extend the request they gave me: МОЛИСЬ ЗА НАС ПОЖАЛУСТА (please pray for us).
My "Russia" life and my "Belmont" life have been very, very polarized lately, even with the emails and the difficult Russian class I'm taking. It probably is because I've been so preoccupied with school and the tough lessons God is teaching me here that I can't really remember what it was like to be there, pouring out instead of God pouring into me.
I mean, he is always pouring into me, but you know. Somehow I feel like right now, in Nashville, as a junior at Belmont, things are all about my formation and shaping and learning and experiencing. When I'm in Russia it's mostly about my opportunities to love and teach and serve others. Most of the time what happens is that I come back home and then, with the processing and readjusting upon my return, God reveals how he is shaping me through the process of giving my life away.
I wish I could say I served at home like I serve on mission trips.
But the truth is that while I teach Sunday School, help lead a college church service, and am on leadership for a Belmont mission trip coming up, those things feel like MY formation as much as anything else does.
Maybe it's just a selfish time of life. Maybe I need pouring into more than I think I do. The truth is that I am much less "formed" than I try to be with I go on mission trips. I need to find my grounding, find my passions, realize the love of God just as much as the people I go to help do those things.
I need to re-trust the Scriptures in a new way, a post-religious-education way. I can't undo what I have learned about the Bible the past couple years - about all the different authors and sources and interpretations and ancient pagan influence and canonicity issues - and even if I could, I wouldn't want to. I've always been the kind of person who would rather know the truth even if it's painful. But I know there's a future for the Bible and me, our relationship, I'm just slowly wading through my own mental, emotional, spiritual process to figure out what it looks like.
I know the Bible is divinely inspired, and I know that God had his hand on its formation. Even through the human messiness of that process. That's where I'm at right now. That's all I know. I'm hoping someday soon God will begin to show me how to read it, interact with it, understand it, apply it, find my grounding in it. Because I am starting to believe (with the help of some wise advice) that my re-grounding (again, post-religious-education-atomic-bomb grounding) will be in the Scriptures. WIthout them I have few concrete ways of knowing the Lord.
This is a side note, but you know what is really bothering me about Belmont's religion department right now? I'm starting to notice that every class has an unspoken rule: "We accept any and all viewpoints, but we don't want to hear them come out of your mouth with any certainty. If you have strong convictions, keep them to yourself so no one is offended. If you are unsure or wavering or questioning, please share, so that we can affirm your shakiness of faith."
It seems that the goal of most of my classes is to reduce my standing convictions to a minimum so as to allow all other viewpoints to connect with me.
And for the most part, that has worked by now.
And for the most part, I see the value in that.
But I also see immense danger in that, because not only does it create wishy-washy believers, it encourages the kind of religiosity that cannot act or minister or serve because all it can do is think or discuss in a classroom setting or write probing papers.
And faith without works is dead.
Religious education without practical ministry and application is dead.
A tear-down of long-held beliefs without reason or goal or REBUILDING is dead.
So do I want to go back to a narrow understanding of my faith and a "the Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it" Biblicism? No. But here's what I need from my religion department right now: to be taught how to reclaim for myself a theological home. Floating in uncertainty is nice for a little while, and then it's a little annoying and pointless and unlivable. Going through the deconstruction and evaluation and questioning of society/culture/faith/what you've been taught is a rite of passage, sure, and I would not have wanted a college experience devoid of it. But I'm over half way through college now. I need to know where to go from here. I need to walk across the stage in a year and a half having been formed by the Lord, not floating untethered. Untethered is a dangerous way to enter the world, enter ministry, enter seminary, enter anything. And I would very much like to enter all of those.
So that's the update on the religion major part of me.
But I have to say I'm in a much better place than I have been so far this year. I'm in a pretty good place. It's a long story, but God has been showing up and loving me and gracing me and redeeming me very tangibly in my wandering, and that, my friends, makes me want to "come home" more than anything else ever could. He is always good. He is always blessing. We are never too far away.
And in that case, we might as well draw near. He's going to love us anyway. We might as well take full advantage of it. :)
Her name is Tantiana and I love her. She doesn't know it yet, but I do.
Her parents, Sasha and Nadya, and Slavik and Tanya have been having a really hard time lately, so I'll extend the request they gave me: МОЛИСЬ ЗА НАС ПОЖАЛУСТА (please pray for us).
My "Russia" life and my "Belmont" life have been very, very polarized lately, even with the emails and the difficult Russian class I'm taking. It probably is because I've been so preoccupied with school and the tough lessons God is teaching me here that I can't really remember what it was like to be there, pouring out instead of God pouring into me.
I mean, he is always pouring into me, but you know. Somehow I feel like right now, in Nashville, as a junior at Belmont, things are all about my formation and shaping and learning and experiencing. When I'm in Russia it's mostly about my opportunities to love and teach and serve others. Most of the time what happens is that I come back home and then, with the processing and readjusting upon my return, God reveals how he is shaping me through the process of giving my life away.
I wish I could say I served at home like I serve on mission trips.
But the truth is that while I teach Sunday School, help lead a college church service, and am on leadership for a Belmont mission trip coming up, those things feel like MY formation as much as anything else does.
Maybe it's just a selfish time of life. Maybe I need pouring into more than I think I do. The truth is that I am much less "formed" than I try to be with I go on mission trips. I need to find my grounding, find my passions, realize the love of God just as much as the people I go to help do those things.
I need to re-trust the Scriptures in a new way, a post-religious-education way. I can't undo what I have learned about the Bible the past couple years - about all the different authors and sources and interpretations and ancient pagan influence and canonicity issues - and even if I could, I wouldn't want to. I've always been the kind of person who would rather know the truth even if it's painful. But I know there's a future for the Bible and me, our relationship, I'm just slowly wading through my own mental, emotional, spiritual process to figure out what it looks like.
I know the Bible is divinely inspired, and I know that God had his hand on its formation. Even through the human messiness of that process. That's where I'm at right now. That's all I know. I'm hoping someday soon God will begin to show me how to read it, interact with it, understand it, apply it, find my grounding in it. Because I am starting to believe (with the help of some wise advice) that my re-grounding (again, post-religious-education-atomic-bomb grounding) will be in the Scriptures. WIthout them I have few concrete ways of knowing the Lord.
This is a side note, but you know what is really bothering me about Belmont's religion department right now? I'm starting to notice that every class has an unspoken rule: "We accept any and all viewpoints, but we don't want to hear them come out of your mouth with any certainty. If you have strong convictions, keep them to yourself so no one is offended. If you are unsure or wavering or questioning, please share, so that we can affirm your shakiness of faith."
It seems that the goal of most of my classes is to reduce my standing convictions to a minimum so as to allow all other viewpoints to connect with me.
And for the most part, that has worked by now.
And for the most part, I see the value in that.
But I also see immense danger in that, because not only does it create wishy-washy believers, it encourages the kind of religiosity that cannot act or minister or serve because all it can do is think or discuss in a classroom setting or write probing papers.
And faith without works is dead.
Religious education without practical ministry and application is dead.
A tear-down of long-held beliefs without reason or goal or REBUILDING is dead.
So do I want to go back to a narrow understanding of my faith and a "the Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it" Biblicism? No. But here's what I need from my religion department right now: to be taught how to reclaim for myself a theological home. Floating in uncertainty is nice for a little while, and then it's a little annoying and pointless and unlivable. Going through the deconstruction and evaluation and questioning of society/culture/faith/what you've been taught is a rite of passage, sure, and I would not have wanted a college experience devoid of it. But I'm over half way through college now. I need to know where to go from here. I need to walk across the stage in a year and a half having been formed by the Lord, not floating untethered. Untethered is a dangerous way to enter the world, enter ministry, enter seminary, enter anything. And I would very much like to enter all of those.
So that's the update on the religion major part of me.
But I have to say I'm in a much better place than I have been so far this year. I'm in a pretty good place. It's a long story, but God has been showing up and loving me and gracing me and redeeming me very tangibly in my wandering, and that, my friends, makes me want to "come home" more than anything else ever could. He is always good. He is always blessing. We are never too far away.
And in that case, we might as well draw near. He's going to love us anyway. We might as well take full advantage of it. :)
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