The God Who Riots Read online

  At the end of the service, the minister asked who wanted to accept Jesus into their heart, or something like that, and I saw Richard raise his hand. Once again, I was shocked, but I was mostly happy because I assumed this meant Richard would start being a lot nicer to my friends and me at school.

  The next day during P.E. class, as we were standing on our numbers on the blacktop, I told my friends the news. “Richard got saved last night!” I blurted out.

  To my surprise, they had no idea what I was talking about. “Saved from what?” they asked.

  I was immediately stumped. “Saved” was the word my church used when someone became a Christian. I thought my friends would understand what I meant, and elaborating felt impossibly difficult. I just knew he was saved, and it was good news for us. I couldn’t explain why I thought that way though, and I definitely couldn’t explain what “saved” meant, or what “saved people” are saved from, exactly.

  I look back at that moment and recognize that I certainly understood that “getting saved” had something to do with some sort of personal transformation.

  I probably had this impression from observing my parents’ own personal transformations. They started going to church when I was two years old. They had both been drug addicts and alcoholics, and my dad had been in and out of prison. One day they both decided they wanted to change their lives. My mom’s sister had recently started going to church, so my parents joined a church.

  The spiritual teachings of that community gave them a sense of dignity they didn’t have before. Knowing they were loved and cared for by God and by that supportive community empowered them to live differently. They were saved, and in this circumstance, they were saved from the destructive coping mechanisms they had developed while they were struggling through life on their own.

  They were saved from something, yes, but they were also saved for something.

  Many Christians use the word “saved” today to refer to their souls being saved from hell. And yet, the idea that Richard’s soul might be saved from hell wasn’t on my mind at all when I was standing there on the blacktop trying to explain to my friends what “saved” meant.

  When I looked at my parents, I knew “getting saved” looked like getting saved from the destruction taking place right here and right now. They recovered from the effects of that destruction by living differently in a loving and supportive community. They were saved, but it had nothing to do with their souls or an afterlife.

  In the Hebrew Bible, or the Old Testament, salvation is first conceptualized through the experience of the ancient Israelites escaping slavery in Egypt. This is such a defining moment that, throughout the rest of the scripture, God is frequently named as “the God who brought the Israelites out of Egypt.” Much later in the story, Israel is defeated. The Israelites are taken captive by Babylon and exiled from their home. They cry out to God to save them from exile just like God saved them from Egypt, and God sends prophets promising their salvation. Salvation is about the collective fate of a nation. Salvation is about an actual experience of physical liberation during this life.

  When we get to the New Testament, the concept of salvation becomes more personal. There is still talk of salvation as collective, but the first Christians viewed their collective liberation as contingent on our individual participation in the work of liberation. The first Christians still longed for a larger collective liberation led by God, but their unique message was that it was going to require our participation as well. For the early Christians, salvation looked like a personal decision to transform our way of being in the world, working out our own salvation “with fear and trembling.”1

  In Acts 2, Peter preached to a crowd, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.”2 Peter was inviting people to a new way of being in the world. The Christian movement was called The Way before its members were called Christians. The first Christians were distinguished first and foremost by the way they took care of one another in community. Saving oneself looked like choosing the side of the oppressed as they struggled for salvation from their oppression. This was very different from other movements that preached about a coming Messiah.

  Many people besides Jesus claimed to be the Messiah in the first century, sent by God to liberate the people of Israel and establish the kingdom of God. Most of them were also executed on crosses by Rome. Whenever a Messiah was executed, their followers decided they were wrong about who the Messiah was and went home to wait for another one. But something different happened among Jesus’s followers after his execution. They decided they were wrong about what the Messiah was, not who.

  Then they claimed to be the body of the Messiah, or the body of Christ. Christ is the Greek rendering of the Hebrew term mashiach, which means “anointed one.” The church was a community of anointed ones. They understood that the salvation of the oppressed could only happen through uniting as one body in that struggle for salvation. They claimed that the resurrection of Christ was only the first fruits of a greater resurrection taking place through the continual embodiment of Christ in the lives of this new community.

  The fact that the early Christian community made these claims can be confirmed historically. The debate is around what made them shift their perspective. Was it really their experience of Jesus coming back to life? Was it visions they had of Jesus? Was it a collective reinterpretation of the teachings of Jesus years after his death? The answer to that question is a matter of faith, but no matter the reason for changing their minds, the radical shift in the way Jesus’s followers talked about the Messiah, or the Christ, is historical.

  This shift in seeing themselves as the body of Christ transformed the way they lived. That’s the part that has always inspired me the most.

  When we read in the book of Acts about the first Christians being “saved,” we read about a unique community of people who were transforming people’s lives.

  All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.3

  When you join a community like this, you must have been compelled within yourself to answer the question, Who is making a better world here? Rome? Or Jesus? Whose side do I choose?

  Some 2,000 years later, my parents decided to join this movement.

  Widening

  When I was 18, I felt called into ministry, and after much stubborn refusal I realized I found a lot of fulfillment whenever I preached and taught people about these ideas. I found a new passion and dreamed of being a pastor one day. So I enrolled in a ministry training program in my denomination and took Bible college classes.

  The more I studied, however, the more I found myself agreeing with Christian perspectives that were beyond the boundaries of what my denomination considered the right interpretation of the Christian faith. Within the evangelical corner of Christianity I grew up in, I had suddenly become a heretic.

  The word heretic comes from the Greek, hairetikós, which simply means “able to choose.” Historically the word has been used to describe Christians who had dissented from the church’s official doctrines and dogmas. And yet, my journey into heresy felt less like a dissent from historical church teaching, and more like a consistent realization that contemporary American evangelicalism had dissented from historical church teaching to a surprising extent. I discovered many evangelical doctrines that were only a couple hundred years old, while my church taught me that they were what the early Christians believed.

  I didn’t have an issue with evangelical teachings being new. I’m fine believing in ideas developed in contemporary settings. I’m also not particularly passionate about believing in the oldest—or most original—Christian ideas either. My issue was that contemporary evangelical teachings were taught as the only way to interpret the Christian faith and were tied to the faith of the early Christians in a way that totally obscured church history. I knew there was way more out there.

  So my journey of dissent felt more like a loyal commitment to discover truth, which naturally placed me outside the boundaries they wanted me to stay inside of. This journey always felt like a widening. I confronted the limitations of a particular perspective of faith and then widened to a new one. And I just kept allowing this to happen.

  One day I could no longer in good conscience and conviction call myself a Pentecostal. And then one day I could no longer call myself an evangelical. And then I could no longer call myself a Protestant. These are various branches within the larger Christian tradition. Pentecostals are a type of evangelical. Evangelicals are a type of Protestant. And Protestants are a type of Christian. So eventually, the only thing I felt I could authentically call myself was a Christian.

  Even though my beliefs and values had progressed outside of my denomination’s boundaries, I tried to work around our differences for years. I dropped out of Bible college, but I started working at the church I grew up in as a youth and young adults minister. It was during the process of getting my pastoral license, when I looked at the list of questions I would have to answer in my licensing interview, that I knew I couldn’t make it work anymore. I knew I couldn’t answer their questions the way they wanted me to while still being honest.

  So I left. I lost so many friends and opportunities, but I couldn’t risk losing my integrity by staying.

  My Christian faith led me out of the community that initially taught me about that faith.

  My story is far from unique. This is how everyone goes through change. We confront the constraints of our current way of life and develop a new one to solve the problems of those constraints. Even in the midst of our diverse beliefs, values, and identities, the process of change is similar for all of us. This process of change even extends to massive changes in history.

  How the World Changes

  This is how historical change works. A new world becomes desirable when people experience the constraints of the current world, just like a new way of life becomes desirable when you personally run into the constraints of your current way of life. Then the conditions of a new world emerge as a solution to the problems caused by the constraints of the previous world. While it is always preferable to peacefully replace the conditions of the current world with a new one, this process is always met with conflict. That conflict comes from those who significantly benefit from the conditions of the current world—those with power.

  Those without power are always the first ones to experience the constraints of the conditions of the current world as a result of poverty and discrimination. The process of transitioning to a new world begins with these people’s dissatisfaction. Initially the constraints are ignored because not everyone else has experienced them yet. As the current world remains unchanged, more and more people begin to experience its constraints. As more and more people have this experience, they become stronger by uniting with others who share the same experience.

  Inevitably, the dissatisfied people of society organize, protest, revolt, and win this conflict. Then they develop a new world. This process is never a singular moment toward a final state of utopia. This process happens again and again throughout history, beginning again when people inevitably experience the constraints of the new world.

  As we listen to that dissatisfied voice within ourselves and are compelled toward personal change, we begin to listen to the dissatisfied voices within society as well and are compelled toward societal change.

  Nowadays I often interact with people who grew up in conservative Christian environments, then left them behind, and then somehow found themselves involved in radical activism inspired by an anti-fascist, anti-racist, and anti-capitalist vision. A lot of these people tell me they still feel a connection to the Jesus they were taught about when they were younger and, in fact, even feel like it was Jesus who led them into radical politics. This describes my own journey as well.

  I got here because of my Christian upbringing, not as a rejection of it. Even as a child, when I heard that Richard got “saved,” I knew that becoming a Christian meant you would live in the world in a different way. Sure, we could have a discussion about what happens metaphysically when someone is saved, but I’m not as interested in that conversation—partly because if God is doing something special with my soul, that’s God’s business, not mine. I’m more interested in what the Christian faith means for how we live our day-to-day lives right here and right now. That’s the part we have some control over.

  In a world where religion is typically used to suppress change within individuals and within history, Jesus followed a desire for change within himself and within the world. And as a man who uniquely embodied God in the world, Jesus reflects this desire for change within God as well. This is why we love the story of Jesus rioting in the temple.

  Religion has always been used to empower people to change themselves and the world. And religion has also been used to suppress change. These two forms of faith are always in tension. In order to live out our faith in the world in a more healthy and responsible way, we must understand this tension.

  2

  An Alternative to Your Dehumanization

  When I was 19, I started a Bible study called the Hallway for young adults where we could explore our faith and express our doubts and questions. I taught the Bible and led discussions for the first time in this group, so from the beginning my approach to ministry was shaped by a desire to make space for spiritual misfits.

  We fully accepted one another with all our doubts and vulnerabilities, allowing us to experience a loving community in a way we hadn’t encountered. The unique support and encouragement we practiced for each other had a bigger impact on each of us than any of my teachings. The love from that group of friends transformed me.

  As the group grew, I sensed that my beliefs and values were becoming exceedingly divergent from most of the conservative Christians we knew. This terrified me.

  I became overcome with anxiety about how my relationships would be affected by my shifting beliefs. So one day I asked my friends if they would still be my friend if I ever became a heretic. Looking back now, I’m embarrassed by how earnestly I asked such a ridiculous question. But the stakes felt very real at the time. They said of course. And that freed me to keep on growing.

  Over the years some of those friends distanced themselves from me because of our different beliefs but others stuck around. Those relationships taught me a lot about spirituality.

  When I think of some of the foundational spiritual experiences I’ve had in my life, I do not think of any moments of intellectual enlightenment. My journey has always included an endless intellectual evolution, but my foundational spiritual experiences were the moments where I received love and acceptance from people despite the differences in our intellectual positions and beliefs.

  Then there were also the moments where I received rejection because of our differences, and those moments were just as foundational for me. Those moments of acceptance were foundational because they showed me what a spiritual life in community is supposed to be like. Those moments of rejection showed me what a spiritual life in community should not be like, which gave me the motivation to develop healthier spiritual communities.

  Those moments of acceptance were experiences of grace, being loved and accepted just as I am. Grace is what makes a lot of people fall in love with a church community, especially in today’s society where authentic community is significantly more difficult to cultivate.

  But often, grace enables us to become keenly aware of the lack of grace in our churches as well. Many of us were inspired and empowered by the church’s message of unconditional love and grace, until one day we bumped into the boundaries where our church had set conditions on grace. Grace was abruptly snatched away because we didn’t act right, or believe right, or talk right.

  And so, naturally, we left.

  When you build a community based on a message of unconditional love and grace, you shouldn’t be surprised when people leave after experiencing a significant lack of love and grace in that community.

  I hear stories like this all the time. People leave Christian communities for Christian reasons.

  We are raised with a set of values and principles that taught us to love and value people to a radical extent, and then one day we realize we’ve begun to love and value people even more than our church is willing to. We are given the tools to grow, and then we hit the ceiling.

  If we are taught that we are holy beings deserving of love and justice, then we will not tolerate being used and abused in any environment, even if that environment is the community that taught us about love and justice in the first place. As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said, “Hypocrisy, rather than heresy is the cause of spiritual decay.”1

  The Way We Value Everything

  Religion has always functioned as an alternative method of valuation.

  We typically assign value to everything conditionally. A pen is valuable so long as it has ink. A house is valuable so long as it’s capable of adequately providing shelter. An object is valuable so long as it can be used. So we naturally can get caught up in seeing people as valuable so long as they prove to be useful.

  Religion does something different. Religion assigns unconditional value. Religious communities claim a thing or a person is valuable simply because of their essence, not their usefulness.