What if we told the truth about what a Christian actually is?

What if we just told the truth? What would that be like?

What if we told the truth to ourselves, and what if we told the truth to others? What if, in doing so, we dared to speak in a way that others could understand because we dared to speak transparently, using common points of reference; a common vocabulary, a common and intelligible grammar.  And more - what if we dared to see ourselves in a way that was common with and comparable to the way others see us? What if were just honest about what we can know, and what we can’t know, and started the conversation from a shared understanding of these things.  What would that be like? What would we lose? What would we gain?

These questions matter to me…

because these questions relate to a journey of deconstruction that I have been on over a good many years, as I have moved from being a cradle evangelical-charismatic Christian, to someone who, well, wouldn’t describe themselves that way anymore.  As many of us know, journeys of deconstruction can be profoundly disorientating, and profoundly painful. There is loss, and there is grief relating to that loss. Often there is, I think, also a sort of betrayal; a feeling that we have been betrayed, but also that we are betraying others whose faith has not gone down this particular rocky path that we are stumbling down. That can be so very hard.

Daring to tell the truth.

But whilst there is much that we may lose on such a journey, for those who are called to stumble down this particular path there is also (and this is something I believe passionately) so very much to gain.  One of these things is a wonderful, delightful sense of freedom and harmony that comes from daring to tell the truth about our faith to ourselves and others, and thus being able to communicate about that faith in a way that is deeply liberative for others, and deeply liberative for ourselves.

You see, the truth is we don’t know. 

We don’t know much, really. We don’t actually know if a man came back from the dead 2000 years ago. We just don’t. We can’t. We don’t know if that man performed miracles before he died, or whether it just suited his followers to claim that he did.  We don’t know what he actually said in that upper room after a last meal with his friends, or if the writer of the fourth gospel made it all up out of thin air.  And that’s not all; we don’t know if there was an actual Hebrew prince-of-Egypt called Moses, and we don’t know if he led a nation on an actual Exodus.  We don’t know if Jonah was really eaten by a fish and we certainly don’t know if there really was an Ark with two of every animal kind wearing species-appropriate life-jackets.  When push-comes-to-shove we don’t even know if there is, actually, after all, a God. We just don’t know. We can’t know. It isn’t accessible to ‘knowing’ in that way.

But here’s the thing; I don’t think we were ever supposed to ‘know’.  I think we were supposed to believe, and I think we were supposed to understand that that is what we are doing.

 ‘Truth as correctness’

There is not the space here for an exploration of the way enlightenment thinking and the scientific method changed the conversation around what humans can know, and how we can know, but frankly the idea of ‘truth as correctness’ has a lot to answer for when applied to matters of faith and belief.  ‘Truth as correctness’ is a very effective construction for talking about (for example) how many chocolate bars there were before a family member paid an unauthorised visit to the sweet cupboard (to share an example relevant to my experience), but not a very effective one for dealing with complex philosophical propositions or eternal mysteries.  But what if this is actually good news?  After all, could the nature of an infinite God ever really be comprehended by finite human beings? If it could, would such a God be worth believing in? 

And there is more good news.

Once we realise that we simply can’t know, we can relax about the fact that we don’t know.  Faith has been described as a decision to ‘act as if something is true’, and we can still keep doing that without ‘knowing’ if we are right or wrong. 

Talking about belief as faith rather than certainty helps us, I think, understand what it actually is we are doing as people-of-faith. And thus it helps us communicate with people who understand instinctively that that is what we are doing, because they do not share our beliefs. This is good – it’s liberating, it really is, but I do think there is further we can go.

Formed by stories

In his marvellous book ‘The Creative Word’, renowned Biblical Scholar Walter Brueggemann considers how the ancient people of Israel  (the real people who were behind the ancient stories of the Hebrew Bible) understood what they could and what they couldn’t know. Brueggemann describes how that ancient people’s primary way of knowing was narrative. They were people who were formed and shaped by telling and re-telling the formative and foundational stories of their community.  They were people who were formed by stories.

Stories such as the keystone narrative of Exodus, a story of rescue through the power and intervention of their God.  Brueggemann describes how this ancient people developed and grew and responded to new circumstances through a process of communal reflection on these foundational stories. The foundational stories kept them rooted, and kept them knowing who they were, whilst the practice of continual reflection (which for Brueggemann includes the prophetic texts of the Hebrew Bible) allowed them to respond to new and unforeseen circumstances, such as suffering, exile, and return.

And you know what, I don’t think much has changed...

I think we are still formed by stories.  I think a lot of the stories that form our society at present are consumerist and competitive; but maybe that’s for another blog.  So, what if we understood that a Christian is someone who is formed by the story and stories of Jesus; what would that be like?  It works for me because I have learnt to see myself as a person whose life is shaped and formed by the story and stories of Jesus, stories that make sense of my experience of God (however mysterious and tenuous), rather than someone who has a ‘correct’ grasp on the nature of reality.  Actually, without realising it I have been this person all my life, and post-deconstruction, I still am. If you are reading this, maybe you are too. And we don’t – in fact we shouldn’t – have to ‘know’ if or how those stories are historically factual to live authentically from them. 

Inspiring a community of faith for 2000 years.

What is factual is that they are ancient stories that have inspired and formed a community of faith over 2000 years, that these ancient stories speak powerfully into our lived experience; that they relate to our experience (perhaps) of the wonder and beauty of Jesus, and our experience of the tantalising whisper and possibility of God’s loving presence.  The stories and story of Jesus are that which root us and connect us all as Christians, and it is our Job to practice telling and re-telling these stories, in order that they may shape us and lead us into being a community that experiences ‘life in all its fullness’ (to quote one of the stories of Jesus).

Understanding that this is who we are, and communicating from this place, is I believe, powerfully liberating. We embrace again the mystery of faith, and we can be held again by the ancient practices of this faith, as well as responding to new and unforeseen circumstances through that practice of reflection, whilst being able to communicate with others in a language that they understand, because we see ourselves in a way which they can comprehend, and because we have let go of the pretence that we have everything neatly figured out (which rarely looks authentic to others).  We will have let go of the practice of looking down on others from a great and ‘knowing’ height, thinking ‘we are right, and you are wrong’; and if there is one thing this world needs less of, it is communities who think that they are right and that everyone else is wrong!

So let’s try telling the truth to ourselves, and others…

Let’s delight in our identity as Christians, as followers of the Way of Jesus Christ, and let’s live from that place. Let’s tell the truth about our faith. It’s joyful, and it’s liberative for us, for others, and for the world.