Sitting in the Wreckage

We broke up with the Evangelical church.

For a while we tried to stay on good terms, but it didn’t appear that a friendship  was going to work out either. As I found myself further and further away from the church that helped me discover the importance of Jesus, I decided I needed to express myself publicly.

I suspect if you are reading this, you might feel the same way, at least a little bit.

To be honest, I wish that everything that I needed to say had been said here.

In some ways that was easy to write.  Those feelings are easy to feel. But that was an important place to begin.   I am proud, in a tiny little way, to step in line with a long line of Godly prophets.

Because Those powers and principalities around us needed to be named as anti-Christs.  But after this is done? I think it becomes time to focus on us. The folks who have broken up, the folks who have given up on the idea that we can be friends.

Because the thing is, most of the prophets did not do very well with introspection: Jonah clung to his prejudice even till the very last verse of his story.  Elijah had an emotional breakdown after successes and miracles. John began to doubt Jesus as his circumstances turned difficult.

 

Aspiring prophets in our culture have an extra challenge.  We are not very good at giving mourning and lament it’s due time.  Most of the time we try and rush these processes. But because we do, there is also a part of us that never moves on, never leaves the dead relationship in the past.  All of us just keep looking back at the destruction, no matter how many people around us are turning into piles of salt.

As recently as twenty years ago, the term ‘deconstruction.’ was saved for obtuse philosophy courses.  Now, it’s so much a part of our lexicon that we hear it on cooking shows!  Deconstructing is largely the domain of the prophet. But if we end in deconstruction, all we do is walk among the wreckage of the Tower of Babel, never willing to move on, to try and create something new.

It’s kind of sad.  I can describe myself as a post-evangelical.  But all that does is describe where I was.  It does say anything about where I am, or where I am going. 

Where, my friends, is our reconstruction?   

It may not be time for yours yet.  But I think it’s time for mine. And the truth?  The truth is I really don’t want to. It is easy and safe here in the wreckage.  But there is nothing there for me anymore. So let’s walk up and out of the dust together.