A question of identity

As I have gotten older it surprises me less and less to find that people of all ages, many of whom I admire and respect for their integrity of character and consider to be successful leaders within their chosen profession still ask the question, “Who am I?”

No, this is not a matter of amnesia or some fugue state whereby a person does not remember who they are or what they have done. The question, “Who am I?” is a question of personal identity.

Another way to ask this question might be, “Who do I perceive myself to be?” Many factors go into shaping the answer to such a question. For example, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold saw themselves as killers, gangsters whose lives and actions were superior to those in the world around them. They “followed the beat of different drummer” whose cadence most of us are unable to hear.

At the same time, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold disregarded the identity of those around them. The actions of these two young men made a clear statement that the way the people around them perceived themselves was an identity insufficient to justify their own existence.

And most likely, this is also the way Klebold and Harris felt about their victims – that somehow their victims saw them as two teens whose lives held little to no worth. As such, Harris and Klebold would have seen themselves as victims of an unjust society, and their actions of April 20, 1999 as righting a wrong.

You and I may not understand such twisted thinking, but then again, how many people do you know that truly understand the way you perceive yourself? Who are you? What are your habits? What are the habits you do in secret that you keep from the world?

The way you see yourself, the way you identify yourself is subjective. The way the world identifies you is objective, because it is limited by the degree to which you are willing to show yourself to the world. We rarely take into account these limited secret details when we determine whether we like someone or not. In fact, when asked to make a value judgment in favor or against someone, such as voting, we often have little or no knowledge of the person’s true identity

If we trust the perceived identity of a rapist without knowledge of his lust for power and control, that person’s true identity will only be known after he has committed his crime. After we become victims of someone in whom we have naively placed trust, the pendulum swings the other way and suddenly in our mind everyone has become a rapist, regardless of their true identity.

But what if you are that rapist? What if you kept your secret thoughts a secret and told no one, even to the point that you deny the existence of your lusts and the threat you present to society? What if, like Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, you perceive yourself as a victim, but choose not act upon your disdain for others? Are you still a threat? Should people trust you? And if so, should they trust the you they can perceive, or the you that you know will probably not hurt someone? Which identity should they trust? Yours or theirs?

I am convinced that as we get older we who are honest with ourselves steal the occasional glance in the mirror just to make sure that the person looking back it us is indeed who we perceive ourselves to be. Sometimes, however, I have to admit that I am not always comfortable with the person looking back at me. I do not harbor any ill will toward anyone, and have very few if any habits that I would considered harmful, but still it does stop me from checking anyway from time to time.

Who are you? Who do you see when you look in the mirror? Is the person looking back at you a predator, or is that person prey? Do you like what you see? Do you identify with the person looking back at you, or does the image looking back at you make you ask, Who am I?

Who are you?

Spiritual Atheists

As a Christian, one of the things I have learned to accept is that not everyone believes in God. Atheists are everywhere living quiet normal existances side by side with Theists and Deists alike.

I always find a person’s reaction interesting when they discover for the first time that someone they thought they knew turns out to be an Atheist. Depending on the individual, there is often a look a shock on the person’s face, which is then followed by a series of minute, yet probing, questions. The Atheist takes is all in stride, knowing that to divulge his non-spiritual beliefs to a known Christian will surely spark debate.

One of the things I find interesting about Atheist is that they often equate the denial of God with a denial of human spirituality. It does, afterall, only stand to reason that if there is no God, man certainly can not be a spiritual being, lest Genesis 1:26 be true and God did indeed create man in His own spiritual image.

If man, therefore, is not a spiritual being then it stands to reason that he also has no soul. And if he has no soul, then he has no responsibility unto God for his actions because he has no need for his soul to be saved in accordance with the precepts of the Bible (or any other religious book that posits the duality of man).

But the discussion of human spirituality does not end with the denial of mankinds dual existance. Because spirituality is not limited to man’s relationship to God, denial of one’s soul does not make a person a non-spiritual being anymore than denial of my gray hair makes me younger.

The spiritual existance of humankind extends not only to God, but includes his relationship with his fellow man. Were this not so, then the Atheist, or any other human being for that matter, would not be able to form strong close bonds with another human being. There would be no capacity to love or to be loved, and no moral compass would exist to guide his conscience. In a other words, were human beings not spiritual creatures, all of mankind would treat itself with open disdain and blatant disregard.

However, Atheists are not unfeeling people. They are human beings with a spiritual philosophy that governs the way they treat their fellow man. They follow their conscience and make moral decisions based on values that dictate their understanding of what is right and what is wrong. The fact that these values often mirror Judea-Christian values proves nothing outside of common sense, and that is fine.

Still, one has to wonder if it is common sense for a selfish human being without a soul to know and understand the need for human love and respect. Or is it possible that embedded within the fibers of our humanity is an invisible spiritual existance that bears witness with a greater spiritual existance?

I contend that atheists, along with all all other members of humankind, are spiritual beings. Our capacity to be loving and caring people with the capacity to cognitively receive love speaks to this fact. In the farthest reaches of human imagination one might be able to conjure the evolution of human beings from single-celled organisms, but to include the the invisible attributes of God within that imaginary framework is something that even my mind can not grasp. My only conclusion therefore is that Man is a spiritual being created in the image of spiritual God.

Happy Birthday!

Today is my forty-first birthday. To be honest with you, not until I got an email greeting from one of my online writing groups did I even remember this seemingly insignificant fact. But such is the way I perceive birthdays. It is not, however, the way God sees it.

In the eyes of God, forty-one years ago, on September 23, I was significant enough to be born. For nine months I was fashioned in the womb of my mother by a divine Creator who watched over every gene and chromosome as it formed and with infinite foreknowledge new every step I would take me before I was even born.

I was made with purpose and meaning, with the capacity to love and to be loved, not only by the One whom created me, by others like me. I was made to be part of a community, a part of a whole with talents and gifts that would work hand in hand to benefit not only me, but work to the benefit those around me. Through these abilities I would discover my identity, and eventually become known for ways in which I would use them, either for selfish gain, or for the edification of the world around me.

Ultimately, however, my identity would come through the way in which I would use my talents and abilities to bring glory and honor to the One who created me. With this capacity to love and be loved I would be faced with a choice: Glorify myself with my gifts, or glorify my Creator. To glorify myself would be to seek an identity in self, to arrogantly broadcast to the world my greatness and seek the applause of the world for as long as it was willing to give it. But to glorify my Creator would be to seek the applause of my Creator as I surrendered all my talents and abilities to Him by using what He gave me not to fulfill my purposes, but His.

And therefore it is to this end that I was born on this day forty-one years ago. It all seems so simple and even makes one wonder why anyone would ever wake up and look in the mirror and ask the question, Who am I? Truly, it is in the pursuit of foolish things like the applause of mankind that we as created beings lose sight of who we are. We embrace ideals valued not by our God in Heaven, but embraced only by a world that is quite often more delusional and alienated from God than we are. Indeed, the words of the writer of Ecclesiastes ring true when says that such folly is nothing more than vanity and grasping for the wind.

Today is my forty-first birthday, and I think I’m beginning to understand why God made me. I suppose as long as I am still here, that purpose remains, no matter how old I am.

Who am I?

In recent weeks a series of interesting revelations has forced me to stop my life and ask myself: Who am I?

Three weeks ago I experienced an emotional breakdown when the culmination of my abusive childhood, years of unresolved issues, and a lifetime of codependency became too overwhelming for me to bear. I woke up one Sunday morning and suddenly suicide made sense, as did walking out on my marriage, and perhaps even hurting my family. And it scared the hell out of me.

Since that horrific day I have started seeing a Christian counselor who has already started to help me make sense of my present and past behavioral issues. As a result, I no longer desire to throw away my life, or anyone else’s, and have begun to look at myself and my past life in a completely new way.

One thing I need to stress is that the amount of healing I have experienced in the past three weeks is unique. Most people just starting counseling can take as long as six months to get to where I am now. Such a statement, however, is not arrogance. I stress this point because I have spent the past two decades reading about my problems and studying human spirituality. Therefore much of the preliminary work my counselor would have to do to get me on the road to recovery has already been done which has allowed him to “cut to the chase” and speak directly to my issues rather than spending time explaining them to me.

Perhaps the most glaring issue my counselor and I are discussing right now is that of personal identity. The term he used to describe me was “flaming codependent” which means that I have spent my entire life borrowing people’s identities rather than establishing an identity of my own. A lot of this problem stems from the fact that my father spent more time disciplining me rather than teaching me to be a man and how to embrace a healthy male identity. Now at age forty I have no idea what it means to have a strong male identity, much less am able to teach it to my five year old son.

But there is the God factor, the power of the Divine able, capable and willing to intervene on my behalf. As I look in the mirror and ask myself “Who am I?” the only sure thing I know is that I am a child of God. While I have spent forty years borrowing the identities of my friends, family, and colleagues, my experiences with my Heavenly Father, through His Son, Jesus, by the power of His Holy Spirit are real, and they are mine.

It will take many years to undo the forty years of damage that is my life, but the healing has already started. In time I will learn who I am, first as a child of God, and then second as a citizen of this planet. Truly, God’s grace is sufficient.

What is your (Christian) theological world view?

Years ago I discovered that a lot of pastors and Bible teachers do not know their theological world view of Christianity. I’ve seen Liberals call themselves Neo Orthodox, and Charismatics say they were Wesleyan.

Back in February 2008 I came across across a quiz that asked the question, “What is your theological world view.” Curious, I took the quiz and was surprised at the accuracy of the results – although I must agree with some of the comments that a few of the questions were poorly worded.

Do you know your theological world view of Christianity? Follow the link below and take the quiz to find out. While this quiz is not scientific, it’s a pretty good yardstick with which to measure your theological beliefs. And if you want to see my results, click here.

Have fun.

Quiz: What’s your theological world view?

Thoughts on Columbine – Ten years later

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold

Ten years has passed since Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris launched an all-out assault on Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado that claimed 13 lives. I remember coming home from work that day and, like so many people, wondering what happened? However, unlike many of those same people, I did not have to ask why.

Having grown up angry and resentful of my own family, as well as the world around me, I knew all too well the type of pain felt by Dylan and Eric, and the irrational thinking that comes with it. For me, this behavior was the result of childhood abandonment by working parents who often over-discipline me to the point abuse. I had no where to turn for help, and for a number of years fantasized about killing my family as a means of escape.

Likewise, I hated school to include many of my fellow classmates – two in particular. I look at pictures of Dylan and Eric and relate to them in so many ways. Twenty five years ago when I was in high school I was thin, and fairly attractive. But at the same time I looked like a geek. I was bullied almost daily, took routes to classes to avoid certain classmates, and kept a journal in which I recorded all my hatred.

Today, looking back over the last ten years, it is easy to see all that went wrong, and why Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris did what they felt they had to do by hurting so many people and ultimately taking their own lives. Emotional and psychological pain can blind a person from reason and sanity. It is the soul crying out for God. Unless someone considered trustworthy can be found to help, the potential for harm can become as real as the wound in the one who is hurting.

As someone who has understands pain to the point of wanting to hurt others, I offer the following suggestions to avoid another tragedy like the one at Columbine High School:

Live a humble life. This point applies to everyone, but especially to parents and school officials. It is nothing short of pride and arrogance to make a mistake and not apologize for it. When a child at any age becomes hurt, the only way to heal that wound is to show genuine love and concern. However, there is no love and concern when an adult lords authority over a child and acts like nothing is wrong.

Give the child a voice. Children have rights, including the right to be heard. If Jesus was willing to lay down his life for children, the least an adult can do is stay quiet and listen. And not just listen with the ears, but listen with the eyes, and the heart. Stop what you are doing and pay attention to what the child is saying. Listen and do not try to fix. Do not have the next words you want to say waiting on your tongue. Actively listen and in so doing, actively love your child.

Lower your expectations. Help you child place boundaries on her life, and help set goals to shoot for. At the same time give her room to fail. And when she does fail, do not remind her of her failure but instead listen to her when she tells you why she failed. Only after she has used her voice do mothers and fathers need to step in with their wisdom from the ages. If a child is raised to fear God and keep His commandments, chances are good that God has already in some way spoken to them and that the child needs little input from a parent or a teacher except for love, encouragement, and prayer.

Pray for your child and pray with your child. It is foolish to expect a child to know how to go to God in times of struggle if parents are not willing to lead by example. Parents who blindly tell their children to pray and read the Bible without first teaching them how to do so hold their children to unrealistic expectations.

Take you child to church. It is ridiculous to think that just because a child goes to church he will not grow up to become a mass murderer. However, it is far more ridiculous to expect positive results from a child who has never attended church a day in his life. I grieve every time I see a parent in tears who wonders what went wrong that caused their child to commit a violent crime. I ask them if they ever prayed with their child, read the Bible to their child, or took them to church, and grieve even more when the answer is No.

Following this advice is no guarantee your child will grow up to be perfect. But even if your child has already starting showing signs of acting out as a result of his emotional pain, taking these steps will go a long way in helping heal his wounds. Know the Bible, and follow it’s teachings. Only when children experience the unconditional love of God will they truly feel accepted and not feel it necessary to defend themselves from the world.

If we could talk…

Were we to sit down over a cup of coffee I would ask you many questions, and not just the typical questions associated with small talk when two people who don’t know what to talk about. I would ask you about your life, where you grew up, and what your favorite childhood memory was. I would also ask you about your most painful childhood memory, and if thinking back to it still hurts? I would share with you that my favorite childhood memories are the memories of my Grandma and Grandpa LaFever, and all the years I spent in their house, and how as a grown man I cried when my Grandmother died and the house was sold.

I would ask you about your hopes and your dreams, and how close you have come to living out those dreams. I would ask you about your passions, and what you want to be when you grow up, and hope that you would catch the twinkle in my eye when I tell you that I’m still waiting to figure it out for myself.

I might even get personal, as if I haven’t already, and ask you about your fears and what keeps you up at night staring at the ceiling until three in the morning? If I had the strength, and was not too afraid, I might tell you that I lay awake at night and wonder if my life will ever account for anything, and how I fear that my kids will grow up to hate me because I divorced their mother and was never a part of their lives. I might even tell you that I sometimes am afraid to live, because I have made so many mistakes.

And if I was brave and willing to be honest, I would tell you that sometimes, behind this strong Christian bravado, is a man who hopes he’s right about his faith. I would hope that you would understand when I say that its not that I sometimes don’t believe, its just that sometimes I have my doubts. And then I would take a sip of my coffee, and ask you the same question: Have you ever doubted?

The Church is called to tolerance

Growing up the son of a Southern Baptist minister, and the grandson of Southern Baptist home missionaries, I learned early in life the need to tolerate the beliefs of others. At the same time, I also learned that there is a difference between tolerance of the sinner and acceptance of the sin.

Although you and I may not share the same set of spiritual beliefs, it remains imperative that I respect your faith if I want you to respect mine. For the Christian this act of mutual respect is by no means a condoning of the other person’s faith, but rather a willingness to stand in humility and accept the call of the Great Commission with loving kindness.

My job as a Christian, called to advance the Kingdom of God, is to love and accept all sinners just as they are. Then, as opportunity arises, I tell them about my faith and plant the truth of God’s word, the Holy Bible, into their lives. What follows this implanting of truth will forever be a mystery as God takes these seeds of truth and grows them into saving faith, whereby Jesus is received as Lord and Savior. To this end I tolerate not the sin in a person’s life, but the sinner himself. To do otherwise is to be intolerant of both the sinner and his sin, placing me in the position of judge and compromising my witness, neither of which brings glory to our Heavenly Father.

But, despite all evidence to the contrary, “tolerance” remains for many a four-letter-word rather than a practice of faith. Instead of loving someone in spite of their unbelief, some Christians prefer to stand as judge and jury over an individual and tell that person as often as possible that apart from Jesus he or she is going to burn in hell. While this may be true, the one who needs Jesus now feels the need for self preservation and will simply get up and walk away. Truly self-righteous judgment accomplishes nothing in the Kingdom of God.

A key truth many over-zealous Christians tend to forget is that only God can reveal His Kingdom to a person. When Jesus declared his Great Commission he began by saying, “All authority has been given to me…” and ended saying, “I am with you always…” By making these two statements Jesus was not only commissioning the church, but he was co-missioning the church: “I command you to make disciples. Teach them what I have taught you, and baptize them in the name of God: Father, Son and Holy Ghost. AND, I am coming along with you.”

With Jesus working alongside us in the fulfillment of the Great Commission our standards becomes clear. We are to love without condition with patience for and acceptance of those persons whose lives we have been entrusted and charged to present the Gospel Message. If this means that we must suffer long and be tolerant, then so be it. The revelation of Jesus Christ as the Son of God never came to a person whose weaknesses and infirmities were not first tolerated, and then changed by the might and power of God and no one else.

Don’t Call Me Christian

Welcome to the new TimWade.WordPress.com

While the URL has stayed the same, several things besides the theme are now different about this blog.

First, the name has been changed to Don’t Call Me Christian, which reflects two things: 1) The name of the book I am writing that contrasts Christian identity with human spirituality; and 2) The general mindset of today’s progressive 21st century Christian. A brief explanation of this mindset can be found in the About page.

Second, borrowing from the title, this will blog will now be centered on the topic of human spirituality. Like before, my approach will be ecumenical, but unlike before articles will not be limited to a Christian perspective. While nothing will convince me that Jesus Christ is anything less than the Son of God and the atoning sacrifice for all mankind, I refuse to exclude people of differing faiths (or lack of faith) by limiting the content of this blog.

Third, the boundaries of this blog have changed a little. From time to time you will see posts from guest bloggers who will lead discussions on various topics. For example, one day you might see a post written by someone from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the next day I might post a report about some denomination’s national convention. My goal is to make this blog both more interesting, and more informative.

But with this new content comes some new rules to ensure that this blog remains a place of encouragement and edification.

1. Respect all people and their faith at all times. While you may not agree with someone’s point of view, you and that person can still learn a lot from each other. Respect keeps dialogue flowing and the conversation uplifting.

2. Slanderous and defamatory comments will not be allowed. All comments will be moderated. Any comment that slanders or defames any individual or their spiritual beliefs will be not be approved. If your comment is deemed to fall under one of these two headings and your comment is not approved, you have to the right to appeal judgment via the contact form.

3. No foul language. Say what you have to say as if you are speaking to your grandmother or a nun. As a writer I appreciate the power of a well-placed word. However, you will be hard-pressed to convince me that coarse or vulgar language will add value to your comment or post.

Again, I welcome you to the blog, as well as your comments, suggestions, and prayerful support. I look forward to talking with you.

Jesus loves you and the Religious too

I’ve never met Craig Gross, but when I read about his new book Jesus Loves You This I Know, I felt I had found a kindred spirit.

Gross recognizes that for years the conservative church has subscribed in error to a three prong approach to God. The approach can be summed up in the words, “Believe, Behave, and Belong.” The idea is that if you believe the right things, you will behave the right way, and if you behave the right way, you will be accepted into the church. The obvious problem with this formula is that Jesus never taught it nor practiced it.

Declaring the need to reverse this trend Gross cites the ministry of Jesus:

“The Jesus of scripture reached out and loved people regardless of where they were. It is essential to show people that they can belong in your world even if they don’t act, think, behave, or believe like you.”

According to Gross’ book, among those whom Jesus loves and accepts are gluttons, criminals, porn stars, homosexuals, and even the religious.

I can not help but feel that Craig Gross has latched onto something straight from the heart of God. The conservative church has far too long over emphasized the need for right behavior in advance of discipleship and coming to know Jesus Christ in a real and intimate way. Such thinking clearly is counter intuitive to the teachings of Jesus Christ and a backwards approach to the fulfillment of The Great Commission.

Does God speak to you?

Not long ago I traded comments with a man on another blog who asked what I meant when I said “God speaks to me in my spirit.”

I explained to this person that my Christian beliefs included the belief that I was a created being, fashioned in the image of my Creator and given the capacity to communicate with Him. I further explained that I believed in a human duality, body and soul, that caused man to be both physical and spiritual, and that it is within this spiritual nature that God speaks to me.

And there the conversation pretty much died because the man, although claiming to subscribe to a religion and belief in “God”, did not believe in the existance of the soul.

So, for those of you who believe you are in fact spiritual beings, fashioned by the hand of a divine Creator, I ask you: Does God speak to you? If so, how?

Since giving my life to Christ I have held to the belief that God talks to His children in three ways:

1. Always through the Holy Spirit
2. Sometimes through other Christians
3. Always in agreement with the Bible.

I believe that human beings are spiritual beings, and have the capacity to communicate with God, who is also a Spiritual being. I also believe that when the Spirit of God speaks to a person, He can and often does speak to other Christians at the same time as a way to confirm what it is He desires to accomplish through His Children. And finally, I believe that when God speaks, that which He say must always agree with the teachings of the Bible, because God will never contradict His written word with His spoken word.

So, again I ask, does God speak to you? If so, how does He do it, and how do you know it is Him?