It's a Journal

So it’s been a while since I published anything - but there’s been plenty of writing!

It was clear that my last article touched a nerve with a few readers, and I can understand why. I’m thankful to those who had the courage to bring up their concerns with me in private - they were insightful discussions for me to keep growing.

When I started writing these articles, I meant for them to be a personal journal that I would share vulnerably. In an age of hyper-curated online personas, this would be an authentic, unapologetic look into my inner thoughts and struggles about Christian belief and community. If you didn’t like it, unsubscribe, I thought.

I was surprised and encouraged at the number of people who would go out of their way to thank me for what I wrote, to encourage me on my journey, and to ask me what I was writing about next. Some of them were people who had grown up in the church but stopped. Some never stopped. Others were pastors who agreed with the critique but couldn’t show it online. But others were silent and hurt.

I write from my own limited perspective, and I have tried to critique what I see as trends and common practices across the Christian community. There is a delicate balance in critiquing the thing you love. Especially when that lovely thing you’re critiquing is also what people dedicate their lives and souls to. Critiquing a global trend likely means critiquing something local and close to home.

I attempted to craft words that were just provocative enough to cause a pause for the same kind of reflection I had been doing for months, sometimes years. It was an opportunity to walk a few steps in my shoes as I tried to figure it out.

But I’m realizing that some things still aren’t safe to write out loud - at least not with your name attached to it. Every seminary paper I turned in was a balance of being true to what I believed without getting kicked out (like all the professors in the Bible department half way through my degree). My final paper prompted a one-on-one to make sure I was not saying what the professor thought I might be suggesting (I was). But I assured him I wasn’t. Graduation was a few days away.

I’m pretty good at putting on masks to conceal what is true but unsafe to reveal. Unfortunately, that means I can never be fully seen or known in faith communities or social circles. Perhaps that is the case for everyone. Perhaps I’m who Bonhoeffer describes as “those who love their dream of a Christian community more than they love the Christian community itself” and who become “a destroyer of that Christian community even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest, and sacrificial.”

That fear of destroying, despite the best of intentions, has prompted me to pause and search for what’s next. It sure would be awesome to at least have a place to rest a soul unmasked. Like AA for heretics!

“Hello, I’m David and I’m a recovering heretic.”

Until then, may God lead me to the shade I need for today and a path to walk tomorrow.