All those things they never taught us

"Sometimes I think the church teaches silly things around the edges and neglects the most central things of all. What is it to gather around word and sacrament Sunday by Sunday if not to build up the body of Christ for the sake of the world?" ~Don Saliers, Professor of Theology and Worship, Candler School of Thelogy at Emory University.

Being a Christian most of my life really screwed me up theologically. Of course, I say that affectionately, and recognize that given the chance I probably wouldn't have had it any other way. Listening to the Thanksgiving episode (11/24) of Speaking of Faith propelled me to reflect on how my entire pre-16 year old life was built on a severely incomplete understanding of communion and just about every other aspect of Christianity, and further to reflect on how lucky I am that as a high schooler raised in a Christian church at least I was genuinely A.) Christian and B.) interested in politics and learning by practice how to work for systemic change to better people's lives. Several years of bombarding myself with "Christian rock" and attending youth events and camps that were exclusively me-and-Jesus (including some better ones that were me-and-Jesus-and-love-even-the-kids-you-don't-like) meant I was genuinely Christian in the sense that I was "saved" and trying to live by example to "save" others. And there was little, if any, theological connection to my equally genuine interest in making the world a better place (other than the daily prayers I said for persecuted Christians around the world). But when me-and-Jesus theology abruptly had a system failure and plummeted to its death, thankfully I had political activism to keep me active and asking questions about the world. After several months of quasi-mourning the death of my faith I started to wonder if politics and Christianity should have been intersecting and integrated in my life rather than running parrallel. Thus began my journey to discover all those things fundamental to Christianity that somehow they never taught me in church. To date my most important discovery--brought to mind again by the discussion communion--was that they never taught us how to ask questions. For example, my dad--and pastor--probably preached theologically richer than the grip of me-and-Jesus would allow me to understand. But those younger and more hip youth workers and band members who had the most immediate influence on me worked within such a narrow theological framework that even when I was encouraged to ask questions, my questions didn't penetrate the theological wall we erected around us "saved" Christians.
The purpose of this blog is as scattered, complex, and multi-facated as my life, but as of this entry I hope one purpose will be to help me to occassionally make sense of the now swirling and ever growing mess of those fundamental things I never learned in youth group. So that not only can I better learn how to ask questions, I can help other youth question that which they have taken for truth.