getting started...

I read the most interesting religious op-ed I've seen in a while the other day in the LA Times....read it here...
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-stein17oct17,0,7811463.column?coll=la-opinion-columnists
(if the link doesn't work, the article is by Joel Stein and it's called An Athiest Tries Jesus)

I like this article, because this guy, Joel Stein, is authentically experiencing church. The way that most TV shows and politicians talk about Jesus shows that they don't know very much about what a Christian's day to day life or beliefs are like. There's this assumption that I watch the 700 club, and freak out about terrorists and islam, and think...well, I just don't think that much.

Excuse my tirade. I hate to write like a victim, because I'm not one. I think I'm more of an intellectual snob, and stupidity, especially on the part of "smart" liberal people, rustles my briches.

Anyway, I liked the article, because this guy was obviously not interested in God at all, and he was very honest about it. He didn't try to hide what he really felt behind a lie or an intellectual idea or a political cause. He felt weird about going to church, and he didn't really want to go.

And somehow, I don't blame him. Church is really weird if you've never been there before. Lately, I've been hanging out with Japanese people, and Japanese people NEVER go to church--they just don't even have churches, or Christians, in Japan. I've become really good friends with this guy named Hideki. Hideki is super cool in Japan. He's a ladies man. He dresses cooler than anyone I know. He went to the academic equivalent of Harvard in Japan. He's got it going on.

So, I brought Hideki to church once and he was completely confused by everything. Afterward, he had dozens of questions, and sometimes, I couldn't explain why we had certain rituals and why we play certain types of "corny" music. It was very refreshing for me to get down to the core of what church is about by explaining it to someone who doesn't have any context for church.

Then what is church really about? I think Stein's last paragraph gets to the core of what church and what life are about:
"And, as I drove away (from the church service), I wished I could just make the Kierkegaardian leap of faith to belief in God and be part of it. And I realized that, postmodernist or not, my pride was just as bad as Joyce's. But at least you can understand some of my sentences."

Aside from the jab at James Joyce (which may or may not be true...I'm too intimidated by his long, weird sentences to even open the book), he makes a great point. The idea of church is cool and I wish I could be more a part of it too. We come together with other people to try to get to know this guy, who is like a father, who is so much smarter and stronger and more influential than we are. This guy could change how this world works...he could end the nucular arms race with a word. He could convince dads to stay with their wives and their kids instead of running away in fear. He could make me feel better about getting out of bed in the morning to go to work. He could teach me how to be a better friend to my roommates and to my sister. And the coolest part is that this guy wants to be known.

In church, people get together to try to know this guy, but it's hard. Like Stein said, we have to set something aside and make a kierkegaardian leap of faith. I think I'm learning to leap. And Stein is right, we have to lay aside our pride to take the leap. That's scary, because without our pride, it feels like we're leaping off a cliff.