Praying Atheist

Bloodhound

My life is a tightly engineered narrative.

The cursor blinked against those words as I prepared to erase them. My pinky grasped for Backspace then suddenly froze at attention. A command to STOP had howled from my mind.

"Do you see how true?"

"How true what?"

"How true the words are. An engineered narrative."

Yes, I see how true they are. They stink with truth. The words spike through my flesh and drag me by the bone from a cave that's jagged with self-deciet, fanfare, and corroded ambition. I lay naked, dropped from these savage jaws that somehow sneaked from my fingertips. I'm too ashamed and far too weak to confront Honesty's bloodhound.

The Praying Atheist: What does it mean?

As I rapidly approach my mid-twenties, I've learned to measure everything against my own experience.

The God Concept has been a central part of my life all through childhood and well into young adulthood. I've worked in church leadership, attacked clergy, tried to reason away faith, and examined whatever benefits there might be to "atheism." As I continue to refine my path with facts and examine anything through the lense of my own experience, it's no wonder I've come to call myself The Praying Atheist.

Actually, I didn't come to call myself that. I wouldn't call myself anything outside of student. The Praying Atheist is a term which sprang up out of a random conversation with a friend.

But the more I contemplate the term, the more I feel it applies to me. I'm not athiest. I wouldn't want to associate myself with the arrogance often synonymous with the term. (I'm arrogant enough without wrapping a title around it.) In fact, I feel the same sentiment in calling myself atheist as I did in calling myself Christian. I don't want to associate with either party.

I've grown a lot this year. And one of the things I've grown to understand is that I must experience something before deciding for or against it.

In that sense, I don't think I'll ever come to a point of denying God. I'll wholeheartedly deny certain perspectives of whatever The God Concept may be, but I have yet to experience even a small fraction of life to make a decision for or against any "source" for it.

I was raised in the Christian tradition. My journey out of the Christian tradition came through sincere contemplation and practice. It was a personal journey, not a rejection of denomination. To that end, I do not believe I own any right to press my views on others. I've walked out into a wilderness. I know about as much as the sojourner before or after me: only what I experience.

I've titled this blog The Praying Atheist because it's funny and feels right to me. And this'll be the platform I write on from here on out. Until I change again, that is.

Dad Died

The snore ripping from my father's nose was like a bear wrestling to choke up a fish bone. I lay beside him, toddler eyes wandering and mind aglow with curiosity. This is my earliest memory with him.

Neighbors discovered his body on August 4th and suspected he had passed the day or night prior.

Long before my Stepmother shared the misfortune, I knew. I knew the day he received me from the airport. I knew far back in February when I was pierced with an urgency to make amends. I knew quietly.

We spoke in February about my return east, how I'd stay with him and we would work to erase our estrangement. The tone of his voice bubbled with excitement. A smile stretched across my body, reflecting a hope I gripped ferociously. We hadn't been close since our first World War in sophomore year of High School. For whatever reason, the plan faded into the background.

March.

April.

May.

June. I was homeless in Los Angeles. One night, watching the stars and drifting off, the urgency whispered, "go home." The next day, I contacted my Stepmother, catalyzing a return east.

Leaving the airport, my father and I discussed a new plan. I would move in with him, go to college locally, and follow his lead in earning a government career. A week or so passed and I expressed a desire for a different career. We clashed - naturally. He stopped talking.

Normally, I'd follow suit and we would pick up again in a month (maybe three) down the road. But this time was different. My focus wasn't on school or career. It was to get closer to him. By the time I realized the mission to reconcile was jeopardized, it was too late.

Anthony Wayne Rucker. Tony. Dad.

The hope I clutched in my hand was this: I would know my father and he would come to know me. Can I say I was shocked to learn of his passing? No. But a hope vanished. And in that, I cried. I mourn not knowing him.

I remember him saying to me one day, "There's a lot of me in you. YOU may not know it, but I've passed on a lot to you." I denied it, but he's right. From silliness to seriousness, from master planner to mistaken housekeeper, from assumed authority to austere empathy, from linguistic sharpshooter to lagged affection, I'm him.

My peace is on that foundation.

When I hear the roar of an engine (he loved cars), or browse the market (he loved food), or find myself tranced by the sunset (another favorite), I'll stand firm. I knew him well. Very well. What I don't know is if I snore as bad. God, I hope not.

Officially My Shortest Blog Post

I spent ten months in Los Angeles discovering who I'm not.

The Bastard Church

Revival is necessary in the church.

Not because homosexuality is a growing subculture or that atheism poses a huge threat.

The problem is that the church has moved away from a very concrete truth: there is no separation from God's love. Moving away from this has allowed the church to embrace separatist faith, dreamchaser dogma, and waddle in the despair of self-sufficiency.

There is no loneliness in the intimacy of God.

The despair of self-sufficiency is the loneliness we feel in trying to accomplish our own will. We consult God only when we're lost and are surpised to discover his answers are cryptic and only received through interpretation. We'll finally yield to, "well maybe God means..." If we talk to God plainly, why can't he talk to us plainly? We're told in Genesis that the voice of the Lord walked with Adam in the cool of the day. There were no maybes. There was conversation. Simple conversation with God comes from relate-sonship. In other words, I relate to God as a young child would relate to their father. Instead of distant requests and thank-yous, prayer becomes a mutually intimate conversation.

All that we are is a derivative of something greater.

The dreamchaser dogma is a product of pop culture. Western church has slipped into a life coach movement where pastors and teachers act as personal guides to fulfill "God's best in your life." God is used as a tool for our individual ambitions, helping to remove whatever stands in our way like a machete in the jungle. Jesus Christ was not bruised, bloodied, broken and barbarically executed so you could fulfill your personal best. Early believers did not fall victim to martyrdom by spreading a message of "be the best you." God doesn't want the best for your life. God wants the best for himself. You are, at best, a derivative of God - a child of the Holy Father; branch of the eternal abyss; a single thread in the tapestry of All Being.

Church revival is impossible without personal revival.

Separatist faith has little to do with actual faith and everything to do with forcing dogma. It creates satisfaction in pointing to the faults of others while blindly tripping over your own. Separatist faith is bigoted humanism, hiding under the mask of religion, fostered in the contemplation of self-righteousness. It is the most refined form of hypocricy. It gave power to the enemies of Christ in boasting how wrong he was for eating and drinking with religious rejects. On what grounds can we really suppose ourselves better than others? On our salvation? It's a gift. On our works? They're incomplete. On our knowledge of God? We stand inevitably ignorant to the inexhaustible capacity of his majesty. We have no ground to condemn. We do, however, have ground to love and be transparent enough so the personal reality of God draws others to his intimacy.

We'll continue to be the reason people refuse Christ until we confront the demons running rampant in our own lives. Personal revival is concerned with a return to the center: God's love. If we truly desire to be like Christ, let us deny our selves, reveal our brokenness, and follow Jesus in demonstrating God's love.

"If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." - 2 Chronicles 7:14

Threat of Christian Conservatism

The Christian message needs to be reshaped to fit today's reality. That's especially true if we anticipate revival in the western world.

The Christian message is first a Christ message which is centered in reconciling the separation between man and God. Reconciliation with God is the axis for us to bridge the split within ourselves and our separation from others.

Jesus taught this message and gave power to his teaching by demonstrating it. The climax of Jesus' ministry wasn't the cross. It was his acceptance of people who were otherwise rejected by God on the ground of fundamentalism. God himself wasn't doing the rejecting. Those who claimed to know him were rejecting others in his name.

What fueled their power to reject was the Law of God.

The entire fundamentalist attitude is built on a relationship with law, or definition. Conservatism is the function of protecting definition on absolute terms. It deals in the realm of certitude: black or white, good or bad, right or wrong, yes or no.

Conservatism breeds prejudice.

Without prejudice, conservatism fails to protect the power of definition and the fundamentalist attitude shrinks itself and God into despairity.

Jesus steps up against the walls of conservatism and introduces meaning instead of rewritten definitions. He stands over the structure of fundamentalism and fills it with content. He knew the law, but moved beyond mere observation and lived meaning which law pointed to. His lifestyle was one where the law was overshadowed by love.

Jesus erases the despairity of the law by demonstrating the love and acceptance of God.

Today's reality presents a critical challenge for the Christian message. Humanism is the forerunner of globalization. Homosexuality, Atheism, and Anarchism are becoming widely accepted subcultures. Threats to civil liberty immediately draw the attention of an international audience which seeks unified, progressive, and often violent ends to inequality.

The facets of our modern reality are much different than those surrounding Jesus, his disciples, the early church, or even our own Christianity a decade ago.

The only way to reshape and give power to the Christian message is through a demonstrated love and acceptance of God. Without love, Christianity is an incomplete fundamentalist construct, protected by conservatism, and necessarily rejected as a threat to today's reality.

Kill The Christian

The authenticity of the Christian message is under attack. And I think it's a necessary attack. The onslaught of intellectual battery stems from a very concrete truth: the Christian community as a whole fails to demonstrate its message.

American Sundays are packed with megachurches whose pews are stuffed to the brim with gluttony and parking lots cramped with material abundance. Hymns, praises, and rhetoric drip from the lips of the self-engaged, self-elevating, and spiritually slothful whose motives are backed by criminal interest. American Sundays are also home to small sects of morally handicapped, sprinkled like a few chocolate chips in the thick batter of hidden pride. Tears creep from their eyes and hesitantly crawl down cheeks until they're quickly wiped away so as to hide the week's guilt.

Grace is more prominent now than it has ever been. And it's not standing in anticipation of the classic image of a sinner: the liar, adulterer, fornicator, drunkard, and so on. No. Grace is standing at the brink of despairity with her arms wide open, ready to receive a lost congregation. She eagerly awaits and searches for those who have become cold in their ritual or too complacent in their self-adjusted, single serving deliverance. Her knees shiver and buckle in the biting winter of our spiritual maturity.

The Christian community has lost faith, hope, and love. What was intended to be a light in the world and salt to the earth is a dying flame and faint seasoning, bitter in aftertaste and quick to snuff away.

What happened to the drive which pointed to martyrdom? And maybe not martyrdom of life, but of knowledge, prestige, success, career, dogma, structure, ritual, and principle? What happened to the image of a person so feverant in their conviction that they'll withstand being humiliated and stoned? What happened to the life which is beaten, turned upside down, and nail-pressed against the backdrop of ineptitude?

What happened to the disciples who are vehemently concerned about how well they're demonstrating faith, hope, and love?

It's appropriate for the Christian message to be under attack. It's appropriate to point out weaknesses in doctrine, the futility of ritual, and the ignorance of separtist faith. It's necessary to shove the Christian message into the hungry depths of myth. It's gracefully demanded to kill the Christian.

Because the reality is that the Christian has already died.

The Lost Story of Easter

Is the Gospel really about Jesus dying, coming back to life, and going to heaven? If that were the case, the bulk of his sermons would have been about his death. But they weren't.

The message Jesus shared dealt with a present reality. It looked at the brokenness of our personal situation and asked, "will you be made whole?" He carried and demonstrated that message all the way up to the cross.

Jesus became the external image of every internal war.

The bruised, battered, torn, broken, stripped, and bloodied soul hangs miserably on a cross. The Christian message points to the cross and says, "you can hang your misery there." It points to Jesus' grave and says, "you can bury your guilt there." It points to his ascension to heaven and says, "you can rise to a new life there."

But heaven isn't in the clouds, on some distant planet, or a fixture in an alternate dimension. Heaven is right here in our present reality. It's wholeness.

God's love hammers at the hardened wall of separation until it starts falling away. It tosses a rope around guilt and begins dragging it into the forgotten. It says that in spite of your condition, you can be made whole. Your only obligation is to choose wholeness.

That's the Gospel, the good news... the story Easter points to.

How The Human Spirit Fails

Humanism concerns itself with something called the human spirit. Human spirit, as a standalone spirit, does not exist. Humans have spirit simply because they participate with life. Life is spirit. To breathe is to have spirit.

Spirituality is about recognizing and nurturing your relationship with spirit. It's communion with trees, birds, beetles, cats, and other people, all on the common ground of spirit. You participate simply by being alive. There's no choice in the matter - as long as you're alive.

What distinguishes humanity from other participants is that we are emotional beings. Our awareness, anticipation, and activity are all fueled by our emotions. Every conflict is, at the core, an emotional conflict. Every human progress is, at the core, an emotional progress.

Everything we do and all that we are is tied up with our emotions.

Jesus didn't reveal a personal God. Instead, he revealed and demonstrated an emotional being who was fully aware of his spiritual participation, without any separation between the two. We receive a personal God because we are emotional.

Emotionality demands meaning.

And all meaning that has ever been observed and practiced in humanity is a result of the emotional demand to name something. It is 'instinctual' for us to name a thing and give it meaning.

God becomes father, becomes provider, becomes savior, becomes lord, becomes counselor, and ultimately becomes the personal God, because that is the basis by which we interact with the divine.

It is impossible for humanity, as emotional beings, to interact with God purely as God. Doing so would necessarily strip us of our emotionality and erase what it means to be human. Instead, our potential is in there being no split between spirituality and emotionality. In other words, we can remain emotional beings while being fully aware of spiritual participation, without any separation between the two.

But there's a problem.

We often attach ourselves to whatever meaning we've derived from a thing. When that value is lost, abused, non-existent, or otherwise perverted, our emotionality becomes intangled within itself. It becomes self-focused and naturally destructive. We fall from an awareness of unity with the divine. We then perpetuate the fallen state. We teach it to our children, enforce it in our workplaces, and protect it to our deaths.

But there's a solution.

The Christian message points to a personal God who is father. The father loves unconditionally and without end in spite of the naturally destructive emotionality of who we are. Love is the framework for rebuilding the awareness. Grace is the contents of such a framework. Faith is trusting in the possibility of reunion. Hope is the confidence to regain awareness, whereby we devote our entire self toward reunification.

It's because of God's love for us that we're able to participate in him (grace), fully aware (hope) and without separation (faith).

The problem is solved by grace, through faith, with hope, because of love. The doctrine of human spirit dissolves in the face this answer.

Reality of God

What does God mean for you?

I grew up in the church under the idea that God is father, king, and righteous judge who is jealous when we don't serve him. You're pressured into feeling guilty everytime you do something wrong, and scramble to offer up some kind of prayer for forgiveness. I was taught that his only son was a man who lived over 2,000 years ago and was sacrificed so God wouldn't kill us instead.

But I'm curious and it was only a matter of time before my curiosity reached the idea of God.

For a while, I was comfortable with the idea of God as father, dismissing titles of king or righteous judge. There was a time where I taught about God as father. He was accepting, loving, giving, understanding, and sought the best for us. But more recently, I even questioned that idea of God.

God, if he is indeed God, can't be restricted to Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or any other monotheism. Some truth of him has to be seen in other parts of the world and in other ideas.

The reality of God is beyond religion, titles, and position. It's not entirely accurate to restrict God to "he," "she," or, "it". Just God.

I'm confident there is God.

I think it's appropriate to call God father to support how we relate to God. But it's just a title - a roadsign among other roadsigns. There's no doubt these signs have been abused. They are worshiped apart from what they stand for. They point to something beyond them.

A sign on the highway points to a destination, but isn't the destination itself.

God is not a separate entity sitting in the clouds. God isn't a wise sage or guide for your journey. God is not a tyrant, overlord, or righteous judge waiting to punish you for your misdeeds. God is everywhere and participates in everything. God is the uttermost; the inexhaustable nothingness; the undefinable meaning; the power beyond...and even these titles are mere roadsigns.

When we lift our eyes to a universal perspective, we have to ask, "Where does God fit?" Let's suppose for a moment that we aren't the only ones in the universe. There are other beings with their own worlds, economies, wars, religious traditions, creeds, and so on. What would God mean for them?

We can probably dismiss little green men. But we can't dismiss the concrete truth that we belong to a large and expanding universe.

Where does God fit in a universal reality?