So a post-evangelical walks into a Christian bookstore...

We left our Bibles at church one day, each thinking the other had grabbed them.  Our hands were full of the regular things (coats, a diaper bag, and a toddler clutching his coloring sheet) so we didn't realize we'd forgotten them at first.  Later, when we tried to retrieve them, they were nowhere to be found (this is one of the downfalls of church meeting in a middle school).

That bible had been special to me, a gift given by a sweet friend in college.  I didn't want to replace it because I wasn't ready to admit that it was actually gone.  But after a month or so, I gave in and told my husband with a sigh that I was ready to buy a new one.

"We'll need to find a Christian book store."  I was not enthusiastic.

"Look on Amazon." He suggested.

Caleb knows that I prefer to shop online for most things, so I know he was trying to be kind.  But you simply can't buy a Bible online.  At least, I can't.  I have to hold it in my hands and feel its weight.  I need to be sure there is enough room to underline and write in the margin.  I want to turn the tissue-papery pages and feel the leather cover.  (Of course, it is a luxury to be this choosy about a new Bible, but since I was paying money for one, I wanted it to be the right one)

As much as I dreaded it, I had to go to a Christian bookstore.

There was a time when I loved Christian bookstores.  It used to be my place.  After all, I love books and I love Jesus.  Surely this was the perfect combination.  But my faith has changed over the past few years.  I have fought with (and against) Christianity.  I have struggled to find a place in the Church and struggled even more at finding my voice within the Church.

Part of me wanted Christian bookstores to still be my place.  To go back to a time when Christianity was easy and comfortable.  When I didn't have so many questions.  Or (more accurately) when I just didn't ask those many questions.

But I went anyway, begrudgingly, but knowing that it would probably be good for me.

As I pushed open the doors I remembered what I disliked about these stores: it was Christianity commercialized.  Kitschy plates and figurines.  Bible verses snatched from their contexts to be embroidered on bags and t-shirts.  "Christian romance" books.  Little bits of Jesus packaged up into bland communion wafers.  Books and movies were tidily arranged, but I couldn't help but think of the Christian publishing world and how it isn't always so Christ-like.

I located the Bible section, and soon was opening up the boxes to find the right one.  A few aisles up, I noticed that they had a section for Catholic Bibles, unusual for these types of bookstores.  I nodded with silent approval.

Tired of my search for the right Bible, my toddler son raced down the aisles, his internal GPS lead him straight to the very thing I had tried so hard to avoid: the singing vegetables.

"Come on, kiddo!  Mama needs your help to pick one!" I said, scooping him into my arms.

As I carried him back, I kept an eye on the shelves we passed.  This bookstore surprised me.  All the kitsch was there (of course).  But so too were Bibles containing the Apocrypha.  And cards for the saints.  And toys that weren't outwardly religious.  The line between sacred and secular was just a little thinner here.  The lines separating denominations were less noticeable as well.  I liked that.

I said before that I struggled to find a place in the Church.  But that statement wasn't completely correct.  I am struggling to find a place in the Church.  Present tense.

I know when I'm not welcome somewhere and it feels easier to slink out the backdoor, unnoticed, than try to fit in.  I don't want to make a scene, so when I disagree with someone at Church, my natural tendency is to brood silently and then leave to find a place where I am accepted.  I haven't actually done that yet, but I have thought about it more than once.

That bookstore brought me a bit of hope, in a strange way.  Walking in, I was sure that the store was going to fit a narrow demographic of Christians.  A demographic that didn't include me.

Deep down, I think I'm waiting for someone to tell me that I'm not a Christian if I hold to certain beliefs.  Or at least not the right kind of Christian.  That seems like a silly, irrational fear, but, truthfully, many Churches and Christians would classify me that way.

The bookstore gave me hope because it was a small sign that evangelicalism might be changing.  That there might be room for ecumenism.  That there might be room for me.
 

parenting as a post-evangelical

My son is young.  18 months, in fact.  He's just moved out of the nursery and into the toddler class at church.  Each week when we pick him up, we now receive a coloring sheet that coordinates with the lesson from that morning.  Never mind that our son actually doesn't color much, his sheet always come back with a few scribbles.  (I have a suspicion that a kind teacher is the one responsible for those scribbles!  And to that I say, God bless our ever-patient teachers who works with a room full of busy toddlers!)

Perhaps it's silly, but those coloring sheets represent one of my struggles with parenting: what do I teach my son about God?

I was raised in a world of Awana, Adventures in Odyssey, Veggie Tales, sword drills, and elaborate VBS programs.  I learned isolated verses and isolated stories.  I was told that this (very confusing) book was actually God's love letter to me.  I sang about being "a C, a C-H, a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N" and about "O-B-E-D-I-E-N-C-E" being the very best way to show that I believed.  (side note: speaking for all poor spellers, why did churches require so much spelling in their songs??)

I didn't just learn these things: I taught them too.  I spent two years in a Christian ministry teaching little ones about things like instant obedience and the umbrella of protection.  And, at that time, I really believed that I was teaching them truth.

Before I go further, perhaps I should clarify: this isn't a criticism of my parents, Sunday school teachers, or VBS leaders**.  I know that they all had the best of intentions.  But as my faith has evolved, I have realized that I am no longer comfortable receiving the pat answers and equally uncomfortable giving them.

Here's the problem, those pat answers, those cliches and platitudes, they are the script I know.  I am fluent in Christian-ese, but even more so in childhood Christian-ese.  I know the songs (complete with hand motions), I know the verses about obedience, I know the overly simplistic applications from stories like Jonah and the not-whale.  These are comfortable and familiar for me.

It's one thing to change my own views and wrestle with my faith.  It's quite another to figure out what to teach my son.

Right now, the best way I know how to teach my son about God is to live out my faith honestly in front of him.

I want my son to love God.  And I want him to have a big, big picture of God and of what He is doing in the world.  I want to teach him about hermeneutics, that there is more than one way to interpret a verse and that that's okay.  I want him to know that we can disagree with denominations and yet still be united in Christ.  I want him to see that my husband and I have a growing, questioning faith, and that we disagree about some theology, but that it doesn't make the other one "less than".

I don't want to shy away from hard questions or give trite answers to things that I totally don't understand (which seems to be a lot of things).  I want to tell him that I don't understand many parts of the Bible and that it doesn't mean I am having a crisis of faith.  And I don't want to shut down discussions by concluding that "God's ways are higher than our ways" so we just shouldn't worry about it.

Lately, faith for me has been getting down in the figurative mud and wrestling.  It hasn't been pretty or clean or dignified.  But it has been honest and sincere.  I want so badly for my son to see this in my life.

I know this isn't comfortable to read.  I know that some people will read this and think I am a horrible, God-forsaking parent.  But I timidly would like to speak up for myself and say that I am not.  I'm studying and seeking and trying to do the very best to teach my son a full picture of God.  I'm just not sure I can tell him pat answers to things I don't even understand and teach him verses hijacked from their context.

This parenting thing is HARD.

This Christianity thing is HARD.

Put those two really-hard-things together?

Whew!  I think, in the most sincere sense, I could use some prayers.




**It IS a criticism of youth groups because to this day I get the heebie-jeebies thinking about church youth groups.  To anyone stuck in a youth group now, I have one message: IT GETS BETTER.