so often I feel like I am part of a cult. Mostly when we stand as a group facing the people on stage, chanting, and saying what I think are some of the stupidist things ever said. Sometimes I feel like it's all wrong and I should just get out of it. I recently decided to go a different way with my education; instead of furthering my theological education I am going to pursue a master and then doctoral english lit program. I'm very excited about the decision--studying lit is my favorite thing in the world. I think some of the decision was influenced by my desire to leave the cult, and especially the body of education that embodies the evangelical mind-frame. This mind-frame is what makes me most sick; I'm familiar it, I used to think that way intensely--this horrible idea that we have all the answers in the midst of complication, that the Bible is black and white, and that we are for some idiotic reason supposed to change the world. What upsets me most is that my thinking in such a way was the result of my trying to find a new identity within the evangelical community (like when we all tried to fit into highschool), my youthful over-confidence, and especially my tendency to create for myself a false-ego. It was said to me that such a confidence and mind-frame is characteristically youthful. So why is the evangelical church as a whole, young and old, characteristically youthful? One of my professors, Brad Harper--historical theologian, said that there has been two-thousand years of christian theology and the evangelical church is the only one to think with our mind-frame. Evangelicals view themselves as the transcendent version of the church, historically and theologically. Two-thousand years of theologians couln't find all the answers, but hell, we sure did. Give me a break. And one of the things I am turned-off most in myself: my tendency to slip into a rant--how's that for characteristically youthful?

My thoughts about the bible, as an almost senior:

A text can have a number of meanings; sometimes the meanings conflict; translated texts can have meanings the original text didn't have, the original text can have meanings not communicated in the translated text. I think the search for authorial intent is kind of a silly search. A text is given meaning by it's reader. A texts meaning can constantly change from person to person, and it can even constantly change for a single reader. Have you ever read "Hamlet: My Greatest Creation"--I think he may be right on. I don't think I can know authorial intention. I'm not even sure I can say the authors succeeded to communicate their intentions in the first place. Language is constantly changing through it's subjects--this is how language works. One can learn greek and hebrew, study all the manuscript copies, compile, go through that skillful "hermenutic" process, and maybe put together a copy similar to what the autograph might have looked like, and still might not discover authorial intention. The fact is that our english bibles are very different from the greek and hebrew and the meanings of the english bibles are different from the original languages, and are even different from one translation to the other. This is one reason I don't believe in black and white theology. If we have been given the english text, then we should read the english text. If we give texts their meanings, then there is interprative space. We don't all have to have the same theology if the bible allows such interprative space. If God chose language as his medium, then I think all of our relationships with him are very subjective. I actually think this is a good thing. I also think morality is in many shades subjective. I think this is also a good thing.

Here's something funny: I don't think the bible says anything against pornography-in fact, I don't think much of what the bible says about sexual morality is very clear; no doubt one can argue for certain views, but those views can also be argued in other directions. One of the things that has stricken my most in my experiences at this college is that none of the professors agree about what the bible says. Doesn't that tell you enough? I think there is interprative space and juxtaposed options. I think that for some Christians the use of pornography might be a sin and for others it might not be. I love pornography but I don't know if my love for it is sinful. I think my insecurity influences my conscience--this makes it sinful. But if I were to have confidence, would it be sinful then? I really don't know, but it is a thought worth considering.

"Trust thyself, every heart vibrates to that iron-string"--if this makes me a heretic then I am okay with being a heretic. I think some heresy is admirable, as "the artist is one who dares and defies"--(The Awakening, aah yeeeaaah it was good).

If who I am has a great deal to do with my complicated relationship to the rest of the world, not to mention my relationship to a vastly complicated Creator of that world, how in the world could my relationship to God (my conceptual relationship) be the same as your relationship to God? I don't think it can be.

I believe in convictions, but I don't really believe in answers. We are changing beings. If we fail to be inconsistent then we also fail to grow. Walt Whitman also said "I contain multitudes"--he said it well.

At this point I am a Christian who believes in many bhuddist concepts, holds a theory of pantheism, and believes in both subjective text-meaning and subjective morality.

disjointed writing is sometimes fun--like at four o clock in the morning at a fancy beach inn, celebrating my one year wedding anniversary. Man o man I love Sarah. She is so beautiful.