A Grown-Up Who Thinks She Is Better Than Everyone Else.

Prior to acquiring the label “grown-up” by a bold and irritating child, I had a desire to be everything “Christian.” I wanted to wear the right clothes, talk the talk, and believe whatever it was that man behind the pulpit was saying. A few cocktails of maturation and uncertainty later, I find myself today wanting to be anything “unChristian.” The cheesy tees annoy me, the language no longer holds meaning, and the man behind the pulpit is just a man telling me how important it is to go to church. While I am committed to believing in God,  I am hesitant to accept the brand name “Christian.” I don’t like its culture, I don’t like its superiority complex, and I especially don’t like its ability to hide a plurality of beliefs under an appearance of singularity. I’ll expand on this latter dislike. Every Christian interprets the Bible and dogma and praxis and any other element of religion in his or her own way. These interpretations are inevitable, as everyone brings their own biases and presuppositions to the proverbial Table. Our biases shape how we want to view God and how we want others to view God. Resultantly, we have a plethora of interpretations, differences, and division. Christianity, however, likes to  say all Christians believe in one Truth. Because of our Christ-o-centric society, Christians will probably call that Truth “Jesus” (He loves you, by the way). However, that one Truth is interpreted differently, as well! I say that I believe in God, but how I view God is probably very inconsistent with how the president of my Christian university views God. In turn, his view of God differs from that of his neighbor (the creepy man, not the good Samaritan). We Christians (I use the first person plural with reluctance) like to say we all believe in at least some elemental bullet points, but I am beginning to think no elemental bullet point exists. Sorry, pastor, priest, and pope. Christianity is a multiplicity of religions, contingent upon a buffet of subjectivity. Instead of being upset about this, maybe we should acknowledge this, engage in some dialogue, and form communities of similar beliefs. Then we can build separate meetinghouses for each community, compete for the attendance of those in other meetinghouses, call the beliefs of other communities “extreme,” “conservative,” “liberal,” or “completely wrong,” and all the while fill in the bubble that says “Christian.”

I guess if I’m going to possess this a priori commitment that reads so eloquently, “I believe in God,” I also have to fill in that bubble that reads so ambiguously, “Christian.” I wish there were a bubble entitled, “Christian but hates Christianity.”