did jesus have narcissistic personality disorder?

I think many Christians think this about Jesus. I’ve argued in various places that my version of “being a Christian” is not actually about worshiping (idolizing) Jesus. If Jesus, however, was the Ultimate Narcissist, then, of course, he would gladly accept and encourage that.

Here are some of the common symptoms of this disorder:

• Reacting to criticism with anger, shame, or humiliation
• Taking advantage of others to reach own goals
• Exaggerating own importance, achievements, and talents
• Imagining unrealistic fantasies of success, beauty, power, intelligence, or romance
• Requiring constant attention and positive reinforcement from others
• Becoming jealous easily
• Lacking empathy and disregarding the feelings of others
• Being obsessed with self
• Pursuing mainly selfish goals
• Trouble keeping healthy relationships
• Becoming easily hurt and rejected
• Setting goals that are unrealistic
• Wanting “the best” of everything
• Appearing unemotional

I don’t see it. Do you?

One thing I’ve learned when dealing with these kinds of people over long periods of time is that you should avoid them. What if many Christians actually understand Jesus in this way, and rather than avoiding “him,” they are actually trying to emulate that Jesus? Now, that would make a hell of a lot of sense…

proof: people change

This was a random post from 7 years ago:

As this journey proceeds, intentional ignorance has become increasingly abominable to me. The assumption that living life without lenses (or with the wrong ones), trying to moving forward without direction (or in the wrong direction), is “safer” or “better” is heresy. We want help with our relationships, so let’s talk about what’s on television. We struggle with addictions, so let’s all “hang out” and hold hands. The correlation between right thinking and right living seems obvious, but so many of us “Christians” today just want the easy answers, the formula. We don’t want to dig deep and think hard about the seemingly unanswerables. “That’s irrelevant.” “How does that help my life?” We just want to fortify our presuppositions. We can’t seriously question the things that we modernized, evolved mammals already know. The world is laughing, while we’re reading self help nausea and Left Behind propaganda and trying to see how much stuff we can get by rubbing the Big Pinata in the sky.

Isn’t that what the Creator of the universe is all about? Me? Of course, because I am so lovely. I have absolute control over every situation. I am perfect. Yes, look at me. I have all the answers. He should be so proud of me. I know so much that I don’t even have to defend what I know. Just because I know it, it is true. I don’t need to worry about doctrine. Doctrine is on the Christian no-no cuss word list that I made up. Theology? Pshh. Who needs it? Let’s talk about cars. Yeah, cars are cool. Sex, money, clothing — yeah we can talk about that. We can assume that what our culture thinks about those ideas are true. Forget the Bible. I only need that when I want to feel a little better. Of course, I have to ignore most of it, but I can find little happy sayings to tape on my dashboard when I need a little uplifting. My depression isn’t due to my ignorance or my sin. It’s because I don’t love myself enough.

I literally have no idea what I was talking about.

I am starting to shift my “emergent atheist” project posts to a new blog:

http://t.co/8Lr0gn8J

the atheist’s dilemma

I would guess that most people who have grown up and stayed in churches do not know what it’s like for many to leave. Please, if you are a person who has been in the church for your entire life, please take some time to read the stories of people who have left. And read about how cults function. Try to put yourself in the place of someone who simply can’t go along. Someone who has a lot of doubts, questions, problems. Someone who is no longer able to let some things go. Most of us get depressed when we leave. We have no idea how to live. Some of us even kill ourselves. For some people, leaving the church is very similar to coming out as a gay person to a community that thinks homosexuality is a “sin.”

There are some interesting things being done to help people make the transition out of harmful religious environments. I hope more things like this continue to spring up. But, I don’t think it’s enough.

The person who makes the decision to leave only has a few options:

1. Try to go at the post-religious thing alone.
2. Join some kind of specifically humanist/atheist/skeptical community.

One problem with the first option is that taking the plunge is not recommended for anyone to do alone. That said, I assume that most people do have at least a few people in their lives who can be a supportive community for them. Sadly, some don’t. Many religious people live in such an insular world that if they leave, they literally have no one. Many people’s spouses leave them. Close friends shun them. It’s pretty scary.

I’ve written a lot about my hesitation with a blanket endorsement of the second option. Of course, these communities can be very positive. And, for some, they might even permanently be the right thing. But, I think that the reason a lot of de-churched people avoid those groups is because many of them tend to be reactionary and negative regarding not only religious ideas but religious believers – from disagreeing to demonizing. Maybe that is fun for awhile, but I don’t think it’s something that most people can make a long-term commitment to.

So, what I think is a much better third option is for us to find ways to exist within emergent spaces (through the internet, events, churches and other small groups). This, of course, will require emergent leaders to spend more time trying to understand us, and it will require us to have more patience for those with whom we’re probably going to disagree on a lot of things.

The reality is that most atheists are in some sense Christian atheists. In the least, we live in a Christ-haunted culture. But, I would guess that most of us also grew up in the church. One reaction is to chunk the whole thing – as I said above, not only religious ideas but religious people. To think that religion in general is not only ignorant or irrational but evil (which, of course, means that “we” are the good guys). This is unnecessary and, to me, just as unhelpful as the fundamentalists we all want to avoid.

People change. And, in my experience, most Christians don’t actually believe most of the things that they’re “supposed” to, anyway. I think that emergent Christians will continue to find that we atheists-who-don’t-think-religion-is-evil aren’t really that much different. We’ve got a hell of a lot in common. And, while I completely support the radical theology projects of thinkers like Pete Rollins, I just don’t think it’s going to be enough for the average de-churched skeptic.

Will this work? I’m hedging my bets. Will you join me?

counter-cultural?

I’ve written previously about the distinctions between Christianity, orthodox Christianity and evangelicalism. I see Christianity as a huge tent. But, I am also seeing that many groups or churches within Christianity are – or can be – even bigger tents…in welcoming “non-believers” (like myself). Not only welcoming them into their groups, or being in relationships with participants, but as important voices to be listened to and learned from. Even, in some more democratic groups, equally seen as “leaders.”

Why do I think this? There are many reasons, one of which is what I think does – or should - define emergent…

This brings me to a proposal that I want to make, related to some things floating around the web recently in response to the #EC13 conference:

THE only identity-marker of emergent/emergence is love.

In a post on Tony Jones’ blog about the reactionary stance of evangelicals, Rebecca Trotter made this remark:

The real answer is to be truly counter-cultural. But of course, what is that supposed to look like? I suppose that to a certain extent that’s what the emergent movement is about.

To which I responded:

I’ve become more allergic to this “counter-cultural” language. I know it’s not what many people mean by it, but maybe it’s better to say “we want to be defined by love” – and if that is inherently against the cultural norm, then so be it…

Then, Dan Hauge made a statement that seems more in line with where I am going with this:

More prominent emergents have emphasized being in step with dominant cultural thought–be it scientific, philosophical, or even how we use technology and consume. I feel like I’ve heard, particularly on this blog, more of an apprehension that the church will be irrelevant or out of step with the broader culture–and a sense that the ‘future of Christianity’ requires more integration with the culture rather than a distinct counter-cultural identity.

So, should those involved with emergent seek to define themselves as primarily “counter-cultural” or should we rather focus on love – whether or not that goes against the surrounding culture?

I think it’s obvious that to truly love will inherently go against the stream of whatever culture one lives in. But, I am not interested in a primarily reactionary stance.

In response to David Fitch, Bo Sanders makes a similar argument:

I am just not so sure that our main task is to undermine… I don’t want to be the undermining parasite ON the big organism. That is too small a task… I want to participate in the development of cosmic good – until then at least the common good.

To love, of course, is not only to love others: it is to love oneself, to love our enemies…and to love our planet, and the entire universe.

(And, this kind of love does not require assent to propositional beliefs about God, Jesus, etc. – in fact, those beliefs may actually keep us from being able to love.)

more on emergent welcoming skeptics

In an email exchange, my friend (from a long, long time ago) Todd Littleton said this about emergent embracing us “non-believers”:

There is a real sense that what you propose has already been embraced by Emergence Christianity… The sheer presence of Peter Rollins, among others, serves as a signal many are on this road… He is carving out space where interested people may talk openly about “how” we hold beliefs; that really seems to be one of the keys to Pete’s project…

I do think there needs to be space in Emergence Christianity, which as I noted seems to already exist, as well as Evangelical Christianity – even if the right side of that matrix would protest vehemently.

What do you think? Has this been your experience within emergent/Emergence? Do you think that emergent groups and churches foster and welcome those who cannot affirm many – if not all – of the beliefs that are traditionally understood as essential to Christianity?

Or, do you think that this is a noble ideal, yet to be realized?

an ex-preacher bandaid?

I want to thank Jeff Straka for sending me a link to this podcast:

Atheist Preachers

Super interesting and helpful. Highly recommended. I wish more churches could get to a place where stuff like this was required listening. All of us struggle with living in our tiny worlds and completely ignoring (or demonizing) those with whom we disagree, but I think preachers uniquely live in their own world on another level. Beyond that, though, I think all religious people should be exposed to things like this. I would guess that most people have no idea how people are actually treated once they start doubting and questioning, or leave the church altogether. And, sadly, many people who have invested so much of themselves into their group will participate in the madness without even realizing what they’re doing.

So, I am all for this. Those who leave need this kind of thing.

One initial observation is just how en-cultured we really are. I never, personally, really got into a lot of the hyper-charismatic, over the top, in your face, “joyful” kind of thing (though I grew up in charismatic and Pentecostal churches). But, this whole event has the vibe of a Promise Keepers conference. I don’t think that’s a negative thing at all; to me, it’s just interesting. David Bazan has encouraged people like me to accept and even embrace my evangelical cultural heritage (read any of his lyrics and you’ll see what I mean, despite the fact that he’s no longer a “believer”); and similarly, these people can’t get through a single sentence without using some evangelical language or speaking like an evangelical. (If you didn’t grow up in that world, you may have no idea what I’m talking about.)

I haven’t finished the podcast yet, but I do have a couple thoughts that cause me to hesitate:

I went through a long period where I began to borrow a lot of the strategies I had learned from my evangelical heritage and apply them to my n0n-belief. One of the ex-preachers on the podcast said that after he became an atheist, he was on a mission to deconvert every Christian he came in contact with. I don’t know that I ever took it to that extreme, but I definitely felt like I had to be vocal about it. The crowd laughed when he said this, but, honestly, this seems to be an approach toward life that is actually encouraged among many of the ex-religious. I guess a sort of evangelical atheism. Maybe some people need this for a time, but I’m not sure how long of a period this can last before it’s just really unhealthy. At a certain point, your “rational” mission can become entirely irrational.

That brings me to my second hesitation. These people speak of Reason like it is their God. Reason is salvation. Reason should be worshiped. Reason will make you happy and whole. Reason! Reason! Reason! I am not a fan of replacing one deity with another. I think that a more reasonable approach toward life is to learn how to approach everything differently. To not see anything or anyone as salvation, or as the key to satisfaction, or worthy of my selfless devotion.

Again, I support these efforts completely – as a temporary, pragmatic solution to a much bigger problem. I just continue to see that there is a gap between a fundamentalist approach toward religion and a fundamentalist approach toward atheism. One need not transition from one to the other.

How can we fill this gap – not with another idol to destroy us but with an ongoing recognition of our idols and a new approach toward them?