i’d rather you were an atheist than a ‘christian’

so, once we get past the mindless comments of people responding to the blog title and not actually reading it, what am i on about?

if you haven’t read my other blog about the christians choosing to become atheist (https://brettfish.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/a-theist-walks-into-an-atheist-bigbang-its-a-steel-atheist) i would suggest you begin there, cos this is a (s)equal of sorts…

so in the context of finding out that one of my church peoples had turned atheist over the varsity holidays, i have been giving this a lot of thort and i came up with this:

both of my friends who became atheist were christian and so they know the deal – they understand what the Christian-perceived Bible-teaching consequences of not being a Christ-follower are. they both know that if they have got this one wrong – and continue to stay in it – that they are in a LOT of trouble.

so, knowing the consequences of not being a Christ-follower, they are actively choosing against that and embracing another belief, and everything that goes with it

therefore, there are no surprises for them – they get that if they’ve got it wrong, it’s death. damnation to be more precise.

so it is an active step made, considering the facts or understanding or belief or perception or whatever, away from that

there are many ‘christians’ on the other hand (and i use a small ‘c’ as i always do to depict people calling themselves ‘christian’ but not necessarily following Christ at all) who think they are ‘in’ and ‘making it’ and ‘on their way to heaven’ and ‘damnation-free’ and so on, but who are one day going to stand before God and be completely surprised when He says, “Depart from Me, I never knew you!” [Matthew 7, towards the end, bible downstairs, me upstairs]

they are doing the stuff, going through the rituals, hanging out at church, maybe listening to the music and watching the (awful) movies, walking what they suppose is the walk, but completely missing the point

and as i have been thinking about this whole situation, i think that i would rather have you actively choose to walk away from Christianity and become an atheist (or something else) than be lulled into a false sense of security, thinking you are a Christ-follower when you clearly (at least to God who sees all) are not

“I never knew you” speaks of relationship, not religious hoops – it’s not about you didn’t do enuff stuff or you didn’t get enough people saved or you didn’t attend enough religious meetings or you didn’t try harder – it’s that you missed the primary number 1 key aspect of being a follower of Jesus which is loving God with all your heart and soul and mind (closely followed by ‘and loving your neighbour as yourself’ – matthew 22)

i would, obviously, rather have you follow Jesus with me. after all He claimed to be “the Way and the Truth and the Life” and said that “No-one comes to the Father except through Me” [john 14.6] and that is what i believe and am chasing (and being challenged a lot lately that i need to be more focused on the remaining in Him and building relationship with Him than all the other stuff i get caught up in, so that all the other stuff can flow out of being in a strong place with Him) and would love for you to be a part of

but if you’re not. if you choose to walk away. and pursue something else (because please don’t walk away from Christ-following and just sit around apathetically and believe nothing!) then i would much rather have you do that, than call yourself a ‘christian’ while completely not believing in any of it, or living any of it, but just miserably continuing to live out some kind of sick meaningless pointless waste-of-time facade.

what’s it gonna be?

a theist walks into an atheist… (big)bang – it’s a steel atheist

‘a theist believes in at least one god, but denies the existence of many gods’ [the skeptic’s dictionary]

whereas an atheist denies the existence of god completely

and ‘at heist’ is just a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but that’s not important now…

a theist and an atheist – so vastly different and yet the difference between them is nothing… or ‘a space’ to be more precise…

[disclaimer: oh and by the way, this is one of those blogs that is more for me than for you – i am writing to think my thorts out loud, to process them, to do it publically in case anyone else is thinking/wrestling/engaging about the same kind of stuff, but i am not looking for answers, so please keep those to yourself – i am not asking you to solve anything – i am merely trying to process what is going on in my head, and maybe cause you to think a little]

i have worked as a pastory type guy at the stellenbosch vineyard church for almost 6 years now – in that time i have seen two christian guys become atheists – it’s kinda weird that to go from a theist to an atheist you have to lose the gap as opposed to creating one – it feels like it should be the other way around…

so if you were to be an outside evaluator of my work you would see that i started out with two christians and finished up with two atheists – i don’t think i’d score that well in pastoring school… and i know that i didn’t change them (i hope i didn’t change them) but it happened under my watch so to speak [which is ridiculous cos i don’t have a watch, except on my cellphone but to say it happened under my cellphone gets very confusing because it’s not that big a phone] and i didn’t have the answers or the proof or the experience to stop it from happening and so a part of me feels like it may as well have been my doing

[there are others who have been a part of our community in these last years who have moved away from God or christianity or both and that disturbs me as well, but to become an atheist is a step towards something, rather than just a step away from something, which is a lot easier to do]

so it does bother me in an i-failed kind of way to some kind of extent – i have something, my faith, my relationship with God, the purpose that gives me life – that is most-of-the-time so incredibly absolutely whole-heartedly real to me and even tho i don’t always understand it or have a complete explanational grasp of it, it is the very core of my being – and i have been unable to communicate or demonstrate or pass that on to these two guys in an adequate enuff way that had them going ‘this-is-real-this-is-for-me’ and that has to bug me, to frustrate me, to dishearten me. it has to. because i obviously believe that what i believe is truth and within that also lies the believed consequence for someone who doesn’t believe that (both when they die but even hugely now) and that should cause me great concern, and does…

but it’s not going to cripple me. it’s not going to knock me off my horse (and not just cos unlike mr terblanche i don’t actually have a horse, i have a rocking horse, but it’s a metaphorical one, and purely for aesthetics). i think i’ll be okay.

really? and why is that you may ask? [or i may go ahead and ask for you] – Because Jesus was okay with it!

there is a passage in luke i think it is (maybe john) where Jesus preaches a bit of a tough message and a whole bunch of His followers find it too strong a message and so they leave… and He lets them. and then turns to His disciples and asks them, “What about you? Are you also going to leave?” to which Peter replies, “Where shall we go? Only You have the words of Truth.” [And for me, that is a lot of the bottom line – i have struggles with some aspects of christianity, i don’t understand a lot of the Bible and how God works or doesn’t seem to work sometimes, but i have identified Jesus as having the words of Truth, it is in my gut and i cannot shake it and have not come close to hearing any other kind of more believable truth anywhere else]

then there is the story of the rich young ruler and one of the most powerful phrases in the Bible to me because when you read the story of Jesus you get the idea that in His interaction with the man, He knows from the beginning that it’s not going to be successful in terms of gaining another follower – and yet there is this phrase – ‘Jesus looked at him and loved him.’ And the rich young ruler walks away from Jesus disappointed and empty-handed, because the cost of following Jesus (all your stuff, I want you, and everything else you have made more important than Me in your life) is too much for him. And Jesus lets him go.

i don’t doubt for a second that the moment any one of those original followers or the rich young ruler had a change of heart and recognised Who Jesus really was and returned to Him and asked once again to be allowed to follow, that He would have instantly and with much joy received them back.

but He wasn’t going to chase them down to have them ‘follow’ Him for the sake of having extra followers… He wanted those who followed Him to be genuine. to believe (and even in the way of the father of the demon-possessed kid who, when Jesus challenged him, responded with, ‘I do believe – help me overcome my unbelief!” – that’s often my cry in certain areas of my faith at least). not to not have doubts, but to overcome their doubts (which is faith! – it doesn’t mean you don’t doubt, it just means the doubt doesn’t knock you down and leave you there)

and so i haven’t given up on these guys. i hope we will remain friends. i will pray for them. i will chat to them anytime they want to chat, and listen to them on their journey and hope that they will listen to me on mine. i won’t try and convert them (or unconvert them? reconvert?) but i hope we’ll still get to hang and play Settlers and whatever else comes along.

i do hope they will continue to challenge their beliefs now that they have walked away from one set. and not just settle for another because it is convenient. continue to wrestle guys, continue to question, hopefully continue to seek because God does say if you seek Me you will find Me and seeking meaning in the world always leads you to God at some stage. always. because He is the way and the Truth and the Life – it doesn’t take you believing it to make it true.

an atheist denies the existence of god completely

a theist believes in at least one god, but denies the existence of many gods

so mister John of Ellis (formerly of 63 Trees) what i want to know is…

so it seems like people continue to have an interest in the john ellis… um i’m not sure it’s a saga, i think you need three movies for that, but new direction-taking-focus-ment?

anyways i said to john, “hey john, people have questions” and john said to me “ask me those questions” so i said “Okay, but i just don’t have them yet” and so this is where you come in…

if you have a question for john of ellis about life and God and tree63 and world domination and Americaland and Jesus and why he refuses to write a real song about No_bob the world’s most famous stuffed dolphin but keeps pretending he has but when i look there’s nothing there and it was probably just a ploy to get me to buy his new album which i haven’t yet but only because i haven’t seen it yet and keep forgetting to look when i’m out sorry John, and church and blackadder and how they get the chocolate inside the smarties, then post it here or email me at brettfish@hotmail.com and i will get it to john

i can’t promise he will answer all the questions – i personally doubt he knows the answer to that smartie one – and i can’t even promise he will answer any of them (he’s in a different province from me – my powers of physical persuasion don’t stretch that far) and he will more than likely dodge the No_bob one (and probly continue to refer to him as a fish, the punk) [john’s a punk not No_bob] but i can highly guarantee that he will look at them and consider answering them and if any of them are interesting enuff then who knows, he might give it a go

so if you could ask john ellis, formerly of the band tree63, any question in the world, what would it be?

getting back in the fire

used this analogy at youth group i spoke at on Friday – amazing bunch of young people in the lesser known place of Factreton – and then completely convicted during worship singing time in church yesterday morning about how not there i am – making amends this week…

log in the middle of a fire – burns solidly, adds to warmth and function of fire

log on edge of fire – still burning but maybe not so intensely, easier for it to roll away or be taken out

burning log removed from fire – will be on fire for a while, then hot for a long while, but the longer it stays out of the fire the colder it gets until eventually it is completely cold and ineffective

that’s us if we take our focus off being still and knowing that He is God and the remaining in Him that Jesus speaks about in John 15 (vine and branches) – it is so important that we stay in the midst of the fire (devouring the truth of the Bible, worshipping in community, spending time in prayer, speaking and listening, meditating on God and His Truth and so on) so that we can be affective and contribute to people standing near the fire or the meal cooking on the fire

if we lose that we will grow colder and eventually lose our flame completely

it is the starting point, it is our foundation, everything else should come from there

the coolest part is that it is quite easy to throw a log back on the fire and it does not take long for the wood to catch again – and so that is what i am going to be looking at doing this week – climbing back on that fire

burn me Jesus, set me on fire with Your passion, with Your Love, with Your mission.

appear-ignore-ance vs being

it struck me this week like an intentionally mischievous bolt of lightning with a chip on its shoulder – following two or three different incidences between me/tbV and other people – that people, for the most part, would much rather appear right than be right. and it blows my mind

i think mostly because i hunger to be right. i am passionate about real. not fake. not masked. not appearance. but reality. and truth. and Truth!

and i ‘get’ it a little bit i think because when someone challenges me, often my initial reaction will be a ‘but-how-can-you-challenge-me-of-course-i’m-right’ type response, cos i think that’s what we all tend towards (call it pride or sin or whatever) but then i will go back and think about it and a lot of the time i will be, “ah…hm….wait…oh yes i see now” and then i will change whatever the thing is or go back to the person and tell them they were right and do whatever i can do to help make the appearance the reality. that’s part of my d.n.a. that’s who i am

so it really does freak my bean (i don’t really have a bean or know what a bean is i don’t think but i have acquired this saying somewhere from someone and am pretty sure that if i did have one or know what it was then this particular situation would pretty much freak it!) when people blatantly choose to appear right, instead of embracing an opportunity to tweak or repent or change or whatever and be more right

this will be filed under my shtupidt people category cos it’s ridiculous

it’s pride and it’s sin and it kills relationship and just don’t do it any more!

and if it’s you, then you should stop it or i’ll bury you alive in a box.

[okay, i won’t really bury you alive in a box, it’s a reference to an amazing bob newheart video clip which you should be able to watch here – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYLMTvxOaeE%5D