So I'm Writing a Book...

All my life I've wanted to write a book. When I was younger I tried writing short stories, eventually planning on writing an important novel that would change the world and go down in history as a classic work of American literature.

Well, as it turns out, that's probably not a reality. For one, I don't have the stamina to write a novel. Furthermore, I don't think I'm very good with fiction. I've noticed that I get a lot more out of writing about real things, like my life, or the lives of others. So, while I may still write a novel someday (though I don't at all think it will be the least bit monumental), I think I've realized that non-fiction is more my cup of tea. I just needed something to write about. For a while I wanted to be a travel writer. I wanted to go on a massive road trip or backpack the world or something like that and write a book that will be very important and go down in history as a classic work of American literature. Actually, that's not true. I just want people to buy it and like it, that way I can have some money to go on more crazy adventures and write about them. That was pretty much a daydream though. No money, no time, too many things going on here; there were always excuses to make it something that would never happen.

As I've grown in Christ, I've noticed that I've been reading a lot more things coming out of the "Religious" section at Barnes and Noble: C.S. Lewis, Don Miller, Brian McLaren, and so on. After a while I started to realize that I didn't need to go on extravagant adventures to produce good and exciting pieces of writing. I could write about God. I didn't know what I would write, but the idea of writing something that would be shelved in the "religious" section grew more and more appealing, especially as I realized that a lot of these authors were not Doctors of theology or seminary graduates, but ordinary people like me.

The real kicker came about a month ago. I went to San Francisco with Sarah to go listen to Ann Lamott, who is a very liberal kind of Christian. She was speaking at the Grace Cathedral, which is an Episcopal Church. I browsed the website and noticed the Reverend of the cathedral was wearing the black-suit-with-white-collar outfit, and I immediately though of priests and Catholicism, and as a good non-denominational Protestant child with former Catholic converts for parents, I was taught, both directly and indirectly, that Catholicism was wrong. They worshipped saints and distorted Christianity. Our church was "pure"; theirs was "corrupt." So I made connections in my head and started making judgments about the church.

So I went and listened to this Reverend converse with Ann Lamott, and he actually agreed with her quite a bit. I bought a book of his called Reimaging Christianity and I was blown away by exactly how wrong I had been in my judgment of the Episcopal Church. I came to a realization - I knew nothing about this church. I started looking into Episcopalianism and that head me to look into some other churches, and I came to realize I knew very little about any of the other denominations, including Catholicism. I had never really gone to any other church besides non-denominational ones. As I looked into the different branches, I started seeing how superficial some of the distinctions were. We are all brothers and sisters separated by what Brian McLaren calls "fine print," things that, in the grand scheme of things, don't really matter.

It hit me then - I should write a book about this. It was something I was tremendously interested in, and it wasn't epic or unrealistic. I am fortunate enough to live in one of the more diverse states in America, which means I can literally find a church of just about any denomination within a two-hour drive of here. I would look into the history and doctrines of each denomination, and supplement that by actually attending the churches I was looking at and talking with pastors, priests, attendees, etc. I don't want the book to be scholarly; rather I want it to be personal, and also well-researched. I want to go on a spiritual journey and take everyone else with me. I've done some research and so far, I haven’t found any books really meeting that description. There are plenty of denominational guides, but nothing as personal or readable as what I'm aiming for.

And this isn't just something that I'm planning for the future. I've actually already started. I've attended Episcopal services a few times in the last month, and have started to do some extensive reading into their history and beliefs, as well as about other peoples personal experiences with the church (all this instead of the school work I should be doing), and I'm hoping to get my first chapter on Episcopalianism done in the next couple of weeks to a month. I'll edit it and mess with it a bit, send it around to a few people to make sure what I'm trying to do is interesting to anyone else besides me, and then start on another one while I maybe try to pitch it to publishing companies and see if (by the grace of God) I can maybe get an advance, or at least an interested company and a deadline to really throw me into gear. Prayer would be greatly appreciated in this department.

I've kind of already structured the book in my head. There are a million official denominations out there, so I picked some of the bigger and more well known ones as well as a few that I found absolutely fascinating (Copticism, which is an extremely old offshoot of Orthodoxy that is centered in Egypt and his its own Pope, and Messianic Judaism, which is essential a group of Jews who believe Jesus to be their Messiah and conduct synagogue-like services in Hebrew and everything, to name a few). I also set a pretty vague two-fold litmus test to see which ones I should actually include: 1)belief that salvation comes through Jesus Christ, and 2)belief in the divinity of Jesus, and therefore, that God is one person with distinct persons (the doctrine of the trinity, basically). This ousts a couple of popular "cults" (such as Jehovah's Witnesses and Unitarians), but also includes controversial groups like the Mormons. So far, I have roughly three sections: 1)traditional faiths, which would be Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and a few others; 2)Reformation religions, which includes Lutheranism, Presbyterianism, Anabaptist religions, etc; and 3)Newer Developments, which includes everything from the Baptists and Methodists to Mormonism, Christian Science, Pentecostalism, and so on (though I may divide the third one into two smaller sections).

Now I realize this is my longest blog ever, but I have to admit, I am REALLY excited about this. I feel like God is helping me use my writing, something that I've always considered to be a talent and source of joy for me, to further his kingdom. I would appreciate continuous prayers as I try and get this worked out. Pray that I don't get burnt out once the initial excitement wears off, something I've been known to do in the past. Most of all, pray that God will guide me in this and use me for his will.

The Street-Side Speaker

A while ago, I wrote a poem called "The Street-Side Speaker" (which you can read here). It is a slightly modified version of a real life event - some man jumped up on the wooden stage in the quad area at Stan State and started preaching, and by "preaching" I mean "judging and condemning, screaming and yelling about Hell and damnation." It irritated me as I watched him totally misuse the name of Christ for the greater good of no one. That was a year ago.

Today I was on my way to meet with my adviser and I saw the same man up on the same stage. He was quietly watching as another man was singing a song about abstinence, which was quite humorous, although I couldn't tell if the humor was intentional. As the man's song ended, he began talking to a few people around him; Mr. Preacher man just stared off in the distance. All of a sudden, he bellowed out "Why should you go to Heaven?!", beginning a long series of comments and rants that were all too reminiscent of the last time I saw him.

I sat quietly and watched him, but I also watched my fellow listeners. Some laughed him off, while others reacted with disgust. No one was moved, no one was convicted, no one was saved; they were repulsed. This man was taking the love of Jesus and using it as a weapon, causing everyone around him to ignore him and his message. If I had never heard of Jesus, this man's message would have done nothing to make me become a Christian. In fact, it would make me not want to be a Christian at all.

So I got mad. I felt like jumping up on stage and apologizing to every person in attendance and telling them that this was not Christ. My anger reached it's apex when he told the people in the crowd that the sinners of this earth were "children of the devil." In response, a girl walked right up to the front of the stage and asked "Aren't we all children of God?

"No," the man said. "That's not true. The Bible does not teach that."

It sickened me. I saw a girl a few feet away who was disgusted and walked away. Eventually, I started voicing my displeasure to the two guys around me, who happened to agree with me. I expressed how much I would like to have a talk with this guy, and upon saying that, one of the guys yells to Mr. Preacher Man "Hey, this guy wants to talk to you."

So now the whole group is gazing at me, including Mr. Preacher Man. I was caught off guard, so I just impulsively walked up to the stage and climbed up (The look on Mr. Preacher's face - priceless). I shook his hand and introduced myself (I believe his name was Jeffrey), and I just started to talk, and it was...interesting.

Without getting into all the details of the conversation, I told him I felt like he was pushing more people away from Christ than he was drawing into, and that he should go a little more with the love of God as a better approach, to which he responded that people always here "Jesus loves you" and yet they still turned away from God, and that they needed to know the truth. He said he was practicing "Traditional Christianity" in the spirit of great men like John Westley, and that it was the only way to get people to listen. Then we talked about how Jesus talked to people society considered "sinners" and how hell talk was mostly reserved for the Pharisees, and he explained that he considered the people of America to be Pharisees in the sense that they reject God because they think they know everything, not even taking into account that some of the people walking by probably knew relatively little about Jesus.

I was kind of sad. On one hand, I'm glad I talked to him, that I was able to tell him how I felt about the Gospel, but it made me sad that he thought the only way to tell people about Jesus was to tell them about hellfire and anger rather than the great love story between God and the world.