solomonsporch-stuff-blog

[solomonsporch-stuff-blog]

Building a Belief by Ben Younan

If you met me 12 years ago, the person before you would have had many of the world’s problems accounted for through a narrow theology of God’s plan for our lives. You would have encountered a self-certain, skinny college kid who believed that there was no greater good than evangelizing a non-believer into a scripted prayer of salvation in order to be saved!

12 years ago that college kid’s world began to unravel, the proverbial dominoes started to fall. The world as I new it was dismantled because for the first time I left home and saw the world outside a Christian, privileged, American, educated, male, perspective. I saw pain and poverty and struggle and discovered that the majority of the world was nothing like me or what I believed. Everything about my faith and worldview was challenged and in question, and it was that spring of 2004 that my world had indeed, flipped: Trademark, copyright, Doug Pagitt 2015 all rights reserved.

Nowadays I consider myself a recovering evangelical. I've almost, but not entirely, thrown the baby out with the bath water, but my belief is more about a posture of humility and uncertainty.

I believe I don't have life all figured out, but I do believe In the discovery of truth and goodness everyday.

I believe in humanity and our ability to love and care for others, even in the face of injustice.  I believe that's what Jesus' life was about.

I believe in accepting love, even when something inside myself tries to protect me from doing so.

I believe in the power of forgiveness when forgiveness is unimaginable.

I believe in loving my enemies.

I am certain of uncertainty.  

I believe pain and struggle help us grow and build our character and that sometimes pain and struggle are just plain no good.

I hope for my kids, and their future, but wonder about the other billions of kids and their futures too.

I believe in the power of gratitude. It really has this tendency to change everything.

I am grateful for all of you.

I believe I find God in community.

I believe that one of the hardest things in the world to do is to draw a circle in the sand, gather a group of people together and stand inside that circle and figure out how to accept and love each other.

I also believe community is one of those things in this world that is most- beautiful.

[solomonsporch-stuff-blog]

Our Solomon’s Porch Arts Coordinator Sarah Sampedro is the artist of the month at bothartistandmother.com. Check out her interview here.

[solomonsporch-stuff-blog]

Building a Belief: How I've come to believe that God likes me

by Caleb Murphree

I grew up in a religious home and in a religious community, first in Birmingham, AL, and then in Greensboro, NC. I was the good kid. I said the right things, did the right things. I made all-As, I went to all the Bible studies. I was on the track team, in the drama club, and had a part-time job. I was doing everything right.

But although I seemed great, I felt horrible. From high school, to college, to grad school, I was depressed and filled with suicidal thoughts. I was coming to realize that I was gay. I didn't know what to do about it. I believed in God, and I thought that I had a relationship with Jesus. I didn't know why I was this way. Why wouldn't God change me? Why would God give me so many wonderful things in my life but give me this one terrible thing? I thought in high school that with enough time it would go away. In college I thought that I could become straight with enough prayer and therapy. In seminary, I thought I would be comfortable as a celibate single man for my life. None of those ideas removed the deep hopelessness that darkened my soul. I hated my life, my self. No amount of success made it go away.

In seminary, I began to meet gay Christians who weren't what I expected. They weren't radical liberals like I feared. They loved Jesus, read their Bibles, prayed. They just happened to be gay, and they were okay with it. I read their blogs. I had conversations. I began to imagine that maybe I could love Jesus and love a man one day. It was scary to think about. But it felt possible.

I won't go into the ways that I wrestled with the Bible and theology. I was and still am pretty conservative when it comes to theology. My change of belief about sexuality and the Bible is it's own talk. Today I'm sharing how I came to believe that God likes me. It's a phrase my former pastor in Chicago used. He stole it from a liberal Catholic mystic named James Allison. You see, I never doubted God's love for me. Believe it or not, I thought that somehow through all of this, God's love was there. But Christians talk about the love of God so much it's almost meaningless. It's also associated with some kind of rescue or deliverance. It's a very impressive kind of love. 

I thought that I needed rescuing, so the love of God seemed to fit. But what took me the longest time to believe was that God liked me. "Liking" is a more gentle kind of word. It's not really about rescue or liberation. It's about enjoyment. It wasn't until I began to accept that God made me gay and affirmed my gayness that I came to believe that God likes me. God likes me. God finds me interesting. God is amused by my quirkiness. God enjoys watching me do my life. God likes me.

I don't know what your beliefs about God are like. But I hope that you'll consider adding this one to your universe. God likes you. God likes me. God likes us.

Caleb Murphree is the Director of Operations at Solomon’s Porch. Individuals share how they came to develop a belief they hold on Sunday night gatherings at Solomon’s Porch. We meet at 4:30pm each week and welcome you to join us anytime.