#because god knows i don't need to overwork myself like last months in college

[dontvap0rdawave]

The indomitable human spirit when Mount Everest stares at them dead on:

[padehler]

I've been following you for a little while, and it seems like you've been sorta going through a religious & political transition. Maybe that's not accurate, but it seems like there's been some sort of shift, especially through the last election. So I guess I'm wondering if you feel like your political views have influenced your religious ones more, if your religious beliefs have had a greater influence on your political ones, or if you don't really feel like either are necessarily bound together

This is a really good question and I’m going to give it a real answer, so it will be a long and personal answer. I’m making this a *~read more~* post.

Whoever you are, I think you know me better than a lot of people and are very in-tune with the changes I have been going through. My political beliefs haven’t changed at all. I used to feel very private about them and feel that it was inappropriate to talk about politics over social media. Now I feel strongly that we are in a crazy time in American history and it makes me want to speak out about what I think is right and challenge people who are taking part in systems I find oppressive toward others. If we had a president like Obama or Bush, it would be a little easier for me to be silent about it.Here’s the quick answer to your question and below is the long answer. I think both my religion and my political views have influenced each other. My beliefs about who Jesus was and what he commands me to be and do have made me a little liberal.I think it’s always dangerous when political and religious beliefs are bound together. My religion is more important to me than politics. My religion is not separate from the political realm, but it is not partisan. My religion is not American so it cannot be bound up in American things.My religious beliefs have changed a lot. Here comes the personal stuff.Long story short, I am rethinking and reevaluating a lot of what I believe. I still consider myself a Christian, but I am a different sort of Christian than I was before.The biggest catalyst for this change in my religious views was that I became a pastor and I failed in my ministry.

 - ( I could elaborate on every point of this post, but it would be a book)

I moved to a new town after being hired to be a music pastor at a church there. I fully believed that God had in some inaudible way told me to move there and had it in His divine plan for me to be a part of that church.This sort of started to make more sense because right before I moved, a youth pastor quit and I was offered his job on top of my music related job. I accepted that position. I felt that this was God rewarding my faithfulness.Months later, I was told (not asked) that I would become the pastor of the small church I was leading worship music for. So I was handed that position on top of the two positions I was already in charge of. I was not given any extra hours or pay. I was expected to fit extra work into the same amount of hours and I could barely pay my rent on my salary. Not everything is about money, but I have never been so stressed, worked so hard, and simultaneously been so lonely.After about 2 years of being stressed about work, stressed about money, depressed, lonely, and overworked…. it was Christmas Eve. I usually had some people helping me, but this service I was the guy who was leading worship, preaching, decorating the church, making apple cider and coffee, making the slides, running the whole show. Worked my ass off. I set up twice as many chairs because people come to church on Christmas Eve who don’t typically come to church. All churches grow a little on Christmas Eve. My church was the opposite. No one showed up. Even my really devoted folks didn’t show up. I was preaching and singing and etc. to a crowd of maybe 12 people. I was pouring my whole self into this ministry and it didn’t feel to me like God had led me here anymore. It felt like God was nowhere in this and that I was working alone, for myself, and if that was the case I was a failure. Either I was a failure or God caused me to fail. Maybe God just let me fail.I drove 2 hours east to be with my family the night of Christmas eve and I completely broke down. I was openly weeping and telling my family, “I have to quit. I can’t do it anymore. I can’t do it anymore. I’m done.” and in turn I made my mom cry along with me. I waited a while to tell the church that I needed to be done. It was too hard for me to admit that I wanted out… because when I moved there I assumed that I would be moving there for good. This was my calling and I was in it. When I told my boss at the church that I would be stepping down and leaving, he was very gracious. He spoke to the elders at the church and they agreed to give me severance pay. They showed me a lot of love and grace as I left that church.So then here I was, no longer a pastor. No longer what I thought I was meant to be. Seeking a totally different path through college to be a teacher. I found that I was still a little pissed off that God let me fail and let me endure so much hard work only to fail. It made me doubt that God was even there. I had a lot of questions that I was not able to ask as a pastor. There is no space for doubt when you are teaching people about God twice or more a week.I found that my religion was supporting sexism, homophobia, a weird view of hell, and grossly outdated views rooted in American modernism.So I re-evaluated a lot of what I believed. It’s not that I am going to pick and choose parts of Christianity and the BIble I don’t agree with, it’s just that I don’t believe Jesus (as he is presented in the BIble) would approve of the homophobia plaguing the church and I don’t believe Jesus would support a system responsible for so much gay teen suicide. Of course he wouldn’t.I don’t believe Jesus (as he is presented in the Bible) would approve of our churches telling women they can’t preach or lead. WTF? Jesus’ closest followers were women. I don’t believe Jesus (as he is presented in the Bible) would torture people for millennia upon millennia because they were raised in the wrong religion. I know this makes me more ‘liberal’ in my theology. I don’t care. I embrace it. I want to focus more on being like Jesus and I reject so much of white evangelical theology. My idea of who God is has become a lot more expansive. Christians talk about God as being infinite, then they spend 8 months of sermons trying to define that. How silly. I have come to terms with the fact that God is bigger than the Bible. The Bible is just the Bible. It falls short of God.God is bigger than I can understand.Being certain about God is foolish.I would rather be in awe than feel like I know everything about God. I could go on about how much my faith has changed, but the easiest way to summarize it is that I am less concerned with the details and more accepting of unknowns.So two-ish years after I left my old church….. Donald Trump ran for president. All my old church friends started talking about how “We need to turn away refugees so we can protect our own.” “We need to forgive Donald Trump for his sexual abuse” “we need to build a wall” “Thank God for trump.”AND THAT REALLY AFFECTED ME.IT really affected me when I saw 80% of White Evangelicals vote in a way that supported racism, sexism, nationalism, gay conversion therapy, hatred, etc. OF COURSE JESUS IS AGAINST RACISM, SEXISM, HOMOPHOBIA, AND ALL TYPES OF DISCRIMINATION.But Christians in America made a political statement, very silently, in their voting. I get a lot of flack for criticizing Trump as a Christian, but is it worse to use my voice to criticize him, or silently support him? I forgive my friends who elected Trump. I assume the best and I know that many of them saw him as a means to an end (the end being less abortion, I assume).So as I am being inundated with these facts about Christians supporting Trump, I am quietly experiencing a small crisis of faith. I have hit a point in my reevaluation of my faith where I am ready to be healthy again, spiritually speaking. I am ready to read more about God and pray more than I have been. I am ready to start seeking God like I used to. It is hard being associated with such hateful people claiming the name of my religion. It is hard to wake up to the history of Americans using the name of my religion to kill and oppress people. It is hard for me to wake up on Sundays and go to church these days, but I still want to, and I still want to be like Jesus, because when I read about Jesus I see the most beautiful type of person I could ever aspire to be, so I will aspire to be a Christian.We can talk more about all of this later if you would like.If any of you read this extremely large post, you should ‘like it’ just so I can know. Love you folks. Thanks for supporting me as a person throughout the years.