Getting personal with fundamentalism

This is what might be called 'my testimony' in certain circles

This is a repost from May 2006; some of the issues are going around my mind because of my imminent move. At some point I’ll do a post bringing things up to date, but this needs to be on here first - and I thought people might find it of interest.

I was raised in what could be described as a 'classic Anglican' household, ie my parents went to church maybe three or four times a year, but always at Easter and Christmas. I went to Sunday school occasionally, but gave up on that fairly early on, probably because my elder brother gave up on it. I remember picking up the Bible to read it (from the beginning...!) when I can't have been yet eight years old, and I stuck with it for a little while, I think until part of Exodus - not bad. I went to boarding school at age 11, and that's when memories start to get a bit clearer. I went to an 'evangelical weekend' one time around then, which didn't make a big impact on me, and I remember going to 'house groups' in one of the teacher's rooms, but I don't remember thinking very explicitly about faith matters until my second year at boarding school - I would have been aged about 12 - and the argument about Gandhi that made me an atheist (ie I rejected the argument that he was going to hell. I don't think I had rejected the living God. I think He was with me all the time).

After that I tended to lap up all the anti-Christian arguments I could come across, especially Richard Dawkins, although I consistently had debates with the very same people - in fact, I was often good friends with them. What I understood Christianity to be *was* what their perspective taught.

The things that began to undermine that point of view were (in order of time):
- a particular teacher for whom I had great (intellectual) respect, who was a committed Christian (lay reader in CofE) and who could cope fairly easily with my attacks;
- reading a number of books, most especially Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which undermined some of the rationalistic assumptions I had been making;
- a particular tutor at Oxford, who built upon the earlier teacher's work, and really got me to open up my understanding of Christianity;
- the process of academic study of theology, especially Biblical studies, which I had gone into with a very large axe to grind, but I found that the grinding of the axe destroyed the axe rather than my target (in other words, I came into Christianity after understanding source criticism, not before);
- reading 'Honest to God' by John Robinson, which convinced me that fundamentalism wasn't Christianity. I definitely came into Christianity through the door marked 'liberal', although my views have evolved in major ways since then (I'm a long way from being a liberal now).

In the growth in understanding since then, it would probably be fair to say that the devotional understanding of Scripture wasn't prominent, prior to ordination. Although certain texts held great meaning for me, I didn't spend time really getting to know the Bible all that well, not in a spiritual sense (I've always been able to lap up the academic stuff easily, however, even though I'm a long way from being a linguist).

However, I've always had an uneasy relationship with fundamentalism/evangelicalism. I bracket the two together simply because I always equated the two.

Part of the problem, looking at it now, is that I have accepted the fundamentalist insistence that theirs was the 'right way to interpret the Bible', and that therefore there was something illegitimate and not quite right about my own understandings. Some of the reason for this was where I started from, as a very liberal 'Christian', and therefore possessing a guilt about not taking the Bible with suitable seriousness. I think I have the sort of personality that, in a different world, could easily become fundamentalist - very head dominated, with a need to make doctrine central. The only thing that has prevented me from accepting fundamentalist perspectives (other than questions of honesty/ intellectual integrity) is, I think, an instinctive embrace of the mystical tradition, which was God's gracious way of immunising me against absolutism. One of the earliest theological lessons I learnt and absorbed was that God is ultimate, and ultimately unknowable, and therefore anything which we can articulate and understand cannot be God. Which is liberating - it allows for growth into God.

So I think what has given the research into fundamentalism that I've done in the last couple of weeks such a 'charge' is that I am excavating something that is still within me. I think this has also driven my gnawing at the problem of the Virgin Birth - a sense that I'm still not quite there, as if I'm still not quite legitimate.

Time has taught me that things which I don't understand (eg resurrection, incarnation) I come to understand over time, as I unpack the implications of my original revelation of the nature of God.

Oh. Haven't gone into that have I? I'd better say something about that.

After my first year at Oxford, during the summer holidays - it was the last Tuesday in August, 1990, I think - I was at my parents home, on my own (they were away on holiday) reading this book and I find myself vigorously disagreeing with it. I caught myself saying 'God's not like that' - and after catching myself saying it, I realised that I did believe in God, although belief wasn't the right word - I loved God. And I had the most amazingly transformative experience, literally falling to my knees, blinding white light, utter euphoria, and two things were imprinted upon my soul: that love truly, really, literally makes the world go round (God is love); and 'become who you are'. I was on an emotional high for about two weeks, and I have been exploring the implications of that revelation ever since. Anything which is in accord with that revelation I accept; anything which is not in accord, I reject. It planted an understanding in me that is more fundamental than my own opinions or preferences; if those understandings are unmade, then I shall be unmade - there will be no more 'I' capable of discernment. That way is madness. The way that I was provoked into walking was life, and 'Jesus' blood never failed me yet'.

So that is what has been driving me - a seed implanted, which has been growing vigorously ever since - I'm now a priest for God's sake!! - yet the legacy of the poison that I absorbed has been there alongside all the time. I think this is the spiritual tension that I referred to the other day. My system is mustering itself to expel the poison, and that is a large part of what was driving the repudiation of fundamentalism.

It is as if I am trying to clear a space within which I can grow. Possibly, even, to clear a space in which I can become more evangelical without letting go of all the things which have formed my theological understanding up until now (ie the essential sacramentality of faith). A place where I can express - BE - all who I am, all who I'm called to be - without self-harm and mutilation.

I tend to now see evangelicalism as a style, rather than a theological stance - something in which enthusiasm (that great English bugbear and taboo) can be expressed, and I am a very enthusiastic person.

Maybe I'm just repressed ;-)

It's as if I have been carrying around this monkey on my back all my life, and I have finally got to a place where I can throw him off. A sense of not having been quite right with God - that, to put it differently, I have received a sense of shame from the fundamentalist community for not accepting their tenets.

Yet I really don't believe in that. I don't believe in shame as a ground for forming character. In fact I see shame as of the devil (part of what underlies my use of 'Satanic' as a description of fundamentalism). I think that is precisely what Jesus comes to set us free from - the burden of obligations impossible to fulfil. Instead of the works of the law we have these intellectually impossible contortions forcing our souls, Procrustes like, into harmful shapes. That is exactly the problem, and that is exactly where the spirit of the Pharisees still roams. You must be like this, then you will be acceptable. Whereas Christ comes and says: you are acceptable in my sight, come and enter into my rest.

Become who you are.
Become who you are.
Become who you are.

I'm not there yet.

Become who you are.
Love makes the world go round.
Become who you are.

"These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full."

Bright white light euphoria joy bliss loss of self affirmation of self love God love freedom love bright white light.

Become who you are.

God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.

"Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you."

Become who you are.

I'm not there yet.

"Behold, I am coming soon."
Amen. Come Lord Jesus.