Tag: Agape Love

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Christianity, Capitalism, and Purpose

by David Shaw

“If you work hard, you’ll succeed.” “If you put in the time, God will reward your efforts.” “God loves a hard worker”. These are all sayings that we’ve probably heard at least once in our life, and they’re all used to motivate us to continue to put in just a little bit more time, energy, or effort into our jobs because with just a few more inches of effort we’ll hit gold. We’ve been taught from a young age about the importance of hard work, of finding a job and being successful at it as the keys to wealth and prosperity, and that God wants that for us. The problem with this line of thinking is that this isn’t a universal experience, and depending on when and where you were born, what skin color you have, your gender or sexual expression, your physical or mental abilities, or how much money is in your parents bank account, the “hard work = success” equation isn’t true at all.

While this may be a reality we must accept in the secular world, the capitalistic contradiction has found its way into religion, particularly the American brand of Christianity. The effect that it has had on Christians for generations are present but they aren’t mentioned nearly enough, because for many it’s seen as Christian belief functioning normally. However, the truth is that there is nothing normal about a belief which creates a mindset that contradicts the teachings of the religion. If you want proof of this, ask yourself the question “what is my purpose in life?”

The purpose of life is a complicated and long question. Thousands of years of philosophy have gone by and we still don’t have an answer that can apply to all humans across time. Religions have attempted to wrestle with this question too, and have produced their own answers which are accepted by their believers as the true answer. Christianity’s answer to the question can be found all over the Bible, sometimes explicit and sometimes alluded too. The most accepted answer to the question was said by none other than Jesus himself in Matthew 22:36-40. Every other answer given in the Bible revolve around this “love God and love your neighbor as yourself” theme. So to put it simply, our purpose in life is to love God and love each other. 

But for many Christians, that answer isn’t satisfactory. If it was satisfactory then there wouldn’t be an entire industry of Christian self-help books dedicated to help Christian’s “find God’s purpose for their life”. If Christians believed such a simple answer as “love God and love each other” was truly their purpose in life, then Rick Warren’s “Purpose Driven Life” wouldn’t be one of the best selling books of all time. The reason that these books exist is because Christians don’t truly accept “love God and love each other” as their purpose in life, and they don’t accept this answer because “what’s my purpose in life” isn’t really the question they are asking. 

The question Christians, and most people in a capitalist society, really mean when they ask “what is my purpose” is “what job/career should I have”. This is because for our entire lives we have been taught and conditioned to believe that our purpose in life is to find a job to work and be successful at until we’re able to retire. We are conditioned to believe that our lives only have meaning or purpose when we’re working. Capitalism has tainted our idea of purpose. When we become uncomfortable in our jobs, when we aren’t getting adequate pay, when the job isn’t making us happy, or when we find ourselves unemployed for a period of time, many Christians find themselves going down the “what is my purpose” rabbit hole. And where do many Christian’s turn to? To sermons, seminars, devotionals, and “God’s purpose for your life” books.  All of the “find God’s purpose” outlets are popular because they teach how to be comfortable with our place within, or better yet survive in spite of, capitalism. And all it takes is a “change in mindset” or a “spiritual shift in our worldview”, or any religious code phrase for “see your current suffering as a test from God that we must overcome.”

But how did we get to this point? How did our idea of purpose become so twisted? There are three parts that have aided in correlating work and purpose. The youngest part is the American Dream. The idea that anyone who works hard will succeed. We already know that this isn’t true for everyone, and anyone that isn’t a white, Christian, able-bodied, straight, cis-gendered male will face more difficulty and their “success” will be less than if they fit the mold. But even knowing this, the dream is still pushed by marginalized communities that are searching for salvation from their oppression through capitalistic means. 

The next part of the puzzle is the “Protestant work ethic” which is the foundation of the American Dream. The Protestant work ethic was a name given for a phenomenon that had been going on for almost a thousand years, in which Christianity was contributing to the growth of capitalism through its teaching. The teaching in question was about predestination, particularly “how would one know if they were saved”. The answer: “if you are rich, take that as a sign that God picked you to get into heaven”. But what if you’re poor? Then if you work hard enough, your work ethic will be a sign that you’ll make it into heaven. This thinking would be the catalyst for greed and inequality. Business owners would cut corners and lower wages to increase their own profits, and in turn the employees worked harder just to make ends meet. But on the bright side, both groups could rest assured that they would make it into heaven based on nothing other than capitalistic exploitation. This was the underlying thought process of the Christian capitalist world, which venerated the rich and pressed the poor to enjoy their suffering. This was so accepted, that when union organizers or communists threatened the capitalist idea of work, they were labeled as atheists, because if you don’t believe in capitalism you must not believe in God.

The final piece of the puzzle begins even farther back in time, thousands of years in the past in fact. This piece is the idea of “divine reward and punishment”. Divine reward and punishment are easy concepts to grasp. “If you do something God/the gods like, then you’ll be rewarded. But if you do something God/the gods don’t like, then you’ll be punished”. How strong is this thinking really? Imagine you’re a Bronze Age hardworking farmer that diligently takes care of their crops. God/the gods will reward your hard work, and come harvest time your harvest will be bountiful. But now imagine you’re a lazy farmer that doesn’t care to their fields. God/the gods will punish your laziness with a bad harvest. Obviously, this kind of thinking ignores real world conditions. What if I’m a hard worker but the soil was bad there was a famine, will the gods still punish me? Or what if I’m not that diligent but the soil is excellent and there were favorable rains, are the gods still blessing me?

This “good human action = divine reward” and “bad human action = divine punishment” thinking can fit to almost an scenario. Any human action could be perceived as good or bad and anything could be perceived as divine reward or punishment. Maybe being a hardworking farmer wasn’t what the gods were judging us by. Maybe it’s if we treat our family with respect, or if we pay our tithes, or if we give honor to the monarch, or if we worshipped the right god in the right way, or it may be all of the above. What if the gods didn’t reward us with a good harvest, they just sent a lot of rain, or they didn’t allow our country to be invaded, or maybe they allowed our army to conquer another country. We can mix and match any good or bad human action with any perceived divine action it will make perfect sense, as long as we ignore all other material possibilities. 

Because the possibilities of “divine reward and punishment” are endless, it was incredibly easy for human beings to make anything fit its structure regardless of how much harm it produced. This was exploited by those with political, economic, and religious power to keep the lower classes in line. When those in power began to acquire and hoard more and more wealth through feudalism leaving less resources for those below them on the social ladder, the foundation of the“Protestant work ethic” was set. As feudalism evolved into capitalism, those of the lower classes that struggled to make enough money to survive were assured that if they just worked hard they could make it into heaven. All the while the rich lived in comfort, not having to worry about their salvation at all as their wealth was their ticket into the pearly gates. Later on in the United States, those in power spread that same message but changed it to match an ever-growing secular rhetoric. Instead of heaven/hell being the divine reward/punishment for our amount of work, it was now success or failure, ignoring the conditions many people live through and the multiple oppressions they may face. Just like the only escape that many had from their oppression a millennia ago was their belief that they might make it into heaven, many today believe that their only escape from their oppression is to be successful. And it is this capitalist idea of “being successful” that has become the purpose of our lives. 

Is there a way to solve the capitalist problem within Christianity in regards to purpose? Even at my most optimistic, my best answer is “maybe”. While individual people can come to the realization that God’s purpose for their life has nothing to do with a job or a career but has everything to do with faith and how we treat other people, there are more factors at work. As a whole, Christianity has survived by becoming a valuable tools to those in power to control the lower classes, this is undeniable. If Christian institutions were to make a real effort to make their members see that their purpose is to love God and love each other rather than stressing over work, who knows how the political and economic powers would react. Without diving into speculation, it would take a wholistic effort to untangle capitalism from Christianity, as their are too many variables at play that reinforce the relationship. Without total effort, a true solution may be hopeless. Even still, it would be a greater comfort for the oppressed and lower classes to come to the realization that God’s purpose for them is to beings full of love rather than being complicit in capitalist exploitation. 

“The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God, and keep his commandments; for that is the whole duty of everyone.”

Ecclesiastes 12:13 NRSV-CI

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Christianity and Sexual Maturity

By Daniel Holder

Is Theology an Excuse to not Reach Sexual Maturity?

These pastoral sex scandals, either with men, women, or children, indicate to me that maybe theology does not encourage sexual development.  There is a blessing in the “hoe phase” (at least, that’s what I hear) because at least then you know yourself.  You learn your likes and dislikes, your vulnerabilities, and your pain points.  

In Christianity we are taught to deny ourselves and follow what we are told the Bible says, but can we deny ourselves?  Or do we just postpone our desires and wait for their surprise resurfacing when we have families and communities that depend on us?

If you preach well, it’s okay if you lie to yourself, and we’ll ignore the skeletons in your closet.  Maybe the pedestals that we place people on do not seat them out of reach of temptation.  Maybe we should encourage getting to know ourselves?

If God Made Man….

I read somewhere that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Maybe you’re familiar with the text.  God proposed that humanity be made in the divine image and the human form was molded by divine hands and animated with divine breath.  

If men and women were created in God’s image, God breathed into us personally.  The task was not delegated to angels.  How then do we arrive at an understanding that we are inherently wicked?  Wouldn’t that mean that God is inherently wicked?  I would like to entertain the notion that inside us we have the potential for both good and evil.  We can be evil when we choose evil, but inside us is also the potential for good, beauty, and life.  

And Man Made the Bible

But the Bible says…, yes, the Bible does say that we are wicked on the inside, but that leads to my next question.  Many believe in the Bible’s inerrancy.  I do not prescribe to that belief and here is why.  The Bible says it was written by the hands of men who were inspired by the Spirit, but they were still men. 

Men and Women have the potential–whether intentional or not–for error, to insert bias, or to be influenced by the situations around us.  Can we believe the Bible is inerrant while believing it was written in the hand of “inherently evil” men?

I am not at all discounting the Bible. I just sometimes think that we use it incorrectly.  The Bible speaks differently to different groups and communities, but with our current theology, we believe that there is only one way.  If you want to go to heaven, then you must believe this.  Nobody that has ever penned a word of theology controls any celestial guest lists.  

Then we have a Journal or Human Experience throughout time.

Our Theology has developed into a system that teaches young men and women how to behave. Psalm 119:9 says “how can a young man keep his way pure?  By guarding it according to your word.” Those words were penned by a rapist and a murderer, is this who you want guiding your children?  

I am not perfect, and I don’t know many people who are, but I believe that it is through mistakes and indiscretions that we learn about ourselves and the world around us.  Maybe we should allow young people to explore and make small mistakes in their youth to prevent Bathsheba-sized mistakes in their adulthood.  

At this point, you are pointing out my double standard with David, and I guess the answer is yes.  I think our children are much safer being guided by someone who’s made mistakes, they know their vulnerabilities and they are willing to safeguard themselves among a community.  

How Can Faith Move you?

Spirituality is a revolution.  It is not safe inside an organization neatly wrapped inside religion, let’s move fast and break things.  If God created man in the divine image, then how could he or she be inherently evil.  It is absolutely easier to do evil things than good, but we reach the apex of our potential when we do good.  

But in order for us to do good, we need to understand the bad, and what the path for getting there looks like.  That is what we can begin to use the Bible for.  1 Corinthians 10:11 tells us that the Bible is to be used as an example so that we don’t have to make every mistake, but we need to read it right, see the mistakes and acknowledge how the Bible interacts with our experience  

So how do we create that community?  Let’s talk about it.  But will there be food?

Daniel Holder is a Husband, Father, and USAF Veteran, ex-seminary student, author, and Entrepreneur on a mission to accompany spirituality far beyond the walls of the traditional church.  A loving husband and father who realizes that his leadership shapes the world that his children will take flight into.  He is passionate about empowering a faith that erupts into action.  

Daniel lives in Huntsville, AL, and works in program management, but is passionate about his ministry, and his soon-to-be-released NFT project, The Black Jesus Project.  And if you don’t know what an NFT is, Daniel dares you to ask him or follow @outhouseministries on Instagram. 
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A Manifesto on Transparency

By Kara M. Young

I’ve been doing a lot of contemplating recently, and one of the biggest revelations has been that I have been tailoring my social media presence to people who are not my audience. I’ve been afraid to say certain things or post certain things because I’ve been afraid of being judged as “unworthy” or too flawed. I’ve been afraid of the sentiment being “You have a church, so how can you be doing x,y, and z?” But that’s a flawed way of thinking, for a number of reasons.


1. I live my life in alignment with my beliefs. I am very intentional about that. And the truth is that my beliefs do not fully coincide with those of Adventists, nor those of mainstream Christians. Further, I do not identify as either, because I believe both are irredeemably flawed and, to be perfectly clear, I do not believe that either entity is “the truth,” nor do I believe either entity has a monopoly on truth. I am an Agapist. A Christocentric Agapist, but an Agapist just the same. As such, I can’t be held to a standard that I don’t agree with, don’t believe in, and refuse to hold myself to because I genuinely and firmly believe that it facilitates an inaccurate and damaging depiction of the character of God.


2. I can’t preach unconditional love and acceptance while maintaining an unrealistic portrayal of my life. I can’t tell someone else to “be who you are” while simultaneously being afraid to publicly own ALL of who I am, especially when I am not ashamed of me. In fact, I’m really proud of the growth I’ve achieved thus far and the person I am continuing to become. I like me, and that’s something I have fought long and hard for.


3. I am aware that I am probably not “qualified” by many people’s standards to do what I’m doing, but I believe I’ve been called to it because I can’t be anything other than what I am. Life literally isn’t worth living to me if it means spending even one more second trying to fit myself into other people’s boxes. I have tried. My entire life, I have tried. And I’ve finally come to accept the fact that I can’t. That acceptance has opened my eyes to the fact that there are plenty of people out there who have had a similar experience and have ultimately opted to just be alone spiritually rather than compromise their liberty of conscience and liberty of thought for the sake of community. But those people…my people…need community, too.


4. Church as it stands isn’t designed for people who don’t “fit”. It’s not meant to accommodate people who want the benefit of community without the pressure to conform. So many people feel like you’re being disingenuous if you say you believe something and then don’t adhere to its tenets, and in a lot of ways, that’s not entirely untrue. If being a Christian means living my life like ________, and I don’t believe in that, am I really a Christian? And if I’m not, is that such a bad thing? I would call myself a Christian if doing so meant that the only thing anyone assumed about me was that I believed that Jesus is the Son of God and that He died to be the propitiation for sin itself. But realistically, saying you’re a Christian comes with a ton of other premises that MUST be relied on, otherwise your spirituality gets called into question, i.e. “How can you say you’re a Christian if you ________?”

The establishments that currently exist can only change or evolve so much before they become something they are not. And I realized some time ago that there’s no amount of change that could occur that would ultimately make room for me and all the other people that organized religion has either pushed to the fringes or excluded completely. So many of us wanted to belong, but even after the church began to say “come as you are,” it added, “once you get here, you’re supposed to change, and this is what your journey should look like, your questions should look like, your conclusions should look like….this is what you will look like. And if you don’t, something is seriously wrong.” There’s an underlying acceptance of certain fundamental “truths” that you are required to internalize and you literally cannot belong the the community if you don’t accept them. Some may call that “godly”. Some may call that “accountability.” Some may call that “the truth.” Personally, I call it presumptive, limiting, and unreflective of the God I have come to know and love. I want community that doesn’t require me to limit who God can be for me, doesn’t ask me to draw the same conclusions as everyone else, and gives me room to journey on God’s terms, not anyone else’s.

5. I’m not perfect, but I don’t think I’m supposed to be. I think that’s the point of real transparency…it’s the only way God’s strength can truly be made perfect in my weakness. If I’m too afraid to own that, how can I inspire anyone else to own it for themselves? How can I tell people that God is with them when they aren’t struggling, when they’re not wrestling, when they don’t feel the need to “repent,” when they’re asking questions other people don’t have answers for and drawing conclusions that other people condemn….and then be unwilling to transparent about how God does that for me every day? I know and believe in the depths of my heart that I am loved unconditionally and I know that because that love has been tested….tried with fire….and it hasn’t failed me yet. People think that they have to believe a certain way or live a certain way to experience God’s presence fully and I’m here to say that that simply isn’t true. Nothing can separate me from God’s love and my experience has been that God will always give as much of the Spirit as I am open to receiving. It’s in my darkest moments that God has shown up for me in the most profound ways and if God has done that for me, I have no doubt it can be done for you, too.

All of that being said, I am committed to doing my best to be more vulnerable and to live transparently. My target audience isn’t the people who think they have the truth. My target audience is anyone who is seeking truth, those who believe that truth-seeking is the journey of a lifetime. My goal is to be a part of a community that prioritizes love in a way that heals rather than does harm. And I just want to be myself. I want others to know that they really can be who they are and not be treated differently because of it. I don’t care who you are or what you believe. Boundaries are drawn based on how we treat each other. Do your best not to do harm. If you mess up (as we all inevitably do), acknowledge it, take responsibility for it, and try to do better moving forward, understanding that the love doesn’t change and grace is sufficient.

My hope and prayer is that we can all find freedom in the journey, and thus a greater sense of compassion, patience, kindness, self-awareness and acceptance, personal accountability, and unconditional love. -ky<3

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The Love Series: God is Love

We all have ideological frameworks, which are networks of information that form our belief systems and our values. Once an ideological framework is built, it’s incredibly difficult to alter it without conscious effort. If we’re not careful, our brains may even be inclined to automatically reject information that seems to conflict with what we already believe to be true. 

Learning is the process of acquiring new, or modifying existing, knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, or preferences. Often times, learning something new is as much about unlearning old information as it is about processing or modifying your ideological framework based on new information. 

With that in mind, the first step toward TRULY understanding Godly, unconditional love is unlearning. This could mean unlearning the idea that unconditional love is weakness. It could mean unlearning the idea that unconditional love means doing whatever you want or letting other people do whatever they want, no matter who it hurts. It could mean unlearning belief in behavioral justification. Whatever it is that you have to unlearn, the goal is to level your ideological framework and rebuild it from the ground up…starting with resting your spiritual foundation on two things: one, that God IS unconditional love (meaning that love is literally the essence and most important part of who God is); and two, that love is the ultimate test of discipleship.

So let’s start with unlearning. What do you already believe? Personally, I’d been taught that God loved me, but that God hated the sinfulness that was inherent to my humanity. I was taught that sinlessness was perfection and that I was supposed to strive toward sinlessness. After all, all things are possible through Christ and His goal was to help me get to a place where I didn’t sin anymore. 

The problem with that was that God’s love wasn’t the bottom line. God’s love was an afterthought, an exception, rather than the rule. The “rule”, as it turned out, was justification, either through righteousness by works or righteousness by faith. It just depended on who you asked. 

Righteousness by works is more in line with the teachings of Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, and Methodist Christians. They distinguish between initial justification, which ordinarily is viewed to occur at baptism; and final salvation, which is accomplished after a lifetime of striving to do God’s will. Catholics believe faith as is active in charity and good works (fides caritate formata) can justify man. Forgiveness of sin exists and is infused, but justification can be lost by mortal sin.

Righteousness by faith is a Protestant doctrine, under which sin is considered to be merely “covered”, and righteousness imputed. In Lutheranism and Calvinism, righteousness from God is viewed as being credited to the sinner’s account through faith alone, without works. Protestants believe faith without works can justify man because Christ died for sinners. There’s one big “but”, though: anyone who truly has faith will produce good works as a product of faith, as a good tree produces good fruit. For Lutherans, justification can be lost with the loss of faith.

Whether by faith or by works, justification is important. To most Christians, all of that sounds perfectly logical, and the concept of righteousness isn’t the issue in itself. The problem is reconciling what we already believe about righteousness with God’s essence being unconditional love. And I mean honestly reconciling it, not twisting unconditional love to fit the pre-established narrative.  And an even more important question is whether that’s even how it works in the first place. Should I be reconciling who God is with what I already believe God wants? Or should I first take the time to discover and establish who God is and THEN use that as a basis for determining what God wants?

I believe that we have to start by establishing who God is, and I believe that the three most important Biblical truths regarding who God is are: God is omniscient, God is omnipotent, and God is unconditional love. Today, we’re talking about love.

God Is Love

Theologian A.W. Tozer once stated, “Nothing God ever does, or ever did, or ever will do, is separate from the love of God.”

1 John 4:7-12 

Agape is a Greco-Christian term referring to love, “the highest form of love, charity” and “the love of God for man and of man for God”.The word embraces a universal, unconditional love that transcends and persists regardless of circumstance. It goes beyond just the emotions to the extent of seeking the best for others. 

Within Christianity, agape is considered to be the love originating from God or Christ for humankind. In the New Testament, it refers to the covenant love of God for humans, as well as the human reciprocal love for God; the term necessarily extends to the love of one’s fellow man. 

“While the person who loves ‘is born of God and knows God,’  the person who doesn’t love doesn’t know God and has no deep and abiding relationship with God.  Love, then, is the acid test of discipleship.” – Sermon Writer Bible Commentary

1 Corinthians 13:8-13

Romans 8:31-39

It’s imperative to get the foundation right, because everything anyone believes is ultimately based on what that person believes about who God is. We should be able to ask ourselves, “Would a loving God do this?” and give an objective answer rather than trying to explain why something that intuitively contradicts love somehow still constitutes love. We should be able to examine our beliefs and their origins with integrity and objectively determine whether those beliefs align with who we say we believe God to be. 

If love is the essence of God’s character, if everything God does is out of love, if love is the greatest commandment and nothing can separate us from God’s love….love should be the foundation, not an exception. We shouldn’t be looking for any reason or excuse to conform love to something that fits what we already believe to be true. We should be willing to strip away fear and conditioning and worldliness….take a step back from what we think we know….and build from the ground up, examining our beliefs through the lens of God’s love and determining whether what we say God wants is a reflection of who we want people to believe God is. 

This week, I challenge you to ask God to break down your ideological framework and strip away what you think you know. I challenge you to ask God to reveal Himself to you in ways that only He can and to expand your mind and open your heart to allowing Him to be as big in your life as He possibly can be. I challenge you to ask God to move you out of His way and to give Him permission to do a new thing. I challenge you to ask God to remove any fear and to help you embrace the spirit of power, love, and a sound mind.