I read Sherman Alexie’s Reservation Blues a decade ago in a book club I was in at the time. Alexie’s way of writing and pulling the reader into the scene is a gift. He is one of a handful of authors whose work I can easily fall into.
To be honest, I don’t remember that much about the plot. It has something to do with a rock band and leaving the reservation for the “big world” and the consequences thereof (I think).
This morning Alexie’s Substack was a story about a time a girl in college asked him to attend a 24-hour shut-in at her church. The kids were all supposed to bring a friend. They were going to fast for the night and then end with a worship service and lunch. Alexie writes about his mixed feelings, his motivation for going, and the knowledge that the entire thing was a manipulative ploy to get young people into the church. (It’s well worth the read - again, how he’s able to do so much w/ his writing - I am envious.)
I came by my faith naturally, which is to say in many ways it was ingrained.
I came by my faith painfully, shedding the lies that tethered me to a toxic pool too many never notice is there. I struggled to find the God I knew was real in a faith that can manipulate and hurt and oppress.
Alexie’s story, told matter of fact and free from judgment, got my brain humming about manipulations of faith and what we spend our time on.
Tim Keller died last week. He’s a big name in the Christian world. People love him or hate him. I’ve had limited contact with his work and therefore am pretty neutral about him. His book Counterfeit Gods should be read thoughtfully and with an open heart by every evangelical Christian. If it makes you uncomfortable maybe lean into why instead of calling it evil and refusing to engage. Just an idea.
Keller ties to Alexie by their willingness to lean into what is hard. In her essay on Keller, Tish Harrison Warren wrote about his willingness to keep the humanness of people first, even when it meant looking less himself. At one point she writes,
Some Christian critics say that the Tim Keller model of engagement — his winsome, gentle approach to those with whom he disagreed — is outdated. They say that increased secularization and progressive hostility toward traditional Christianity requires the faithful to hit back, respond in kind, dominate or humiliate those who oppose us. But Tim wasn’t kind, gentle and loving to others as some sort of strategy to win the culture wars, grow his church or achieve a particular result. Tim loved his neighbors, even across deep differences, simply because he was a man who had been transformed by the grace of Jesus.
And that is the missing piece in Alexie’s encounter with a non-descript and yet totally cliche evangelical church 40 years ago. (Though his story could have happened today.) It was never about the people. It was about numbers, rigidity, “right living,” and control.
In his Substack story, the girl he likes is hemmed in by a checklist of things that are “wrong” - R-rated movies, alcohol, cigarettes, condoms, birth control, and rock music were the work of the Devil.
If we keep it about those things, we never have to deal with the harder issues, the heart issues. If we refuse to get uncomfortable, to look at our motivations, to deal with our list of “don’ts” and what they are really for - we live shallow lives with shallow faiths terrified of imaginary boogeymen behind every corner.
The inability to look at things at are hard and deal with them leads us to a reactionary faith where we believe our role, “requires the faithful to hit back, respond in kind, dominate or humiliate those who oppose us.”
That attitude of knee-jerk anger and domination is the opposite of how Jesus told and modeled us to live. As we grow in Christ we gain more love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Also called The Fruits of the Spirit.) It becomes less about us and our “rights” and what we think we deserve. We are sometimes willing to look foolish or get less if it means the dignity and humanity of the other are kept and respected.
Two voices in the wilderness. One is a mirror from a person outside the faith who knows a lot of Christians and yet is not one. The other is a man who is a call to another kind of faith for those who feel, “disaffected and disillusioned by the tone, antics and political idolatry of a flailing American church” (Warren), and yet still long to believe in God who is love, joy, peace, acceptance, hope, equality, justice, and ultimately good.
God is at work in both. The question is, are we willing to listen?
image from pixabay.
Sherman Alexie and Tim Keller
Well said.