Have you ever wondered what’s up with the constant theme of blood sacrifice that we see throughout scripture?

Have you ever wondered as I have, why God would require blood sacrifice? Especially if God is supposedly just like Jesus?

There are two things I think the western church of today needs to be aware of.

One: I don’t think that the God of the universe ever needed a display of blood worthy of a Quentin Tarantino film to cure him of a bad mood so that he could forgive.

Two: Tommy Lee Jones really reminds me of God. More on that one later.

Right from Genesis 4, we see Abel offering a sacrifice from his flock. His brother Cain also offers a sacrifice to God, but from his crop. (It appears that God prefers steak over vegetables. I can relate to that.)

By the time we get to Genesis 22, we find the story of God telling Abraham to offer up his only son Isaac as a human sacrifice, which he seemingly agrees to without hesitation. This tells us, and we can also see from non-biblical historical records, that human sacrifice was already a common and accepted practice in many civilizations.

Moving on to Exodus, God gives instructions to Moses that “You shall make an altar of earth for Me, and you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings, your sheep, and your oxen; in every place where I cause My name to be remembered, I will come to you and bless you.” (Exodus 20:24 NASB)

Well now it seems at least that we’ve moved on to animal sacrifices and left human sacrifice behind, but then….In the book of Judges, we have the story of Jephthah. He had the misfortune of being born to the wrong woman, and as such, was kicked out of the house. Then we have a very heartwarming underdog-turned-hero story come about where the entire nation of Israel is counting on Jephthah to save the day as their fearless military leader. Negotiations between Israel and their enemy—the Ammonites have failed and the battle is inevitable.

Jephthah really needs this victory and makes a rash promise to God that “If You will indeed give the sons of Ammon into my hand, then it shall be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the sons of Ammon, it shall be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering.” (Judges 11:30b-31 NASB)

Jephthah wins the battle and comes home in victory only to have his only daughter whom he loves dearly come out of the door to meet him. So he follows through with his vow and sacrifices her to God. There is nothing here that immediately condemns his sacrifice. So we’re back to human sacrifice again.

And then in 2 Chronicles 28, we see the reintroduction of human sacrifice in the cultic practices of Israel under the reign of king Ahaz.

No matter how far we peer into history, there is evidence of human and animal sacrifice in cultures around the world. Different people groups practicing this include; ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, Neolithic Europe, the Celts, the Germanic people, the Slavic people, the Chinese, India, Hawaii, the pre-Columbian Americas, and all across Africa.

So the question is: Why is it that every ancient culture has at one point in time had the compelling, perceived need to offer blood sacrifices to a deity?

There have been three main motivators throughout history for sacrifice:

The main one was that the people had felt that they had angered their god and thought they needed to give up something to appease their deity.

The second reason was that they wanted or needed an advantage over another people group and would make a deal with their deity…a trade. A sacrifice for a decisive victory.

The third reason was for divine provision for favourable growing conditions for crops. Another trade-off. A sacrifice in return for good crops. Other reasons tied into this, like the Mayans for example, sacrificing copious quantities of innocent lives so that the sun would continue to rise day after day.

The common denominator here is one thing…Fear.

Fear of God punishing, abandoning, and excluding them. Fear is the one thing that keeps the machine of religion ticking. It is the only thing. It doesn’t seem strange then, that various people throughout scripture are told by God or by angels to “fear not” over 100 times!

Have you ever noticed the progression take place throughout the centuries recorded in scripture?

“Sacrifice and meal offering You have not desired; My ears You have opened; Burnt offering and sin offering You have not required.” (Psalm 40:6 NASB)

“For I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, And in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” (Hosea 6:6 NASB)

“For what purpose does frankincense come to Me from Sheba? And the sweet cane from a distant land? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable And your sacrifices are not pleasing to Me.” (Jeremiah 6:20 NASB)

“Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat flesh. For I did not speak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this is what I commanded them, saying, ‘Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you will be My people; and you will walk in all the way which I command you, that it may be well with you.’ Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward and not forward.” (Jeremiah 7:21-24 NASB)

“With what shall I come to the LORD And bow myself before the God on high? Shall I come to Him with burnt offerings, with yearling calves? Does the LORD take delight in thousands of rams, In ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I present my firstborn for my rebellious acts, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:6-8 NASB)

“But go and learn what this means: ‘I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT SACRIFICE,’ for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”(Matthew 9:13 NASB)

“But if you had known what this means, ‘I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT A SACRIFICE,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.” (Matthew 12:7 NASB)

“Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says, “Sacrifice AND OFFERING YOU HAVE NOT DESIRED, BUT a BODY YOU HAVE PREPARED FOR ME; [6] In WHOLE BURNT OFFERINGS AND sacrifices FOR SIN YOU HAVE TAKEN NO PLEASURE.” (Hebrews 10:5-6 NASB)

“After saying above, “Sacrifices AND OFFERINGS AND whole BURNT OFFERINGS AND sacrifices for SIN YOU HAVE NOT DESIRED, NOR HAVE YOU TAKEN PLEASURE in them” (which are offered according to the Law)” (Hebrews 10:8 NASB)

So we have to ask, what’s going on here?

Has God, the immutable One changed his mind about sacrifice?

Does the change in the tone of scripture from God seemingly wanting sacrifice to not desiring sacrifice mean that scripture is fallible and errant after all?

I think that people who dogmatically insist on the inerrancy and infallibility of scripture are missing the point. As Rob Bell says in his book, “What is the Bible?”, the Bible is a story about what it means to be human. It is an accurate collection of stories which show how a specific group of people understood God as he has progressively revealed himself to us, culminating in his full disclosure of character when the cosmic Christ became enfleshed and lived among us.

What’s going on here is that God met man where he was: Lost, in pain, uncomfortable, believing in a false identity, forgetting who God really was and imagining what he was like based on fear.

I believe that our lostness is rooted in our trying to live within the parameters of a self-made moral code, when we were designed to live in perfect relationship, which ultimately makes any moral code obsolete.

Who was it then that desired sacrifice? Man or God?

I believe man desired sacrifice so that we could control our way into right standing with God. We mistakenly thought that God desired it and could be manipulated through a transaction.

Let’s dig into this further…

Matthew Distefano writes the following in his excellent book, “From the Blood of Abel”:

“Consider the backdrop for a moment. Here we have a man who does not bear a son with his wife, Sarah, until he is 100 years of age (Genesis 21:5). Not exactly the most ideal period in life to procreate!

Miraculously though, it happens. A baby boy! But then, one day God decides to ‘test’ Abraham, commanding, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the…’ (Genesis 22:2)

Wait! What?

No, no, no…that cannot be right. It sounds too ridiculous!

Well, not so fast. If we transport ourselves back in time, perhaps 3,000 years or more, then we will discover a vastly different culture, with very specific theological assumptions (starting to sound familiar yet?).

The important thing to understand is that once upon a time, people in the Middle East were polytheists. More specifically, and this applies to the early Hebrews, they were henotheists.

Simply put: gods were tribal. I had my god, you had your god, and they had their god. So, for instance, Yahweh was the God of Israel, while Molech was the god of the Canaanites, and so on and so forth. With that in mind, let’s get back to the story…

What Abraham and Sarah faced religiously and culturally sounds brutal for any parent.

Certainly, they both “knew” that in order for God to be appeased, blood had to be shed—and what better blood than that of a first-born son? This was just the way it was. I believe that is why there is no mention of Abraham contesting God’s “commands.”

Notice, in Genesis 22:3, immediately after getting the instructions from God, we are simply told that Abraham “rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac.”

No protesting, no pleading for the boy’s life; just that he saddled up for the journey. Now, after the two reach the place where Isaac is to be slain, Abraham immediately builds an altar (Genesis 22:9). I can imagine a rudimentary pile of rocks with hefty pieces of wood strategically placed on top. I picture them doused in a flammable oil of sorts, perhaps something like animal fat. After all, the body would have to be burned so as to reach the nostrils of God. Once everything is just right, Abraham binds his beloved Isaac and takes out his knife. With a shaking hand, he is ready.

But all of a sudden, in comes the plot-twist. As Abraham goes to kill Isaac, we read, in Genesis 22:11: “But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ He said, ‘Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”

Immediately following this, Abraham sees a ram and sacrifices that instead. After he does this, he names the place Adonai-Jireh, or “The Lord will provide” (Genesis 22:14). In order to determine the power and meaning of this text, we are provided with some very strong clues in the very language used.

Note:
• Verse 1: Elohim tested Abraham…
• Verse 3: Elohim had shown him…
• Verse 8: Elohim himself will provide…
• Verse 9: Elohim had shown him…
• Verse 11: But the angel of Yahweh called…

Here we have a wrestling with “God’s will.” Initially, a theological assumption is made about the creator God, Elohim, arguing that he needs Isaac’s blood to be spilled. But then the God of Abraham, and then later Isaac, and Jacob, via a messenger angel, rescues Isaac from this false, and might I say murderous, sacrificial assumption. Remember, everyone in Abraham’s day believed all gods, Elohim included, demanded blood. But this is simply false.

In fact, it is a lie, and ultimately comes from satan—or in other words, the human principle of accusation—the one whom Jesus would later label a liar and murderer from the start (John 8:44). The lie that satan hides behind here is that God demands blood. The truth though, is that really we are “satan” – the lying, sacrifice-demanding murderers, not Elohim. In all reality, the one true God—whether named Elohim or Yahweh—has never demanded blood sacrifices, but that theological understanding is not our starting position; the belief in a God who demands human sacrifice is.

This passage takes us from one theological place to another. It is a baby step in a way, but it is also huge (especially for me!) because it is ultimately the reason we do not sacrifice first-born sons any longer (and I am a first-born son!).”

One theme that we see throughout the story of humanity in the Bible is how we have gotten lost and God has met us, not where we should be, but rather where we are—lost, broken, confused about who we are and confused about who God is.

Around twenty years ago, a bunch of friends and I had the brilliant idea of climbing to the top of Mt. Burke and tobogganing down the north face. Mt. Burke is in the Canadian Rockies and has a 3000 ft elevation gain. Oh, did I mention this was on December 23rd?

We ended up getting lost on the way down and what should have been an easy two-hour hike to the base of the mountain turned into an exhausting adventure trudging through deep snow in the dark, trying to find our way back. This was one of the few times in my life where I actually thought I was going to die.

Fortunately, one of the guys that had started up the trail with us had gotten tired out and turned back while we were on the way up. He was waiting for us back at the vehicle and had started wondering what was taking us so long. He became concerned for our safety and managed to get the help of some guys who had their snowmobiles out. Together, they went looking for us.

Where should I have been at eleven o’clock at night on December 23rd? Probably at home with my wife and my one-month-old daughter. That’s not where I was though. I was cold, tired and hopelessly lost in the forest somewhere on the north-west side of Mt. Burke. I needed rescue and my rescuers came to where I was and took me to where I should have been.

To me, this is a picture of how God has met humans where we were throughout history and brought us to where we should be.

I want you to imagine someone important in your life. A person you cannot imagine living without. It could be your spouse, a sibling, a parent, a grandparent, that crazy uncle, a lifelong friend. Picture that person in your mind. Now imagine something you could do that would hurt that relationship. Imagine you have done that thing…whatever it is. You feel incredible remorse and want more than anything else to make things right with that person. You are willing to sacrifice anything of yours which you hold as valuable in order to have that relationship back. Your whole view of that person you love has now changed. You imagine them to be, at best, disappointed with you, and at worst, furious.

You end up avoiding that person out of guilt, maybe working up the courage to make a phone call or send a text offering to make up for what you have done. If you could only exchange something valuable of yours for forgiveness, it would have the effect of easing your conscience.

This is a picture of the human condition. In the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve made a wrong decision. They decided to act like less than they really were. In their minds, God was angry with them and they needed to do something to make up for what they had done.

Then they produced children, and these children got their ideas about what God was like from their parents. The children also made wrong decisions and assumed that God was angry with them and that they need to do something to make up for it.

This is the system of sin which Adam and Eve introduced, something which evangelicals would call the “sin nature.” Here’s the thing though. God was never angry or disappointed. I think it’s quite difficult to be angry or disappointed with anyone when you exist outside of time and have already known for a few billion years what decisions people will make.

The first thing God does in fact, after Adam and Eve sin, is to come looking for them so that they could go for a walk as they usually did. Together, enjoying relationship.

Notice that here, God did not withdraw from Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve hid from God.

God has always demonstrated forgiveness. Yes, even before the cross. In fact, I believe that the very act of creation was an act of forgiveness. God never needed for us to “make up for what we had done.” He never needed an exchange of something valuable in order to forgive.

Let’s get back to Tommy Lee Jones, shall we?

In the 1997 movie “M.I.B.”, the characters “Kay” played by Tommy Lee Jones and “Jay” played by Will Smith have cornered a villainous alien known as the “Bug”. In their epic final confrontation, the bug ingests the weapons of our would-be heroes.

Kay tells Jay that he’s gonna get his gun back, and then moves in front of the alien shouting insults. He screams at the bug, “EAT ME!” The bug more than gladly obliges, thinking that this is the end of one enemy. Kay, however, finds his gun inside the alien and kills it from within.

Just like God did to religion.

He climbed into our darkness, into our mythology, our misconception—our religion—for the purpose of killing it from within. He met us where we were and continues to meet us where we are; smack dab in the middle of our lostness.

In the preface of his book, “Across All Worlds”, Dr. C. Baxter Krueger brilliantly writes:

“Jesus wants His Father known. He is passionate about it. He cannot bear for us to live without knowing His Father, without knowing His heart, His lavish embrace, His endless love—and the sheer freedom to be that works within us as we see His Father’s face.

Jesus knows the Father from all eternity. He sits at His right hand and sees Him face to face, and shares life and all things with Him in the fellowship of the Spirit. How could He be content to leave us in the dark with no vision of His Father’s heart? How could this Son be indifferent when we are so lost and afraid and bound in our mythology?

Burning with the Father’s love for us, inspired with the Spirit’s fire, the Son ran to embrace our broken existence, baptizing Himself into our blindness. He braved the seas of our darkness to come to us. Why? So that he could share with us His own communion with His father in the Spirit, and we could know the Father with Him, and taste and feel and experience life in His embrace.”

I can hear the objections from my religious readers already: What about Hebrews 9:22 where it says, “In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” (NIV)

First of all, if you are still reading an NIV Bible, do yourself a favour. Light it on fire and get yourself a better translation that isn’t jam-packed with sloppy interpretive bias.

Here’s a better rendering of that verse with some context:

“Therefore even the first covenant was not inaugurated without blood. For when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the Law, he took the blood of the calves and the goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, “This IS THE BLOOD OF THE COVENANT WHICH GOD COMMANDED YOU.” (Hebrews 9:18-22 NASB)

And in the same way he sprinkled both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry with the blood. And according to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”

There is a clear distinction here in, “ONE MAY ALMOST SAY”, and “ACCORDING TO THE LAW.”

Whose law is this anyway? God’s, or man’s?

Since we know now that God never wanted sacrifice, I think we can confidently say that this was man’s law, made by men who mistakenly thought that God wanted sacrifice.

God entered our religious system to meet us where we were. God does not require anything in order to forgive. In fact, as soon as you bring a transaction of any sort into the picture, it is not forgiveness anymore. It is a payoff.

One other thing that my religious readers will bring up is a verse from the NASB since that is what I have been primarily using in this essay:

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (1 John 4:7-11 NASB)

Yes, even the NASB has some sloppy translation, and the usage of the word “propitiation” is a perfect example of this. The NRSV correctly translates this as “atonement”. Why is this important? The word, “propitiation” carries the meaning of “being appeased”, which necessitates a transaction, which is then no longer forgiveness.

Atonement is an excellent word choice. It means to reunite, to make whole again. It has the imagery of the Hebrew word, “shalom”—nothing broken, nothing missing. It’s interesting to note that the Greek word irresponsibly translated as “propitiation” is ἱλαστήριον (hilastērion).

This word comes from the Hebrew word כּפּרת (kappôreth) which means “lid”, referring to the lid of the ark of the covenant. This is the place where God (the uncreated) and the high priest (being the representative for the created) would meet (At-one-ment) together in the holy of holies and were able to do so because of the blood sacrifice covering sin.

Sin needed to be covered so that the people’s conscience could be cleared at least for a while in order to enjoy relationship with God. God enters the sacrificial system and allows them to use this as a means to relationship—atonement.

Jesus the Christ became the lid or the place of atonement where the uncreated and the created are able to meet. Jesus was the sacrifice (who was not sacrificed to God, but rather to humanity) and he did not just cover our sin, but actually removed it. We are now a kingdom of priests able to always be in the holy of holies.

1 John 2:2 says, “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” (NRSV).

John 1:29, speaking of John the Baptist says, “The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”.

Why was it important for Jesus to remove the “sins of the world”? Sin leads to a guilty conscience. A guilty conscience leads to the severing of relationship.

“But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Hebrews 9:11-14 NASB)

When we look at the whole picture of God that scripture paints for us, we must come to one of four conclusions:

1. God is not immutable. his essence can change throughout the ages.
2. There is disunity within the Godhead with God the Father being the angry, punishing judge, God the Son being the loving, forgiving, self-sacrificing one and the Holy Spirit being the neutral one.
3. Scripture is unreliable as it presents two clearly different and conflicting views of God’s character.
4. God is immutable. God the Father is, always has been and always will be like God the Son. We haven’t always known this as a human species, but with the perfect revelation of God in Jesus, we now do. Scripture is simply a reflection of our progressive knowledge of this.

I believe number four is the correct conclusion.

God entered our religious mythology and, though never desiring or needing sacrifice to forgive, recognized that it was us who thought we needed the system of sacrifice to appease our guilty consciences. He met us where we were, not where we should have been.

We see throughout the story of scripture how God reveals more and more truth about himself until we finally have the full and perfect revelation of God in Jesus—whom we sacrifice on the altar of religion, violence, empire and human independence in our lostness, confusion, and sin-sickness.

Was Jesus a sacrifice? Yes. In fact, the ultimate sacrifice to end all sacrifices.

He was the sacrifice that we demanded, not God.

He was the sacrifice that proved that no matter how much we fell short of what it means to be human, made in the image of God. No matter how independent, selfish, prideful and violent we were, God in Christ would hang on the Roman instrument of torture, bleeding, hurting, and lost in our darkness, just like us…and He would say, “Father forgive them.”

God never asked for sacrifice. We did. And God entered our lostness and met us where we were, giving us what we asked for, to relate to us, to show us that he is here for us as our healer and rescuer.

Ryan Harbidge is the husband to one beautiful woman and a father to three gorgeous young ladies. He lives in the small town of Nanton, Alberta, Canada and owns a painting company.  Ryan likes to spend his free time reading, writing, playing music, camping, hiking, riding his motorcycle, growing a large beard and most importantly, basking in the reality of God’s love.  It is Ryan’s hope and dream that others will understand and experience God’s love through his writing, music and life.

IV Horton

You know that feeling you get when something you were really invested in and believed in as a kid turns out to not be that magical when you experience it as an adult?

Maybe it was a fast food burger and fries, the feeling of Christmas Eve, or a tree you used to read books in.

Things often lose their magic as you get older because all the experiences you’ve had have given them context, and generally speaking, these experiences are likely to make you feel more cynical about the world.

This is how I feel about Christianity.

The church as I knew it (or desperately tried to believe it was) is dead to me.

The God I was raised to believe in is dead to me.

As children, we’re pretty naive. We tend to take the things told to us by the adults we trust pretty seriously, and we tend to trust more easily the younger we are.

Then we grow up and we realize the world is a lot more complex than we were told it was. We realize that growing up and being free to make our own decisions isn’t as wonderful as we thought it would be when we were little. We realize that if we want to be the thing we always dreamed of being, it’s most likely going to mean years of really hard work, and there’s a decent chance we’ll never make it and have to settle for something else. We realize that loving people is actually pretty difficult, and life kinda sucks.

I grew up in the church, or perhaps I should say “churches”. We had a church we went to on Sundays, churches we visited when speakers were in town or in neighboring areas, the churches I went to on Wednesday nights for youth groups, and other churches we visited for various events. The common thread between every place we visited was that it was Protestant, Evangelical, Fundamentalist, and politically Conservative, and they were always led by white, cisgender, heterosexual, middle-aged men. Many of the places were also some degree of Charismatic or Pentecostal. Every friend or acquaintance I made everywhere I went was going to be Christian, and as a result, my worldview was very limited.

The craziest part was, everything I learned told me over and over again that it was incredibly obvious that everything in the bible was an absolute fact, and that the way it was meant to be interpreted was quite black and white. There was no room for questioning or disagreement on most topics. Anyone who tried to question things in church was quickly shut down and it was made obvious that they should know better.

I was told that Adam and Eve were real people who cast the earth into a state of evil because they listened to a talking snake. I was told that God committed and condoned multiple mass genocides because he was just. I was told that people who don’t say a string of specific words will spend an eternal afterlife burning in flames, and that people who do utter these magic words will get new bodies and worship God and be happy and perfect for the rest of eternity.

I was also homeschooled – not necessarily with the goal of sheltering me, but because it was the best learning set-up for me. However, nearly all of the textbooks and teaching materials were “Christian”. This means my science books tried to uphold the Young Earth Creationist view (which holds that the earth is only 6,000 years old and that evolution cannot possibly be true) with every chance they got. The overarching theme of everything I learned was one that reinforced a black and white moral code, an inerrant Bible, and a human species destined for hell at the start by original sin, but then wonderfully redeemed by a Middle-Eastern man who for some reason was always depicted as white.

As a kid, I had no desire to do anything I was told not to do. I was never interested in alcohol, drugs, or sex. Probably to the great relief of my parents, I preferred spending time on the computer or reading books to going to parties or sleeping around.

Because I had an easy time not breaking the rules, it wasn’t difficult for me to accept that they were probably a pretty decent guideline. Until my friends started coming to me and telling me the things they’d done wrong…the rules they’d broken…and I saw the fear and shame in their eyes.

They begged me not to judge them, though they already knew I wouldn’t. After all, that’s why they were telling me and not someone else. There were many things they didn’t share with me, as I was the most naive of the entire group in terms of understanding how the world worked, but looking back in a strange way I feel like I took the role of Priest. It seemed like they saw me as the blameless one. Maybe if they could tell me the worst things they’d done and I didn’t judge them, but felt compassion and listened and then tried to help them figure out what to do next, they could feel like God would forgive them too.

Every time I had a friend come to me, deeply ashamed of something they’d done, there was something that didn’t sit right with me. So many times they would say things like “Do you think I’m still a virgin if we did X?” and “Do you think God is mad at me?” and most importantly “you have to promise not to tell anyone”.

Their greatest fears were things like their bodies being seen as dirty and used because they were told that their value was wrapped up in their lack of sexual activity (a message that was pretty exclusively only sent to the girls I knew), or being seen as “dangerous” to their Christian friends because of things like their sexual orientation or their doubts that God existed.

When I saw how much shame they were experiencing because they were “breaking the rules”, regardless of whether the rule-breaking actually did any harm, I started to question the system that set them up to believe that things like pre-marital sex would destroy their lives forever and make the all-powerful, omnipotent God angry and likely to punish them.

Even more disturbing, I had friends come to me often saying “I can’t seem to get myself to read my bible/go to church/pray/evangelize enough.” This too came with heaps of shame. They believed that their relationship with God and thereby their value as a person was being determined by outside peers and leaders who put pressure on them to prove they were “good Christians”.

When I was first delving into the more Holy Spirit-focused/Charismatic sects of Christianity about 10 years ago, people were constantly (far more than in classic evangelical fundamentalist denominations) emphasizing relationship over religion, to the point where “religion” as they described it was seen as a bad thing. They talked about how a belief system centered on following laws and rules and trying to be good enough would always feel empty and dead. They talked about how God was actually good, and they allowed a lot more freedom for people to be themselves.

I liked the movement away from a law and punishment model. I liked the emphasis on God’s goodness, though they still tended to remind people that the God of the Old Testament was indeed very angry, and that Jesus came and was punished in our place by that Angry Father God rescued us from his wrath for good.

I was sick of hearing pastors telling me I was a sinful worm and that I was lucky God even gave a shit about me. I always thought they were full of shit anyway. It was good to hear this new crowd emphasizing a God who thought I was awesome. I also enjoyed the openness to people getting different things out of the Bible at different times rather than trying to pretend it always “said” one specific thing.

I thought maybe I’d finally found people who I felt were at least trying to model their lives after the Jesus they said they followed.

And yet even though these people who I felt had a healthier perspective of God taught a lot of healthier alternatives to typical fundamentalist doctrine, in many ways their actions are no different. The degree to which they use scripture to dehumanize and condemn people who don’t look like them is appalling. I am at a point in my life where I’ve been betrayed and wounded to a degree I never thought possible – not only because of what’s been done to me personally or the layers of lies I was taught as if they were unquestionable fact, but because of the hundreds of stories I’ve been told and have heard and read of the damage that’s been done to others in the name of the Christian God.

These people told me we were family. They told me they would love me no matter what happened. Then they turned around and publicly harassed me because of who I was dating.

They told me that because they were honourable, it was their core value to honour all people, rather than only giving it to those who seemed deserving of honour. And then they turned around and attacked the LGBTQ+ community, calling gay people a “violation of design” and blatantly stating that we cannot follow Jesus or have the Holy Spirit.

They championed people having different perspectives and revelations of scripture and yet made sure they carefully filtered out the voices of all LBGTQ+ Christians to ensure only one narrative gets heard.

They spent months teaching us how to understand scripture in context and how to properly research the meanings behind each word in its original language. They told us again and again how important it was…and then looked at their current translation of the bible and said, “It says homosexuality is bad right here. That settles it.”

They talked about serving without expectation making a way for you to use your gifts in the church…but forget to mention that it was entirely conditional and that if I loved someone with the “wrong genitals” I would be completely disqualified and all of my training and service would be rendered useless.

And to top it all off, head leadership publicly championed Donald Trump as a man of character…

When I went to speak at a vigil on the Texas Capital steps after the Orlando Pulse shooting and then walked with the crowd to a larger vigil on 4th St. in downtown Austin – a group or 4 or 5 people with signs came to the edge of the crowd and started yelling at us to “turn or burn”. In the middle of one of the most grievous events in our recent history as a queer community, the fact that they believed it was their job not to grieve with us but to judge us speaks volumes.

For over a year now, on a weekly or daily basis, I’ve been faced with direct attacks from Christians on myself, the people who matter to me, and people who are like me. With every blow, my usual optimism and positivity has been worn farther and farther down. Sometimes it’s from people who were close to me. Other times it’s from strangers who feel the need to spread their hatred publicly on social media or through laws that discriminate against people like me and take away our rights.

Although I’m using the example of the LGBTQ+ community as it’s personal to me, I see Christians persistently dehumanizing and judging women, people of colour, sex workers, people with mental illnesses, the homeless and those living in poverty…

And at this point in my life, the only rational conclusion I can come to is that in many cases, Christianity does more harm than good.

I don’t care if you think you’re giving people the answers to life, the universe, and everything if you’re leaving a pile of bodies in your wake.

I never thought I would find myself needing to use everything I learned in church about loving your enemy, forgiving 70 x 7, and turning the other cheek, on the church.

I never thought I would need God most when the church turned their backs on me and caused me the deepest pain I’ve ever experienced.

I never thought I’d find real community until I abandoned the religious people who kept trying to tell me they were my community despite the fact that they didn’t give two shits about my life outside of “serving God” by participating their pre-approved religious activities.

I never realized that I would find the deepest love among the very people Jesus spent most of his time with – the people on the fringes who break the gender binary, who reject the idea that we must be either saint or sinner, who are oppressed, who fight to raise up those who don’t have a voice, who are okay with questioning everything, who are okay with a God who doesn’t rule the world with an iron fist and a black and white list of rules, who reject a God who is cruel and condemning, who are okay with admitting that nothing is certain when it comes to the divine, who don’t assume that everyone needs to connect with God the way they do…

But this where I’m at right now. And I have to say that despite losing the magic I thought I had found in Christianity, I’ve found far more in this community of misfits, heretics, and gender outlaws where I can be my honest self than I ever found within the four walls of a church building.

And honestly? There’s no place I’d rather be.

Beck Hanan is a super queer Jack of all Trades frequently trying to become a master of some. He desperately needs variety in his life on a regular basis and runs or helps manage a few companies, a couple of websites, and a handful of blogs and facebook pages at once – all quite different from each other – to help meet this need.

He is passionate about advocating for people of colour, the LGBTQIA+ community, and women, among a variety of other marginalized and oppressed people groups, in ways that help push the conversation forward, though at times he is guilty of publishing angry rants on Facebook that he later wishes he’d sat on for longer before deciding to post them.

He is in the middle of a massive spiritual and religious deconstruction and identifies as an atheist, an agnostic, and a Christian most days, often simultaneously. He lives in the Portland, OR area with his lovely wife Bre and their fluffy toy poodle Charles Wallace.

[Photo by Christopher Campbell on Unsplash]

Some of us were never going to make the cut.

At 29 years old, I have spent a large portion of my life in ministry.

My sense of calling came almost simultaneously with my sense of conversion. From the moment I fell in love with Jesus at age 11, I knew that I had to serve him through some sort of ministry. I knew it deep down in my bones, in an unspeakable, unfathomable, ineffable way. Over the years, I have acquired more language to describe that calling, but it still remains somewhat of a mystery to me.

Since the time of my calling, I have had the blessing of serving in a great many ministries. I have served in various youth ministries in many different capacities. I have served on and led foreign missions trips all over the world. I have served in and led various church and parachurch (evangelism and social justice) ministries. I have helped plant and pastor churches.

I have also spent years studying religion, scripture, theology, history, and spirituality. Because I never had the financial support necessary to complete a M.Div. or a similar formal seminary degree, I passionately applied myself to learn all that I possibly could, in order to compensate for lacking that experience. And because of the way my mind is wired, allowing me to read quickly and to remember in detail most of what I have read, I have been able to study a considerable amount.

But in the end, none of that mattered.

I was never going to make the cut.

And not because of a problem with my experience. Not because of a problem with my knowledge. No; the reason none of that mattered is me.

The church (especially the evangelical church) has a qualifications problem. Namely, they have a fetish for over-obsessive lists of qualifications that work together to form a very specific and rigid mold for what they believe a minister should and should not be. If someone cannot check all the boxes—if someone does not fit the mold—then they are not going to make it very long in that ministry.

“But,” one might object, “qualifications do matter. Doesn’t the New Testament give some pretty lofty qualifications for those in leadership?” The passages that immediately come to mind are those like 1 Timothy 3:1-12 or Titus 1:6-9.

As I see it, there are two problems with this line of thinking:

First, these passages were never meant to be a hard list of qualifications that each prospective minister must be mercilessly checked against. They were meant to provide a helpful list of qualities to look for in potential leaders. If we examine them carefully, I think we find that these lists merely inform us of tangible signs to look for in leaders who embody the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,   gentleness, self-control [Gal. 5:22-23])—that is, mature Christians who walk in the way of Jesus.

Yet the church has so often abandoned the spirit of those qualities and reduced them to a very strict list of boxes to check. For example, the quality of faithfulness in a marriage relationship becomes a strict criterion regarding a person’s relationships. They can’t have ever been divorced; they can’t have ever been unfaithful in any way; they can’t be prone to temptation; and so forth. Of course, this ministry is only for men, and only heterosexual men, and only married men with children. Rule upon rule is added, creating a nearly impossible standard for anyone—even the holiest of Christians—to meet.

The second problem is that the church so often adds to these over-embellished qualification lists additional extra-‘biblical’ lists of qualifications to form an even more rigid mold. Things such as personality type, whether the person is an extrovert or introvert, agreement upon secondary and tertiary points of theology, and speaking style exist as unspoken standards potential ministers must somehow intuitively know and meet in order to make it.

I will never forget a conversation I had with a pastor while I was going through a 3-year pastoral residency training program. During our lunch meeting, he remarked that my wife, Heather, and I did not fit the usual mold for what a pastor and his wife would look like. “Well, no; we don’t,” I commented. “But I actually think that is a strength, because we are not looking to minister to the same suburban people that you and others are. We are ministering to the kind of city people who usually want nothing to
do with church.”

“I understand that,” he replied. “I just have to wonder, what kind of pastor and pastor’s wife will you be then?” My answer that we would be Adam and Heather, only now with Adam employed in a position of ministry, did not seem to satisfy his quandary.

During that same residency, another young pastor sat me down and confronted me…over my lack of interest in sports. “You are ministering at and around the university. You’re in the South. Sports are a big deal here; so if you plan on being a successful pastor here, you’re going to have to get into football and basketball, at the least.”

“But I really just don’t care,” I objected. “And there are plenty of other ways for someone like me to connect with people outside of interest in sports.” His response was to use the bible against me:

“We’re supposed to be all things to all people, Adam.”

When I was foolish enough to open up to fellow evangelical ministers about my sexual orientation as a bisexual Christian, I was often met with apathy, as though it were something inappropriate to acknowledge or discuss. Other times, I was met with grave concern, as though my soul were now in peril because I find men attractive, or with stern counsel to always use the language of “struggling with same-sex attraction,” as though I were diseased or broken.

Through these things and so much more, it became clear that I was never going to make the cut for evangelical ministry; because I was never going to amount to a John Piper 2.0 (for which I now thank God). There were too many things going against me—things that have excluded a great many Christians, not only from positions of leadership, but often from church membership altogether.

I wish evangelical ministry had come with a warning label:

“Are you an emotional person? Are you an introverted person? Are you more right-brained and artistic? Are you free-thinking? Are you a person with doubts? Are you a highly sensitive person? Are you anything but cis-male? Are you anything but strictly heterosexual? Are you politically minded? Are you active on social media? Are you a millennial? Warning! Any or all of these things could prevent you from making it in evangelical ministry.”

Sadly it didn’t; thus many of us who were inherently incapable of fitting the mold have fought and failed again and again in pursuit of a calling that was always going to be denied to us. Unfortunately, that hasn’t stopped us from trying. And trying. And trying again.

What is even more unfortunate, though, is the cost that people who don’t fit the mold have had to pay in order to even try. I have sacrificed so much of myself for so many years to the idol of evangelical ministry—so much so that when I finally stepped away, I almost could not remember who I was anymore.

In order to pursue ministry, I had to put my writing aspirations on hold. For nearly three years, I hardly wrote a word. Journals, workbooks, and word documents remained empty and unused.

In order to pursue ministry, I had to isolate myself into pockets of evangelicalism in order to succeed, which meant I lost touch with relationships on the outside. And when I eventually left, all the relationships I had made in those isolated pockets suddenly disappeared, leaving me completely alone.

In order to pursue ministry, I had to hide my sexual orientation and address issues of sexuality using archaic and (in my opinion) sub-Christian language. Instead of using terms like “gay” or “LGBTQ,” I had to say “same-sex attracted.” Instead of addressing questions of sexuality with available scientific, psychological, and sociological study, I could only rely on very limited bible passages.

In order to pursue ministry, I had to keep away from anything that could be construed as political, even though my degree was in a political field. For years, I had to watch opportunities for involvement in social justice pass by, because one was not allowed to be a pastor and a protester.

And in order to pursue ministry, I had to lie about my doubts and project a false sense of confidence in things for which I had serious questions and concerns.

I lost so much of myself. I am only beginning to rediscover who I actually am, with the help of God and good therapy.

And I am not alone. Since I stepped away, I have come across so many people who have suffered through the same or worse in their own pursuits of evangelical ministry.

We were never going to make it. The system was rigged against us.

Now, in response to that unhealthy system from whence we came, what if we ex-evangelicals found a better way? What if, instead of creating our own systems of rules and regulations that, despite our intentions, often lead to more exclusion (albeit of a different sort), we embraced a completely other way of thinking about those who feel called to ministry?

The apostle Paul famously wrote,

I will show you the most excellent way. If I speak in the tongues of men or of
angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging
cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all
knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I
am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship
that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is
not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does
not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts,
always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

(1 Corinthians 12:31-13:8 NIV)

And Jesus himself said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40 NIV)

Isn’t love supposed to be our guiding principle?

What if churches started there when considering those called into ministry? What if, instead of jumping straight to imposing a hard list of qualifications upon them, churches began by asking, “Is this person a lover? Does this person love like Jesus loves? Does this person display the kind of love that embodies Paul’s ‘most excellent way’?”

How different would Christian ministry look with all kinds of people, who don’t fit any particular mold but who passionately love God and neighbor, giving themselves to serve in whatever way possible? How different would our churches become under those kinds of leaders, who inspire those they lead to walk in the way of love, in the way of Jesus?

Personally, I believe this would lead to churches that look a lot more like Jesus. I believe this would lead to churches that look much more like the messy but empowered church in Acts. And I believe this would lead to churches that can at last reflect the beautiful kingdom of God, on earth as in heaven.

Adam Waddell is a minister in search of his calling. Raised Southern Baptist and trained non-denominational, he has found his home within the Anglican/Episcopal tradition. Nerdy things and puns are his favorite pastimes. Adam lives in Memphis, TN with his wife and their 3 rambunctious children.

“Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity,” says the author of Ecclesiastes.

Another way to render “vanity” is “meaningless” or “empty”. The authorship of this book has traditionally been attributed to King Solomon, the “wisest man to ever live”. This is a man who had everything. Health, riches, power, peace, good food and drink, and maybe a few too many wives. All this, and he declares that life is meaningless.

What gets you up in the morning? What, if anything gives you reason to say at the end of the day that “this has been a good day”? How can we possibly have meaning when Solomon couldn’t find it?

We Have An Intrinsic Need To Self Actualize

The term “self actualization” was coined by the organismic theorist Kurt Goldstein. “In Goldstein’s view, it is the organism’s master motive, the only real motive: ‘the tendency to actualize itself as fully as possible is the basic drive… the drive of self-actualization.'”

In other words, everyone without exception needs to have a sense of meaning. We need a lasting purpose in life.

Abraham Maslow identified five human needs, starting with our most basic of physiological needs and then continuing on to safety, then love & belonging, then esteem, and at the very top, self actualization. It is very interesting to me that the science of psychology ties together meaning with spirituality. This tells me that there is nothing in the physical realm which in and of itself can provide anyone with real or lasting meaning in life.

Personally, I think that in order for anyone to find any kind of meaning in existence, we need to start to understand the nature of God.

In the 300’s, the Cappadocian fathers were largely responsible for digging into scripture and giving us the non dualistic trinitarian theology that I believe is required for us to understand what God is all about and how we fit into this existence we’ve been thrust into. Though the modern western stream of Christianity largely believes in the basic doctrine of the trinity and gives lip-service to it, we have lost the implications of what this trinitarian God means for us.

In the 400’s Augustine of Hippo infused the dualistic philosophies of Plato and Aristotle into Christianity, and I think we need to go back to the pre-Augustine church in order to see the connection between the trinity and our life’s meaning.

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