I Don't Feel At Home In This World Anymore

 This world is not my home

I'm just a-passing through

My treasures are laid up

Somewhere beyond the blue

The angels beckon me

From heaven's open door

And I can't feel at home

In this world anymore

I grew up singing this song regularly in church services; both my home congregation and those where I was visiting. You might say it is was a staple of our repertoire. I always loved this song…I still love this song, but the way I hear it and sing it has transformed quite a bit through the years. To borrow — and redirect — the lyrics from another beloved hymn, sadly, it has not grown sweeter as the years go by. Lately, the lyrics are growing bitter in my mouth, like gall. 

As a teenager, and then young father and husband, when I would sing this song it conjured up images of a world growing ever more wicked as I grew ever more repulsed by it. Every evangelical church goer is familiar with the vocabulary of fundamentalism, and in our vernacular, “worldly” was always a caution and rebuke. You were always to avoid “worldly” things. You were to eschew “worldly” behaviors, attitudes, and influences. So we gleefully sang “this world is not my home, I’m just a-passing through” as a means of comforting ourselves in the midst of this wicked world.

As a grandfather, and ever nearing senior citizen, these lyrics no longer provide comfort as much as cold truth. More and more frequently I find myself inside our church buildings or surrounded by the people from the only church tradition I’ve ever known, and I hear the faint echo of that sacred song, “This world is not my home…I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.” Sometimes it can feel like we belong to completely different religions. For far, far too many in my tradition, their image of god looks more like a pagan warfare deity from ancient Canaan than the God who humbled himself and died on the cross. I haven’t gone anywhere, but it feels like my church left me, or more accurately, they left the way of Jesus that they taught me to follow. Sometimes it feels like I’m in a prodigal church.

How did this happen? It’s not bitterness — though I had to deal with that for a few years. It’s not anger — though I have been angry at times. It’s not condescension, or apathy, or lack of faith or loss of faith — as so many have speculated. It’s grief. Deep, sometimes crippling, devastating grief that brings about a sense of disillusionment. Countless preachers and mentors — parroting Jesus — taught me to judge a tree by its fruit, and I have, and what I’ve found is rotten fruit. I’ve spent the better part of a decade doing a pathology report on my own journey, my own faith, and my own tradition, and this writing is that report.

I’ve come to understand that we were operating under a very narrow—and frankly, preferentially biased—definition of worldliness. We decried abortion, homosexuality, pornography, lasciviousness, alcohol, immodest dress, feminism, Hollywood, prom, going to the beach, and rock and hip-hop music as worldly. At the same time, a blind eye was being turned to worldliness right under our noses: partisan politics; blind allegiance to authority; a lack of accountability for leadership, the powerful, and the influential—while others without those connections were publicly shamed; a punitive view of justice; the justification of—if not outright glorification of—violence, greed, and cruelty, usually directed at the vulnerable—minorities, foreigners, and the poor; hateful—and often slanderous—speech; and an overall mentality that if the ends are noble, they justify whatever unrighteous means it may take to achieve them.

That’s quite the dirty laundry list, I know, but that’s the point. I know. I’ve lived it, witnessed it — publicly and privately — participated in it, and been on the receiving end of it. This is not a biased outsider’s ignorant  or lazy critique; quite the opposite. This is an honest, heartfelt commentary on a place and a people I know better than any others in my life. This has been my family, my community, my faith, and my career for half a century of my life, and for generations in my ancestry. My great-great-great grandfather become a member of the church of Christ in the mid 1800’s, and we are still here, right down to my grandchildren. 

You won’t hear the aforementioned things overtly in sermons (though on occasion you will; usually around election cycles or following huge news events or from guest speakers brought in to “tell it like it is”), but you will hear it regularly in conversations in pews or the aisles before and after services. You will see it during fellowship meals, and get togethers in homes. You will certainly hear it if the conversation drifts into the political sphere. These aren’t the formal doctrinal bones or muscular practices of our faith as much as the tendons and ligaments that hold them together and keep them moving. These are the things that are between the lines, which you only learn to read with much time and much practice and much correction.

So why were the former considered “worldly” and not the latter? Probably because it’s easier to decry a thousand sins in the lives of others than to acknowledge one sin in your own heart. And yet, that is precisely what Jesus said should be our primary focus — self, not others, “Hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye.” The spiritual blindness Jesus references in this text has played out right before my eyes many times, usually in response to my making this point. The response usually goes something like this, “Jesus doesn’t say not to judge, just don’t be a hypocrite! He doesn’t say not to remove the speck from your brother’s eye, just remove the beam from yours first.” Fair enough, but is that really the point Jesus is making? Is His point that we just need to judge better, or that our judgment needs to be directed at the mirror? I have walked away from a great many attempts to teach this text, muttering to myself, “Let them alone, they are blind leaders of the blind and they will both end up in the ditch.”  

I now realize it was more than just turning a blind eye; turns out, we baptized the latter forms of worldliness and declared them holy, God’s will, “scriptural” even. It wasn’t vile and un-Christlike to tell a homeless man to “Get a job you bum!” because Paul said, “If a man won’t work neither should he eat.” It was simply “speaking the truth in love.” This isn’t a hypothetical scenario; a prominent guest preacher proudly made this declaration before an audience of hundreds and not a word of rebuke or disapproval was spoken. I can assure you, if he had said we shouldn’t shame or rebuke young people for going to the prom or going swimming or for voting for a Democrat, there would have been very vocal opposition. Then there was the fellow believer who asked my wife how she could stand “knowing her mother was in hell” (an assumption they made because my mother-in-law didn’t go to church as often as they felt she should have), who also laughed and encouraged their children to chant “Let’s Go Brandon!”, the euphemistic, vulgar chant that phonetically replaced “F Joe Biden!” I can assure you, this type of thing is not isolated or even rare behavior, and these weren't random church goers, but prominent figures and leaders within the church community. This type of thing never raises an eyebrow, but vocally opposing it certainly does. Reliving these moments brings the words of Kenneth B to my mind, “When ethical slogans are used to rebuke the world but fail to restrain the heart, one begins to suspect that the problem is not merely personal failure, but the framework itself.”

So what does it actually mean to be “worldly”? Worldliness is when believers are enamored with the behavior of unbelievers. It is only in middle age adulthood that I began to see that far too many of the men and women who taught me to follow Jesus did/do not have the spirit of Christ. Those with the spirit of Christ bear the fruit of the Spirit — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control — and when I went looking for this fruit our tree was bare. Peace, patience, joy, kindness, and gentleness are in short supply.

The actions and attitudes reflect those of “good citizens” or “patriotic Americans” above the will and wisdom of Jesus. The world view and theology is shaped far more by Fox News and Republican talking points than the Gospels. In fact, in many cases what is espoused is literally the opposite of the words and works of Jesus. In support or defense or justification of “law and order” (what the scriptures most often portray as empire — think Egypt, Babylon, Rome), they embrace violence, cruelty, and disregard of law itself (constitutional rights). In the interest of a strong economy, or stock market, or 401K — or just generically “security” — they justify at worst and turn a blind eye at best, to atrocities, genocide, war crimes, and violating sovereignty — personal or national. Tellingly, all of this would be staunchly condemned during the years when a Democrat sat in the Oval Office.

It was completely unacceptable to say a word like “shit”, but if you called then President Obama an “America hating communist Muslim who wanted to destroy our country” you would get a hearty “Amen!” Worse still, if you pushed back or even questioned things like this about President Obama, you were viewed as problematic and questionable and people would begin to whisper things like, “You better watch him.” 

It was completely unacceptable to watch a movie with nudity or sex in it, but you could watch Saving Private Ryan with its obscene graphic violence at the preacher’s house with the youth group because it fostered patriotism and respect for the “Greatest Generation”. 

It was completely unacceptable to go to the prom — insert “You Can’t Spell Prom Without PROMiscuity” sermon here — and slow dance with the opposite sex because the threat of lust and fornication was just too high, but you can go to political rallies and celebrate candidates who espouse bold faced lies, vulgarities, insults and hate without worrying that you might be tainted or influenced by them, only to then criticize fellow believers who speak out against this with the same type of rhetoric used by the aforementioned candidates. Talk about dancing with the devil. 

19th century theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher’s definition of heresy fits well here: That which preserves the appearance of Christianity, and yet contradicts its essence.

Growing up, on a regular basis, we were cautioned to heed the warning of 1 John 2:15-17, but these days it’s verse 19 that resonates the most with me. 

 “Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world. And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever. Dear children, the last hour is here. You have heard that the Antichrist is coming, and already many such antichrists have appeared. From this we know that the last hour has come. They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.”

Who is the “they” I’m referring to? Family, friends, brethren…my people. Writing these words I cannot help but feel the tinge of grief and devastation that echoes from the “weeping prophet” Jeremiah who said of his own people and generation, “The prophets prophesy lies, the priests rule by their own authority, and my people love it this way. But what will you do in the end?”

There is a well supported theory that Jesus was very likely from the Pharisee tradition, and that is why He spoke so strongly and bluntly to them. Insiders can see and say things that an outsider simply can’t. It’s not a guarantee that an insider can change anything — after all, they conspired to kill Jesus — but it does mean they can touch on the real issues that desperately need addressing. You can zero in on Jesus flipping tables and calling people vipers to justify your own name calling, but don’t forget that He wept before and after. His wasn’t anger, it was grief. As Brian Zahnd observed, “Somewhere along the way ‘flipping tables’ became an aspirational statement. This gave me pause. Yes, Jesus turned over the tables of the money changers. But not his disciples. I’m not sure I trust myself to ‘flip tables.’ I dare not presume my table is un-flippable. I’m quite sure I would relish flipping tables. And therein lies my problem. I am not told to imitate Christ by flipping tables, but I am told to imitate Him by taking up my cross.”

It should go without saying that this isn’t an indictment of everyone — but he that hath ears to hear, let him hear — nor is it an acquittal of myself. I was once everything I have decried in this essay. But I was taught to follow Jesus and take up my cross daily and learn from Him daily and that is what I’ve tried to do every day since July of 1996. As I did, these things simply could not pass through the strait and narrow gate so I had to leave them behind to keep following Jesus. Everything I’ve condemned in my tradition I’ve had to first crucify in myself. I won’t pretend that I’ve always succeeded, but I can say I’ve never stopped trying, and that is all I’m calling on my people to do. 

The way of Jesus requires our most intense and brutal battles to take place within our own hearts. “We have seen the enemy, and he is us.” C.S. Lewis reminds us, “Fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he’s a rebel who must lay down his arms.” Just as He told Peter in the garden, “Put up your sword!”, He has told me that many times through the years. Can you hear Him calling to you now? The angels beckon from Heaven’s open door.

Do not be lulled into thinking we’ve arrived and we’ve restored the New Testament church and now we can just dig a moat and hide behind our castle walls and fight off the barbarians at the gate. “Hate the sin, love the sinner is simply not biblical Christianity. The fathers would be far more likely to say, ‘I love you; therefore I grieve your sin.’” Kenneth B. Our job is to follow the way of the King of kings as portrayed in the book of Revelation, and open the gates, not play gatekeepers. In the city of the King, “the gates will never be shut.” The angels beckon from Heaven’s open door.

I’ve been trying to write this for ten years, and I’ve been actively writing this for two years. So why now? Because if I remain silent I am complicit. If reading this makes you mad then I'm probably talking to you, and if reading this does not make you mad — if your first thought is, “I don't think that's the case. I don't do that. I don't think like that.” —  then this wasn't talking to you. But if the shoe fits wear it and if not cast it aside.

As a sort of epilogue, let’s just deal with a few of the lazy criticisms of my perspective:

No, I do not hate the church. The opposite is true. I deeply love the church and want the church to be the bride of Christ it was called to be, not a partisan mouthpiece for politicians who use Jesus as a costume to manipulate voters and win elections.

No, I have not lost my faith. The opposite is true. My faith is stronger than it’s ever been and I dedicate far, far more time and energy to cultivating it now than I ever did in 25 years of vocational ministry. To borrow a line from Fyodor Dostoevsky, “I believe in Christ and confess him not like some child; my hosanna has passed through an enormous furnace of doubt.”

No, I am not a “liberal”. In my circle, being called a “liberal” is worse than being worldly. The worldly are just unrepentant sinners who don’t know Jesus, but a liberal has chosen to turn away from the “old paths” in favor of popularity or moral weakness. First, I do not think labels are helpful in conversations like this. Whether or not being liberal or conservative is Christ-like or contrary to the way of Jesus, often depends upon the topic being discussed. What I am is wholeheartedly committed to following the teachings of Jesus wherever they lead, whatever the cost, and no matter how much they indict my current personally held beliefs or practices.

No, I am not trying to hurt anyone. The opposite is true. I believe the way of Jesus is the only way to make sense of a world that is constantly spinning out of control  or changing the rules of the game, and I believe the people I love are being hurt — and sometimes hurting others — when their thinking is shaped by anything other than the way and wisdom of Jesus. 

No, I am not a Democrat. I do not hold any political allegiance and believe that doing so is antithetical to the way of Jesus. Partisan politics is all about segregating into groups of us and them and working to advance us and eliminate them. The teaching of Jesus simply does not allow for this mentality. The way of Jesus is about bringing people together and helping one another follow Him, and no political party mirrors the way of Jesus. If you are wondering my I haven’t indicted the practices and rhetoric of Democrat politicians, it’s pretty simple. Members of my tradition overwhelmingly hate anything associated with the Democratic Party so there is no allegiance to it to decry amongst us. On rare occasions brethren would confide in me privately that they were Democrats, but they didn’t want anyone else in the congregation to know. I will never forget the Sunday morning when I preached a sermon telling our people that the way of Jesus called us to compassion and generosity toward the vulnerable rather than celebration of the wealthy and powerful, only to be met at the door by a member who said, “Well, I guess you are a Democrat.” He didn’t say it as an identifier, but intended it as the strongest form or criticism and insult he could come up with. Then there was the former preacher and elder who called me a “pacifist” and asked with a snarl on his face “do the elders know you believe this?”, after I preached a sermon citing the teachings and life of Jesus as a condemnation of war and violence. 

No, I am not leaving “the church.” The opposite is true. I could no more leave the church when there are problems or struggles or wrongs that need addressing, than I could my own children and grandchildren. Love suffers long and is kind. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things. Love never ceases. I love the church that told me when I wasn’t following Jesus. They helped me confront hateful and harmful things within myself that were hurting me and others, and I am grateful for it. My life has been blessed because of it, though it hurt to hear and address initially. As Richard Rohr truthfully stated, “True holiness rarely feels like holiness. It just feels like dying.” I love the church enough to return the favor.