Most of you know that I’m just coming out of the throes of a crisis of faith (short lived as it was). One of the things I realized during this time was that it wasn’t God I was trying to turn my back on (though it seemed it would be much simpler to do so)–it was the hypocrisy of the Christian church. It drives me nuts to see legalism (doctrine elevated to a status that takes the focus off God and places it on the doctrine) in the church. It drives me nuts to see Christianity boiled down to a three step formula - “Read this verse, say this prayer, go to my church and you’ll be saved.” There’s nothing formulaic about God. Read the Bible and find a formula for happy life and salvation - I dare you. It won’t happen. There are no formulas in relationships.
So now I’m on a journey to be like Jesus - not like Christians. Remember, Christian is a great noun but a lousy adjective. It’s going to be tough for a people pleaser like me to make this journey because it’s going to look radically different than what most people associate with the word Christian - but ultimately, that doesn’t matter because my final authority is God and no one else (if I say that enough times, I have to start believing it deep down, right?).
So what does this look like for me? It looks like forming and living in a community very similar to Shane Claiborne’s “new monastic” community The Simple Way (you won’t get too much info from that link because they recently experienced a horrific fire and are focusing their efforts on rebuilding and funding the rebuilding effort). There are several of these communities popping up around the country (there’s even one in my hometown that I didn’t know existed - funny story…the web filter at work classifies the site as “occult”).
Busted Halo describes The Simple Way like this:
The Simple Way is an alternative Christian community with six semi-permanent members and a few dozen others who have passed through its doors. Members live and pray together, dedicate themselves to work with their poor neighbors, contribute part of their outside incomes (everybody has a part-time regular job) to maintain the house and generally aspire to upset the established order through acts of radical Christian love. Those acts of Christian resistance have included running an art camp for their inner city neighbors, opening the door to prostitutes in crisis and visiting Iraq to perform circuses for war-battered kids. These acts are equal parts punk rock and monastic.
[..]
What distinguishes the house from other locales where cool, politically minded denizens split the rent is that these young adults gather expressly to share in each others’ religious lives and to follow Christ together. While members do not take vows and can stay for as long as forever or as little as a month, the best way to understand The Simple Way may be as a religious order, albeit an anarchist one with no Mother Superior and no dress code (although dread locks and piercings seem to be de rigeur). Living in community means conscientious dedication to each other’s spiritual journey.
[..]
The Simple Way is part of a growing movement of mostly young evangelical Christians and Catholics who are dedicated to taking the Gospel—not Genesis— literally. The group makes common cause with Catholic Worker houses of hospitality and dozens of other alternative communities that operate below the radar of American Christianity.
It’s something that looks and feels very different from traditional Christianity. This is what Rob Bell calls “Repainting the Christian Faith.”
For thousands of years followers of Jesus, like artists, have understood that we have to keep going, exploring what it means to live in harmony with God and each other. The Christian faith tradition is filled with change and growth and transformation. Jesus took part in this process by calling people to rethink faith and the Bible and hope and love and everything else, and by inviting them into the endless process of working out how to live as God created us to live.
The challenge for Christians then is to live with great passion and conviction, remaining open and flexible, aware that this life is not the last painting.
Get ready, because I’m going to start repainting what I know and do regarding Christianity. But I can’t do it alone. This vision of community kind of requires other people to be involved (you can’t have a community of one!). I have 1 friend who is interested in helping, but she is married and can’t be completely involved. Here’s what I need:
- Prayer partners. Without prayer, this vision will never get off the ground.
- Physical partners - people who have this same kind of vision and want to see this kind of community take off in Denver, CO.
- Professionals who may not want to live in this kind of community, but have the knowledge of how to get a non-profit going and would lend their brains to the cause to get us up and running (I’ve been researching laws and how to incorporate and it just makes my head swim).
- A name. I was hoping to use “The Gathering Place” in either Hebrew, Greek, or Latin, but I don’t like the way any of them sound. And there’s already a women’s day shelter in Denver called “The Gathering Place”.
- A neglected or abandoned house that we can take over and move into in a neighborhood that will benefit from this type of community.
I’m not asking for much, am I? 
Even if you only have advice, I’ll gladly take that too.
I want to share with you the words of a dear dear friend who wrote to me in response to all of my turmoil from this past week. As I read her words today, my eyes welled up and I nearly broke down in my office. To feel such compassion and love from a single person is…overwhelming.
What, indeed, happened to Mandi Kaye?
Well, my sweet girl, I came in on the saga Monday afternoon. As I opened your site, I realized it had an all-new look since my last visit (I’m a once every 7-12 days blogger-checker) and thought, ‘how beautiful!’ I must tell Amanda how I love it. And then I started reading.
Now – don’t think this is going to be a bunch of condemnation because if it starts to feel like that – delete it immediately. I am asking the Holy Spirit to reveal to you the love with which I am writing this, but I am serious when I say: no condemnation. None. I hope you’ll resist enemy accusations as you read it, but if it doesn’t bring you life: STOP! DELETE!
I read. I went back to last Wednesday and read all posts and comments.
After I read, I bawled my eyes out. Wow, my sweet, I wanted to comment, but I knew nothing I could say (or rather would want to say) would be from reason or from the head and I feared the heart stuff would just sound stupid and cause you to be angry (fear of man person here, too!). After Bible College, where constant debate and arguments about meanings and phrasings and doctrines of the Bible (which always gave me stomach aches because deep down I believed God’s Word, the authority of His Word was to be life, to be like honey to my lips, and was to be like a refreshing washing of my mind and heart), I have pretty much refused to get caught up in debating my beliefs. Some think this is stupidity, and maybe it is, but when the will to win an argument rises up in me (and I won every debate I was ever in Jr High-college – I was a good arguer in my day), then the desire to be like Jesus-transformed into His image, taking on His attitude, wanes. I become angry and full of striving. So, I stay in peace. Or-if some people would rather: stupidity.
But as I read the responses and comments, I began to understand what was different in how I was feeling. People on both “sides” of the issue told you to figure it out, find your own way, whatever will be will be, it seemed. But in me, (please hear this for the love it really holds, Amanda), the mom in me rose up (the spiritual mom anointing), that kind of mothering that would take on a black bear to save her child, that would stand between a baby and an intruder and say, You’ll get my child over my dead body.” That is what I felt. Everyone else seemed content (and of course it is difficult to tell from blog comments, I don’t mean this as a judgment in any way) to watch you step off a cliff into darkness and death if that was your decision.
And the mom in me was rebuking an unseen, but very real enemy: YOU - DON’T - GET - THIS - GIRL! She is God’s. His name is written on her heart. She was paid for with the ultimate price because of her great value to her Father. She needed a Savior and she got one. While she was being formed in the womb, God was writing all the days of her life. He was knitting her together there. He was delighting in His creation. He made her to hang out with Him. He loves it when she comes to Him (He loves her presence). He has great plans for her, plans that will bless and change other people’s lives. He has her in training to help women in crisis right now. She has destiny in God. And, her life will leave an unending legacy of the glory of God and His power to use her yielded heart to the generations. You don’t get her.
I don’t mean to seem arrogant or haughty in spiritual things, but I just couldn’t get on the blog in the middle of all that confusion and people “fighting over you” and be sure my heart would be heard and not my “Christian label.” I won’t compete and fight over you or with you, but I will fight FOR you in prayer and bringing your name before Father. All I knew to do was pray. And I’m sorry to tell you – I prayed that His LOVE would not let you go. You said you wanted to be left alone, and I meant no disrespect, but I asked God to hold on to you with His LOVE.
None of this felt flip or unimportant to me, please know. And I would feel sickened if any of what I am saying right now caused you feel like – yeah – this is exactly what turns me off about Christianity. Please hear my heart, my sweet friend and daughter in the faith. I have seen in you a tiny glimpse of what God sees and I think you are a threat to the enemy. I really do. I think he would love nothing more than to send in confusion and fatigue and distraction because of the influence you have as a voice for your generation. It is not ok, in my heart, for you to turn aside from the faith and I pray that doubt will go and truth will bring great peace and clarity to you – not some emotional thing, not you giving an intellectual nod because you feel pressured by me or anyone else. God forbid. May you truly know that you know that you know. I am speaking this prophetically: Arise and shine, Mandi Kaye, for your Light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you…darkness must go!
Girl, there is probably no one who has been more tormented over the state of the church and the distance between the holiness of God and the self-righteousness of His people more than I have (except perhaps God Himself). Oh – I have hated the hypocrisy. I have seen it done wrong in a gazillion different flavors, denominationally speaking. I was an abused Pentecostal preacher’s daughter. My dad would pray his head off over the people at church and beat me. Can you see how from the foundations of my existence I would have cause to run the other way? But – I needed a Savior and Jesus Christ did it – He saved me – not just from sin, but from certain death and from my self-destructive tendencies. When I get too far from Him, the enemy tries to cut off my life source, and has almost succeeded at times.
You may find it hard to believe, but I was once where you are. I once cursed God (BIGtime!) and said, “None of this crap is worth it” (this is the cleaned up version). I was the mother of 5 and a pastor’s wife to boot. It all seemed so senseless. Non-Christians seemed way happier because they had no rules and prospered anyway. But the love of God would not let me go. I cannot explain how I heard it or knew God was speaking, I just knew He was telling me “My love will not let you go.” And it didn’t seem overbearing or limiting. It felt protective and surrounding/energizing.
A short time later I read and understood Asaph’s Psalm 73: All I could see were the ungodly who were always at ease and increasing in riches. It was all too painful for me, until I got into Your presence…My heart had been grieved and my mind had been confused. I was foolish and arrogant. I was like a brute beast before You…but…whom have I in heaven but You? There is nothing on earth I desire more than You. My heart and my flesh may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my potion forever…”
There is a lot wrong with Christianity. I once felt it was my place to point it all out. I was ready to attack with a blog a couple of weeks ago on a topic that makes my blood boil (see my striving nature???) and the Lord told me, “Much of what you see and are alarmed by is good insight, but your motivation right now is so wrong. Right now – this is between you and me.” God tells the secrets of His heart to those who fear Him. I can’t point a finger when my motivations have no love. It starts in me. O, Lord, strike down pride in me…
In light of a lot of healing I have been going through concerning my past and an upcoming family reunion (God restores and heals, but every family meeting causes trepidation so that I don’t go back into bondage and fear and anguish) I read this: “Don’t remove the ancient landmark which your fathers have set.” Pr. 22.28 NKJV. The Message says it like this: “Don’t stealthily move back the boundary lines staked out long ago by your ancestors.” Digging through word meanings seems to indicate that we are possible talking behavioral boundaries as well as geographical. I happened across this verse the same day I was reading in Joshua about the people crossing the Jordan . The Lord told Joshua to instruct the leaders to take 12 stones (one for each tribe) and to build a memorial with them that night where they lodged. He said those stones were to be a sign among them – “when your children ask in times to come, ‘what do these stones mean?’ tell them” what God did. This is a memorial, a sign. It really hit me between the eyes because God isn’t asking every generation to tear down everything done before, He is asking us to build on what our fathers did (the right stuff they did – that pleased the Lord). We can always throw out the godless parts and the unholy, He is glad for that purification, but we must be ever-so-careful with His bride, not to try to destroy her. He loves His people – even the weird ones!
Being a Christian isn’t a set of good, moral guidelines. It’s death to ourselves to be like Jesus. He only asked that we give up everything to follow Him. Anything less makes us sick with dissatisfaction. Maybe you are just crying out to be who you were created to be, really be. Please know I surround you with my love in that. Please know that you got this e-mail because knowing your struggle has been keeping me up at night. My mother’s heart has held you fully these past couple of days, though I didn’t know if I had a right. I hope this has not been presumptuous and pain-causing, or seemed so. I have absolutely no condemnation in my heart toward you, but rather it is full of great regard and tenderness. Ups and downs, good times and bad – His love has never let me go. And I continue to pray that it won’t let you go, either.
My heart is pounding as I approach the send button, from one hopefully-recovering-people-pleaser to another with great love,
I just want to direct everyone over to read Trampolines and Bricks.
My heart has been renewed.
I was talking to a friend today, and he made an accurate assessment of my situation.
You’ve made some comments about not wanting to believe in God. Not, “I don’t believe in God,” but stuff that (at least I interpreted) says you just don’t want to be a Christian. You have made some comments about not wanting to abide by different rules that you don’t necessarily agree with. So, sometimes (and it’s not often) I wonder if maybe you DO know there’s a God, and He is YHWH, but you don’t like what that means.
Pretty much. Another friend of mine suggested I listen to some sermons from Imago Dei in Portland. I had time to listen to one today, called “Transformation.” I think I’ve definitely been undergoing a transformation in the last week. I am shedding a cocoon and turning into a butterfly, just not the kind some people thought. And the last week was really about me saying I don’t want to follow the rules and I want to be autonomous. So what do I hear today?
When we start talking about transformation and the process of sanctification…some things can creep in that twist the focus and end up making us really focus on ourselves and on the process of transformation. What happens is as new Christ followers, we have been living in a way separate from God and really trying to chase after our autonomy, trying to express our self in ways that are pretty indulgent. They don’t represent the image of God within us very well. They don’t tell the truth about God because God is a God of love and a God of sacrifice and grace and others orientation. He’s a God of relationship, even within the tri-community, within the godhead. And so when we start chasing after our own way and expressing our autonomy from God we’re really offending Him because we’re not telling the truth about Him.
Okay. That kind of sucks. Later on he said:
We become really passive and then we’re not engaged in the process in a different way than separating from the world. Then we just sit around and our passivity calcifies and we’re not really making any progress or development. There’s a fine line between this passive learner posture—even when we’re being really passive we’re probably going to church and going to Bible studies and home community and prayer meeting and stuff like that but we’re just kind of sitting and waiting for God to do it. But we can, in that posture, turn to a really consumeristic orientation. So now as I’m going to church or Bible study I’m thinking about what I liked about the sermon or didn’t like, what really clicked for me, what music I liked or didn’t like. And now we’re just consuming and being entertained rather than cooperating with God’s Spirit as He wants to bring transformation to us.
This is why I got disillusioned with Christianity. It became something to me that was all about the rules and doing what we’re supposed to and not doing what we’re not supposed to and somehow it lost the focus - Jesus. Being like Jesus.
This (the story of Jesus and God) is an awesome story. Why don’t I feel more thankful? And I wonder at times whether it’s because we’re not engaged in telling the story, and so we’re just not attuned to all the great things that we have in Christ.
Philemon 6 says, “I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.”
I didn’t do that. Some would argue that I have, in the form of this blog, but I really didn’t. Although I have made some incredible relationships through ID, writing this blog is pretty impersonal and Christianity is all relational.
Thank you, to all of you, both Christian and not, for sticking by me this past week. I’m an incredibly lucky gal to have so many people who care for me.
Today’s been a tough day. I’ve got people telling me I’m right and people telling me I’m wrong. My personal thought is that some of me is right and some of me is wrong.
One of my best friends asked me today if I still considered myself a Christian, and I couldn’t give her an answer. It sucked.
The thing is, I don’t want to not be a Christian. But I don’t necessarily want to be a Christian the way I’ve defined it most of my life.
It’s like I have two people in my brain. One of them is a strong Christian, full of fire for God. The other one doesn’t care if God exists or not and wants to live life without worrying about if the consequences of my life are going to send me to hell or not. The first one has always controlled my outward appearance, my actions. The latter is what has controlled most of my thoughts.
I have to conclude that my salvation has been real. I wasn’t just going through the motions. I really believed what I said I did. The question I have to ask myself now is what i want my life to be.
I don’t want to walk away from God.
But I need to figure out how to live as the kind of Christian I want to be - even though it may not look like “traditional” Christianity. And until I can do that, where does that leave me?
I’ve been asked several times to explain why this seemingly sudden and radical change has taken place in my life. Unfortunately, there’s no simple answer. There wasn’t a single moment that made a light bulb go off in my head or anything like that - it was a culmination of a lot of things.
My whole life, I’ve been a people pleaser. The whole reason I started going to church when I was 17 was just to please my mom. If I hadn’t gone with her, she would have been disappointed in me and I wouldn’t have been able to bear that. Typically, I tell people that after three or four months I stopped going for her and started going for myself. But in reality, that just isn’t true. After having made the relationships I had made, if I had stopped going, they all would have been disappointed in me. So what did I do? I went off to college, and for awhile there I got a little crazy (for me)…except when I was around my parents or the church folks. I was leading two separate lives - the church girl and the college girl. Some things happened that strained (and eventually ended) my relationships with the girls I was friends with at college, so I went back to the only thing I knew - church girl. That alienated my college friends even more, so I just moved back home. And at home I wasn’t about to disappoint my mom. It’s easy to throw yourself whole-heartedly into something in order to please someone else.
Except…my whole heart was never in it. I’ve always had a secret life in my head. Wait…that sounded bad, didn’t it? What I mean is that what goes on in my head is radically different than what goes on everywhere else.
I have a potty mouth. Well, a potty mind, actually. I trained myself never to say the words I was thinking because bad language is frowned on when you’re a Christian.
I have no problems with sex or violence on tv or movies…one of my favorite shows happens to be Sex and the City. I was embarrassed to admit that to my Christian friends, and I was careful never to watch it if my roommates were home.
In my small group, there was an older gentleman with cerebral palsy who attended. I really don’t like this guy. He creeps me out. I desperately wanted him to stop attending the group. When he finally did stop coming a few weeks ago, I was happy about it… not exactly a Christlike response.
I have no qualms whatsoever about lying to someone if the truth will hurt them, or make them very mad at me. My friends tend to think I’m a bad liar, but if they can tell I’m lying it’s because I want them to know I’m lying. DISCLAIMER: I don’t make it a habit to lie to my friends…it’s usually my step-father who is at the other end.
So all of these types of things have always happened. What comes out of my mouth isn’t always what is in my head. I’m very good at giving the appearance that is expected of me.
And once you learn the Christian language (and let’s face it, it really is a different language), it’s easy to speak it out of habit. Once you know the Bible well enough and the acceptable Christian actions, it’s easy to put yourself on autopilot and always give the “Sunday School” answer. It’s even easy to go deeper and learn what is considered the “meat” of Scripture and be able to give those kinds of answers just because you know what you’re supposed to say. That way you don’t rock the boat and your life continues the way it always has.
You do it so much that it becomes who you are. Your whole identity becomes wrapped up in this falsehood.
The kicker, for me, was when I watched a video a few weeks ago. Part 1 of the Zeitgeist moves, “The Greatest Story Ever Told.” It’s 26 minutes long, if you want to watch it below. While I was watching this video, my head was telling me “This is hogwash. This goes against everything you’ve ever been taught. This guy is just pulling stuff out of his butt.” But at the same time, I had this nagging feeling that he was right. I couldn’t find anyone to actually dispute anything he said in the video…although I did get people telling me not to forget certain Bible verses that speak of people not understanding the wisdom of God. That didn’t help. I wanted to know why it was wrong. Not just “because it is.”
Last week a friend of mine was brave enough to say on her blog that sometimes she just wants to tell God to go away. That opened a door for me. I thought that if she could be brave enough to say that then I can be brave enough to explore these blasphemous thoughts I’ve been having.
Sitting in church yesterday (yes I still go, and will continue to go as long as I have ministry committments, unless they ask me to step down), I began to realize more about my “new” thoughts. I really do think that Christianity was invented by man. I think all religions were invented by man. If there are so many different religions in the world (and every single culture that has ever existed has had their own version of a religion), and even religions in cultures that have never even heard about Christianity, religions that are similar to Christianity that were in place long before Jesus was born, then… how can religion (all religion) not be an invention of man?
And in exploring the blasphemous thoughts (like the one above), I’ve found a completely different person. Kind of. I still have the same politic inclinations (pro-life, anti death penalty). I still love to read. My favorite movies are still Rent and Talladega Nights. I still love my friends fiercely - even though I know they’re going to try and “convert” me. I still love to laugh and have fun. This really doesn’t make me a different person - it just makes me a truer person.
Can I really put into words for all the world to see where I feel like I am right now?
I keep listening to this song, “Because of You” by Kelly Clarkson. I love this song, and right now it describes how I feel. “You” would be the world that I created around me in order to be who I thought I needed to be…it includes God, Christianity, friends, and family.
I will not make the same mistakes that you did
I will not let myself cause my heart so much misery
I will not break the way you did you fell so hard
I learned the hard way to never let it get that far
Because of you I never strayed too far from the sidewalk
Because of you I learned to play on the safe side so I don’t get hurt
Because of you I find it hard to trust not only me but everyone around me
Because of you I am afraid
I lose my way and it’s not too long before you point it out
I cannot cry because I know that’s weakness in your eyes
I’m forced to fake a smile a laugh everyday of my life
My heart can’t possibly break when it wasn’t even whole to start with
I watched you die
I heard you cry every night in your sleep
I was so young you should have known better than to lean on me
You never thought of anyone else you just saw your pain
And now I cry in the middle of the night for that same damn thing
I want to step away from the safe side. I want to trust. I don’t want to be afraid. So here goes.
I do believe in God. That’s a given for me. But I don’t think He is really the God of Christianity. I’ve looked, but I haven’t found that all loving God. I see a God who set the universe in motion and then left us alone to make of it what we will. I’ve come to the realization that I don’t really believe in heaven or hell. I don’t know what I believe about an afterlife. I think there is one (this can’t really be all there is), but I have no idea what it looks like. I believe that Jesus did exist, but I’m not sure about the whole Messiah thing. I do think that modeling the characteristics of Jesus in your life is a good thing, regardless of what you believe. There’s something to be said for loving your neighbor and being a good, moral person. Jesus was a fantastic teacher. His lessons are good - and I don’t intend to forsake that Christlike character.
Since I’ve begun to admit this to myself and to other people, I’ve started to be happy with who I am. I know this is going to break some of your hearts. But this is a path that I have to explore for myself if I’m going to be true to myself.
Today, surprisingly enough, has been a good day.
There’s something liberating about realizing that you don’t have to go through the motions anymore. In some personal emails with people I’ve gone even further and said some things about my “beliefs” that I never thought I’d say.
It feels good.
Is this the beginning of a new Amanda? I think so.
What does that mean for Imago Dei? I’m not sure. I may have to rename it, I may keep it the same. But I’m not giving up www.mandikaye.com!
Thanks for being along for the ride on this new, weird, journey I’m on.
I don't think many of you (if any) followed the link in my previous post, so I'll post what I had hoped you would read here...
So that didn’t last very long.
I’m a day into my “hiatus,” and I just can’t stay away. Everytime I have a deep emotion or feeling, I want to immediately post it - and that’s happened a lot today.
I’m going through something, and I really don’t know how to put it into words.
A crisis of faith? Some would call it that, but I wouldn’t.
A rebellious phase? Perhaps.
What I do know is that I want something to change.
For my entire life, I’ve always done what’s expected of me - even where God is concerned. I know that there have been periods where my desire for God has been real, but I think that most of it has been me doing what I’m supposed to do.
And I’m tired of it.
Donald Miller said, “I began to wonder if becoming a Christian did not work more like falling in love than agreeing with a list of true principles.”
Well guess what? I’m not in love with God! Or Jesus, for that matter.
He also described me pretty well when he said, “I grew up believing a Christian didn’t have to love God or anybody else; he just had to believe some things and be willing to take a stand for the things he believed.”
That’s me. And I think I’ve done those pretty darn well. But it turns out that’s not what God wants from me. But do I really want to give God what He wants?
I’m seriously considering the apathetic agnostic path right now.
I want God to leave me alone and to be happy with me leaving Him alone.
These thoughts freak me out. If I walk away, how much will I lose? Friends? Family? Maybe. But is that really a reason to stay on the path I’m on when I know that it isn’t right? I’m not in this for the relationship, I’m in it for the validation.
That kind of makes everything about me…everything I’ve said…everything I’ve written…
worthless.
Whoa... I can post from work. Yes!
