Friday 26th a week before "on the precipice of faithlessness"

I’m not Christian. I say this not because I do not love Jesus. I say it because I do not believe in the dogmas and concepts that are associated with Christians. The end days and the last judgment – Armageddon – it seems like a sordid way for God to show his power and glory to us. The idea of people being either “sheep or goats” as Jesus said in the gospel, whereby the sheep will be separated from the goats and the latter will be damned to hell. Roasted goat meat tasty! I can imagine the “enemy” feasting on it. Most of all, the idea of good and evil people, saved and condemned, I reject because I understand it to be relative to each person’s situation. The pastor David Kim who was head of the “Manna Christian fellowship” at Princeton claimed that suicide is a disease, like cancer, in an effort to account for what happened to those souls of people (such as teenage girls) who took their own lives. This erodes the concept of good people and evil people, I figured it out using induction and I leave it as an exercise for the reader. We are all just people infected with physical and psychological or spiritual diseases.

I am in love with Jesus – there is the agape love we hear about. This type of love we show to our fellow man and to God. Then there is eros – the fire. The Holy Spirit sets souls on fire and mine is one fire for Christ. Eros is passion; it is desire, wanting the Lords presence in your room at night, wanting him badly (is this a paradox, wanting the Good Lord badly, much like the trinity?) Agape and Eros working together that I am content to just have him lie next to me and we just look at each other and caress like lovers do. He is the lover of my body and soul.

I would like to write about the trips the Holy Sprit has taken me on and I bet they beat any drug. However, what happens (sometimes) in between the sheets, under the covers, with me and Him is easy to understand, so I will leave that out.

I was running and it hit me. I am not a Christian, not one that belongs to any church. I am Roman Catholic and I go to a pentacostal youth group, but something constrains. I cannot accept the writings of that person in Hebrews 12 that uses scare tactics to let people keep their faith. That we will be on a hill and God’s judgment will consume those who are not faithful. I read this in a Christian meeting “small group” at Princeton. Then I wanted to bail, I wanted to run out. I just could not accept such extortion. I just feel it is not fair and I also reject viewpoints that suggest that me wanting to run, to leave, could be a sign of demonic possession, that now Satan is rejoicing in me leaving the fold. This reasoning is a like a never ending “loop” in computer code, you doubt then realize that its normal, its temptation and that you must adhere again to the teachings, only to doubt again.

My doubts were many. I just had to resign myself to loving Jesus and letting him “figure” out what made no sense. So on those issues that I could not understand, I chose to be dumb. Questions of salvation and redemption left me at a loss for words; it was as if I could not even articulate the problem. But I can and I know my position.

The Church is an institution that supposedly strengthens the faith. But it actually reinforces hegemonic interpretations of the Holy Bible and behavior that is deemed proper. I found this out, again, during an all night pray session. I was shaking, my whole body trembling, with my eyes closed while I was holding onto a friend I met here at this youth group – Chris. I wanted to find again that feeling I had while singing at Manna large group, the day after I believe I lost my faith. It was in that trembling, the gyrating movement I had done with the Himba a few months earlier in that year of 2008, that I felt touched by the Holy Spirit and all my doubts and concerns melted away. I was Christian because I loved. This time, I was taken to a back room, just next to hall where people were singing, talking in tongues and dancing – dancing, but just with moves of the torso, arms, legs, alternating, regular beats – not my rapid and uncontrolled way. Edith was not happy with what I was doing. She is a lady that is on crutches, probably around thirty or so, and she said “Sit him down” as Tapiwa led me to this back classroom of the Highlands Assembly of God School and Church. I was seated there and Tapiwa stood. It was the second time that evening I was in this position. Earlier Geneva told me “now Pancho we are about to start and people want to know whether you will go on with your stretching and movements because the worship will begin now.” I said I would stop and sit and listen to the preaching, but when the dancing started, I joined in. Edith felt I was out of order. She told me “in the house of God there is order, there is nothing but order – it says so in the Bible, so please when we get back in there, I want you to stay at your seat, you can sing, but don’t wander around, don’t do any of those movements, because it is a distraction.”

I am not surprised that this would distract, given that the people are not used to it. This church is pentacostal with movement and dance but it is predicated, there is the permissible and impermissible. As Tapiwa told me “you cannot just come here and do whatever, you must look at what the people are doing, because what you were doing is destructive to the worship.”

During this pep talk, I felt injured, like I was being constrained. I obliged them, especially since I do not go to their church service, I just attend the youth. But the fascination I had with what just happened, how I had uncovered the boundaries, the moors of this church was stimulating intellectually. It was an anthropological experience and it was happening to me!

Even today at my Catholic parish, when I went up to stand in a row of people slated to receive birthday blessings, I stretched my back up looking to heavens and I got a smile from the priest and a chastising look from Casius, who does the announcements from the dais.

I need more freedom of course. Therefore I will go to another youth group and another until I find one that allows me to be. Just like Manna was. It allowed me to be who I want to be.

There is a God, I believe there is. But whether he is just the best idea there ever was or really something beyond all that is beyond, I cannot definitively say. Does it mean I am agnostic? Not at all, I love Jesus and he is real to me. Therefore he must exist, as the anthropologists believe, if something is real to you, well then it exists. Have I watered down my whole belief system? Yes. However, I believe in Jesus. I am convinced of the fact that I love him.

Now that I am not Christian I can explore other ways of worship, other religions. I think I want to leave the Abrahamic religions for a while and explore others. At the same time, I want to read the Bible even more, to read that which I did not read before and understand where it comes from. It is similar to me studying Spanish, but also studying Oshiwambo, my father’s language, my language. My Jesus, my savior. So then I can also learn about other faiths while I keep him mine, just like I am learning two new languages.

I rarely blog about such things, but now, a few days after turning 24, I realize that an overhall of what I believe is overdue. When I was just becoming a teen, I decided to take up the Christian faith and religion. Now it seems, I am losing, quoting the cliché “loosing my religion”. But how can this be, because I still love Jesus?

The circumstances I find myself in thus reveal a qualified loss of religion, one where the core – Jesus – remains untouched.

I have to go do Spanish homework and then Oshiwambo. I want to rally the Catholic Youth behind the cause of the Baby Haven transitional home for orphans and vulnerable children. I want to volunteer with “Clinic clowns project” which secular in practice, but is predicated on a Christian ethos.

So this is it. Though I am doubtful of the church, I also find love amongst its members. Manna Christian fellowship members definitely formed some of my best friends at Princeton! And other Christians too, all over my lifespace. So please stay in touch, I expect some of you will want to reach out to me especially now. I admire you, I adore you, I love you. Take care and the Lord bless.

Love in Christ.