Feeling worn down by your spiritual journey? You're not alone. I've been there too, wrestling with faith fatigue and the complex dance with deeply ingrained beliefs. After stepping back to breathe amidst life's relentless pace, I'm back with heartfelt thanks for your patience and eagerness for more discussions. This time, we're peeling back the layers of spiritual exhaustion, addressing the pressures of a rigid belief system, and the challenges faced when those sacred convictions are called into question. Join me as we navigate the often rocky terrain of faith, ministry, and the search for answers that are far from black and white.
This episode also casts a reflective glance at the profound influence Christianity has had on our lives, particularly through the lens of white Christianity's role in shaping our views on race, social class, and cultural discourse. We'll confront the uncomfortable questions surrounding the historical and contemporary use of Christianity in cultural imperialism and political power plays. More than that, we'll explore the journey to separate who we are from the faith we've practiced. Listen as I recount a simple social media clip that stirred a fresh perspective on my beliefs and invited me to embrace the uncertainty that comes with a truly candid exploration of faith.
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Feeling worn down by your spiritual journey? You're not alone. I've been there too, wrestling with faith fatigue and the complex dance with deeply ingrained beliefs. After stepping back to breathe amidst life's relentless pace, I'm back with heartfelt thanks for your patience and eagerness for more discussions. This time, we're peeling back the layers of spiritual exhaustion, addressing the pressures of a rigid belief system, and the challenges faced when those sacred convictions are called into question. Join me as we navigate the often rocky terrain of faith, ministry, and the search for answers that are far from black and white.
This episode also casts a reflective glance at the profound influence Christianity has had on our lives, particularly through the lens of white Christianity's role in shaping our views on race, social class, and cultural discourse. We'll confront the uncomfortable questions surrounding the historical and contemporary use of Christianity in cultural imperialism and political power plays. More than that, we'll explore the journey to separate who we are from the faith we've practiced. Listen as I recount a simple social media clip that stirred a fresh perspective on my beliefs and invited me to embrace the uncertainty that comes with a truly candid exploration of faith.
Subscribe to our Newsletter - http://eepurl.com/ioE3eY
Follow us on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/rethinkingchristianitypodcast/
If you could do me three quick favors, it would be super helpful Write and review this podcast, subscribe to our newsletter through the show notes and follow us on Instagram at Rethinking Christianity podcast. I hope that this episode is encouraging and helpful. All right, let's do this. This is Blake from Rethinking Christianity. Thank you for tuning in to today's episode.
Speaker 1:It has been a hot minute since I've put out an episode, and part of the reason for that was not by intentionality. I just honestly got caught up with different life stuff. We bought a house, I started a new position. I'm no longer the youth pastor at the church that I work at, I'm doing all the media stuff. Life just gets busy sometimes and I just kind of stopped. And then the holidays and everything.
Speaker 1:But I have been thinking about well, why did you not put out episodes? Is there a reason for it? And yes and no. Sometimes and I don't know if you all deal with this and this is I'm going to talk about two things. I'm going to talk about, I think, one spiritual fatigue, or just faith fatigue, if you like, alliterations, but I was fatigued in a lot of ways in my brain in regards to wanting to resolve questions in my mind and things that I wrestle through and I think about and I struggle with and that played a big role in me just taking a little break. I want to thank the people that have kind of reached out to me. I've had a few people message me on the Instagram and say, hey, where are the episodes at? Why haven't you put anything out?
Speaker 1:And I just, like I said, I've had a lot going on and it gets back to the idea of what I grew up in in regards to faith. Is this faith of rigidity that I've mentioned, where you kind of have this certainty about what you believe, you have a strong apologetic for the faith that you have. When that began to crumble in my life over time, you know, these questions come to mind and these questions I'm continually wrestling with and dealing with and that's why I started this podcast. That's why I started asking these questions and trying to resolve these questions was because of all those things that I grew up in. I grew up in church, I went to, I got my master's degree in Christian studies. I took a lot of theology classes. I took a lot of biblical studies classes. I've read a lot of books. I've had the blessing to honor to get to interview some of my favorite authors in the faith and in spirituality and in biblical studies, and so I got to a point where I was kind of like all right, I kind of need a break, I just want to take a break, like I literally remember telling my wife like I don't want to, even I don't want to think about God, and I know that sounds bad, but I think part of it is because of what you know the way in which faith is presented to people Christianity in America or in evangelical spaces, which is what I'm very, very familiar with is that your faith is like the main thing above all else.
Speaker 1:Your faith is your identity marker. Your faith is your morality guide. Your faith is everything In. I'm not saying that's wrong or right, that's just reality of what I grew up in and growing up in that at times.
Speaker 1:I think it sometimes can be a little bit exhausting and it often is a bit of a struggle, or it has. It was a struggle for me because I always felt like I wasn't good enough or I always felt like I couldn't keep up with this standard, and so some of this like not wanting to think about I think it's just something that I maybe have, you know, subconsciously wanted for a while to not think about my faith, and maybe some of you have dealt with this and you've gone through this where, like, you deconstruct or you have questions or you have things you're kind of struggling and wrestling with and you get to a point where you're like I just don't even want to think about it, I don't want to deal with it and which is also an interesting thing for someone that works in a church I do work in a church and I think it's even harder for people that are in ministry, people that work in churches, because it gets to a point where, like, people come to you for questions especially I was doing youth ministry and people are, you know, you have to like kind of have answers to questions which sometimes I don't feel comfortable giving like certainties. I'll give a lot of different variations of like hey, these are the perspectives on things, but there is kind of an uncomfortability level of sometimes telling people, hey, this is exactly what it is, that you should believe, this is the answer to your deep and profound question, which it really it could not be, it could not be the right answer. So, yeah, so I got this like kind of this fatigue of like struggling and wrestling and dealing with, and I just need a break. But I do want to put out, you know, some episodes and then, you know, next into the summer, I'm gonna start reaching out to some authors. If you have any people or you're an author that you have a book coming out, you know, reach out to me. I'd love for you to, I'd love to hear from you and I'm looking forward to kind of talking with some people and you know, I'm gonna begin writing a little more and putting out some things. I'm actually working on building out a website for this podcast so that I can get all the episodes that I currently have and put them out, put them on this website and create, you know, posts where you can kind of like see the highlights of the you know, the podcast and the books that these authors have worked really hard on. That way I can just kind of give back to them and hopefully they can get some book sales from that.
Speaker 1:But I want to talk through a concept that I was thinking through the other day and there are certain things that like are insane to me, things that I don't really even like realize or ideas in my brain until I've been thinking about them, and one of the ones that kind of came to me recently was I'm just gonna try and play the audio from my phone into the microphone, but this idea is from James Baldwin and I will just I'll play the quote, hopefully it can hear. If not, I'll just I'll post at it. But let's, I'm gonna play this real quick and this video is from James Baldwin, who is a he was activist. He was very, very, very smart person.
Speaker 1:I found this clip to be very profound because it made me wrestle with how I view other people and how I grew up viewing other people and how I grew up viewing black people and anyone of any other race, hispanics and there was honestly kind of a bias towards assuming that I could help these people, that I could eventually be of help, that they needed something from me. And you know, in my mind it was this idea of like I can be there to, like, help, you know, save them, get them to heaven, and what he speaks to in this video is this idea that, you know, like, often times, this concept or this thinking that we can be helpful, is actually this imposition and this burden that we place upon others, especially, you know the concepts like the white savior complex that we go in and we help these people out, but really it's just colonization. And I think about this because I never really realized, like, well, why did I Assume, why did I assume that? Why? Why do I feel bad for those that have less than I do? Why do I feel bad for those in other countries that look differently than me? Why do I like these things that are just natural, like which some are not bad? They're just questions that I have about, like, why is my inclination to lean in a certain direction, towards my viewpoint of other human beings and towards what it is I should be doing in their lives? And it was something like when I heard this clip, I thought about it for a little bit because I don't think I've ever really wrestled with that, that all of that.
Speaker 1:Just how did Christianity shape, especially white Christianity that I grew up in? How did it shape my perspectives of other races, my perspectives of other social classes and my perspectives of how I ought to interact with those people? And you see it on, like if you, you know, grew up in church. You see on Facebook where, like a group of white kids goes to like Africa and they post pictures with these African people and they feel like they've done such a good thing. It's like why is it this and? And if this is not to say like those things are bad, but it's just, why is it that? That's always kind of the thing, you see, that, and it is reflective to a A history where there's been a lot of really bad stuff done in the name of Christianity, with the assumption that good was being done, stripping people of their culture, taking away Just that, stripping people of their culture, or attempting to.
Speaker 1:And I think about, like what he says, where he says it is not you that can save me, but it's I, I, they can save you. And I'm not really sure exactly what he means by that because I haven't, I didn't do much research on this. I'm just you know how I, how when I watch it, how it impacted me and my thinking, but I assume what it means is that he sees us and can see us for what we really are, and Revelation of who we really are as people who have grown up in a structure and system that has allowed us to operate a certain manner in the world where others cannot. If we are not aware of that or privy to that, we cannot know who we truly are as people and how we ought to be behaving, changing, interacting because of biases that we have that we are not aware of. And I think this is a very profound thing. I think it's a very like, it's very, very much, or something I'm struggling with.
Speaker 1:And then I began to think about like the idea of like Jesus as this prop, or Jesus as this tool to be used to like in a lot of ways, like take over the world and Take over countries and I'm not saying that's what you know Christians are doing nowadays or whatever, but I do think there are certain things that are a result of a history of this type of behavior and this type of thing. That has happened over and over and over again, and you see it even in our political spectrum today. Like you see, politicians use Christianity in a way to like Gain political grounding. They may not be like taking over Literal land, but they are gaining, you know, the real estate in minds and of Communities and people by using Jesus as this prop, or using Christianity as this prop, as, because I am a Christian and if you elect me, I can help you. Same thing with. I am a Christian. I see what you are dealing with or going through. I view you as not the same as me. I can help you, and you know, the Christian argument to this is like in Matthew, where people will say well, he says to go make disciples of all nations, and I think that's a good argument if that is what people are actually doing. But in history that is not what has been done.
Speaker 1:Christianity has been used as a burden upon others to impose our will and our desires for what we want them to be, and that's the issue. Christianity too often has become this thing where we want people to be a certain way, and with Christianity we use that to try and get them to be that certain way. And the thing that that does is it creates, like one, a bunch of like carbon copies of people, like, even like. You know, I live in Northwest Georgia and I remember in like. If you live in Northwest Georgia or near Atlanta and you know about Passion City Church, it'd be so funny to me I'd go to Passion City Church and everyone dresses the same, everyone looks the same like, especially like young people, college people. They all dress like really hip, really cool and this was really a thing like in a few years ago. I haven't been in so long, but Christianity shapes culture in a way to make people feel like I have to be this to be this, I have to look like this to be Christian, or, and those things are not true at all and that's a very simplified form of what I'm talking about. But when Christianity becomes this thing that is not allowing people be true to their authentic selves, that's where it is like really, really tough.
Speaker 1:And this kind of goes full circle back to what I was talking about earlier how I have like a little bit of fatigue sometimes in my faith and growing up in a faith where it was like I need to have like these questions answered and need to have these things in order. As I grew up in that like at times and as I've gotten older, I don't know my identity as a human apart from my religious experience or my faith experience, and that's not the same thing as I don't know my identity as a Christian or as someone that follows Jesus. That's different. But religious experience shapes us when we grow up in the things we're told, especially from a young age. You think about how young children are when they begin going to children's church and being told about God, being told about belief, and their systems are being shaped A belief especially a view of self and view of others, and all of that.
Speaker 1:To say that like I think it's an okay thing to get really weary and tired of it and I think it's an okay thing to wrestle and struggle with these questions and I think it's an okay thing sometimes just be like I don't know if I'm comfortable with what I grew up in and the journey of faith is really a journey and it's really a hard deal. But this clip, that this clip I found it was literally on TikTok and when I came across I was like I don't know why this is popping up on my For you page, but I listened to it and I heard it and it began to reignite some of these questions which, in turn, I'm doing this episode. So I guess maybe it's a good thing I came across this because I began to think through, like my own personal identity and who am I apart from my religious experience? Not necessarily, who am I not as a Christian, but who am I apart from my religious experience and what are the things that I think through and I believe in disconnecting those two things to getting to a true, authentic self within my faith, as well as who I am as a person views other people in a particular kind of way. And how have the religious experiences in my life shaped how I view other people? And I may sound like I'm rambling at this point, but yeah, so like that's kind of where I'm at right now Getting to a point of like self-observance and self-awareness and looking at my experiences and like wondering and questioning who am I apart from my religious experience? And that doesn't mean apart from being a Christian, because you can be a Christian and have a religious experience that's not Christian, right, say it same thing goes and you can also grow up in a sect of Christianity. That forms your Religious experience, that forms how you interact with the world around you. So that's not to say like who am I apart from being a Christian? That's not what I'm saying, because I still I'm. I'm a Christian and I follow Jesus. But yeah, so I am kind of I'm gonna keep doing the podcast, I'm gonna keep putting stuff out.
Speaker 1:I hope that this is kind of helpful. This is really me just speaking and talking through some different things I'm thinking about. I find that James Baldwin could really really interesting. If you are somebody that listens to this podcast and you are familiar with his work and you can point me towards any books that would be really good to read, I will hit me up on Instagram. Follow us on Instagram at rethinking Christianity podcast. I'm gonna put out the website soon. If you have not signed up to our newsletter, I want to start. I'm start writing Some emails and sending those out. Sign up to our newsletter. You can do that through the links in the show notes.
Speaker 1:This is not gonna be a very long episode today because I literally I came home after church and I got my camera and I got a laptop and Mike from my office and I sat down here on the couch. I've actually had to stop recording a few times because my cats keep fighting each other and they're running around making too much noise. But, all that being said, I'm gonna keep putting out episodes. I'm excited to to be doing this and hopefully I don't take as long a break as I did Previously till the next one. But until next time.
Speaker 1:This is Blake. Thank you for tuning into this episode. These are the things I'm wrestling with, and if you're wrestling with things, that's okay. If you have faith fatigue, that is okay. If you don't know who you are sometimes Because you grew up in a system of thinking and belief that you don't believe in anymore, that's okay. I hope that this podcast can be here for you and if you want to reach out to me, hit me up. But thanks for tuning in to rethinking Christianity. Y'all are awesome. Have a great week. Thanks for tuning in to today's episode of rethinking Christianity podcast. If you ever have any questions or just want to reach out, you can message me at Blake at rethinkingchristianapodcastcom, or you can message me on Instagram at rethinkingchristianapodcast. Thanks again for tuning in to today's episode.