So I just came from leading my first ever bible study/life group/ group of believers in discussion. I definitely think I could have done better: I was quite nervous and so couldn’t direct the conversation as much as I wanted and didn’t say things as elegantly or as confidently as I would have wanted.

BUT the conversation had a wonderful conclusion: we created a plan and decided we will take action to bless the life of someone less fortunate than us i.e. the neighbour of the life group leader. We are doing things to be salt and light upon this Earth.

I just thought I would share with you the notes that I took into the Bible Study and talk about some of the cool ideas that came out as a result of the discussion. I hope this inspires some reflection and action in your neck in the woods.

Before You Read this

1) Check out this Wkipedia Page that summarises one of the greatest books in the Bible: the Book of Job.

2) Read the first two and final chapters of Job.

This will help you put the notes below, which I have not edited into an understandable context.

Job: The Definition of Faith and Love

Read the first two chapters of Job to put everything in context and also hand out the Wikipedia narrative.

TEST NUMBER ONE

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb and naked I shall depart,
The LOrd gave and the Lord has taken away,
MAY THE NAME OF THE LORD BE PRAISED”

Christianity had stopped working for Job by this point:

1) Would you have, at the very least, cursed God?
2) Would you have kept your faith?
3) Most of all, would you have kept loving, fearing and praising God

TEST NUMBER TWO

He had painful sores all over his body. He was scraping himself with a piece of pottery.

When his wife told him to let go of his integrity and curse God he said:

“Shall we accept good from God and not trouble.”

1) Have you ever truly embraced the fact that all throughout your journey you will receive unexplainable blessings AND unexplainable curses?
2) Are you willing to only accept the good, but not the bad?


SEPARATE APPLICATION: Job’s Story as a Metaphor for Human Relationships

1) How many of us would do this in our relationships with our fellow human beings?
2) How many of us would continue to hold on to faith and love and give to others even when beyond not working it’s hurting us?
3) Would we give up during the first strike (he lost his sheep and servants) in a human relationship?
4) Would we give up during the second strike (he lost his camels) in a human relationship?
5) Would we give up during the third strike (he lost ALL his children) ?
6) Would we have the strength to persevere a second test?

Some Interesting Thoughts that Came Out of It

I have touched on this briefly when I wrote about Western Entitlement Syndrome: We talked  about the reasons why young adults, 18 to 25 are the ones with the largest dropout rate within the church community of Australia:

Christian Life Cycle

When young, there is a kid’s program where kids are rewarded with movie nights, lollipops, music, games, fictional characters and are basically made to feel welcome and loved within the church.

In the teenage years the same thing continues, with music concerts, social events and camps and the church always trying to make sure that the young person has fun within a positive faith-based community.

In both these stages of life, the Church emphasizes the role of God as the provider of all things.

Where the Doo-Dah Hits the Fan

The problem is, through all these years, the young believer has never been taught how to do three things:

a) Process their Christianity and faith in God for themselves. People are never encouraged to get out of their complacent fun times as young people and just think about:

• Whether or not they believe in God
• Why they believe in God
• What they struggle with
• Contradictions and doubts
• The consequences of a walk of faith

b) People are never encouraged to actually step out and do things in Christian faith. The emphasis is far too great on spoon feeding them love and encouragement without forcing them to get out there in faith to advance the Kingdom or the work of the Church.

c) They don’t hear enough or have it internalized that as the verse says:

The LOrd gave and the Lord has taken away,

The emphasis is far too great on God giving and never on the facts that:

• He gives arbitrarily and not always in accordance with our schedule i.e. life isn’t always fair and life doesn’t always give you what you want.
• Bad things happen to good people. They always have and they always will and we are yet to have sufficient explanation for this and probably never will.

I think this should be enough for now, I will expound on this further in the comments section and I have also discussed some further insights from the night on the site, Kenya Imagine (check out the Displaced African blog on Kenya Imagine).

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Be blessed and be a blessing unto others,

Mwangi

Today Is an Interesting Day Because……

….behind the scenes I have about 4 or 5 articles I am working on that are on their way to being done but need elements out of my control to come into place before they can be complete. I have a podcast that I am yet to edit and I have sent out quite a few invitations to interview people over the past week.

The End Result

The end result is that I have a wonderful back log of articles and podcasts and things in process, too much for me to want to move forward but little enough that it shouldn’t take me too long to clear up.While this vacuum exists I thought I would give you all some more thoughts as I have continued along my spiritual journey.

Why I’ll Never Leave the Church

One thing that I can predict with a fair level of confidence and certainty is that I will probably never grow disillusioned with the church and/or with Christianity as I did in my teenage years and I will never leave the church. There are a couple of reasons for that:

1) I never got taught, or rather never had sink in, the consumer mentality to Christianity: Growing up, I was taught about the immutable, unstoppable, never changing power of self-determination and that all through my life, I should always use that power to create my destiny. I guess I am one of those people who preachers would label, “That arrogant young man who thinks he can do everything himself.”

I don’t know if I can but I certainly know that I am going to take responsibility for the results I achieve in my life.

2) Christian people are hands down, the most loving and silmultaneously nicest people I have ever met: A lot of people who become disillusioned with the church do so because they feel condemned, judged, unloved and unwanted by Christian people. I have never ever felt that. Until I was an adult, all my real-world (as opposed to celebrity or fantasy heroes) were Christian African women.

If you look through my heroes list, you’ll notice that one of them is Erwin Mcmanus (if anyone knows how I can get an interview with him….do share) and I just love to consume and reflect and act on his podcasts and his ideas.

To put the full stop on this point, I don’t know if I have told this story before but what the heck, I will tell it again

She Listened, Really Listened

It’s amazing how one moment can mean so many different things to different people. I don’t think my aunty knows just how special that day was for me, and whenever I tell my mother the story, she always remarks:

That’s nothing special

Or something similar, but that truly was, one of the greatest days of my life.

Disposable Teen

So there I was, 16 years old, scared and angry. I remember walking into my aunty’s home for a visit. My aunty did something that no human being had never done before. She didn’t try to advise me. She didn’t try to give me solutions to my problems. She didn’t engage in discussion or debate. She just listened.

She listened as I talked about my crazy plans about buying a fleet of matatus (a fleet of mini buses) and using the revenue generated from this venture to fund a school where the poor and marginalized youth of Africa would learn not only about the political process but would be equipped to answer the question:

How can I use the current global and political system to the benefit of my community and myself?

I don’t remember if that was the exact thought I told my aunty so many years ago, but whatever it is I said, she listened. I remember she fed me delicious sandwiches and tea and for a couple of days just let me talk. It’s amazing how the Angel Gabriel’s love for Mary can be felt just by his merely sitting next to her………..

Don’t worry if you read this and don’t see what’s so special either, just know it was truly one of the best days during one of the best periods of my life, and she was there.

She was in that moment, the salt and light of my world.

Where this Spiritual Journey is Going?

I know I am not alone on this one, but I often fantasize about being interviewed. My favourite platforms are either a town hall meeting, a speech I am making to thousands of people or an appearance on Enough Rope with Andrew Denton, and many a time, I have fantasized about being asked that very question in the sub-healdine.Here now is my smooth-as-Taye-Diggs-eloquent-as-MLK answer:

The way I see my life headed, I will probably end up the born again founder my own church dedicated to two things:

a) The upliftment and dignity of young African  boys and men

b) Taking action: Every sermon will end with everyone either doing something to improve their lives or the lives of the members of the community or it will become compulsory with attendance that you must take action after every service and are accountable to other members of the congregation.

I would weed out all the passive watchers and remain with just passionate people committed to taking action and being angels among men.

Hey, I have been asked to lead my bible study group this Thursday so that might be the begining of all of this…….watch this gap in the time space continuum.

My oddly tired brain is telling me those are enough ideas for now.

Have a fantastic week,

Mwangi

This post is a continuation of the post The Journey of a Christian Agnostic Theist: The Teenage Years

Now as many of you would know, when I first showed up in this country of Australia, I wasn’t necessarily a popular person. That was probably the main catalyst behind what I lovingly call:

My Really Fake Philosophy Days

I was angry at the world and angry at everyone. For some reason I don’t quite understand to this day, I took all that anger and channeled it into trying to disprove the existence and authority of Christianity and the Christian faith.

Cue the Internet

And so I got online and started searching for any way to disprove the existence of Christianity. In addition to that, yet again for reasons I don’t quite understand, I got quite mesmerized by Eastern philosophy.

And so I began to study, especially meditation and yoga, and the wonderful effects they had had in riding people of all sorts of mental and physical ailments. And just because I was a super spiritual person, all this was somehow mixed in with porn.

And so my quiet moments away from the world would be spent watching a documentary on Confucianism, reading a website that nit-picked at every little contradiction and misspelling in the “good book”, and finding it how many licks……..another sordid tale, another sordid time.

When I Did Meet People

I became, and to some extent still am, that really obnoxious person who kept pointing out the truth that we all know but don’t like to be constantly reminded of:

All ways of life, schools of thoughts, paths and directions are flawed and incomplete.

Unfortunately though, I wasn’t comfortable with this ambiguity, I was just angry, very very angry and kept trying to attack any ideas that I could find a flaw in. Like I will never forget when I first heard a sermon on providence.

Are You Saying It’s all Predetermined?

The wonderful thing about her preaching style was that she was raw and she was open. If she forgot her thought, she would tell you, not really care and move on. If something angered her, she channeled the Incredible Hulk and went for it.

I think this was the first time I ever saw her preach. And she preached on providence. Now in truth I loved her sermon, I loved her style, but the fake philosopher wasn’t having that message.

And so I got an envelope, got a piece of paper, and across two pages managed to stretch out one basic idea:

If there indeed is providence. Then what’s the point of my doing anything. Isn’t it all predetermined anyway?

Robin Hood Story

I don’t remember who told me this story or even if it’s true. But apparently in one of the tales of Robin Hood, there was a time he was in the dungeon with other people waiting to be executed.

Everyone in the dungeon was going absolutely ballistic. But Robin Hood was as cool as a cucumber in a North Pole ice party. When his coolness was challenged, his response was simple:

What will happen, will happen. The course is already in motion. No use worrying about it now.

And that’s how I saw providence, albeit through much angrier eyes, as I wrote that letter.

The Response

Was totally, unequivocally nothing. I left the letter at the church reception to be sent to her and that was the last I ever saw or heard of my letter. Not a very good start in my philosophy career.

The Meditation Quick Fix

As I said before, I was obsessed with studying yoga, meditation and Eastern philosophy. In truth, I didn’t really care too much about understanding or following my Tao, or living by the principles of Confuscious, or achieving the enlightenment of the Buddha, I wanted a quick fix cure for my mental anguish and I thought meditation would be the cure.

I remember the first time I ever experimented with meditation:

Constipate Your Way to Enlightenment?

I went to the book shop and got this tiny booklet that explained step by step how to meditate and achieve inner peace.

1) Find a quiet place (there was background noise from the family TV in my room but I didn’t think this mattered too much)

2) Sit in a comfortable position ( I lay down on my bed)

3) Quiet your mind ( OK, Mwangi…….quiet your mind. Be still, stop thinking Mwangi. Stop thinking, QUIET your mind for Pete’s sake, stop thinking, AAAGGGHHHHH, BE EMPTY ALL READY)

4) If you are having problems quieting your mind ( phew a section for hyper-kinetic stimulus junkies like me) then simply focus on your thoughts and detach yourself from them until you achieve a state of peace. This may take time – “I don’t like that!” ( Alright Mwangi, focus on your thoughts, hmmm should I focus on the good ones or the bad ones, JUST focus, and then what, what do I do when there’s this empty vacuum and nothing to fill it? hmmm, still your mind, still your mind, STILL YOUR……Oh forget it, what’s on the porn tube)

Second Time was Never the Lucky Time Was It

The second time, I went and got not just a meditation book, but a book on ESP: Extra Sensory Perception.

Apparently there were some people who were able to bend the rules of reality and physics and bend spoons with their brains (I might have been a detached philosopher but I wasn’t above such superficial validation of such cool tricks) and move mountains all with the gray matter combined with the endless energy inside of me.

To be honest, I don’t even remember how I failed at this one. All I remember is one day, ESP was all I could think about, the next day ESP was nothing but a pile of……………………………..

Kinda Like Saul Before He Became Paul

Back to my Christian bashing era: I was hell bent on disproving Christianity and I found a cyber idol in some aethist from the States. I don’t remember much about the man, but I do remember that he said that simply because God didn’t exist that shouldn’t stop us from being moral beings who did fun things like spending time with family and tennis.

For that reason let’s call him Mr. Aethist Tennis (AT) and his site the AT site.

The AT site had listed every problem with the good book you could imagine. Where verses and ideas clearly contradicted each other:

Faith without actions is dead vs No one comes to the father by me vs All you need is the faith of a mushroom seed vs the wages of sin are death = How the heck do I achieve salvation and eternal life?

It listed times when family trees didn’t quite add up. And according to Mr. AT the Catholic church had a book full of biblical difficulties, which I have yet to read to this day.

So Am Sure After Reading this Convoluted Tale You are Wondering What the Heck I Learned

What’s interesting is that, it was in the midst of all this that I was blessed with the most wonderful gift: I stepped on stage for the first time, acted and actually moved people.

It’s amazing how in an 80/20 analysis, the simple acts of moving a crowd of people on a stage and having them admire and respect me afterwards cleared all my philosophical raging and bitching.

As cliche as it sounds, all I ever wanted was to be needed, wanted and cared for. And I think that’s probably the main thing that I picked up: as long as we people are unconditionally loved and cared for by at least SOMEBODY, a lot of things that would be problems just melt away.

I also learned that I really didn’t hate the Christian faith. After all, I still ended up going to church on a semi-regular basis and still do to this day. All my life I could still say that the most wonderful people I have ever met were all Christian people and that has never changed to this day. So sometimes what we are talking about and what we really need and want are really 2 entirely different things.

Thirdly, as I stated before, I learned that every way of life, including the Christian path was flawed. If it weren’t 1500 denominations would not exist, not to mention the many cults that use the good book as their guide, Da Vinci code wouldn’t have resonated as much as it did and we would all follow the same path.

Whereas I have no doubt that there is probably something deep at the core of all of us that connects us all and brings us closer to God, I personally think that fully understanding it is above the human experience. I also learned that there were probably some things I just wouldn’t know.

Finally, I learned that, even though I never ever truly know my perfect purpose and reason for being here, I am here. I have been loved and cared for and taken a chance on, even at my most wretched and my most wicked. I best make us of this life I have and make sure that somehow someday I repay the favour and love and care for folks who wouldn’t have gone very far otherwise.

I hope that kinda explains just a little bit more why I am particularly fond of the catchphrase:

Be blessed and bless others,

Mwangi

The images that I found for this post, and that I left out are simply breathtaking….wow!

First of all, what a mouthful that is. To explain just what all this means I will refer you to Yahoo Answers:

An agnostic Christian is a part of the agnostic theists. This means that this person is an agnostic (believes that the existence of god cannot be known by humans) but chooses to follow the Christian religion in spite of their agnosticism.
Theism is the belief that gods or deities exist, while Agnosticism is the belief that the existence of gods are unknown or inherently unknowable. Belief is defined as a conviction of the truth of a proposition without its verification. Agnosticism does not violate this, and this definition of theism does not violate agnosticism, implying that it is possible to be both theist and agnostic.

My Faith Journey

And so, this Sunday morning, I thought I would give you a glimpse into my faith journey. Where me and religion have come from and where we’re going. Maybe you’ll see a little bit of yourself in my story. At the very least, you’ll know where I am coming from whenever I write on matters of the spirit. It is a convoluted tale that hops and skotches to and fro: it’s a story so I’ll allow it to meander.

Childhood Debauchery

The first person who introduced religion and faith to me clearly did not study marketing in this consumer-driven world. Had I first been introduced to Christianity in Australia, the Displaced African would probably have been the Displaced Prophet or Salt of the Earth: Aussie Version or something similar.

I have no idea who it was, but I remember when I was very young getting it into my head that Christianity was about denial of sensual pleasures in order to please God who would burn me in hell if I didn’t follow his commands.

Now this is True, But…….

You don’t get people to come through the doors of the church like that. Honestly, no one is as good at bringing people through the door (and losing them over time) as the Western church. From missionaries who have managed to convert almost the entire global South, to even the way churches in a country like Australia run, they understand how to speak to people’s self interests and how to place God as the solution to YOUR personal problem.

I Digressed There…….

So, in short, me being the rebel that I was, never really wanted to say that I got saved out of fear. In addition to that, I kind of saw religion as a woman’s religion one time and other times as something practiced by a peer group that I did not want to impress -though a lot of them were so nice and I loved, still love, being around them.

Now, I am far from alone in having a childhood like this. My native homeland is (I put this in heavy quotes) “80% Christian” last I heard. Meaning whether or not we are born again Christians, most of us have grown up around the church or church goers and have some type of Christian understanding of God. And yet, a lot of us are not born again.

I Finally Got Born Again

When I was a teen, the sermon, the music, the people and the message were just aligning like they never had and I made a decision:

I was going to take up my cross and follow Him

I’ll never forget our so-awesome-I-can’t-help-grinning-when-I-type-this sunday school teachers pulling us (about 3 or 4 of us) aside and giving us a talk. They showed us a book that was made of many different colours but no words. Each colour represented a different part of one’s spiritual journey with black being darkness and gold being heaven if I remember correctly. And so feeling super-great that I made a great decision that day I stepped out of sunday school a saved boy.

It Lasted for ……

…maybe 3 hours. Again the problem was not only in the way folks marketed the faith to me but how I viewed the faith now that I was born again: denial of pleasure. I still didn’t see the higher positive purpose in pursuing anything spiritual.
I remember getting home and sitting in front of the TV staring at my Playstation.
I was now born again and I knew that playing violent wrestling games was bad: Would I deny myself that pleasure? I didn’t. And so the descent began……..

I Have Been Baptized By the Way

I was baptized about a week later on Valentine’s Day 2000. By this point I had slid so far back into the secular I had formed my own secular state. The only reason I got baptized was because I wanted to have a house party and invite all the girls.

Things went full circle and now I was how I was in the begining: a kid who didn’t want to convert because he thought he would be missing out on too much.

To be continued……..