Eating for Two

I have a friend who experienced really bad "winds" for awhile in his adult life. He didn't really think it was a problem (as in it shouldn't have happened as much as it did) until he got married. His and his wife decided to go on a detox diet and cut everything out of their diet that causes abnormal "winds." They began slowly adding the items to their daily diet that had been removed and discovered that it was actually the dairy products that were causing the problems. All his life my friend had loved dairy and had eaten it without concern and never thought it would be connected to his "winds." What was most interesting to me was the process that they had to do in order to first cleanse themselves and then move to rebuild their diet to recognize what was harming them. I guess he would have hoped it was something that he was impartial towards or at the least an expensive and largely unavailable item that he wouldn't really need anyways (I'm sure he was hoping for cheap beer to come up as the culprit, leaving no choice but to buy the good stuff), but alas, it was the dairy one of his favorites. Now dairy is not bad for others and in fact it is very good, especially for those who are developing physically. Although some cultures can handle a lot less than others.

Lately, I have been "detoxing" from Christianity. Not necessarily historic Christianity but our cultural, Western, Evangelical, church culture Christianity. I have cut back the diet (i.e. Quiet time, church, Christian music and radio, churchianity, Christianese, doctrines handed to me sealed in earth destroying plastic and made somewhere else or in someone else's context, etc...). I have trimmed my portions. Many may believe me to be back-sliding while others will just dismiss it as a phase. I feel like it is more what my friend was doing. At one time, dairy was very important for his development, but eventually when he became an adult, it became toxic for his body to ingest as much or more as he had always eaten. In many ways, the structures, systems, patterns of discipleship and general ethos of the "general" culture of Christianity can only sustain a certain segment of those on their faith journey while to others it will become toxic at some point and actually begin to cause illness rather than growth.

Paul speak about this in his letters as well as the author of Hebrews in the New Testament. There is a need to move on from milk to solid food. What the text doesn't mention (though not out of negligence) is that the milk, if it is maintained in the diet, can actually be harmful and toxic to the over all health and well-being of the individual as they continue to grow. This isn't true for all people but lactose intolerance is enough of an issue globally that it could be recognized. This is not the point I'm hoping to draw as much as it illustrates that those patterns which at one point were extremely necessary and beneficial to us in our spiritual maturing process have a shelf life and need to mature into different patterns that match our growth patterns, as individuals, as communities, and as the church universal as we mature towards the consummation of all things.

To identify the problem I have to at some level critique different traditions. I don't want to focus on one tradition in this post but rather recognize the frailty of some of the evangelical impulses for faith development.

"Quiet time" - spending an hour a day with God. What kind of formative function does that play in the life of a 15 year old versus a 50 year old?

"Emotional, introspective worship music" - how does that give opportunity for expression for a 15 year old versus a 50 year old?

"Christian Sub-Culture" - how does that inform an 15 year old versus a 50 year old about the need to engage culture in the wider world.

The list goes on and on. What we have been told to do many times is right for someone else but not for us. This is not because we're simply postmoderns but because the dismissal of blaming this complex issue on an epistemology like postmodernity totally misses the emotional and developmental components of how people develop. It is literally a cop out. On issues of morality, there are some things that would be immoral for a 15 year old to engage in and not a 50 year old - i.e. drinking alcohol or sexual intimacy. There is a context for these and morality is situational for certain things but of course not for all.

I'm frustrated by the act of normalizing a function of maturity and then codifying its practice as normative for all Christians everywhere at all times. It has been healthy and eye-opening not to go to church as well as it has been to go to church. It has been refreshing to not have a "quiet time" but to engage God in one's own time that is more relationally based rather than militaristic. Why is the discipline needed - it is of course for the our own benefit but discipline and codification and regiments given by others for our benefit also need the space to be discontinued if they are not fit for the individual or community practicing them. Some spiritual practices or experiences given to us are actually fluff and only offer short term pay offs but long term frustration. I could eat pizza every day and drink a gallon of milk a day when I was 15, but if I did that now - whoa - the repercussions would be enormous.

Discernment, maturity and spiritual growth lead us to realize that there are few things we can understand comprehensively but there are many aspects to our growth that we have to be ready for that we have not encountered yet. These new plateaus of learning which we have never seen before may require some things of us that weren't required before. At the same time they may require us to shed some things that we have held dear to us and have given us much comfort, security and legitimate transformational experiences. This of course doesn't mean that we never do what was done before but it does mean changing our diet for the better. What we once loved may now be hurting us. We may have to stop drinking milk.