David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

God

If you’re waiting to be rescued, what are you still waiting for?

By ·

Few of us like to admit that we sometimes need to be rescued.

We like to believe we’re self-sufficient. We like to believe that nothing can stop us. We like to believe that we don’t need outside help. But when we’re honest with ourselves, we all know better.

Have you ever been in trouble and pleaded with God to help you? Those of us who are Christians know what it’s like to pray about our troubles and to ask God for help. But even non-religious people are prone to begging God for help when things get bad enough in their lives.

Have you ever been in the depths of despair — begging to God or the Universe or fate for help — and wondered why the solution you desperately wanted never showed up?

Maybe the answer to your prayer was already right in front of you. Maybe you were ignoring it because it wasn’t what you wanted or expected. Maybe it wasn’t convenient.

Keep Reading

Related Posts

I don’t claim to know the solution, but the modern church has failed

By ·

The modern evangelical church shaped my early life to a remarkable degree. I was so deeply embedded in the church subculture that I unconsciously believed that being part of that culture was synonymous with knowing God.

I’ve lost faith in the church. I’ve lost faith in the people who have set themselves up as God’s spokesmen on earth. I’ve lost faith in the institutions which I was taught to believe in. I’ve lost faith in my long-cherished belief that being part of that subculture led to knowing God.

But as I’ve lost faith in all the earthly people and institutions which I was taught spoke for God, I’ve strengthened my belief in the God who I’ve always struggled to know and define and understand.

The church as I knew it was just a subculture — a little subset — of modern American culture. We were shaped by our national culture and then we unconsciously shaped our religion to be an acceptable part of the middle class culture we cherished.

If the Christian church is just a subculture of modern American life, what is the point of its existence?

Keep Reading

Related Posts

I fear nobody will come with me as I start down a difficult path

By ·

One of the first lessons we learn in life is to follow the crowd.

Nobody has to tell us this. The cruelty of group dynamics — frequently not examined consciously — pull us and prod us to conform. And because we like the praise of the crowd and fear the crowd’s ridicule, we innocently become sheep — following the herd almost anywhere it goes.

The crowd isn’t very smart or deep. The crowd isn’t very reflective. The crowd follows whatever shiny new thing comes along. For many reasons, following the crowd takes us further and further away from becoming the individuals we were born to be. But because most people are so busy following the crowd — and pursuing the pleasure which the crowd glorifies — they almost never notice this.

I was never a complete crowd-follower. I was proud of being more independent than most. But I eventually realized I was suffocating without meaning. I had accepted too much of what the world — the crowd, really — had given me.

And now that I’ve slowly started asking more and more questions — and finding answers which might as well be unknown tongues to the crowd — I fear that I’m on a path on which nobody I care about will follow.

Keep Reading

Related Posts