Simone Weil describes sin:

Sin is not a distance, it is a turning of our gaze in the wrong direction.

That sums up the human condition, right there.

Sin does not create distance between God and us, it creates distraction. That’s why you can completely blow it, confess your sin, and continue to be in right relationship with God. You don’t have to “start over” and go back to the beginning, as it were. You can continue to make progress in your journey with God, right from where you were.

Sin isn’t going to nudie bars or getting drunk or swearing or having sex with your girlfriend.

Sin is choosing to fix your gaze on something far less beautiful than God.

Sin isn’t distance, it’s distraction.

I aksed the question recently on my church’s Facebook page:

What’s a one-word prayer that you would offer up to God this morning?

Below are the responses. This was easily the most responded to post we’ve ever had.

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Here’s a phrase that’s been bothering me lately:

God closed the door on that opportunity/job/relationship/etc. so I guess it wasn’t meant to be.

Really? Is it really that simple? I wonder how many God-breathed opportunities exist on the other side of “closed doors.”

A wise friend once told me, “Sometimes God opens the door for you. But sometimes, he wants you to break the door into splinters with your bare hands to get at what’s on the other side.”

I think that’s wisdom.

Have you ever had an experience where you had to “break the door down”?

From God in Search of Man by Abraham Joshua Heschel:

The world needs more than the secret holiness of individual inwardness. It needs more than the sacred sentiments and good intentions. God asks for the heart because He needs the lives. It is by lives that the world will be redeemed, by lives that beat in concordance with God, by deeds that outbeat the finite charity of the human heart.

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This morning I felt led to pray the following for BeDeviant:

Help me to maintain biblical fidelity while challenging institutional rigidity.

I want to ask you to join me in that prayer. For this site, specifically. Pray for the mission of BeDeviant, “Bridging the gaps between church and culture.”

You have allowed me to post and write and think “out loud” on this site for almost two years and I feel like we’re just about to turn the corner.

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My alma mater, the University of Northern Iowa, recently won the Missouri Valley Conference championship. It’s the second year in a row they’ve done it, but this season was sweeter. They beat a team in the Wichita State Shockers that had given them two tough games earlier in the season, each team claiming a victory.

As I watched the final minutes of the championship game on Sunday, something hit me. How we read Scripture is a lot like basketball commentators–they’re all watching the same game, but the way it’s interpreted varies from person to person. Sometimes greatly.

Allow me to explain further. . . .
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I felt compelled to share the reason why BeDeviant.com exists.

Here’s the thing: Most of us have no idea what we believe. We think we do. We may even believe that we do. We will passionately defend what we believe we believe. Sometimes to the death. But truly, most of us do not have access to what we really believe.

Why? We believe what we’ve been conditioned to believe.

What we believe is so influenced by our families, our cultures, our race and ethnicity, our socioeconomic status, that we have no access to our actual beliefs and values. There are too many hurdles to jump, so the hard work of “jumping” never gets done. Staring down a long-held cherished belief and declaring, “False!” is too painful. We’d rather live in ignorance for, as they say, “ignorance is bliss.”

It is only after we learn how we have come to believe what we believe that the true work of forming an honest belief system can begin. Phew.

This is why I write. I write to challenge people to look at not just what they believe, but why they believe it. As Socrates famously stated, “An unexamined life is not worth living.” I write to challenge people to look at things differently.

However, this is much more the philosophic fodder. My ultimate model in “being deviant” is none other than Jesus. When we see Jesus, we see a man who challenged nearly every cultural and familial tradition of his day,

• Interpretation of cherished religious texts.
• Honored religious teachings; some hundreds–if not thousands–of years old.
• The picture of who God is and what he requires of those who follow him.
• The cultural view of women, the poor and the foreigner.
• Racial and ethnic “safety zones.”
• Popular political statements and parties.

And those are just the ones we know about.

Jesus was a man who jarred the soul–violently at times–in order to free people from the bondage of mindless, man-made religious tradition. Jesus freed people to believe in the One True God, not just believe in their beliefs. Jesus gave people access to the Truth and, as he famously stated, “the truth shall set you free.”

As a Christian, we are “little Christs.” We do what we see Jesus doing, both in life and in death.

I see Jesus challenging the this-is-the-way-we’ve-always-done-it-status-quo, so that’s what I do.
I see Jesus challenging our notions of who God is, so that’s what I do.
I see Jesus challenging the religious arrogance of those who believe they have it all figured out, so that’s what I do.

I wouldn’t have necessarily chosen to be this expression of Christ’s Body, but providence is particular. I write because I feel it’s God-in-me, calling me to do so.

My mentor once told me that when you throw a rock into a pack of dogs, the one who gets hit is the one who yelps the loudest. Writing for BeDeviant.com is kind of like that. We need to be smacked in the head once in awhile to be jarred loose from the death-grip that the suffocating religious spirit has on our souls.

This–for better or worse–is why I write. Come what may.

I’ve closed the comments on this post because what I wrote is not up for debate. It’s my story of the Spirit of God intersecting a human life and the beauty and chaos that results.

It’s been an interesting 24 hours, to say the least.

This may sound unbelievable to some, but I believe the post from yesterday, “Why You’ll See Ellen DeGeneres in Heaven” was Spirit-led. A further explanation of how it came into being is later in the post.

Having said that, I feel some clarification is in order. I’m a huge fan of clarity. So, for the people who won’t read any further than this first paragraph, allow me to make crystal clear what I believe:

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Conservative talk show host Michael Savage calls her, “Ellen DeGenerate.” I call Ellen DeGeneres “heaven-bound.”

Why?

When describing the actions of those who will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus says,

For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.

Simply put, Jesus says the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who move with compassion. With mercy.

Jesus’ half-brother spoke clearly to what it means to be a “religious” person. James said, “Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.” Seems pretty vague doesn’t it? Perhaps that’s on purpose.
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This is a guest post by Nicole Unice.

I have a confession to make. I like pop music.

And not just the Miley Cyrus, High School Musical flavor. I like the beat thumping, chorus humming, and—dare I say it—booty-shaking kind. There it is. I am a woman in my early 30s, with three children and a minivan. I run a Christian counseling practice and a women’s ministry. People look to me for soul direction and depth, and in my spare time, I like to dance around and get low, low, low.

The best part? I think that’s OK with Jesus.

My senior pastor plays tennis on a team with my husband’s co-worker. Last week, the team finished a game and had some beers in a cooler. One of them offered my pastor a beer and (gasp!) he took it. Later, the co-worker told my husband that he cringed because his teammate must not have known he was offering a beer to a pastor. The co-worker reported. “Wow, I was surprised he had a beer with us. That’s cool.” (more…)