The Naked Journal
Thoughts, musings, and meanings behind NakedPastor Art.
The Naked Journal
Recognizing The Changes Associated With Shifts Your Beliefs
We all unravel our beliefs in our own way. That's why I champion spiritual independence. Focus on being yourself and find your own path. A man on a couch depressed. His wife on the phone: “Sorry, he can’t come to the phone right now. He’s losing his religion.” Mental, emotional and social symptoms you may experience when Mental Changes Deconstruction usually starts in the mind, often initiated by trauma: an event that provokes doubt. It can be as simple as questioning the Bible, or the loss of a loved one that makes you question a caring God, or frustrating experiences in the Church or with religious people. A Doubt Virus lodges in your fevered brain that spreads, overtaking your certainty. Confusion sets in. Emotional Changes When you’re immersed in a religious culture but start questioning it, you experience withdrawal and grief. You may feel a mixture of sadness at the prospect of loss and elation at the hope of freedom. Confusion creates stress that you feel in our body. You’re stuck between sadness and joy, conflict and peace, control and freedom. You count the cost of taking the next step because the risk feels high. Social Changes You’ve become suspicious about submitting to authority and believing ideas unquestionably. You know you’re in for a bumpy ride as you contemplate breaking away from the Church, its leaders, and your peer group (family and friends), all of whom perpetually monitor you. You know if you take a stand for your spiritual independence you may find yourself all alone. Your social life will change. But have hope! Because I know you will progress beyond confusion to peace of mind.You will finally feel authentically you, happy and free.And you’ll learn how to navigate your present relationships and form new and healthier ones.
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How it Started How it's Going
In the first frame a group of people are gathered around Jesus as he gently teaches. It says, "How it started." In the second frame people are gathered around the American flag worshipping it in front of a church. It says, "How it's going." Nationalism is not just an American problem. We're seeing it around the world. I'm also seeing it in Canada, where I live, where some believers believe Christians should rule the country with their fundamentalist beliefs and are working and praying hard to make this happen. We can say the problem is patriotism. But it's deeper than that. It's that some people are convinced theocracy is best.
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Leaving the Church and Wanting Your Life Back
For many of us, it's not that we even want our life back... because we've never really known anything else. We want our life! And for so many people that means feeling like we're starting from scratch and having to learn how to live our own lives for the first time. Cartoon description: A man with parts of his body missing shaped like puzzle pieces stands before a pastor who has those missing pieces in his hand. Leaving the church can feel like stepping into the unknown. It’s confusing and sometimes overwhelming to rebuild a life that feels truly your own. But this journey, though difficult, is about discovering who you are outside of what you’ve always known. It's okay to take your time. You're not alone in this.Have you felt this way?
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The Truth Behind 'Progressive' Church Control
One of the things that really concerns me about many churches is that they give off this air of progressiveness... ... while the same old problems of control, manipulation, spiritual abuse, micro-managing people's lives, and the blatant prohibiting of personal freedom is just as rampant as any other church. But it's all cloaked in an aura of coolness. The most naïve among us fall for it but quickly learn it's not real. Cartoon Description: A young hip pastor says to his congregation, "At this church we encourage you to find and walk your own spiritual path, as long as we choose it for you." We learn it was either just bait or, worse, that the church actually believes it is all about love and grace and freedom but has no idea what these look like. How many here have experienced this?Because I know I have, and I see it all around me.
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The Church's Failure to Embrace LGBTQ Rights
This cartoon is brutal but it is reality.For many of our LGBTQ friends and family, reality is brutal. This happens all the time. I wanted to show the pastor as cool and hip with an awesome worship band setup to illustrate that even the most apparently progressive churches continue in their discrimination against LGBTQ people. Cartoon description: A pastor introduces a woman to the congregation: "So, just before we vote NO on whether LGBTQ people should enjoy equal right and privileges in the Church, we're going to hear Tammy's stories of being shamed, rejected, and alienated by us for being a lesbian so that people can't say we didn't listen. Tammy?" Someone will say that we shouldn't allow the feelings of others to dictate what is right and wrong. Okay. Then how about we allow the persecution and sufferings of others to dictate how we treat them? "Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain" means that we all walk on the same level ground. Or ought to. We don't force people off into the ditch.We don't block pathways to freedom.We don't barricade roads to equality.We don't charge change for access.We don't close lanes to the privileges we enjoy. Stop pretending to listen when it's just pretense. These are real people who suffer because of a hateful hermeneutic.
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Unmasking the Church's Dark Side
Yesterday I did a cartoon about a woman leaving a church. The people inside the church are thinking she's backsliding. She's thinking she's growing. She was leaving the church because it was the only way she could continue on her journey. But people leave the church for other reasons too. Like because they can no longer bear being told to believe nonsense. Or they're fed up with its irrelevance.Or they're disgusted by its greed.Or they're tired of narcissistic pastors. Or they realize the church doesn't actually care for them.Or they can no longer agree with excluding or discriminating against LGBTQ+ people. Behind the Church's Welcome Sign Cartoon Description: It's night. There's a church. Its sign says, "Welcome to Our Awesome Church". Behind the church there are a bunch of people who've been thrown into its dumpster. But one of the biggest reasons people leave is because they've been spiritually abused by the church. Some just leave because they don't want it anymore.Some leave because they have no choice and are forced to.Others are kicked out. What's amazing is that the church can boast about and even have a reputation for being awesome while at the same time we hear reports of serious allegations of abuse. This is a huge problem. A very real one. And I know hundreds if not thousands of people who have experienced it. Have you been abused by the church?
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The Church and Victim Mentality
Description: Sheep going to slaughter. One says to another, "Frankly, I'm sick and tired of your victim mentality!" The Church and a Victim Mentality (Victims are real, including of the Church. This isn’t about that but the victim mentality.) I claim the Church nurtures a victim mentality: Suffering: The cross, suffering servant, and lambs to the slaughter were concepts I embraced. This stuck with me through my ministry. It still echoes. It’s fatalistic. It views affliction as inevitable, desirable, and deserved. The result is you should always turn the other cheek and never stand up for yourself or fight back. In fact, any effort to change your situation is selfish. Humiliation: We were taught that we are broken sinners, weak, and needing to be rescued. We’re trained to believe that we should be so dependent on God that we have no will, no power, and no voice. Many say this is the most perfect way. We’re tools for God to use when God wants. Independence is rebellion. The “poor me” posture is an effective way for the Church to keep us ashamed before God, before the pastor, before the church, and before the world. Helplessness: Because suffering, servitude, and submission carry such currency in the Church, it feels no need to help us to be empowered. Being “more than conquerers” is only for controlling our sinful nature, not for living confidently in every area of our lives. The Church trains us to be helpless and dependent. Nelson Mandela said, “I am the master of my fate and the captain of my destiny.” This is a bold declaration to fully participate in our life rather than surrender it to fate, to circumstances, or to the will of another. You have the power!You have the right to change your life!You can be independent!
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Think For Yourself Be By Yourself
Description: People are leaving a woman behind. One says, "Fine! You want to THINK for yourself, you have to BE by yourself too!" I didn’t choose my loneliness. But it certainly is a result of my choices. I chose to submit no longer to the spiritual authority of others or conform to the group. I fought for my spiritual independence. I wanted to walk my own spiritual path and find my own spiritual land. This is your right and responsibility and reward too. The group informed me that I no longer belonged. I had betrayed my citizenship. I was a traitor. My passport was revoked. I was denied the access and privileges I once enjoyed. Unless I surrendered my rights. Unless I submitted to it all over again. It wasn’t me who told me I was no longer welcomed. It wasn’t me who unfriended me. It wasn’t me who cut off all communications with my former friends. It wasn’t me who banished me to a spiritual no-man’s land to fend for myself. I took a stand and the crowd that used to surround me abandoned me. Some say I abandoned them. No! They abandoned me when I stood for myself. I chose to be independent. They said, “You want to be independent? Fine! But that means you also have to be alone.” Many of you know what I’m talking about. You are lonely not because you are a loser or unfriendly or undesirable or because you deserve it. You are lonely because you made a wise and healthy choice! But, like healthy food, it costs you extra. You could eat what everybody else is eating, but you know this is not best for your spiritual health. You can gather where everyone else is gathering, but you know you would have to surrender too much. We are spiritual refugees. But we can’t have it any other way if we choose independence. I’m glad we can gather here online, meet up with other refugees, get encouraged, gather more resources, and strengthen our resolve to stick by our decision to take care of ourselves. Peace, my independent friends!
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Finding Harmony in Our Differences
I was at an event once where a speaker said that because of the thousands who were there, each one might have a different name for the Other: God, Universe, Source, Great Spirit, etcetera, or nothing at all. It felt comfortable and I believe no one felt excluded or forcibly included. Description: A line of men who look identical. One thinks, "Now this is my kind of church!" It confirmed to me that it is possible to be in fellowship with a wildly diverse group of people. I’ve experienced this before in a couple of churches, and I do now in my incredibly diverse online community, TheLastingSupper. At the same time, we need to acknowledge the danger in universalizing or unifying attempts to include everyone. It’s important to be alert to any agenda that, even though it might think it means well, attempts to dismiss and even erase difference and diversity. Many unifying movements are actually infected with colonial impulses: you are not allowed to be unique or different but must somehow be assimilated into the whole. But the whole is defined by the most powerful, centered, and privileged group. An undying philosophical question is: If God is One and unified and happy with Godself, then why did God create? Why did God create such manifold diversity only for it all to be finally reconciled back into Godself again? Why all this uniqueness, difference, and diversity, if it isn’t to be acknowledged, respected, and embraced? I love unity in diversity. By that I mean this: We are all connected at a deep and essential level. But manifold diversity should be respected, honored, and provided space. Keeping these two realities in tension is what creates authentic, dynamic, and compassionate community.
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