A {blog} Worth Believing

In the event of the liturgical season, I chose to explore this mystical celebration of Lent, for a better understanding of the concept of self-actualization/exploration/enlightenment, and because it seems all my friends are doing it, and I wonder why my religious background has never pursued such an experience. Last Sunday I shared my findings on Lent and the notion of self-deprivation with Calvary Baptist Church in Clay Center, KS, and found them to be quite accepting of the idea. I used the typical Passage (1) where Jesus urges us to ‘Deny thyself, pick up thy Cross, and follow Me.” Specifically, I was fascinated by the word deny. I’ve been told by sketchy postmoderns(2) that in order to accept Christ, I have to deny Christianity; so far I’ve enjoyed the freedom of their suggestion. Yet, when I was reading this passage in the Concordant Literal Translation, they use the word disown. This word is used another time in the bible, a story also referring to the death and resurrection, when Peter is told he will deny Christ while He is being tried for execution. I feel now that disown is a much better translation of the word. The word transliterated is Aparneomai, and is defined: “To affirm that one has no acquaintance or connection with someone” (3). This then is precisely what happens in the narrative. Peter does not say:

“Well yeah I know Jesus, but don’t worry, I don’t think He is the Son of God”

Instead Peter disassociates himself from Jesus saying, “I know not this man whom ye speak of”(4). Peter disowns Christ, affirming no acquaintance. So then it got me thinking about one idea about why Lent is unbiblical, followed by one other bit of heresy.

Lent asks its patrons to deprive themselves from a pleasure or luxury for 40 days as a means to stronger faith and discipline. After all, we are disciples of Christ, and we must be disciplined right? Well sort of. I feel that by reading these passages, Lent is doing us more harm than good. Of course I speak in ignorance because I have never felt its effects, but I beg you to hear me out.

This word deny in the KJV is immediately followed by an asterisks, where the Strong’s Concordance tells its readers that this word is permanently attached to Strong’s #5663 which explains to us the Inceptive Aorist Tense, where the verb is “considered without regard for past, present, or future time”, implying denial is a never ending process. In English “there is no direct or clear equivalent for this tense”, so we added the word daily after the command to try to express this. This tells us, or maybe just me, that deprivation for a set season falls short of God’s command. In other words, if we only give up smoking, or cell phones, or even take on a task (like exercising or confessing your weaknesses online) for 40 days, we are not doing any good. The point I feel that this passage demands is that we must continually divest ourselves these luxuries, or permanently take on (See Strongs #142) these disciplines without any end in sight. Christ says we cannot put new wine into old wineskins; we cannot bring our experience of enlightenment from lent back into our old selves after Easter is over. Instead, we must look at the inceptive tense of Lent, as to give up for good, to ‘go and sin no more’ (5).

I have another problem with self-discipline and self-denial, as Jesus encourages us to do. We are in a self-help society, with books from ‘Your Best Life Now’ to ‘7 Steps to a Better You” (Click Here To See Other Books Written by: The Antichrist) all telling us that we need to man up (or woman up) and fix ourselves —with ‘God’s help’ of course. But I cannot stress enough how this ideology is flawed. Self-discipline is doing no good for the Self or the Kingdom. It is simply making one a better person in his own eyes. To quote one of my favorite preachers from the 19th century, George MacDonald, “doing the things God does not require of him, he puts himself in the place of God, becoming not a law but a law giver to himself, one who commands, not one who obeys”(6). He continues to tell us “For a man to be his own schoolmaster is a right dangerous position; the pupil cannot be expected to make progress –except indeed in the wrong direction”. Now many have been successful in self-discipline, but what glory does it bring to the Father if we can produce miracles ourselves? Instead, I understand God to be the only source of discipline, and “the diseased satisfaction which some minds feel in laying burdens on themselves, is a pampering, little as they may suspect it, of the most dangerous appetite of that self which they think they are mortifying.”

To get back to Peter’s denial of Jesus, I feel that we have looked at this from the majorities perspective for all too long. As I wrestled with this scripture, I (using my corrupt interpretation of Derrida’s de-construction methods) have decided to flip the criticism to praise, the guilt of denying Christ into a celebration of his infidelity. We understood so far to condemn Peter for disowning Jesus, but I feel that this story shares with us a great truth (little t). for Peter to deny Christ in His absence is exactly what God should expect from us. To deny is to reveal our weakness without Christ. How could He expect anything else? To remove ourselves from the presence of Jesus, is to remove ourselves from the Knowledge of God. And when Jesus returns to Peter afterwards, when Jesus is (physically) present, Peter then affirms his allegiance. And rightly so. To model Peter, when we detach ourselves from the presence of God, it becomes natural for us to disown Him. And in contrast, when we know we are in the will of God, we can’t help but affirm our loyalty. It seems then that the only way we can keep ourselves from being unfaithful is to be in aorist communion with God, for He has made his permanent dwelling place within his Body, the Church.

So in summary, I beg you not to try and fix yourself during Lent, but instead deny yourself so that He can make whole the empty. It is not us who live, but Christ in us. We must decrease so He can increase. We must follow Peter’s example, to refuse weakness by disassociation, in order to truly give up the Self. To deny human nature and allow God to replace it with His nature, which includes, but is not limited to, never ending communion.

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1. Luke 9:23

2. SEE: Peter Rollins “A/theism” and “the Fidelity of Betrayal”, Tony Jones “The New Christians”, Matt Gallion “My Answer To Pretty Much Every Question You Could Think Of”

3. Strong’s Concordance #533 a(parneÑomai

4. Mark 14:66-72 KJV

5. John 8:1-11 KJV

6. MacDonald, George, “Unspoken Sermons: Self-Denial” pg 365-6