The Ninja Theologian

Today I did most of my reading for my classes and have to catch up on just a little bit more. For my NT Survey class I need to finish up Luke (16 chapters left) and for my Pastoral Epistles class I need to by the end of the semester read those epistles 3 times; preferably each time in a different translation. I’ve done it once in the ESV; the other two times I plan on reading them in the NET and the NLT.

For my church history class I need to read up to page 120 something by the end of the term (or something) and I have read 30 something pages. I’m reading the rest of this and Luke tomorrow. I also need to read some of my Pastoral epistles textbook which I plan on doing tomorrow as well.

Lastly there is some work I need to do which isn’t required until the end of the semester (or term; can’t remember) which I want to spread out through the time period so I will be doing that as well. All this should keep me on my feet

Tonight I played some board games with one of my teachers and his family. It was a great time and we were there for quite a while! I got there for dinner and only came home probably just before midnight. I look forward to more games in the future! Anyways until next time, God bless.

I’m fairly sarcastic by nature. I’m quick to take a jab at someone and I’m also quick to use word plays or double meanings. All of these things can be used playfully and without really hurting someone nor sinning against God. It is however so very easy to move over to inappropriate use of any of these uses of language and unfortunately I am becoming more painfully aware how often I do so. I’ve even realized that at times I have really gone to far in my jesting; far more than what is appropriate for a Christian.

All this brings to mind the warnings found in scripture regarding one’s speech. I realize now that I haven’t been taking this issue as seriously as it deserves. I’ve been spending more time cutting people down rather than building them up and edifying them. Anyways that’s something for me to meditate on for a while. Until next time, God bless.

Today was an interesting day for a couple of reasons but let’s break it down into two parts:

Going to Bible College

So today was my first day at college. An overview of it so far is that it seems to be not as difficult as I feared it would be, at least for this semester. The work I have been handed seems to be quite straightforward and I think I should be able to follow along without too much concern and/or stress.

I had three classes today and they were: Bible Introduction I, Pastoral Epistles and NT Introduction. All classes just seemed to fly by and were quite enjoyable. So far the stuff is relatively basic but I look forward to the tests and assignments we have to do that seem to be challenging and therefore very exciting for me.

I also got to meet the other students who are doing the classes. One of which may be studying full time alongside me depending on his schedule and the other one is studying part time and is basically finishing up his modules this semester or the next. I’m not sure but it’s possible I might meet more students tomorrow.

The After Party

Okay, so after this I got something to eat and made my way home and in fact I only got home about an hour ago. So, I get home and sit down and my mother tells me that we need to talk about something when I’m ready. I ask her what it is about and she tells me that my father wants me to change my surname. She says she doesn’t know why but I can make an educated guess.

Though my father never attended a mosque and was an alcoholic, a drug user and a wife beater; he was and is proudly Muslim. Since I have rejected his “faith” (not to mention also my mothers) he takes (apparently) great insult to that and doesn’t want to be associated with me for that reason.

I refused to change my name and said that if he desires he can change his own name but I’m keeping my name the way it is. Here is the good part, my father gave my mother this ultimatum: Kick Alen out of home, or I am leaving. My mother refused and now he is out.

Background

I must admit that I don’t know what true persecution is like but I’ve had a taste of it at home. Though both of my parents are non practicing; I got a lot of pressure put on me to reject my newfound faith and join to either one of theirs. Naturally I refused and there was a lot of contention. Eventually it all settled down and my parents seemingly accepted the facts. This of course didn’t really happen.

My mother though is a lot more accepting than my father, I guess it’s just a feminine thing to place more love and care for your child than a father does. Since I was very young I have lived with my mother for the most part and therefore I have a much better relationship with her than my father. I guess you can say that my relationship with my father is non existent.

I didn’t see my father for close to 2 decades and when he came back he tried to act like everything was normal and that he could come in just like he left it and we’d all just get along fine. He was sorely mistaken. I guess our main clashes between each other have to do with personality; I’m quite an introvert, and he is not.

He wonders why I have trouble talking to him and communicating with him because he doesn’t realize he is as good as a stranger to me and worse the taste that he left in my mouth from previous encounters is quite vile. He comes in and doesn’t acknowledge any wrong doing and if anything it’s my fault not his.

Conclusion

He kept a bad attitude towards me and didn’t want to fix it despite attempts on my part (funnily enough I’m encountering a similar problem with another “father figure”) so therefore I rejected him back and made it clear I did so. In the end we come out both losing, but him more so than I.

After he left my mother mentioned that he was constantly asking her when would I leave and pester her about it. He didn’t want me here. He didn’t feel loved by me and in turn tried to turn his rejection back onto me. He failed and now he will die alone, and miserable.

Do I regret these course of events? Not enough for me to chase after him again. He burnt me when he destroyed our family and he was given a second chance that I’ve rarely given anyone else when I approached him to try to reconcile; but he rejected it and I closed that door for him permanently. Unless I see repentance on his side, there will be no reconciliation.

This is probably not the course of action I’d recommend others but nevertheless the one I took. Until tomorrow, God bless.

The main areas of my continual struggles are in the title but I’ll reiterate them here: Doubt, Depression and Addiction. I guess I’ll go through each one in a bit more detail.

Doubt

This is more of a recent issue but nevertheless it’s one that is really keeping me down. I feel like I cannot escape it; I feel like I’m drowning in it and I am given but brief moments to gasp for air before being plunged into it again. Some days my thinking is virtually atheistic and other days it’s that of a believer. I’m really double minded in this regards.

My problem is disbelief. For some reason my mind often contends with me saying “Do you really believe that?” or “That’s a lie and you know it” or even “Stop forcing yourself to believe what you know isn’t real”. These thoughts used to hit me every once in a while and now I am constantly plagued by them.

I also look around and see my beliefs under scrutiny to the point any position I hold, even within Christendom is in the minority position. Creationism; preservation , innerancy and infallibility of scripture and not to mention the conservative position on the authorship of scripture in the New and Old Testaments.

Even when I seem to find information that supports the position I hold; I find myself critical of it. It’s almost like it’s too good to be true and therefore it isn’t. There is nothing supporting my position because it’s not supportable. I lack faith. That’s what I think the problem is with me; I’m faithless.

I cannot nail down the problem to anything specifically but I can think of several things that tie in. Firstly is the fact that as a former atheist; faith is still something very new to me and I simply find it hard to accept things “on faith”.

Secondly, the more I learned about Christianity the more and more I realized faith didn’t play as big a part as I thought it did. In other words, people’s salvation wasn’t dependent on my faith, my overcoming sin has a lot more to do with my discipline than my faith while praying, pray is more to do with communicating with God than changing history, God’s sovereignty generally downplays my responsibility and so forth.

Thirdly, I am put off by the lack of critical thinking. Whenever I see a belief held onto without any logical coherence I become very skeptical and critical of it. Too often the people I see believing what I believe express no critical thought on the issue but instead express circular reasoning, emotion and/or it’s just something passed down on from family.

Lastly, I would say it’s probably a combination of bad theology and a lack of a knowledge and relationship with God. In fact I don’t really think I have a “relationship” with God sometimes. When I pray it doesn’t feel or seem mystical, I don’t feel a bond or emotional connection with God and I generally don’t desire to know Him as much as I do to know about Him through His word.

This of course could be a weakness of mine inherited from a broken home. A common mantra of those growing up in broken homes is: Don’t trust, Don’t Talk and Don’t Feel. I exhibit all of these. It’s probably the reason I’m an introvert but anyways.

Depression

This seems to be a new thing as well but not as new as my chronic doubts. I’ve been struggling with depression for the last 2 years or so I guess you can say. When I was 20 I was hit with a depression that left me down with the count. It stayed with me for many months until one day it just left. After that point though I wasn’t the same as I was before.

Though I can function I do not feel 100% like I did before, I lack the motivation and determination I use to have. I don’t feel happy any more. I don’t feel horrible, but I don’t feel happy like I use to. On top of that every now and again (it seems to be getting more and more frequent as of late) I am hit with these bouts of depression. These keep me down and tie in to some degree to both of my other problems.

I honestly wish I could feel like I use to feel but I don’t think that will ever happen. I’ve tried medication before but not only is it extremely expensive; it isn’t effective long term. At most it lasts for a couple of weeks, maybe 2 months and then dies off. I have learned to develop coping mechanism though: Hang out with people as much as possible and try to cut out to much “alone time”. Thinking on my own isn’t generally good for me.

I guess this is the main reason that prompts me to look for companionship. Unsuccessful on my attempts thus far I do push on. Problem is that when you have the above condition of “Don’t feel” and “Don’t trust” the hurt is compounded all the more when in rare glimpse of you opening up your soul you get rejected. Even when done nicely it’s painful and causes one to default back to “Don’t feel” mode.

Addiction

Wow, I’m really opening up my soul here today, aren’t I?

I’m an addict. I’m addicted to sin. In fact I feel enslaved by it. If I can see anything with the eyes of faith, I see one thing clearly and that is the chains of sin on my hands and feet. I’m a addict in every which way.

I can’t buy a pack of gum without finishing it all soon after I buy it, I can’t read one funny comic without trying to find the rest in the collection, I can’t watch one episode of a TV show without searching for the rest, I’m not pleased with a little bit of pleasure; I need a lot of it and I need it now.

Once again I can see this compounding my other two problems (I think they all work together in some sort of sick twisted vicious cycle continually compelling my problems). The problem with human nature is it is dualistic in nature.

I cannot do all I want to do and I do a lot of what I do not want to do. Everyone in the world struggles with this problem. People trying to quit smoking, get fit or work on their marriages and so forth all feel the devastating frustration of not doing what they really want to do.

So here we are. I’m burdened by my sinfulness and worse still I feel like I can’t do anything about it despite numerous attempts, day after day, month after month and now years after years. I know that looking to the gospel is the answer to the guilt but after many years of walking the same path and no real discernible improvement does get extremely discouraging. Broken promises to yourself time and time again do bring you down.

Conclusion

Anyways, that’s where I’m at in case y’all are wondering Until my next post, God bless.

Saw the movie Inception today. It was a really good movie and I definitely cannot wait until I see it again. Christopher Nolan is a man who knows how to make good films. I knew I would be impressed after watching some of his previous work (The Prestige, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight) so I went to this movie with great expectation and was not disappointed one bit.

The film is an exploration of reality and what is truth. Unfortunately to many people will leave a film like this and will either just question the ending of the movie wondering what it all meant or they will leave thinking “yeah man that was trippy, looks like we’re in some sort of Matrix or something, don’t you reckon?”.

A movie like this is meant to force you to think. What is reality? What is truth and how do I find out? The movie isn’t meant to spoon feed you an answer, it’s meant to make you think of one for yourself.  Thinking, let alone thinking critically is vital. We do so little thinking nowadays and rather we have been replaced with being told the answers all the time.

Let’s think people.