“What if God really is love?”

It was a question like this that landed me in the stadium-esque sanctuary of a local megachurch in 2014. I started attending this young adult service that was centered on a message of “No matter who you are, no matter what you’ve done, you’re never too far gone for the love of God.” It was a call to the broken, selling a cure-all Jesus. You’ve got depression? Jesus. Faced trauma? Jesus. Rent due, bills piling up, debts to pay? Just look to Jesus, baby!

This ministry was built on the backs of volunteers who really believed in the “be love to those around you” mission. The megachurch itself was very much based on the predatory prosperity gospel, and the idea of giving your utmost for His highest.¹ “If you bless God with what He’s given you, He’ll give you even more.”² Really a bastardization of the parable of the talents.³ “He who is faithful with little will be trusted with much.”⁴ Pad our pockets with your tithes, and God will bring that money back around to you. Living paycheck-to-paycheck and can’t afford to give financially? Give of your time and volunteer!

I bought in hook, line and sinker. I figured if I could help the ministry, I could help others see they were worthy of love and they weren’t alone in their hurt and their struggles, which was worth whatever it cost me. In the six years I attended this church, I poured all of myself into serving. There was a point at which I was working full time for the bespoke, in-house coffee shop,⁵ on top of doing forty hours of coursework for their discipleship internship, and serving for multiple services a week. I was pulling 80+ hours a week in assorted corners of the ministry. I practically lived in that building, and by the time I left, I was so fucking burnt out.

This is not the life Jesus meant when He talked about coming to give us “life and life more abundantly.”⁶ In the past two years, I’ve had to do a lot of unpacking of what boils down to bad theology.

Enter Kevin Garcia.

For a lot of the demolition and salvage process around my faith, I’ve been going at things alone. That is, until recently, when I stumbled upon Kevin Garcia⁷ and their podcast, A Tiny Revolution. I’ve been participating in their spring cohort, and let me tell you, they have been absolutely instrumental in helping me figure out how to rebuild my spiritual practice from a pile of rubble. I had been meaning to crack into their book Bad Theology Kills for a minute, and I’m so glad I did. Kevin’s story and perspective resonated with so much of what’s been going on in my heart. Let’s dive into some of my favorite bits, shall we?

This book opened a whole can of worms for me.

Since leaving my church, I have felt incredibly isolated. When I stepped out, I lost most of my community. I was no longer being quiet about how I didn’t buy into their politics. I was now living authentically as the person God created me to be. Because of these things, I was made to feel that I was somehow outside of the will of God. In the introduction of their book, Kevin hits on this very idea.

It is impossible to live outside of God. It is impossible to not have the Christ in you. It is impossible to be without the Holy Spirit. While it is possible to live out of alignment, to simply not hear the voice of God speaking to you through the beautiful temple that is your body, you are never separate from Love.⁸

I’ve known this to be true for quite some time, but having someone outside of my own head say it to me hit different. In the two years since leaving, I have felt closer to God out here in the wilderness than I ever did in my old church. This feels absolutely backwards to me, after being told for so long that that was the only place I would truly hear from God. That they were the only ones who were preaching the right doctrine. That questioning anything they said was disrespecting their authority. I’ve come to learn that the only spiritual authority in my life is me.

I’ve been doing a lot of work to learn how to listen to myself. I’ve got to trust my intuition when the 🚨red alert!🚨 klaxons start going off in my heart, telling me something is unsafe. To steal more of Kevin’s words:

I’m first and foremost concerned with myself. This concern is not selfish, as I was raised to believe. The concern for the wellbeing of my soul springs from my desire and purpose to love the world back to health, as God so loves the world and wants to see it survive and thrive.⁹

So much of my life in the church was a grind. “If I can just do a little more, press a little harder, keep filling needs, maybe I won’t feel like this anymore.” The entire time, the Divine that lives in me was trying to tell me to slow down. “Kiddo, you need some fucking rest.” If the bluejays can scream at me from my hedge and the violets can just pop up all over my lawn without a care in the world, what’s stopping me from living the same way?¹⁰ As Kevin writes, “Look at them in their holy instant, as they are now. Just being here, being what and who they were created to be.”¹¹

It’s been incredibly freeing to simply exist outside of my former church context, but there are times when I find myself really missing it. The structure of a service, the community that comes along with it. That said, it’s not something I’m sure I could ever go back to. I’ve tried checking out a couple different church spaces, and it didn’t feel like it fit me anymore. Hell, at one, I had a full blown panic attack and had to get outta Dodge fast. So, knowing how actively harmful The Church has been in my life, why do I still feel drawn to it? To quote Kevin,

If this does nothing good for me, then why am I clinging so desperately to it? Why do I want to hold on to this?

Because it’s an answer. We hold onto that which gives the feeling of a solid footing.¹²

The same thing that initially drew me to the church is the same reason I’m still ardently searching for a connection to the Divine. The idea that I’m loved unconditionally, because of who I am, not in spite of it, and not by virtue or consequence of anything I’ve done, but simply because I am. That’s what I’m still searching for. 

I also find myself desperately longing for community. I miss the church experience of having a group of people who do life together, even if I wasn’t fully myself in that space. I had crafted this Church mask, playing into this sort of cishet suburban white girl fantasy, because I felt like if I were truly myself, I’d be cast out. 

This is respectability politics, in its most basic form; that is the belief that one must alter their appearance or performance of self to be considered credible or be taken seriously. It is to ascribe one’s self to the mythical norm, to try and reach that level of perfection.¹³

This is a trap I’ve been falling into for most of my life. Since middle school, I’ve been squishing myself into whatever mold I needed to to avoid getting bullied, to ensure I was included, to feel some form of safe. That’s part of the impact of a theology that teaches you that there is only one right way to act, only one right way to believe, only one right way to behave. It leads to cutting off parts of yourself that don’t fit the norm, sanding down your edges so you don’t stick out. Lemme tell ya, I became such a strange shape from trying to fit in.¹⁴

It was never your job to convince them of your worth. You should first convince yourself of your worth before anyone else. That is how you heal. That’s how we heal this whole thing.¹⁵

I have had to take a lot of time over the past few years to figure out who I am when I’m not listening to other people tell me who to be. To seek the Divine for myself instead of being spoon-fed what I “should” believe. To really break down the reasons I believe what I believe, why I think the way I do, why I value what I value.

I think I’ve finally landed in a place that wholly hinges on Love. Especially love for myself: seeing my own innate value, knowing that I’m worth having my needs met. Whether that’s getting enough sleep, not skipping meals in favor of commitments, setting healthy boundaries when it comes to work and relationships, I’m worth doing whatever it takes to protect my peace. 

I used to be so convinced that if I wasn’t giving my everything to serve the Church, to reach people for the gospel, that I wasn’t a real disciple. May 18th marks 4 years since I pulled a 16 hour day for a big ministry event here in the Twin Cities.¹⁶ It was fucking exhausting, but at the time it was “so worth” the sunburn, the dehydration and the full body fatigue “to bring people to My Jesus.” (You go, you starry-eyed world changer, you.) I have since come to realize I can’t do jack for others if I haven’t first taken care of me.¹⁷ To quote the great theologian RuPaul¹⁸, “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell are you gonna love somebody else?” I can have the best of intentions to show love to others, but if I’m not experiencing that love for myself, how good of an example am I really putting out there?

I once lost my life for the sake of the Gospel.
Then I found it in the Gospel. Just like He said I would.¹⁹

The way I see it, God loves me too much for me to have to break my back to earn said love. What kind of relationship would that be, anyway? To put barriers and conditions upon love isn’t love at all. On the contrary. It’s never been about what I can do, but all about what has already been done for me.

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”
Matthew 11:28-30 MSG

The Divine took on flesh and came to live among us to show us what Their Love looked like in action. To feed us in both body and spirit. To heal what ails us. Upon Jesus’ death, the veil in the temple separating the every day person from the Holy of Holies, the place where God’s presence supposedly dwelt, was torn to show that there was nothing separating us from God and Their Love. With Jesus’ resurrection, so too were we raised from death to life, and life more abundantly.²⁰

Kevin raises a very profound string of questions towards the end of Chapter 9.

What if the Holy was always everywhere?

What if the veil being torn exposed the illusion of separation instead of bridging some kind of gap?

What if the original sin was believing there was a separation at all?

What if the life of Jesus showed us what it looked like to live without that illusion of separation?

What if we could live like that?²¹

Throw that good, good Romans 8:38-39 in here.²² There is nothing separating us from the love of God. Our past or future mistakes do not separate us. Our gender identity does not separate us. Our love for others does not separate us. We don’t need some intercessor to step into the Holy of Holies on our behalf. We don’t need a priest to decipher scripture for us. We don’t need a charismatic pastor in a pulpit in front of thousands to tell us what to believe. We can experience God for ourselves. We can experience Love for ourselves. No strings attached. No terms and conditions.

Hey, real talk…

When I started reading this book, and hell, even when I started writing this recap post, I was honestly in a bit of a “fuck my old church and how bad they fucked me up,” headspace. I’ve done a lot of healing around my past experiences, but sometimes old wounds still sting. I’m actively trying not to be a bitter bitch about it. That said, in the process of writing this review post for you, I’ve gone from that surly place to being completely reminded of why this unpacking process has been so damn important. Regardless of the shit I was fed, I know with complete certainty that I am wholly and completely loved.

I’d highly encourage you to read Bad Theology Kills for yourself, and to check out the rest of Kevin’s work. They’re about to launch their Summer Cohort, and registration is open until June 10th, if that’s something that would interest you!

Up next for The Reading Lamp, I’m gonna be reading Emmy Kegler’s “One Coin Found,” and should have a review up for you here in a couple weeks! Until then, be well!

          yours-
              mothsbane

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