All those times when I felt like an outsider in American Christianity, I used to think that it was just me, that it was my problem, my deficiency, my moral defect. Something rose up from the deepest places within me and shouted, "I can't do this anymore! I can't be part of this!" These moments once overwhelmed me with panic and filled me with guilt.
What I've come to realize is that I have simply outgrown American Christianity. I've outgrown something that simply no longer feels like love, something I no longer see much of Jesus in.
If spirituality is worth holding onto, it should be a place where the marginalized feel the most visible, where the hurting receive the most tender care and where the outsiders find the safest refuge. It should be a place where diversity is fiercely pursued and equality loudly championed; where all of humanity finds a permanent home and where justice runs the show.
It's getting harder and harder to love all people and still fit into what has become American Christianity, so I am creating distance between me and a system that can no longer accommodate the scale of my God and the scope of my aspirations.
In my heart and in the hearts of so many like me, the Spirit is boldly declaring this emancipation from the small, heavily guarded space that wants to contain it and taking us out into the wide, breathtaking expanses of unfettered faith. There is something much greater beyond that is worth heading toward; something that looks more like God and feels more like love.
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