S03, Ep. 03: Deconstructing Beauty
Mandi shares how playing the "Why Game" with God led her on a journey of Deconstruction.
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Transcript
Mandi: Mandi Frantz here welcoming you to my podcast - Find Your Beautiful: Life Through the Eyes of a Christian Disabled Woman.
Mandi: Happy Resurrection Day! I don't know about you, Beautiful, but the last few weeks have been really hard. I'm used to working from home, as my day job typically has a big work from home component, but literally being stuck in the house 24/7 with two toddlers and my husband has been stressful. Add to that the smaller size of New York City apartments and helping my 6 year old with his remote education. Did I mention the dog and the cat? Yeah, for an extrovert like me, this limited amount of face-to-face time with people outside my house has been really hard.Mandi: Mandi Frantz here welcoming you to my podcast - Find Your Beautiful: Life Through the Eyes of a Christian Disabled Woman.
[Upbeat Background Music]
However, I don't really believe in coincidence and this episode was planned weeks ago. The changes in lifestyle, especially in how we church people, caused by the coronavirus has really added fuel to the discussion I'm going to have today. Last week, I sat on a panel for the Reelabilities Film Festival, where we talked about Beauty, Self-Advocacy, and Disability. One of the first questions we addressed was how has COVID-19 impacted our idea and understanding of beauty. This made me think about some of the rules many Christians are asked to follow. For example, on a Holy holiday, like today, many people would expect churches to be filled with congregants dressed in their very best Easter outfits. In some churches, you're not even welcome if you're wearing pants, worse if they're jeans. The color of your hair, your tattoos and piercings, the volume of your voice...all these things matter in some churches. Yet, I bet many congregations are finding a new freedom in attending church virtually these days. Many people are watching from the comfort of home, in bed, maybe even in pajamas!
Why do we have the kinds of rules we have in church? Is a prayer less valuable if your eyes are open, or your head is held high instead of bowed? Does your worship mean less if you're sitting and not standing all together? Are you less righteous if your hair is pink? Why do we believe the things we believe and do the things we do?
The ideas I'm going to share today are going to be new to even some of my closest friends. It's a journey that started a while ago for me, but really took a turning point in 2018. Many people didn't know I was on this journey and may be surprised with where I've ended up. In fact, this could even change people's perspective of me, maybe even make them doubt their ability to trust me. However, the great thing about this particular journey I'm on is that it never really ends.
Today will be the first, in what I anticipate to be quite a few, episodes about my Deconstruction journey. I hope you stick around!
[Mandi voices Ad (ads change and will vary)]
[Doorbell Sound Effect]
Mandi: Have you ever played the "Why" game? If you have younger children, then you may have fallen victim to the why game. It's pretty much where someone says something and the only response given is "why?" For example:
You: "Don't touch that."
Child: "Why?"
You: "Because you can get hurt."
Child: "Why?"
You: "Because it's heavy and can fall."
Child: "Why?"
You: "Because gravity exists."
Child: "Why?"
If you actually take the time to engage in this game as the person answering the why, you might be surprised at how much it makes you think. You may be surprised at how little patience you have, or surprised at how little understanding you have of your own thinking and reasoning. Well, I may have started playing this game with God and the journey it's taken me on is what the "religious world" calls deconstruction.
There are a lot of fancy ways to explain deconstruction, but I'm going to try to keep it simple. See? When I first learned about God, I was only 6 years old. At that age, we are all still little sponges, absorbing everything. At that time, the world was pretty black and white. It was easy to understand right and wrong, sin and righteousness. It was pretty much based on what I was told. If an adult said this thing was good and right, then amen, let it be so. If they said this was bad and wrong, then without much question, I accepted that. Soon, this is how I saw God and the Bible. Everything was clear. A bunch of do's and don'ts were laid out before me. True, some of them were harder than others to follow. True, some of them caused separation between me and people I loved. True, the weight of the law was often heavy. But the fear of disappointing God, of angering him, of ending up in Hell was too great.
This fear led me down a spiritually dangerous path. Not a place honoring God, myself, or others out of love, but rather fear. This fear often made me seem judgmental. Ok, not just seem judgmental, but actually be judgmental. In my mind, my judgment came from a good place. The way I understood Hell was terrifying. I never wanted to lose anyone I loved to Hell! The Bible was my rule book, literally. I understood, to some degree, that Jesus came to fulfill the law so that we would no longer be bound by it, trying to adhere to impossible rules, but I was still taught that I had to try to fulfill them. Many believers are given mixed messages in church. We are constantly reminded of how unworthy we are of the gift that Jesus gave us in forgiving our sins, yet told we are princes and princesses in the Kingdom of God. We are told that Jesus fulfilled the law because we are just human and can't possibly obey them all, yet we are told that failure to obey the rules of the bible leads to Hell. We're told that Jesus is about mercy and grace, yet he'll judge, and condemn some, to the fiery pit of Hell. We're told not to judge others, but then told to hate the sins they commit. We are told to be in the world, but not of the world, while still being humble and not seeing ourselves as better than others. It seems, upon first look, that God is very confused, that we're fighting an uphill battle that we can never win. When you think about how many churches teach about Adam and Eve and the fact that God knew, even planned, for Adam and Eve to sin, then it seems like we were set up to fail from the beginning.
How can a truly loving God set his creation up to be a failure? How do we reconcile verses like Jeremiah 29:11 with a God who created us to sin, to fail him? More importantly, why? There was something deep within my soul that no longer could accept the cliche answers many churches give people who question the Bible, who question God, who question the teachings of the church itself. I couldn't accept the simple, we have free-will answer, or just "lean not on your own understanding." You can't tell me God wants a deep relationship with me, but is just too big and mysterious to understand. There has to be more and when I think about what today represents, the day that Jesus resurrected and later ascended to Heaven, fully alive, I'm reminded that I can talk to him. I'm reminded that he is still available to me. He is not stagnant in the recordings of history that the Bible gives us. In fact, he gave us the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts, who lives within all believers today. The Spirit is active and gives wisdom. This wisdom is not only bestowed upon teachers and church leaders. Every believer has the Holy Spirit within. Therefore, every believer has access to God's wisdom and can use this wisdom to fully engage with and interact with God and the Word. Jesus gives you, gives me, direct access to God. I do not need someone who has gone to school for years to go to God on my behalf.
Now before you go thinking I'm anti-church, I'm most definitely not! I believe God calls us to be in community with each other. I believe God gives a special anointing over people to use their gifts, including shepherding a congregation. All I'm saying here is that my journey of deconstruction started when the church couldn't give me answers that aligned with the questions the Holy Spirit put on my heart. The Holy Spirit challenged me to go deeper, to stop just being a yes woman, accepting what I was taught just because of my perception of someone's authority. God is bigger and greater than tradition. It's not enough for me to just accept that God dictates certain things because that's how it has been interpreted for years and years. There are a lot of things in our history that we look back on now and see as absolutely wrong like slavery, racism, sexism and so much more. We can't accept an understanding or interpretation of God and his desires simply because tradition dictates it, not when we have direct access to him ourselves.
This question of why has really reshaped my understanding of God and the Bible. It has made me more loving, more gracious, less judgmental, more merciful, and in many ways more just. I venture to say, my journey thus far has brought me closer to Jesus and is helping me find the freedom in him I thought I found years ago. Deconstruction, for me, is the process of challenging my own reasons for my beliefs and questioning my understanding of my faith. I've been grappling with really hard questions that have been debated for centuries. Some of these questions led me to answers about how my disability fits into God's plan, which I shared in previous episodes. Asking why has also led me to new understandings of passages about the LGBTQ+ community, feminism, violence, and I'm still learning! Not all my questions are answered and the one thing this journey has taught me is that it's never ending, not on this side of the rainbow.
This process is scary! It can feel lonely sometimes, especially when you find yourself no longer fitting into the mold that once provided security. When you find yourself scared to share a different view among your faith family, though, it makes you wonder if you're really honoring God or giving into fear. Fear has no place where God resides.
Over the next few episodes, I'll tell you where I'm at on some of these issues and how I arrived there. I'm not asking you to agree with me. I'm only asking you to hear me out as I deconstruct the traditional view of the One I know to be true Beauty.
You: "Don't touch that."
Child: "Why?"
You: "Because you can get hurt."
Child: "Why?"
You: "Because it's heavy and can fall."
Child: "Why?"
You: "Because gravity exists."
Child: "Why?"
If you actually take the time to engage in this game as the person answering the why, you might be surprised at how much it makes you think. You may be surprised at how little patience you have, or surprised at how little understanding you have of your own thinking and reasoning. Well, I may have started playing this game with God and the journey it's taken me on is what the "religious world" calls deconstruction.
There are a lot of fancy ways to explain deconstruction, but I'm going to try to keep it simple. See? When I first learned about God, I was only 6 years old. At that age, we are all still little sponges, absorbing everything. At that time, the world was pretty black and white. It was easy to understand right and wrong, sin and righteousness. It was pretty much based on what I was told. If an adult said this thing was good and right, then amen, let it be so. If they said this was bad and wrong, then without much question, I accepted that. Soon, this is how I saw God and the Bible. Everything was clear. A bunch of do's and don'ts were laid out before me. True, some of them were harder than others to follow. True, some of them caused separation between me and people I loved. True, the weight of the law was often heavy. But the fear of disappointing God, of angering him, of ending up in Hell was too great.
This fear led me down a spiritually dangerous path. Not a place honoring God, myself, or others out of love, but rather fear. This fear often made me seem judgmental. Ok, not just seem judgmental, but actually be judgmental. In my mind, my judgment came from a good place. The way I understood Hell was terrifying. I never wanted to lose anyone I loved to Hell! The Bible was my rule book, literally. I understood, to some degree, that Jesus came to fulfill the law so that we would no longer be bound by it, trying to adhere to impossible rules, but I was still taught that I had to try to fulfill them. Many believers are given mixed messages in church. We are constantly reminded of how unworthy we are of the gift that Jesus gave us in forgiving our sins, yet told we are princes and princesses in the Kingdom of God. We are told that Jesus fulfilled the law because we are just human and can't possibly obey them all, yet we are told that failure to obey the rules of the bible leads to Hell. We're told that Jesus is about mercy and grace, yet he'll judge, and condemn some, to the fiery pit of Hell. We're told not to judge others, but then told to hate the sins they commit. We are told to be in the world, but not of the world, while still being humble and not seeing ourselves as better than others. It seems, upon first look, that God is very confused, that we're fighting an uphill battle that we can never win. When you think about how many churches teach about Adam and Eve and the fact that God knew, even planned, for Adam and Eve to sin, then it seems like we were set up to fail from the beginning.
How can a truly loving God set his creation up to be a failure? How do we reconcile verses like Jeremiah 29:11 with a God who created us to sin, to fail him? More importantly, why? There was something deep within my soul that no longer could accept the cliche answers many churches give people who question the Bible, who question God, who question the teachings of the church itself. I couldn't accept the simple, we have free-will answer, or just "lean not on your own understanding." You can't tell me God wants a deep relationship with me, but is just too big and mysterious to understand. There has to be more and when I think about what today represents, the day that Jesus resurrected and later ascended to Heaven, fully alive, I'm reminded that I can talk to him. I'm reminded that he is still available to me. He is not stagnant in the recordings of history that the Bible gives us. In fact, he gave us the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts, who lives within all believers today. The Spirit is active and gives wisdom. This wisdom is not only bestowed upon teachers and church leaders. Every believer has the Holy Spirit within. Therefore, every believer has access to God's wisdom and can use this wisdom to fully engage with and interact with God and the Word. Jesus gives you, gives me, direct access to God. I do not need someone who has gone to school for years to go to God on my behalf.
Now before you go thinking I'm anti-church, I'm most definitely not! I believe God calls us to be in community with each other. I believe God gives a special anointing over people to use their gifts, including shepherding a congregation. All I'm saying here is that my journey of deconstruction started when the church couldn't give me answers that aligned with the questions the Holy Spirit put on my heart. The Holy Spirit challenged me to go deeper, to stop just being a yes woman, accepting what I was taught just because of my perception of someone's authority. God is bigger and greater than tradition. It's not enough for me to just accept that God dictates certain things because that's how it has been interpreted for years and years. There are a lot of things in our history that we look back on now and see as absolutely wrong like slavery, racism, sexism and so much more. We can't accept an understanding or interpretation of God and his desires simply because tradition dictates it, not when we have direct access to him ourselves.
This question of why has really reshaped my understanding of God and the Bible. It has made me more loving, more gracious, less judgmental, more merciful, and in many ways more just. I venture to say, my journey thus far has brought me closer to Jesus and is helping me find the freedom in him I thought I found years ago. Deconstruction, for me, is the process of challenging my own reasons for my beliefs and questioning my understanding of my faith. I've been grappling with really hard questions that have been debated for centuries. Some of these questions led me to answers about how my disability fits into God's plan, which I shared in previous episodes. Asking why has also led me to new understandings of passages about the LGBTQ+ community, feminism, violence, and I'm still learning! Not all my questions are answered and the one thing this journey has taught me is that it's never ending, not on this side of the rainbow.
This process is scary! It can feel lonely sometimes, especially when you find yourself no longer fitting into the mold that once provided security. When you find yourself scared to share a different view among your faith family, though, it makes you wonder if you're really honoring God or giving into fear. Fear has no place where God resides.
Over the next few episodes, I'll tell you where I'm at on some of these issues and how I arrived there. I'm not asking you to agree with me. I'm only asking you to hear me out as I deconstruct the traditional view of the One I know to be true Beauty.
[Bling]
Mandi: If you have ever questioned things you've been taught in church and find yourself grappling with the dissonance of the teachings and your spirit, I'd love to hear from you! Go download the Anchor mobile app and subscribe to this podcast so you can leave me a voice message.
This podcast is also available on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and any other place you like to listen! Visit my website linked in the description to get access to all the platforms.
[Mandi voiceover to 'Compton' music]: On my next episode, I'm going to talk about the Apostle who is often used as a weapon to divide believers. ‘Til next time Beauties!
This podcast is also available on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and any other place you like to listen! Visit my website linked in the description to get access to all the platforms.
[Mandi voiceover to 'Compton' music]: On my next episode, I'm going to talk about the Apostle who is often used as a weapon to divide believers. ‘Til next time Beauties!
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