I have encountered you in coffee shops, on park benches, in the pews at Holy Redeemer, on social media platforms, in private messages, and on late night walks.
I love your questions, your sincerity, your energy, your conviction, your charity, and your passion.
I am sorry that the gatherings we grew up in made Christian faith about pursuing purity, power, and certainty.
Walking with Christ is about trust not certitude, about humility not power, about sobriety not purity.
Your doubts are evidence that you are human not faithless. Your immunity to coercion is evidence that you value conscience. Your rejection of purity culture is evidence you prefer integrity over masks, substance over surface.
I am sorry that the churches in which we grew up prostituted themselves to American culture and power, trading gospel suffering for political control.
You don’t seek an excuse to behave as you want, or opt out of church just because you see hypocrisy, or reject the gospel’s demands for fear of hardship.
Your hearts are broken because the church looks and sounds nothing like Jesus.
My heart is broken because of what you’ve seen and heard.
These churches *do not* represent the genuine, beautiful faith of the first Christians, and what they teach about God, humanity, and the world would not be recognized by them.
My heart is torn because I love you.
Sometimes your wounds are so deep that even when you see and hear that there’s an authentic faith, a good way of practicing life in Jesus Christ, it’s not enough to overcome your hurt. You suspect that the manipulative and puritanical sects we came from must be what the Christian faith has always been.
There are moments in *every day* when my heart is rent with your heart, praying you have a vibrant encounter with the Living God that defeats all of the false teachers and all of the bad experiences.
I stand ready in every moment to trust your story, listen to your pain, and offer glimpses of the reality of the crucified God, whose love astonishes me, whose humility compels me, who enters into our poverty and suffering, who makes our frail existence his own.
We can trust this God with ourselves. He makes every end a new beginning. He makes all things new. He will make us and all things well.
With all my love and respect,
Father Kenneth+
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