Confessions of a Christian Cynic

“In the end we shall have had enough of cynicism and skepticism and humbug and we shall want to live more musically” - Vincent van Gogh

Cynicism is a weighty burden to carry around with you all the time.  My cynicism began before I knew anything about God.  Back then, I fancied a very popular brand of cynicism.  It has a number of flavors - the pessimist, the skeptic, the sarcastic.  Though I dabbled in all, my flavor of choice was the 'realist.'  It's a very self satisfying sort of label and one that few dare to argue against.  I suppose, as a flavor, it would be chocolate - very popular and satisfying and even if it's not your favorite it's hard to argue that it isn't quite good.

But I've found that even after learning about God, my cynicism persists, which comes as a surprise to me.  And if it was weighty before, it's quite crushing at times now.  I wouldn't call myself a 'realist' anymore.  I now believe that although there remains much in the world to be cynical about, there's something deeper and truer which is quite beautiful.  I now recognize, in part, how God works in the world and through us to both build beautiful things (art, life, medicine...) and destroy ugly things (injustice, poverty, sickness...).  

Cynics were originally philosophers who lived around the time of Socrates.  Back then (SO unlike today) many felt the purpose of life was to acquire wealth, fame, health, security, and power.  To whatever extant you acquired those things, was the extant to which your life was a success.  The cynics stepped into this realm and said that the purpose was instead, to live a virtuous life through rejecting all of these things.  And so they did, often to be seen roaming the streets where they lived, begged, and preached.  These cynics had a lot in common with Jesus, it would seem.

I wish I could say, in some clever way, that this was the flavor of cynicism I adopted after beginning to follow Jesus.  It's certainly the sort of cynicism I've been attracted to whenever I've had the privilege to see it.  But it's not where I'm at.  Instead, I'm still muddled up with a darker form of cynicism in which I find myself frustrated by the church.  

It's the bride of Christ, I know, but I find myself wondering if she's right for him.  I want, desperately, to love the church but she can be so maddening at times.  It's not that I hold to the silly notion that you can't love something which frustrates you.  Although my wife has been known to frustrate me, I love her as much as I can imagine loving anyone.  But I love my whole wife, it's only small parts of her which frustrate me on occasion.  I wonder if, with the church, though it isn't the other way around.  It feels as though I tend to be frustrated with the whole thing and it's only the small bits which I love on occasion.  

The more I dwell on these things though the more I realize that, although the church has her issues, the crux of the problem isn't in her but in myself.  There are many great people who are able to look at the whole of the church and love her as she is, to focus on the good, to draw out of her what is pleasant and right, to give to her regardless of what she gives in return.  Those people are my irritation and inspiration - the former because I can't understand how they do it despite her flaws and the later because I so badly want to learn.   

"And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you.  I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart." -Ezekiel