single-file savior.

1. I have a fear of commitment.

2. I really am afraid what other people think about me.

Sad, but true. Both. I've been thinking a lot about all that has happened in the last seven months. I've had to ask myself some embarrassing, but necessary questions.

Did I accept Christ? Am I "saved"? That I feel the need to put it in quotations is problematic. Also problematic is the nagging voice telling me to erase the whole line, because my non-evangelical friends would read it, and think that I've been brainwashed, would think that I've been convinced of silliness and self-doubt.

I'm not going to erase it. I'm trying to use my words in honesty now. And it's a good question. Both are.

Sometimes, I wonder if I won't ever really believe. If I'll warm up to the idea of atonement, "accept" Christ, and then fall, in an endlessly repeating cycle of fancy philosophical footwork, and doubt.

I've never been happy in my faith for long. I've always attributed that to being an outsider. It's hard to be truly happy with a faith lived alone. I'm wondering if there are other reasons I haven't been happy with it. Maybe because the inconsistencies of a powerless "example" of a savior have undermined my sense of what the divine ought to be? Because, at its core, my sense of the extravagance of the real God isn't well-served by my lackadaisical, wish-I-could-be-sure-but-can't philosophy of religion.

Though I find these Pentecostals a little on the strange side, the truth is that they react to the reality that I feel. If they're right about what they believe, their behavior isn't strange at all. Not shocking. Not weird. It is, in fact, exactly what you'd expect to see (dare I see, maybe even less ecstatic than what you'd expect) given the realities of a God who died to release my moribund soul of its sins, of One who speaks anew into the world still.

Someone told me last week that I use sarcasm or humor or shock-value as a defense mechanism, in place of considering truth in sincerity. I know, right? Nice to meet you, Doctor--will I be billed for this conversation?

Humor aside, he was right. I do use those things, and in that way. Even after my acceptance of Christ this past fall, I was unable to say the words, "Christ died for my sins." I write them now in quotations, and I feel mildly uncomfortable. I'm thinking about whether friends will read this, and what they'll think. Will they consider me anti-intellectual? Brainwashed? How will it affect their perceptions of my ability to think, and theorize, and judge accurately whatever is going on in our world?

Over the past few months, I have said that I am a Christian. I will admit that to people. But only with the words, "but not like other Christians," quickly after. What does that even mean? How insulting to these people I've come to love. How divisive. How...cowardly.

I say that I value Truth too much to accept certainty. After all, what if I'm wrong? Better to hold things loosely, and use a lot of "maybes" than to incur the wrath of a jilted Truth un-chosen.

But am I really worried about Truth? I can only live my own. In that way, we come to God in single-file. So why am I living as though other truths matter?

What do I really believe?