For, From, Under, Over, or With God?

In my new book, With: Reimagining The Way You Relate To God, I explore five "postures" of religious life, and how four of them fail to generate a faith, hope, or love. In this brief excerpt from the first chapter, I share about my experience working with Christian college students. They illustrate how many churches are actually inoculating young people by offering a form of Christianity that lacks any real power. Perhaps you will recognize yourself in one of these postures. In the end what we all long for, and what Christ offers to us, is the unrivaled beauty and fulfillment of a life with him.

My discomfort with the popular categories advocated by the church reached a tipping point a few years ago when I began mentoring a number of college students. Most of these very intelligent men and women had grown up in Christian homes. They had significant church involvement in their backgrounds, and some even lived with missionary parents overseas. They knew the Bible better than most, and they could engage in meaningful theological and cultural discussions. I truly enjoyed my time with them.

But when I started exploring their personal communion with Christ, their practices of prayer, their understanding of sin, and how they related to God I was dismayed. To some my questions were incomprehensible. "What do you mean, how am I experiencing God?" one would say. Others admitted never being taught how to pray apart from the perfunctory grace before meals and bedtime. Most could not identify any time of meaningful transcendence or moments of peace or joy in God's presence.

They often gauged the quality of their faith on one measure alone -- how well they controlled their sexual desires.

Language about having a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" has become cliché in many evangelical communities including the Christian colleges most of these students attended. And yet when I scratched beneath the surface and used less familiar language to determine what their relationship with Christ actually looked like, most of the students fell silent. Many spoke about God as a theological reality, a sterile calculation, or the way an office worker at a large corporation might speak about the CEO whose portrait hangs on the wall but whom he's never met. Admiration and respect were evident and even a dedication to service, but personal knowledge of God was largely absent.

The students fell into the same four posture of religious life as most other people. Quite a few spoke about their desire to live for God and serve him in the world. Others, particularly those with theological acumen, lived under God by seeking definitive understanding of his laws and expectations. A handful used God for personal gain or relational assistance. They needed his help finding a spouse and securing "a ring by spring." They pursued a life from God.

And after a less than positive childhood immersed in the Christian subculture, some were ready to walk away from faith and live over God. These were the fully inoculated ones; the students who had waited all their lives for a compelling vision of Christianity, but saw only darkness instead. They were ready to leave the church believing they had experienced what Christian faith had to offer, when in fact they had only been exposed to a form of faith that had no real power.

But unlike many others I had encountered, the college students shared with shocking honesty and transparency. They were searching for answers and still forming their identities, and in safe and confidential settings many expressed a nagging dissatisfaction with their faith even while trying to follow it. They were stumbling in the darkness but had not given up.

They still hoping the lights would come on to illuminate the way. Their openness helped me see the problem more clearly than I had while serving in my church role. Through my time with these students I became convinced that a great many of them had never really encountered the Christian message. They had spent their young lives trying to live over, under, from, or for God, and in most of their cases one of these postures had been advocated by their faith community. But none of them had been given a more beautiful vision.

For these young people the possibility of a life with God had never been illuminated.