The Faith of Loners

They told me, “There are no Lone Rangers in the faith.”

Aside from a couple of truly fine leaders, the majority of those with whom I’ve worked in churches would reflexively deny that a Christian can be a faithful, spirit-filled believer and be a loner. For them, building up the numbers was so essential that they refused to call it “faith” if it didn’t lead to that annoying salesman style of evangelizing.

It’s not that loners don’t do evangelism, but we do it differently. We also have a tendency to do it in circles no one else reaches.

Stop and consider: I write this as a fellow who was begged by several different congregations to take over as song leader (titles varied, sometimes paid positions). It was not because of such a grand musical talent, but they insisted that I was good at getting folks involved and enthusiastic. They said that, not me. I genuinely love my fellow humans and I’m pretty sure that comes across somehow.

Yet it seemed at least some of them always sensed that I was a loner nonetheless. I’ve had several pastors and other leaders try to prod me into taking training on how to get out there and greet outsiders like a politician. In their minds, it just wasn’t permitted to have an introvert’s personality type on church staff. To this day my stomach churns when I recall the experiences where I was basically herded into doing evangelism door-to-door their way. Even worse, I got the results they wanted, even as I realized the “converts” were nothing of the sort.

I don’t want to say that those false converts were weaker souls, just weaker in social settings against someone like me who could be overbearing when manipulated into it. I hated it. It was as if all my talents from God were being pushed down into a cesspool. It was bad religion, and still is. The power to be utterly open and shameless can be abused.

Eventually I understood that such a talent was meant to protect me from being manipulated in the first place. I had to learn that my real enemy was corporate church leadership. I began to rebel here and there, and eventually it all came apart and I was pushed out one door and then another. At some point, I finally got the message. I was never supposed to be in that setting.

Sometimes I catch my brain operating along the same old expectations of professional clergy and institutionalized religion (ambiguity intentional there). It’s hard to shake a lifetime of bad habits, no? So in answer to some of my prayer times the past few weeks, the Father has shown me that my calling is to work mostly alone. That is, the mission before me will take the shape of a serious loner, but with a faith that will surely catch a few eyes.

When I talk about DIY religion, I never forget that there are some things entirely too obvious, things that serve as boundaries for those who wish to work with me. Your human identity depends on holding workable boundaries. What is the nature of the faith I promote, since I keep yakking about a message? There are some things I find non-negotiable, and most of you can guess what I’ll say.

We have one purpose on this earth: the absolute necessity of seeking the Lord’s glory. The primary means is by living His moral Laws on this earth and claiming the blessings attached to the Laws of God. Not the sort of blessings most people pursue, but those that God actually offers. I maintain that we must ditch Western moral mythology and find something that reflects what is in the Bible as viewed by the people who wrote it. I also can’t seem to get away from talking about the moral fabric of Creation and how the universe seems to smile on those who embrace the character of God.

That’s more than enough right there. You don’t have to copy my nature-boy habits. You probably can do just fine without my daily long walks in all weather where I talk aloud to God. You most certainly aren’t constrained by my music tastes as a critical element of my private worship. I wonder if there is anyone else in this world who needs anywhere near the high amount of solitude I do in order to feel like I’m going to be okay. I really don’t have time for TV, radio, most fiction works, or anything else folks use as entertainment and distraction from boredom. I don’t get bored. There’s always something in the background processing and I have to bring it forward regularly. It feels like boredom if I can’t get away from other people and their overwhelming noise.

But the primary common ground here is realizing that the bulk of our shared religion is about coming to grips with the implications of the Law Covenants for our current context. The strong secondary issue is the utter necessity of withdrawing from Western Civilization in terms of the assumptions about reality. You don’t have to be Ancient Near Eastern, but you have to understand it well enough to recognize what’s wrong with being Western. So it’s biblical morality with an undercurrent of comparative civilization — that’s a fair summary of the essentials here.

It should be obvious that the basic appeal here is to loners like myself. Whatever other categories of humanity that draw my concern, it’s the social aliens who are likely to hang out here. That’s the same kind of folks who tend to be reticent, so it means not a lot of comment traffic here. That’s not a gripe; that’s as it should be. I expect the bulk of you to remain silent.

If the churches refuses to recognize Lone Rangers, the loners will refuse to recognize the churches.