Praying for Tim Lambesis Lead singer of As I Lay Dying

If you haven't heard yet Tim Lambesis, lead singer of Christian metal band As I Lay Dying, was arrested in a murder for higher plot. Apparently, he tried to hire somebody to kill his soon to be ex wife. This is an awful, terrible thing. If it is found that this is true, then Tim sinned, and did something terrible. I'm very, very thankful that God was watching out for everybody involved and that nobody was killed.

Yes, put it all together: Christian artist tried to have his wife killed. That's hard to swallow. I hate to write it and I nearly cried when I read it. First off, I'm sad that somebody could lose sight so much that they felt like they had to kill some one else, and I'm equally as distraught at how I think the Christian community will handle it. As Christians we have a tendency to leave people like Tim out to dry. They sinned horribly and we don't want to look bad or be mocked so we speak out against them.

I for one, will not do it. I am committing to pray for Tim Lambesis and his family. Why? Because it's exactly what Jesus did. Look at John 8:1-11. Jesus didn't say that the woman's sin was okay, she didn't say it wasn't a big deal, but He didn't join the crowd and condemn her. He had the opportunity to impress some important people but instead He honored God and helped the hurting woman.

“But if we don't take a stand against him we will be mocked, and God will look bad!”Guess what folks. People are already mocking us and we already look bad. I for one would rather look bad for doing what Jesus would do then for acting like the World. This is the family of God. We support even when somebody makes a mistake.

Well, at least we should. If for a moment we think we deserve God's love and grace more just because we've never done this shame on us. Do we even Bible? I am just blessed that God has taken a sinner like me and forgiven me. He did the same for you and for Tim. 

So as for me. I will commit to pray for Tim and his family. He needs to repent (if he hasn't yet), and I know that since he's still alive God isn't through with him yet. All I can pray is that Tim seeks God in this and follows Jesus.  

Brennan Manning A Ragamuffin Who made it Home

I never got to meet Brennan Manning. He died yesterday. He always reminded me of my father. Perhaps this is because his teachings and interpretation of God's Grace permeated my home ever since The Ragamuffin Gospel was published back in the early 1990s. It was an idea that my whole family could grasp,

“My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it. “

Brennan was a Korean War Vet, renegade priest who

spent most of his priesthood working with (and I mean deeply with) the world's poorest and most disenfranchised. He left the priesthood in the late 1960s, early 1970s and started writing about the Love and Grace of Jesus. He lived by, talked through, and walked this out until yesterday, April 12, 2013, when this Ragamuffin went home.

What made Brennan Manning different in my eyes was that unlike most preachers who, in words or actions, say, “I used to be a bad sinner” Brennan was open and honest about his currently level of sin. But I guess being in and out of rehab will do that to you. Every time he fell off the wagon he came back with a new bump or bruise that reminded him, and us, of everyone's need for a Gracious and Loving Savior.

The Ragamuffin Gospel was the first Christian theology type book I ever read. I was eighteen and I was slogging through the complex, yet accessible language I saw what I new everybody else in the world needed to see. I saw that,

“The gospel declares that no matter how dutiful or prayerful we are, we can't save ourselves. What Jesus did was sufficient.”

Aside from the Bible it was the most important book I've ever read. It clarified how I see Jesus, myself, and the World. It was a breath of fresh air into my 18 year old soul to know that salvation was for those who needed saving not for those who were Hell bent on looking proper.

This post may very well serve my own catharsis, but I'm okay with that. I hope that through this you can, in whatever way, see that you are a sinner in need of Grace. I say that not from a stand point of arrogance against you, but partly thanks to Brennan Manning, I say that from a stand point of gratefulness towards God for my own sins being covered.

Brennan, welcome home. 

Love, Grace, Wrath

Amos 3+4/Matthew 17+18

            Why do I continually get amazed when the World acts like the World? Uh, duh, right? They gossip, they lie, they cheat, they blame, they run after success, they are bitter, they do drugs, they have sex, they think I’m crazy. They are exactly how I am apart from Christ.

            Again, uh, duh? I wouldn't be upset if a guy in a wheelchair didn't stand to pray, so why do I get upset when the people who haven’t been redeemed by Jesus don’t act like people who have been redeemed by Jesus? Apart from Him I can do nothing and neither can they. The only difference is I know that. That pisses them off even more.

           Most of my frustrations (and probably most of a lot of Christian's frustrations) come from forgetting where we've been. After being submersed in Christian culture for so long we forget that at one point none of this God, Jesus, Spirit stuff made any sense to use either. That's when we become condescending religious nuts. That's when we start acting outside of God's love, grace, and wrath. That's when we, ironically, start acting a lot like what God saved us out of. 

         The whole foundation of Christianity is Jesus' redeeming work on the Cross. The whole foundation for that is God's love for us and our inability to fix the problem of our sin. That realization should allow us to show Grace, and only Grace to those who are no different than us. 

            Lord, help me show Grace to those who don’t know You and act accordingly.

                                                                                                            -Amen

God's Grace, Jeffrey Dahmer, and Getting Beaten to Death

For it is by grace you have been saved,through faith —and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—  not by works, so that no one can boast. -Ephesians 2:8-9

“The beauty of Grace is that it makes life not fair.” -Relient K


We are very quick to make sure everybody gets theirs. We love truth and justice as long as it doesn’t apply to us. Well, of course what we do may be bad but we have reasons. It’s not that we are bad it’s that situations are bad or times were tough or our moms didn’t hug us enough. We never deserve what’s coming to us because we have reasons. However, that other person, well, He deserves to get screwed.
Jeffrey Dahmer was a nasty, nasty serial killer. I won’t go into details about sodomy, necrophilia, and cannibalism just in case you’re eating, but just know that Jeff had a penchant for all that and participated in it roughly seventeen times in a thirteen year period. The dude was totally tweaked and if you are a little off like me, I’d say read the file.
So after he got arrested and sentenced to 15 consecutive life sentences (just in case he reincarnated he couldn’t skip a life) he found Jesus. People didn’t care. They assumed that since he was such a horrid person Jesus wouldn’t do shit for the guy  and his conversion certainly didn’t nullify his crimes. In 1994 Dahmer was beaten to death with a broom handle. The majority of the country was satisfied.
For years afterwards Christians were touting his conversion as the ultimate showing of God’s grace on a human soul while non Christians were using it to show how God is obviously a psycho and couldn’t be trusted if somebody like Dahmer was not rotting in eternal Hell fire. That made sense. Hitler, Stalin, Dahmer, all should have smoldering embers with their names on them.
They should. So should we.
This is where the Gospel gets hairy and people think there is no justice. So all somebody has to do after a life of cannibalism, sodomy rape, and serial killing is say a quick little prayer and then they get access to the Pearly Gates? That doesn’t sound like justice. It’s not justice. It’s Grace. If we ran the show we’d send certain people to Hell and certain people to Heaven. We’d pick the people who aren’t that bad and bring them to Heaven and we’d put all the Dahmers, Hitlers, Bin Ladens, and Stalins into Hell.
That’s not justice either. That’s revenge.
See, God never says in the Bible “Be good enough. Don’t be a serial killer/rapist guy and you can get into Heaven. Go to church, give me money, don’t swear and don’t masturbate and you can get into Heaven”. Nowhere does He say this.
Nowhere.
The standard for God is perfection not “good enough”. Our standard for people is good enough not perfection. Because of this God seems like a huge jerk. Nobody’s perfect and God should know that. Nobody’s perfect so God is not being fair. Well, when God made the world it was perfect and we messed it up. That wasn’t nice. God could’ve just let us wallow in our own crap and then when we finally killed ourselves off He could start over. But He didn’t. He made a way.
I don’t like God’s way. It’s not fair to me. It’s not justice like I see it so God’s horrible.
We aren’t God. We don’t have the last word on justice and truth. He does. The Bible shows us God’s perfect standard not so we look at it and say, “Eff it, I can’t, I’ll just do what I want” but rather, “Crap, I can’t do this, I need a way out of this mess.”
Heaven is not the default. We all want it to be but since we’re in a fallen world it isn’t “We all die and go to a better place,” it’s now, “We die and stand before God and either try to convince Him you were perfect or rely on Jesus’ righteousness.”
But why does Dahmer get off scott free? Why do people like him, Ted Bundy, and Son of Sam get to go to Heaven? They killed people all I ever did was lust, lie, cheat, steal, cuss, fight, fornicate, and hate? Why do they get off without any consequences?
If you call 15 consecutive life terms and getting beaten to death with a broom handle “getting off with no consequences” I’d have to say you’re a raging fundamentalist. .  
Nowhere in the Bible does it say that we don’t answer for our sins both big and small. The dad who ignores his family to work, work, work pays for it by having a crappy relationship with his kids and wife. The guy who steals usually gets caught or at the very least is never happy with the stuff he has. He always has to get more. You cheat you get hosed later when you don’t have somebody to cheat off and you have to try to do it on your own. You fight you’ll get beat eventually. You fornicate you’ll get crabs. You hate you’ll go gray early and die miserable.
Does this sound like “no consequences” to you? If it does then you are a bigger dick than you think God is. And don’t look at these as punishments from God. He isn’t a sadist. The reason God tells us not to sin is twofold: One, He knows the ramifications and two He can’t be around it so it separates us from Him and He hates that. God didn’t create the consequences for our bad living it’s our bad living that creates consequences.

We are broken and we can’t be fixed. God’s Grace comes in the person of Jesus who took our sin and death, died, rose, beat it all then said, “Follow me to Heaven!” We choose to follow or not. How does that make God a jerk?

I don’t totally get it but I know I need it. There are a lot of easier ways to go about life then Christianity. There are a lot of things more fun than living for Jesus. However, I have to say it makes sense when we look at how messed up we’ve made the world, usually while we’re trying to make it better, and how we can’t make it perfect. It’s not about how much we can do or realizing our potential it’s about knowing how much we can’t do and realizing God’s sovereignty.
That’s how you, me, and Jeff can make it.

I Hate Me.

“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do and what I hate I do.

-Romans 7:15

When a London newspaper posed the question “What is wrong with the world?” writer, philosopher, and theologian G.K. Chesterton sent this simple letter:

“Dear Sirs,

I am.

Sincerely Yours,

G.K. Chesterton”

I hate me the way an author hates a rough draft. I hate me the way a painter hates his piece in a gallery. I hate me the way a musician hates hearing his song on the radio. I hate me the way a retired boxer can’t take a hit any more. I hate me the way a former Miss America hates her post pregnancy body.

Don’t worry friends, I’m not sitting here with a shotgun in my mouth waiting to post then splatter my attic. I’m not eating myself into an early grave or getting high and watching Sponge Bob. I’m not depressed.

I have found freedom in self loathing.
I think a lot of depression comes from being taught that we can do anything that we put our mind to, that we’re all special, and deep down we are really, truly, good. For years we never heard a teacher tell us “no.” We had parents that made our happiness top priority. We had a government that made sure we had all the food and medication we needed.

Now the dust has settled and we’re all a bunch of middle aged adolescents wondering why everybody was so wrong. If we’re all so special and all so perfect and if we can all do anything why is nothing getting done?

And the self loathing, self medicating, midlife-crisising, self destruction, begins.

I think Kurt Cobain splattered his attic because he proved he could do anything he put his mind to and felt unfulfilled. I think the reason we can have news stories dedicated to celebrity mugshots is for the same reason. Do your best. Try real hard. The world is yours. Then what?

I think we’re all hardwired the same. The operating system might be different but the hardware is similar. Deep, deep down we all know that no matter what we do, no matter how hard we work, no matter how much we accomplish we’re not built right. We have a ton of desire to succeed, do well, make a difference, but we don’t. We all know that somewhere a wire got crossed, a step was missed, a lightbulb went out, and we can’t fix it.

See I hate myself because I see all that I should be, all I was created for, and I get frustrated because I am me and that means I am inherently imperfect. Don’t believe me? When you mess up and you run out of excuses what do you fall back on?

“Well, I’m only human.”

“Nobody’s perfect.”

“We all screw up.”

Why do we say it? We say it because not only do we know that we’re not perfect but that nobody else is either. Here in lies the problem. If we aren’t perfect, which we know we’re not, then we will never know complete fulfillment.

I remember a kid in a college class going so far as to say that imperfection is perfection. As an English guy I couldn’t deal with that kind of oxymoron. That was just his way of dealing with the fact that he was messed up and since he couldn’t fix the problem then there was no problem.

But look at us. Look at the world. All the issues, all the crap, all the hate, violence, poverty, it all stems from people just doing what they think is the best thing. It all stems from people meeting their full potential. A dictator feels like he’s the best at what he does so he takes over. The people let him. Another politician feels as though his ideas are the best because he made it to the top, dammit, and then he sends his country down the crapper. The greatest villains are not the one who are unabashedly evil, but the ones who think they are doing good.

Once we see that we can’t be all that we want to be, once we hang up our desire to be that brain surgeon, we settle for good enough. The worst part about “good enough” is that it’s not an appreciating value. We know very well that we aren’t supposed to live this way but, who cares? We’re getting by. Let the good people be good, the bad people be bad, let the smart people be smart and me, I’ll crack open another Coors and call it a day.

Yah, we were made to be perfect. That’s how God made us. Then we messed it up with sin and the whole world has felt the pangs since. You’re right, you’re not perfect, you’re only human, and you’ll never be good enough. Now let’s take these excuses, burn them in a hole, and keep going. There is no picking yourself up by the bootstraps. There’s no fixing the problem.

There’s only healthy self loathing.

I don’t blame God for the world going to crap. I blame me. I blame the human race. We’ve tried Theocracies, Monarchies, Democracies, Anti-Theocracies, Republics, Dictatorships, Anarchy, and Communal living. It all turns out the same way: failure. What is the common factor when things go south? Is it God? Nope.

It’s me.

We R Effed (A Love Story)

If there is a mental disorder for manic doubt, or doubt attacks, I think I have it. A couple of times a year I have these mini-crises where I doubt everything. I’m not talking, “If I can’t see it I don’t believe it” doubt, I’m talking Matrix, there is no spoon, is this all a dream, doubt. It’s in the pit of my soul. I can feel it around my heart (literally, that’s where my stress and worry physically manifests itself in my body). I lose sleep and I freak out for days or weeks at a time. I question everything.

Of course God, Jesus, religion, all of it, gets put on trial when I go through these bouts. What if there is no God? What if the Bible is wrong? What if Jesus was just a moral teacher? What if I’m a Christian only because I was born in America? What if all my atheist friends are right and I could be sleeping in on Sundays? What.....If.....All of it. It flies through my brain at lightning speed. I wish I could tape it all and put it on YouTube.

All of that to tell you that I understand doubt. I understand when we hear evidence that doesn’t jive with our worldview we discredit it before we actually look into it. I understand grabbing and grabbing and coming back empty. I know what it’s like to read my Bible, go to church, pray, and feel nothing. I thank God for that.

Do you know what keeps me here? Do you know what keeps me with the Bible and Jesus and Christianity? It’s the only religion or philosophy that is honest with me. The Bible tells me in the midst of my doubt, inferiority, brokenness, and weakness that I am inferior, broken, and weak. I know in our self help, everybody’s special, life your best life now, I blame the system and my mom, world this is not what’s supposed to be said, but the truth is at the least cathartic and at the most freeing.

Ever been lead on by somebody you loved? That sucks. That girl or that guy who flirts and flirts and you really want to be with them and they act like they want to be with you and then you find them making out with somebody else? Oh, that’s a kick to the boys. The Bible doesn’t do that while modern philosophy does. Modern philosophy tells us how awesome we are, and special, and that we’re naturally good. This is the leading on.

We R Effed. We are royally messed up. Can you honestly look into yourself and say, “I’m naturally good”? If you can then you are delusional. Can you honestly bank on the idea that by the time you die you will have done more good stuff then bad stuff? Not to mention, whose standard are you using? If you’re true to yourself that’s great, but are you the universal standard for right and wrong? No, you are not. I’m sorry to tell you that.  I hope your therapist, bong, or social media can have a field day with that realization.

The Bible, God, and Jesus are honest with us about our current condition. We are irrevocably broken and there is nothing we can do about it. There is no balm, there is no bandage, there is no salve to take care of the deep gash that we have. There is not a doctor smart enough, a drug good enough, sex amazing enough to fix the fact that we do stupid shit. Sure, you can cover it up, you can hide it, that’s fantastic, but when we pull a Homer Simpson and put electrical tape over the “check engine” light in our car in hopes of the problem going away deep down we know the repercussions are coming and we aren’t doing the right thing.

Think I’m exaggerating? Think I’m being a dick? Perhaps. If you totally disagree with me look back and see when the last time you said, “Well, nobody’s perfect” or “I’m only human” and you will see you agree that as humans something is naturally broken.

That’s what keeps me in the Bible. That’s what keeps me in with Jesus. That’s the Grace of God. He doesn’t lie to us or let us lie to ourselves. He says “You are broken. You need help. I have the only help.” A lot of people don’t like this. A lot of people think God is an arrogant prick because He claims to have the only way and acts like He’s in charge.

But what if He’s right? What if our best efforts are not going to cut it? Wouldn’t you rather be told that upfront then wasting all of your time? God doesn’t pull any punches. “Your righteousness is like a dirty tampon to me” (Isaiah 64:6). God isn’t interested in the good stuff we do to try to appease Him. He has no interest in how “good” we are. He doesn’t set up a list of do’s and don’ts that must be completed before we die. All He said is, “Follow me.”

See, that’s where Jesus is a shitty moral teacher. He doesn’t teach us how to be good, instead He teaches us how we don’t have anything good in us that isn’t a lonely remnant of Eden. Jesus teaches us that He is the answer to God’s impossible standard. God is His own answer because He’s that big. He doesn’t need us to answer questions for Him and He doesn’t need to answer all our questions either. He doesn’t HAVE to do anything, but He did.

Believe me, in another post we will get into this much, much, deeper. What I want you to do now is take solace, comfort, and joy in the fact that, on our own, We R Effed.

Welcome to the Sinner's Circle

When King Arthur created the Knights of the Round Table he made it a round table so that way there could be no head. Pauper, prince, king and knight were all equal at the Round Table. This was how he governed, this was how he fought. This was how he lead. Circles are equal.

Hi, you’ve reached another blog. It’s called the Sinner’s Circle. We’re not afraid of your shit. Congrats. We hope you just stumbled upon it at 2am while you’re eating Hot Pockets and drinking beer. Or maybe a friend told you about this and you’re checking it out. Wow, some friend you’ve got there.

Let me tell you what we’re all about. Jesus. Yah, Jesus. Don’t roll your eyes. Don’t stop reading. We understand that people have vastly different points of view about Jesus. We are okay with that. Does that mean that we agree with everybody’s point of view? No. We just understand that everybody has their reasons. We will never tell you that your reasons are stupid.  We will never tell you that your opinions are stupid.

But here’s the skinny. We all need to put our faith, point of view, and life under the microscope. That goes just as much for you Christians who found us as the atheist, hooligan, hipster, punk who stumbled upon this. We have no problem with questions. Jesus has no problem with questions. He is big enough. Not all questions can be answered. Not all answers will be liked. We have grown to be okay with that.
In the content of this blog you will find honest talk about God, Culture, and Life. This involves Jesus, church, music, movies, news, experience, and very rarely, politics. It’s an open conversation that has no room for trolling, disrespect, or condescension (unless perpetrated by Willy Wonka).
This idea came about when our chief writer, Danny Exyle, was fired from a church. A few years earlier Danny’s father was fired from a ministry. When Danny started going to another church he saw an old pastor that had been fired from his church. All three were axed for violently different reasons ranging from unfaithfulness and lust to differing ministry philosophies. The one thing that struck Danny was that all three of them were sinners and needed a place to be accepted to deal with their shit.

You can search us on Facebook and like us. This is where you’ll see a lot of Danny Exyle’s off the cuff, uncensored rantings. If you want all that even faster check out our Twitter (@SinnersCircleX).

Since buildings are expensive and blogging is free here we are. We hope you enjoy. We hope you are open and most of all we hope you see:

There’s always a seat open at the Sinner’s Circle.