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My life seems to revolve around the issue of poop lately. The doctors and nurses are all quite interested in it. They anticipate it, analyze it, measure it, time it, and are even willing to clean up accidents with it. At first I was even embarrassed to speak of it with them. I have now become somewhat desensitized to the existence of poop. Yet I still have concluded that dealing with poop is near the bottom of human existence.
As a Christian, I naturally ask if Scripture has anything to say about poop. Some might laugh at such a thought, but remarkably the Bible does address the topic. While the majority of clean-cut Christians would not mention such topics, the Bible indeed deals at this level of reality without such avoidance.
Of the many places where the Bible addresses the topic of poop, one particularly interesting place is in the New Testament book of Philipians, where Paul writes,
What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish [may be trans. "poop"], that I may gain Christ… I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings…
I really admire the Apostle Paul. He likes to tell things how they are. Direct. No candy-coating. I think he came from Philadelphia. The word that he uses here is only found in this verse in the whole of the New Testament. It is likely an expletive, but is rendered by the euphemistic “dung” or “rubbish” in English translations. Paul says, in effect, “Look, everything I have in life I consider to be at the level of poop compared with knowing Christ and his resurrection.” He puts it on the line. Life ain’t worth poop without knowing Christ and his resurrection. The more I personally have to deal with poop, the more clearly I understand this passage - an unexpected advantage to having colon cancer.
When the church has strayed from its fundamental elements -- Christ and his resurrection -- it has by definition ceased being the church. Sometimes it has become oppressive, sometimes it gets caught up in endless political battles, and sometimes it has become simply a bland institution of nothingness with marshmallow smiles pasted on the faces of its members.
It has become commonplace in segments of mainstream Protestantism and elsewhere to push aside the person of Christ and particularly the event of his resurrection. Now, mind you, such leaders are usually careful enough not to outright deny it. But they will at least discount it as irrelevant in practice. As long as you find community, as long as your kids have a place to learn right from wrong, as long as you have a support structure to help you through suffering, as long as you are nice to everybody and they are nice to you, as long as you have faith (no matter who or what it is in), then the church is considered a good thing. It doesn’t matter whether or not God revealed himself in Christ or whether or not he raised him from the dead. I like to imagine Paul’s response to such lines of thinking. I think it is safe to make an educated guess as to what he might say: “that’s a bunch of poop”. It may be appealing to the masses, but it is not historic Christianity. Call it “religion” if you want. Call it “country club living” if you want. Call it “hypocrisy” if you want. But don’t call it authentic Christianity.
As I continue to have areas of my life stripped away during this time of suffering, I am afforded the opportunity to observe my life more clearly. Things around me become less and less important in the final perspective: my dreams, my finances, my career, the consumer goods I’ve collected, my house, my reputation. Most all that is left is the reality of my Creator and his revelation to humankind in the person of Jesus. Aside from this, I have concluded that my life has little meaning. Aside from Christ, my life really is a pile of poop.