A Very Caffeinated Spirituality

Why did I choose to title my blog “Coffee and Theology”? To be honest, I initially thought of calling it “Caffeinated Theology,” but I realized I couldn’t spell caffeinated very well, and that people who were searching for it may not be able to either.

So what’s so caffeinated about my spirituality?

When I say caffeinated spirituality I mean it both literally and metaphorically. It’s literal in the sense that I love coffee. I am constantly caffeinated. My wife jokes that my blood is two thirds coffee. She might not be wrong. In fact, my mom was raised in Brazil, the child of American missionaries. She loved coffee and began letting me drink it when I was too young to remember. 

Since that time, I’ve grown to love coffee in all of its forms. I make coffee every day for my family. I’ve spent perhaps way too much on coffee apparatuses and coffee beans. I’ve attempted roasting coffee, although that experiment was a bit of a disaster. James Hoffman happens to be one of my favorite YouTubers. I drink coffee while meditating on theology.

So, yeah, I love coffee.

That’s the literal meaning.

Speaking metaphorically, I have had to deconstruct much of my fundamentalist Baptist upbringing. Deconstruction is a buzzword among young Christians these days. I understand that, and I normally hate to use buzzwords. However, I can’t think of a better way to express my experience.

However, I chose not to stop at deconstruction, instead clinging stubbornly to the faith I was handed down from my parents (along with my love of coffee, I also inherited my mom’s stubbornness). And so, I began the process of reconstruction.

I, like many people my age–I was born in 1989–was heavily influenced by the writings of Shane Claiborne, having been assigned his book Irresistible Revolution as reading in high school. It’s a long, long story that I’ll save for future posts, but the short version is that that book began my journey into progressive Christianity, and helped me land firmly in the Anabaptist camp.

“Hang on! What’s an Anabaptist?!” I hear you asking.

Again, you’ll need to wait for a future post for an in-depth explanation of that too. For now, what I mean is that I belong to a group of Christians that believes strongly in working toward living out the words of Jesus. We are a peace church and we strongly work toward bringing the justice of God’s Kingdom to life in this world.

Hence, the caffeination. 

I believe that my Christian faith should goad me into living a life that is different from the average person and seeks to bring about a positive impact on the world and my community. In my view, faith, like caffeine, is a stimulant. It is a stimulant that causes me to serve the poor and the underserved. It causes me to allow myself to be changed and to learn and grow through my interactions with those same people. It even causes me to love my enemies and pray for the oppressors. 

It’s a tall order. Like my morning coffee.