Earlier this week, God answered my question.
Specifically, he (or she) posted a comment here on Growing Up Goddy offering words of encouragement in my exploration and noted that there are many paths, not just one, that lead to "God." I'm a bit skeptical, though, as God left a home page URL that wouldn't resolve correctly. I suspect it might have been a friend making a point rather than the Deity Eirself, though to be fair it that might just be IP6 transition issues.
What was going to be a relatively simple reply -- a genuine thank you for the encouragement -- grew into something more as I tried to explain where I'm at right now, and why I'm not simply adopting a "lighter" form of the Christian faith that I grew up with. In a lot of ways, the answer is simple: I took Christianity really, really seriously. That much should be obvious given some of the background I've already shared on the blog: I out-did my parents in seriousness in many ways, arguing for example that evolution couldn't possibly be true, lest all of Scripture crumble into lies. (I've always had a fair bit of fighty in me, to be honest...)
The people I learned from made it very clear that there were two kinds of Christians: the ones who were serious about God, and the ones who were just warming pews. The former -- the Real True Christians -- took Scripture at its word and dedicated their whole week to Him, not just the Sunday mornings. Even as I embraced Christian youth culture and the idea of new media ("Imagine the power of Cyber-Evangelism!") it was understood that the goal was a more intense and all-encompassing faith, not a trendy one.
I grew up understanding that the "Cultural Christians" in our nation were not fellow believers, but another mission field: people who thought they had been saved because they checked a box on a "Religion" survey, but were really cut off from the Truth. Socially and politically liberal churches were part of the problem: they were preaching a false Gospel, and were even worse than those who simply didn't believe. My parents, to their credit, rarely echoed the theological hard line. Coming from a Charismatic background, they actually took flack from the doctrinally conservative Christians around them. But the climate of We're-Real-Not-Those-Posers was all-pervasive in the circles of faith that I knew.
I took all of it very, very seriously. Rigorous deconstructions of jumbled liberal theology and the "social gospel" left me with a deep suspicion of trendy relief organizations like World Vision. Warnings about the deadly dangers of "Cafeteria Christianity" were taken to heart -- I knew that Christianity was an all or nothing affair. Anyone who's known me can see the conclusion of this story coming. When I began to truly question my faith, there wasn't much room for middle ground either.
Though I grappled with doubt for a long time, embracing the experience of it as an essential part of true belief, it could still only accept one sort of answer to my questions and still remain what I believed to be a Christian. Although I can intellectually acknowledge that there are many strains of Christianity, and that many of them have less rigid perspectives on the issues that I grappled with, at the end of the day I took the rigid kind of faith far more seriously than I knew.
I suppose that I'm still a fundamentalist at heart. Any sort of Christianity that would take me and my beliefs as they are, says the theological bird on my shoulder, wouldn't be Christianity at all. I don't say that ruefully: I say the same thing about theologians like John Spong, who step away from all of the faith's traditional doctrines but still use the label.
Perhaps it can be a lesson to those who believe that an exclusive, restrictive faith is essential to prevent believers from drifting away. if just anyone is let in the door, after all, there's no meaning to it. But reeds can bend while oak trees break: a fundamentalist who questions his faith has nowhere to go but very, very far away.
Comments
I suppose that I'm still a Permalink
Submitted by Heather Ann on Tue, 02/01/2011 - 18:27
I suppose that I'm still a fundamentalist at heart. Any sort of Christianity that would take me and my beliefs as they are, says the theological bird on my shoulder, wouldn't be Christianity at all. I don't say that ruefully: I say the same thing about theologians like John Spong, who step away from all of the faith's traditional doctrines but still use the label.
It's been 8 years since I lost the faith and I'm finally starting to see what liberal Christians like Spong are on about. It's taken me that long to be able to step back enough to see them through a non-fundamentalist lens.
These recent posts are VERY good.
We perceive everything Permalink
Submitted by peace chaser on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 23:38
We perceive everything through the mind because we are so identified with it (we think we are it and there's nothing more). But people eventually get ready to start understanding some higher level knowledge, the one that lets you see what's there behind the mind. Once you see those other dimensions, then faith comes naturally. But who wants faith ? We want happiness, joy and peace. The closer we get to those inner places (behind the mind), the more of the last 3 we get. And that's it. There's nothing more. So we can forget about all our stories, faith, god, etc (mental content, words). Because we will be experiencing. Real Spiritual Masters like Satya Sai Baba can grant those glimpses and they should give the necessary enthusiasm (faith ?) to go deeper.
peace and love.
Oh man, I've got so much more Permalink
Submitted by Patrick Connolly on Thu, 06/23/2011 - 21:19
Oh man, I've got so much more respect for you man. This is great. This is the sort of pondering I love to eavesdrop on. Because sometimes you've got more than 140 characters to get off your chest, right?
I think I've sort've settled into my godless view of the world, but I still feel like a spiritual person, and I guess I'm still trying to resolve that. Maybe I'm misreading, but seems you're on comparable footing. The way I see it, if you're doing it right, living should be a spiritual experience, regardless of where you think your moral-thinky-ephemeral-pseudoholy-whatchmawhoozit (soul) might go when your feet are done trucking it around.
Cheers
When I told my Christian Permalink
Submitted by Sam on Fri, 01/13/2012 - 05:09
When I told my Christian friends I was agnostic, they were supportive, they said things like "Don't ever stop looking", as though I would somehow want to go back to the hell of hating myself for faking belief in something I wanted so much to believe in but didn't. There are many amazing gifts my wife has given me over the years, but the first was one of the biggest, a simple sentence. "You know, you actually CAN be a good person without being a Christian". Talk about the gift that keeps on giving....
8 years later, I'm happier than I've ever been, and while I think the denial that there could be a God is just as egotistical as the insistence that there is, I'm certainly in no hurry to find out one way or the other.
Hi Eaton! I wandered into Permalink
Submitted by Antti on Mon, 02/13/2012 - 09:04
Hi Eaton! I wandered into this side of your world from angrylittletree.com. It's fun to get to know Drupal people's backgrounds when usually all you see is their engineering side.
The path you've gone through is familiar. I can really identify with most of the things you talk about here. Since I just found your blog, I really don't have a full grasp of your views. My background is that I was a fundamental Christian, but I felt there was something amiss in what I was doing.
I had seen so many of my friends do a total 180-turn from Christianity that it was confusing. How can somebody change their views so radically, so quickly. It sounded like the motive for the change was there but the reaction was too extreme, which led many of my friends into the other extreme (drug abuse, drinking problems, etc).
I started my own willing process of questioning my views. One of the things that started it was a great phrase from my friend: "Always question God in your life. Because the worst you can do is question your own image of God". The process was/is scary because you're basically dragging yourself out from the foundation your life's built on.
But is God really there? I truly hope so, because after five years of questioning and changing, I still believe in Him and so far I haven't found the thing that could've shaken Him off. I've shaken a truckload of religious crap and man-built religious-social requirements, so I call that a major WIN!
I guess I'm far away, but from what? I think from the fundamentalist who didn't know anything about life and normal humanity. From the person who judged others based on his own view and didn't even bother to get to know them, unless evangelizing. From having a "mission" and "listening to God" every weekend night when going to town (into enjoying life with friends over a beer). And that is the biggest WIN. Really embracing life. I was shocked that what I really didn't understand is life.
That's the path I'm on. Good luck on yours. Open source and open mind are the best tools we have in life.
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