I need to write. But I haven’t been able to voice it here yet. Until now. Which is what I was tweeting about earlier.
But as my really honest husband put it yesterday afternoon, “damn the torpedos, full speed ahead!” Which, I think for me, means that why have a blog if you can’t write in your real, honest voice.
So, I’m going to put it in writing and know that if God is who I think and hope He is, then He’s not freaked out by this. That just leaves you. And I’m choosing not to worry about you judging me.
The issue is this: I don’t know what I believe about God anymore. I don’t even know what I think about Christianity.
In leaving Fundamentalism, it wasn’t just that I gained a license to wear pants and listen to U2 and be a Christian hipster like some assumed I was hungering for. No, really, that isn’t it at all. Although, I might be more hipster than I realized.
In leaving, I realized that some of what I’d been taught was very wrong. And if some of it was wrong, then how do I pick out the pieces that were gloriously true?
About two years ago, I remember asking someone very dear to me for help on how to believe in a particular doctrine that I, frankly, thought was wrong. Their response was “I have just always trusted the people God put here to lead me.”
At the time, sadly, that was enough for me.
But when we left Fundamentalism, I lost all of the friendly-I-guess-I’ll-believe-what-you’re-saying feelings and started really digging into theology. More than I ever had.
And I realized that a large portion of what I believe is based off of tradition compounded upon tradition. And other people’s personal experience and grand stories. And I’m very unsure and uncertain about all of the rest.
I met Jesus when I was four. And I’ve had a “relationship” with Him ever since. But how on earth could I have really known what I was getting into at that tender age? I think I was just terrified of experiencing hell-fire and damnation.
I’m not doubting my salvation. I’m doubting Christianity and faith in God. In other words, if this is all true…then I am confident in my relationship with God. But if it’s not true, then I feel like I’ve been sold a lie for a really long time.
I’m so tired of Christians.
Christians who think they are doing the right thing and yet they are so focused on staying separate from anyone, terrified of science and intellectual thinking, and imagining they have a duty to reform our government to reflect the Bible.
And they walk away from the very people who need them. Well, those people don’t need their brand of religious fanaticism but they often do need their hugs, love, friendship, and acceptance.
I guess the best way to say this is: I just have a lot of unknowns about God. And Christianity. And if there is a God, and He’s the one I’ve always known and loved, then He isn’t scared of my doubts.
And if a lot of what I’ve always based my life on is wrong, then I guess I’m on the path to discovering that.
P.S. I’m re-reading Letters to a Skeptic and The Question of God.
P.S.S. Have you read the IM’s article about The Coming Evangelical Collapse?
