Why I’m probably not a Christian anymore
After accusing my wife of not being a ‘real’ Christian on the way to work this morning (which naturally pissed her off) and telling her how I’m thinking of giving up writing this blog, I’ve decied to come clean and admit to myself and the world that I’m probably not a Christian anymore.
I guess that same old argument that I blogged on last week keeps going around in my head why can’t these wacky liberals just go and form their own religion and let the real Christians get on with their faith? Seeing as I’m one of these wacky liberals that basically doesn’t believe in anything, maybe it’s not fair of me to be taking up valuable pew space in church with my unfaithful views. Maybe it’s wrong of me to be using up people’s valuable prayer time asking questions and seeking my own path when I don’t subscribe to their core beliefs.
I haven’t changed my mind about what I believe. I still think that all this religion stuff is about values, about how we treat each other and the rest is probably speculation at best and bullsh-t at worst (sorry Dad if you’re reading this but I still don’t say it as often as you ).
So I think I should best describe myself at the moment as a Christian agnostic. I can best describe myself as someone who uses the Christian framework to inform my values but I don’t really strongly believe in any of the ‘facts’ of Christianity like whether Jesus even said half the stuff in the gospels, whether there was a resurrection etc… Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I’m, 100% sure those things didn’t happen, I’m just saying that I don’t feel any conviction or belief that they happened for sure. So lets say I’m one of those irritating fence sitters.
Probably the extra bit of info that you all need to understand why I’m even bothering to think and write about all this stuff is that I’ve been in the process of re-enrolling at SFC / BCT with a long term plan of entering back into formation for the Anglican priesthood. So the big question is: is it dishonest of rme to use up church resources to become something that I might not believe in and then be in a position where I’ll probably influence other people not to believe either?.
Posted: October 19th, 2007 under Big Questions, The Institution, Blasphemy, Spirituality.
Comments: 8
Comments
Comment from Will
Time: 20/10/2007, 2:00 am
I’m going to bring this back to Corinthians eventually…
Most people will go through a time of questioning their view of the world, and theological study can certainly be that kind of a time.
When I was younger, I had many of the same complaints and concerns about Christianity as you do. Unlike you, I came from the other direction – I wasn’t a Christian at the time and was actually fairly opposed to the idea of becoming a Christian. I had very strong opinions based on rationality and fairness that made me feel it was ‘right’ (not merely technically but ethically) not to be a Christian.
I ended up becoming a Christian through a grinding process of rationality – for a long time I felt very unusual in that. There is an abstract mathematical and philosophical argument that had always forced me to consider the possibility that god exists; it became apparent that parts of the bible spoke about this philosophical point more than I had thought, so I felt I should understand what the bible had to say before I could dismiss it; after that one rational argument stacked up on another and I ended up having to admit that it probably was true after all. I often talk about how I didn’t so much come to faith as got dragged kicking and screaming to faith by God over a number of years. (And then, embarrassingly, I noticed that scripture talks quite a lot about that too – that even our faith is not necessarily something of our own doing.)
In Cambridge, I’ve met quite a few other people who came to faith objecting; and I’ve met other people who came to it through a rational process. Cambridge is a small, very academic town, after all. So, our experience of what Christians are like depends on where we go—what the sorts of people we’re likely to meet. Talking about “the real Christians” and “the wacky liberals” seems to be a bit artificial: the real Christians are not a small homogenous set. And Corinthians talks about that quite a bit—Christians are not meant to be a uniform homogenous set.
You might not feel that you have been given the gift of faith; you might not feel that you rationally agree with some of the claims—but that might change over time, and something seems to keep drawing you to identify with Christianity, so clearly god hasn’t abandoned you completely! That’s just meant as a vague note of encouragement, make of it what you will.
As for becoming a pastor—in my amateur opinion you should think about whether you want to lead people towards Christ or away from Christ; the job description of a pastor is to try to lead people towards Christ so you just need to think about whether you’re happy to do that.
Comment from simonj
Time: 22/10/2007, 7:15 pm
Matt, you need to come on a 40 hr prayer and fasting retreat with me to really get away from the bullshit. Steph can come and stay up in the cliffe while we’re away.
sj
Comment from djfoobarmatt
Time: 22/10/2007, 9:20 pm
Thanks for persevering mr J. Your sales pitch has won me over – I’m in.
Comment from Anonymous
Time: 22/10/2007, 9:35 pm
Hi Matt. A couple of years ago I did a subject at Uni called Feminist Interpretation of the Bible. We were a pretty mixed bunch, and we read huge chunks of the Bible as literature. One of the things that I will always be grateful to the convenors of that course for was that it forced me to think about what core beliefs are really important to my faith and what are not. I discovered that a lot of the doctrine, and an awful lot of the detail that the Church insists be taken as matters of faith are just not that important to me. That is, my faith is not dependent on whether they are true or not. What is important is that I believe that God is there, that he can have a relationship with us, and that Jesus was his son (how God managed that doesn’t really matter to me – the virgin birth is not a crucial part of my faith). The evidence for me is when I look back over my life and can see in hindsight that he has been guiding me. Some members of my Church would not call me Christian if they new just where I stand. I frequently question whether my faith comes from my politics, or my politics from my faith. I’ve read the Bible cover to cover, and it confirms for me my politics, but I still think that my faith comes first.
What I’m trying to say is that I don’t think that your faith, whether or not you are ‘Christian’, depends on how many of the doctrinal positions of the Church you can tick of. It doesn’t depend on whether you believe the facts of most of it or not. It is where you stand in relationship to God, and only you and God know that. All relationships go through times of distance and doubting.
No, it is not dishonest to take up pew space, or college space, or other people’s prayer time. If only more people in the ministry would be honest about their doubts and what is really important to faith (as distinct from culture and institutional power) the Church would be a far better place.
That’s my two cents, for what it’s worth. I’ll say one for you.
Comment from The Wurlinator
Time: 16/11/2007, 1:19 am
Hey there…
I like your post and I like a lot of the comments, particularly Nathan’s. And while, I come and go here a bit and kind of quickly try to read the threads (which can be hard to take in, in a quick maner), I think you need to step back and accept things for what they are a bit. It is what it is… As simple or mind-boggling as that sentence is, it can be quite revealing for me to not attach any special meaning to the situations, careers, jobs, things we find ourselves in. God does want you to do what you are doing.
Comment from Nathan
Time: 19/10/2007, 10:21 am
Hey Matthew, interesting developments. I think one of the first things that might be helpful for you to do, is to just take a moment to breathe and stop flogging yourself. You really do give yourself too hard of a time. I think the second thing that might be helpful is to take a step back and look at how your faith has been influenced and developed over your life. It seems to be you have got yourself so tied into a spiritual / faith knott that you don’t know how to untie yourself; or pehaps better still that you seem to have spent so much time listening to how others are telling you how to experience God and faith and not much time asking yourself what is important to you. Stop looking around for things that set you into a tail spin and find your feet in yourself and your own experience of faith, spirituality, humanism or whatever. There is plenty of time to look at the ways in which other people view life and faith etc and to look at these with a critical analytical eye when you are more grounded.
If you’re not sure about whether Christianity is for you, look around see if there are Christian ‘paths’ that speak to your heart. Feel free to explore the world of ‘faith’ just as a baby begins to find it’s feet by exploring the world around them. Feel ok to be in places just to see how you feel about them, don’t feel like you have to make a commitment on everything at everytime, and feel free to tell people to $^%% off if they want to push you too far.
The same with Uni. Don’t look at this stage at any end result. If you want to do a unit or so as a process for helping you to understand the Christian world and faith a little more then do so because of that, a period of exploration and discernment. Don’t get stuck on outcomes. Matt you are barely 30 you have so much life left and you don’t have to solve your whole life’s problems this week. If you still teater on pursuing ordination but feel hypocritical about it because of how you are feeling now, then put the long term problem out on a shelf and just do something that you are interested in. Of course who says you have to go now. Perhaps people like me have pushed you too hard too soon. But feel ok again as I say to tell people to $^%% off.
Also consider how tied to ghosts of the past you are. I think you would well benefit from asking how part of how you are feeling now might be related to ghosts of your past. They way people put church and religion and God onto us can be so cruel and dogmatic at times and can really mess people up. It is hard to acknowledge these and to get past them but you have to make a choice to live anchored to the past or to move to live in the future.
I guess just also be aware not to throw out any babies with the bathwater. Be clear that the faith journey (and I’m not even saying Christian, but the who am I and where do I belong journey) is filled with moments of despair and downheartedness because we fleet between well we are just dust in the end to well we have another life past this one. Both can be very despairing if we are but dust then what the heck is life all about, if there is life after what the heck is that and how does this life relate to that one (i.e. if I’m good in this world then I’ll get rewards in the later one) – all of these can place pressure on us because either there is no point to this life or there is. What you are in essence asking is what is the point of this life of mine here and now and how does what I think about the ‘after this life’ stuff impact on how I view what this life is all about.
Also just to give God a little plug… God is bigger than all this. God is not a Jade statue or an icon on the wall, nor even is God simply bread and wine. God is infinately more than this and our ‘relationship’ with God is far more wider than the limits of our ‘books’ and our ‘rituals’. God is freedom and love. If you want to really get that, take a look at those picutres of Sol in your albumns, and watch him at sleep and play and you will see how big God really is.
Pax
Nathan