I am increasingly suspicious that Christianity isn’t going to do the trick for me. I have reasons.
First, I really do not think that that Christianity, the Bible, the God of the Bible, and/or Jesus Christ objectively represent absolute truth. I’m just not convinced, and I think, weighing the evidence in my mind, that it is less likely than otherwise that Jesus is the Son Of God send down to be Sacrificed For Our Sins and representing the One True Way. Absent some compelling reason to think otherwise, I just don’t believe it’s True.
That, of course, does not end the inquiry, because I’m pretty skeptical in general of the practical reality of objective absolute truth. I’m willing to accept the possibility that Christianity is Truth even if its foundational and theological truth-claims are questionable. To that end, I have danced around with Christianity and belief in Jesus for most of the past year. I’ve prayed. I’ve read in the gospels. I’ve attended a handful of churches. My attitude was that I was willing to set aside the objective truth inquiry and settle for asking if Christianity is meaningful to me. I had an intuition that there was transofrmational power in Christianity that I was keenly interested in, that Christianity could turn me into a New Man, the way C. S. Lewis talks about it in Mere Christianity. I even felt the beginnings of some kind of personal transformation in my life as I genuinely tried to live a Christian life.
So why then am I afraid to move forward? What holds me back from asserting, “this is what I believe; this is where I stand?” What keeps me from diving in and accepting Jesus Christ and Christianity with open arms? What is it about Christianity that simultaneously attracts and repels me? I know there are probably some simplistic answers from the Christian perspective. I’m not interested in those; I don;t really find them convincing.
Am I so scarred from my disentanglement from Mormonism that I am unwilling to embrace any religion, like an abuse victim who has a hard time forming new relationships because of deep-seated trust issues? Did Mormonism leave me with a lingering sense that I will only be satisfied when I find a religion that I am certain is objectively, absolutely true? (If so, I’m pretty much screwed, because I’m comfortable saying there ain’t one out there). If I say No to Christianity, will I be able to say Yes to anything else?
What is it about Christianity that appeals to me? I like Jesus himself, and his teachings. I find the general theology of Christianity, the picture of God made man to save fallen humanity, appealing and comforting. I like Christian liturgy. I like hymns. I am comfortable with the Bible (although I have spent my life learining to see it through uniquely Mormon eyes, so in many ways I am still completely new to scripture). I’m a western person, and Christianity is unquestionably the religion of the West–it’s the religious currency of our society and it is probably the most culturally relevant. And like I said above, Christianity at least seems to offer something transformational that I feel like I need. I’m a pretty broken person in a lot of ways, and I think I could certainly use a heapin’ helpin’ of healin’ atonement.
Also, I really like Christmas. Particularly, I like the religious/sacred message of Christmas. The juxtaposition of the darkest, coldest time of the year with the birth of Mankind’s salvation. I love the sacred Christmas hymns. I love the Christmas story in the gospels. I eat it up with a spoon. I’m not sure what I’d make of Christmas if I wasn’t a Christian (watch for a blog post coming up about this), but I am absolutely unwilling to completely give it up.
On the other hand, I have a sneaking, growing suspicion that the Jesus of history really wasn’t the Jesus of Christianity. If Jesus isn’t actually the one true savior of fallen humanity, then I don’t really need him in any any kind of external, objective, cosmological sense (I may personally need him because of the requirements of my own psyche, but that’s a different issue). And if I don’t need him, then what is he to me? Even if there is truth and meaning in the Jesus myth, I don’t know that I am willing to make it my exclusive truth and meaning or even my primary truth and meaning.
I don’t think I believe in a personal god at all, and I also don’t think I belive that Jesus is a unique incarnation of God. I’m not convinced that the gospels are an accurate depiction of the life of Jesus, or that Paul’s epistles are a univerally and objectively correct interpretation of the life of Jesus, either. I’m not certain I think I need Jesus to save me from my sins (since I’m not really sure I belive in sin, hell, or the Devil, certainly in the orthodox Christian sense). I’m also strongly turned off by both fundamentalist/evangelical and liberal Christians, and I have serious reservations about the emerging conversation.
I’m not certain that I want all of my life to be Jesus-flavored. In other words, I’m not ready to devote myself completely to Jesus, and I don’t know if I’m even interested in doing so–sometimes it seems great, but usually it seems like to make it work for me I’d have to do a lot of self-brainwashing that I am absolutely unwilling to do.
What about the personal transformation that I claimed to have felt beginning? If that’s the result I want from religion, and my intuition says Christianity offer it, and I’ve even felt its beginnings as I started to practice Christianity, then why did I stop? They were great, I’ll admit it. In fact, This is not an easy question to answer. Maybe personal transofrmation isn’t really what I’m wanting after all. Or maybe it is, but there’s too much other stuff in the package of Christianity (or even in the package of Jesus), such that I feel the need to look elsewhere for transformation. Or maybe a part of the transformation I wanted was a connection, a relationoship with God that never seemed to actually happen. Perhaps the transformation I want is not just into a better person, but a better person that is connected to God. And I certainly didn’t feel like that was happening. Not even a little bit.
So what am I supposed to make of all of this? I’m at a loss. On some level I have an attraction to Jesus and to Christianity, but not such that I would be willing to call myself (or think of myself as) Christian in any meaningful sense. Does it matter? On one level, no–I can believe whatever I want, of course. On another level, if I could self-identify as a Christian, then it would give so much direction to an otherwise extremely difficult (and basically directionless) spiritual journey. Maybe that’s not enough. As usual, I just don’t know.
Sailing to Byzantium 
Kullervo, all I have to say is that living your life in fear of getting burned or let down is no way to live at all. It’s like the hordes of cynical and disillusioned young folks these days who refuse to get married for fear of repeating their divorced parents’ mistakes. It’s the guy who spends the rest of his loving life entering into a series of intimate relationships with various girls, all the while secretly planning ahead for the failure of each of them.
Whether there’s a God or not, a life spent in fear of “being taken” is not a great way to go.
May God (whom I DO really believe in) illumine and comfort you in your journey. This is a good process, a good dialogue to have with yourself, the human community, and God Himself. As I always tell my own children, ask God (and Christ) to reveal Himself to you. Then keep yourself open and wait.
Coming out of Mormonism is huge, and you’re right: it is a little like coming out of an abusive relationship or a “cult”. Because the control of the mind/thoughts/interpretations is so tight in that community, you have to re-learn how to think for yourself.
All I can give you is my heartfelt encouragement to keep looking for God. Something is pulling you in that direction. Don’t be afraid of your questions, but also don’t be afraid of receiving answers.
I am an Orthodox Christian and I see you have an Orthodox church listed here. As a convert from Protestantism myself over 15 years ago, I can say it is a rich, varied, and stable expression of Christianity. I encourage you to explore it further. Frederica Mathewes-Green, Ancient Faith Radio, and some of the smaller Ortho-blogs are a good place to start.
God bless you!
If Jesus isn’t actually the one true savior of fallen humanity, then I don’t really need him in any any kind of external, objective, cosmological sense
I really agree.
Perhaps the transformation I want is not just into a better person, but a better person that is connected to God.
That introspection is profound. It caused me to reevaluate the purpose of my own personal transformation.
Hi, Kullervo! I wandered in here from the AODA yahoo group. I also prefer blogs over email lists. You can find mine at http://gigglingwizard.livejournal.com/ . I rarely write about spiritual issues there, though, and when I do, they’re under a filter, and unless you have a livejournal, I can’t add you.
I enjoy your writing, and I must confess that seeing you struggling to emerge from your cocoon is something of a guilty pleasure for me. It’s something like a parent seeing his child experience a first crush, knowing it will end in hearbreak, but also knowing that will pass and that bigger things lie ahead.
I was raised Catholic and was active in my church–altar boy, youth group, parish council as a teen–and for a time in junior high, even considered becoming a Franciscan monk. But around age 17, I started to ask questions that my teachers couldn’t answer satisfactorily. “Do you honestly believe that Noah was literally 600 years old? If so, why don’t people live that long anymore, and if not, why shouldn’t we believe that everything else in the Bible is also metaphor, up to and including the Resurrection?” “If God is just and forgiving, how can he send me to hell for all eternity for things I did in just one human lifetime? If my little sister or brother act up, I only make them sit in a chair for a few minutes, not forever and ever. How can God be less forgiving than I am if he is not only forgiving, but perfectly forgiving? If there is only one god, then what is Satan? The story goes that God told Lucifer that the only way he could ever be God’s equal is to turn against him, so he’s God’s equal, doesn’t that make him a god, too? And if there’s only one God, then who the heck was He talking to in Genesis 1:26 when he said “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness,” or in Gen 3:22 when he said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us,” after Adam ate the fruit?
The more I opened my eyes, the more I saw the Church as a means of controlling people, of exploiting them, burdening them with false guilt to keep them in line and take their money. I spent the last year of my “childhood” faking my way through church, just going through the motions to keep my parents off my back, and promptly quit going altogether as soon as I left for college. I swore off organized religion and just believed what I believed.
Then, a few months later, my girlfriend got a book about Wicca. I approached it, like any religion, with great skepticism, but felt a veil lifting as I realized that this was a name for all the things I already believed. There were other people who agreed with me, and they had organized and given these beliefs a name!
Of course, later I started to probe the doctrine of even this self-proclaimed “docrineless” religion, and settled for adopting the more general designation of “neopagan,” no longer wishing to identify with Wicca. From there, I started looking into drudry. I started AODA’s 1st degree program in March 2006 and officially joined the order that August. I don’t post there often (mostly because I got into a spat with the moderator early on), but I read it almost daily, and I’ve been enjoying your contributions.
I had some other thoughts about this posting. I know several people who are convinced that Christianity is true and they have a relationship with God simply because they’ve seen the affects of transformation in their lives. They know they are better people than they were before and the only explanation they can muster is “it’s true”.
It’s merely interesting to me to juxtapose those comments with your own. You have felt at times that your character was and can be transformed via Christianity, but it’s not a “proof” for you as it is for other people.
Not really an argument for Christianity as much as a “hmm”.
Well, I was changing because I was trying to change.
Kullervo, have you ever read Reading the Bible Again for the First Time? It’s written by an Episcopalian academic, and I think you’d enjoy his insights.
Of course, you seem to have moved in a totally different direction with your theology for now, so this might be moot. But I do recommend it if you circle back.