it still hurts
Haha, I just got this comment on my entry about Tyndalians: "intresting [sic] that you connect not reading the Bible with relating to people you never would have at Bible College.Ever thought about picking that back up and seeing where it takes you?" This post might start to answer that. Why, it makes me furious, thanks for asking!
I was going to post a huge rant about a particularly infuriating passage in the New Testament tonight, but I ... can't. It's triggering too much stuff, making me too angry and sad and frustrated, and I don't think I should post things like that when I'm mad.
I keep thinking that I'm pretty much done dealing with losing my faith, and then I get to a point where I realise that I've still got so much farther to go.
I've got some friends who are questioning things pretty hardcore right now, and ... yeah, they aren't even close to out of the game, though they probably don't really recognize that yet.
When I was in high school, one of my best friends' mom's died of breast cancer, after praying for a long time for healing and having literally hundreds of people pray for her, elders of the church, the whole deal. Another of my friends' mom's was also dying of breast cancer, but she didn't die until the summer after my first year of bible college, after lots of remissions and fake remissions and new bouts of cancer and ... ugh, what a horrible roller-coaster ride that is. Anyways, clearly both of these women wanted to live and both of them had deep faith and they prayed their brains out, and God did NOTHING.
At the same time, I was just getting out of a two-year stint in an extremely manipulative church (read: cult), a place that I had felt God had led me to, and a place that caused a lot of damage. Between these two circumstances, my ability to trust God not to be a bastard was quite weakened. I toyed with the idea that he just didn't get involved in such things, that there was no mythical God's Plan For My Life to figure out, that shit just happens and God lets it happen... and while that stage prepared me to jump ship, I was certainly still on board.
My ability to read the bible and take it seriously was really lowered, especially when Jesus kept saying things like "If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer," and I had tried that and it was bullshit. I kept reading about people like Job and Hosea and thinking "oh fuck, what if he's going to treat me like he treated them?" However, I wasn't thinking that I wasn't Christian, I was thinking that I was just a different type of Christian. A more basic type. God was still good, he just ... well, I hadn't quite figured out how he worked yet.
That was a long stage. I had this "basic christianity" thing going on for about three years, for the year after high school when I ran the Christian bookstore in town and secretly thought most of the stuff I was selling was ridiculous, and my years in two different bible colleges. EBC did a good job of pulling me back in a bit, but about a month after school was over, I was back to my skeptical self. Tyndale just pushed me the other way. That's probably a combination of the fact that I didn't really take any religious courses there (except for NT, and Stevie T is one of the WORST profs I've ever had), the chapels were stupid, and I didn't click with 90% of the people in residence, whereas I had found the people in res at EBC to be good for theological debates. People at Tyndale asked me, in all seriousness, what anti-aircraft missiles were. "Are they planes?" Ugh.
What caused me to jump ship? I'm not really sure. In all honesty, I woke up one morning and thought "holy shit, I'm not Christian anymore, am I?" and panicked because I knew it was true, and that meant I knew nothing about the world around me or my sense of identity or what the hell I was going to do with my life. You think I'm exaggerating, but it's true, I had to figure all of that out, had to start from scratch.
The thing is, I'm still mad about my friends' mothers dying. I'm still mad that we did so much praying and they still died. I'm mad that my uncle didn't find God to be a refuge, so he drove into the St. Lawrence River. I'm mad that Doug's dad died, because I'm sorry, but "he's in a better place" isn't good enough. I'm still mad that God was supposed to give a shit, and then he didn't even bother to exist, let alone heal. I'm mad that I spent so much time believing in it, for nothing. I'm mad because I didn't want to lose my faith, did everything I could to hold onto it, and I failed at that. I'm not sorry I failed, but I'm mad that there isn't a God that gives a shit about me. I'm mad at whomever thought that one up and taught it to people who would teach it to me.
I'm frustrated when I see scientists try to debate with creationists (oh, sorry, intelligent design-ists), because I know those people are not coming there to debate, they're not trying to learn, they just want scientists to put up or shut up. I'm frustrated when I see the impact of judeo-christian "morals" on the spread of AIDS and the lack of access to good sex education and protection. I hate it that I have to second-guess every damn thing -- am I thinking this way because I grew up Christian and was taught to do it that way, or should I change it? I mean, I don't have a clue what I think about marriage or living together or stuff like that. I know what I was taught and I don't think THAT. I think it's okay, I'm not against any of it. But what does it mean to me? Not a clue. I'm frustrated that I still like a lot of the bands that I listened to in high school, but I end up giving their CDs away because they're so full of Christian dogma that I can't stand them anymore. I'm frustrated that it seems like my Christian friends speak a completely different language than what my boyfriend speaks. I'm frustrated because I want to tell him about stuff in high school, about what exactly went on in that abusive church, and I can't even start because I know it'll all sound so crazy and stupid. I feel like such an idiot when I start thinking about it. How could I not have known that it was dumb?
Okay, enough for tonight. Time to try to sleep in the stifling non-air-conditioned smoggy humid heat of Toronto.
5 Comments:
Well, I don't really know you but I hope you don't mind me jumping in here... I stumbled onto your blog through a contact on a friend's blog (working night shifts at a shelter gives me time for that sort of internet browsing).
I certainly agree that suffering is THE pivotal question, and the central challenge to any sort of faith or metanarrative that presents a god that is sovereign, benevolent and intimately involved with this world.
I also can identify with your anger, your frustrations, and your feelings of helplessness. Two of my brothers struggle with terminal illness (and the great amounts of physical pain that come with that), and many friends of mine have undergone traumas too horrible and too sacred for me to share in this kind of forum (some of them are still living, others are not). And I'm no stranger to the shit that life brings -- I work with homeless kids and I was once a homeless kid myself.
Basically, I'm just writing to affirm your anger -- and I do so as a Christian. I'm glad your angry, glad you're disatisifed with what you have experienced of church and other Christian pseudo-communities. There's so much bullshit that is a part of contemporary Western Christianity (of course, we're prone to think that that is the only kind of Christianity there is) that most of us who grow up in such churches have little chance to realise what genuine Christianity is (last summer I gave an eight week series of talks entitled, "Why I grew up going to church but never learned with a Christian is"). Such anger is quite often, in the bible, the way in which the prophets -- and even Jesus -- speak. Often it is angry voices that demand something more of god, that are the true voices of faith -- voices that offer quick comfort, easy answers, a resolution to every problem, etc., can often be the expression of a faith that is self-serving, insincere, and shallow.
I have found that such anger, directed towards god, has lead me to deeper places of intimacy with god, others, and the world around me. There is another Christianity out there, there is another god -- one that has little to do with the god worshipped by churches that hardly know the story they claim to embody. This other god is one that is him/herself defined by suffering. When I think of many of those in North American churches, and many of those at Tyndale, I am inclined to think of something Karl Rahner (a German Catholic theologian) used to say to his students, "I do not know the god that you are speaking of."
Now don't think I'm out to "convert" you or anything like that. I just felt like your post struck a cord within me and so I felt like sharing a wee bit... I hope that's okay. If you're interested in further dialogue I keep a blog at www.livejournal.com/users/poserorprophet.
[As an aside, I think you may have misjudged Stevie T (although a man as humble and brilliant as he hardly needs me to defend him). I am currently pursuing a Master's focussed on New Testament studies in Vancouver and a friend of mine is doing a PhD in New Testament studies (at Duke University -- they offered him a fellowship. He also did a Master's related to New Testament studies at Oxford and was given the award for "best dissertation") and we both agree that Stevie T. is one of the few remaining good things at Tyndale. The problem is that he operates from such a different paradigm than most people who go to Tyndale and, consequently, much of what he says goes right over the heads of that student body.]
Dan: Stevie T just didn't click with me. It was an Intro course and he started it off by making fun of denominations that he isn't part of (but my family is) and I thought "how dare you" and then he made his exam questions contingent on the use of key phrases (i.e. "the kingdom"), and to me, that's not learning. If I just have to repeat some words and phrases a few times to get an A... I don't have time for that (though I did just that, come to think of it). My problem wasn't really his 'paradigm', it was his teaching style. Perhaps I had him for the wrong course.
As for this other Christianity, I did do some looking around. I checked out Joseph Girzone and his take on Catholicism, Annie Dillard and her liberal Christianity, Brennan Manning and his ragamuffin gospel, Leo Tolstoy and his Russian Orthodox thinking, Clark Pinnock's open theism, along with others. I'm not convinced that another variation on the theme is going to work for me. It's a common objection though—"oh, you just didn't encounter real Christianity, that's why you left." Well, okay, whatever works for you. I think it's a little bit presumptuous, because none of you know what all I thought about and explored, and because it assumes a monopoly on the word 'Christian'. The phrase "true Christian" seems more like "true Aryan" the more I think about it—just a measure of who's like us and who isn't good enough. Of course, I'm coming to see that such divisions are key to the faith as well. It's all about the sheep and the goats in the end.
In the end, I don't see a reason for any of it. I'm an atheist and it doesn't make me angry. My anger is a relic from my Christian past. Most of the time, atheism leaves me astounded and fascinated, and makes me value life all the more because I've got a limited bit of it. Most Christians I know hear 'atheism' and think about nihilism and 'those who have no hope', but I've found it to be much brighter than that.
Putting aside the discussion about Steve and the rather polemical comparison between Christianity and eugenics, let me respond to a few things you say.
I'm glad that you're learning to value life. It is a wonderful thing to come alive and discover that life is -- as you say --fascinating, astounding and bright. I am aware that many Christians associate atheism with nihilism but such a shift does not necessarily entail any such thing (although a societal shift from the Christian narrative to what is generally a much more fractured approach to life does bring new and unique challenges to the way in which public life is lived).
I don't mean to question the depth or sincerity of your time pursuing Christianity (although I will note that Leo Tolstoy does NOT fall within the camp of Russian Orthodoxy). I completely agree that another variation on a tired old theme is not "going to work" for you. That's not what I'm proposing. I'm not interested in referring you to several others who are pursuing Christianity in radically different ways than the mainstream North American church.
Instead I think of another Rahner quote. Rahner, writing in the early 1970s, argued that future Christians would either be mystics or they would cease to be Christians altogether. What he meant was that, with the collapse of Christendom (a society where the church and Christianity played a central role in public politics, discourse, etc.) people would be left with no compellling reason to be Christians apart from a genuine encounter with the Christian god. Thus Rahner's mystics are those who have experienced a genuine relationship with god.
Now, you can tell me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that growing up within the church you were within a social and familial structure that automatically made you a Christian. But as those structures fell apart or became distanced from you, you had little reason to remain a Christian -- especially since you seemed to find only an absent and silent (and perhaps impotent?) god. Without any genuine transformative (i.e. mystical) encounter what reason do you have to be a Christian? I can't really think of any. So I'm not arguing that you never encountered real Christianity -- you very well might have (after all you took a course with Steve) -- but it seems that you never encountered the Christian god (and I'm not saying that in any sort of negative or critical way).
Naturally such a relationship is not something that can be produced through books, or emails, or blogs, or whatever. That's why I am tired of much Christian evangelism, apologetics, and attempts at cultural relevance. The church regularly attempts to fabricate what, in the end, it claims only god can do.
And that's why I'm happy to simply say, I empathise with you, I'm glad that you feel more alive than ever, and I wish you all the best.
You see, at the end of the day, it's not about who's good enough and who's not. It's not about who's in and who's out. It's not about the sheep and the goats (I won't bore you with a detailed exegesis but let's remember that what Jesus is talking about is the importance of caring for the poor -- and he employs the genre of first-century apocalyptic language to do so. To take such language literally or to apply it to contexts beyond the immediate is absurd). At the end of the day the Christian faith is about the new creation of ALL things. It is about a radical welcome, the healing of all wounds, and the recociliation of God, people and the rest of the cosmos. That's why, despite my frustrations with those who manipulate Christianity and twist it into something other (after all anything that is capable of influencing people deeply is also open to being subverted for other purposes), I would never suggest that such people are "out" while I'm "in" or anything like that. No, all of us are in the process of being made new together.
Peace.
Dan, if you want to know more about my religious life, I have a whole section of my website about it: Faith Dissolved. Was I introduced to Christianity because my parents brought me to church? Yes. Did I follow the version that my churches taught? Of course, that was what I had access to. Did I leave the faith because I went to college and was all alone in the big secular world? Hell no. (That's the common theory from people who don't know me -- did you learn it in church? I did.) Does that mean that I never "accessed" the "real" "God"? Whatever. I'm an atheist, the word 'god' doesn't make sense to me anymore, nor does the word 'mysticism'. But yes, I had reasons for wanting to be and stay Christian. Yes, I thought I had accessed god (though now I don't believe in one, so there goes that idea). Yes, I thought I had encounters. My faith was different from my family's, I wasn't just following along. The problem of suffering wasn't my only reason for leaving. Systematic theology classes introduced me to more "tensions" in the Scripture than you can shake a stick at, and that pretty much did it.
"although a societal shift from the Christian narrative to what is generally a much more fractured approach to life does bring new and unique challenges to the way in which public life is lived"
Like... in modern-day Europe? And what makes atheism "fractured?" Fractured as in ... broken? Interesting choice of words.
As for the sheep and the goats story "employing the genre of first-century apocalyptic language"... you know, if that's the case for this and much of the rest of the Bible, then modern-day lay Christians need to STOP USING THE BIBLE. Stop reading it. You don't have access to those cultural symbols or discourses, you're messing it up. Maybe we should go back to reading it in Latin and only letting Rahner-inspired priests give the message?
But it's nice that they get to read it and interpret it from their angle and call themselves Christians, and you get to come along and read Rahner and say that they're manipulating the text and getting it all wrong. It feels good to be right, doesn't it? It was one of my favourite things about being Christian.
Seriously, your take on Christianity seems fine to me, I like it that you don't put much stock in evangelism. Thanks for commenting.
Hey, I'm not interested in debating or anything. I can totally relate to most, if not all of your frustrations. If you ever want to get together for coffee, I'm game. I'm a Tyndale grad, with mixed opinions of my time there (for me it was like summer camp, but no real thinking went on) but I'm still a Christian, just not a comfortable evangelical. For starters, I'm a big advocate of same-sex marriage. I've always been a bit of an outsider and relish that position. Anyhow, you're not alone in your frustrations.
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