Note: I'm fully aware that "faith" is an incredibly tricky word with lots of nuances; that it means different things to different people. Bear with me here and insert whatever meaning you give that word.
I've watched the way people have dealt with these situations; both their own situations and the they way they've dealt with other people in similar circumstances. I've seen people quietly trickle away from the church world, people storm out in a flame of anger (and in one case, it sounded more like the person used a case of grenades), and people hang around making venomous, bitter barbs at appropriate moments.
One of the things that all these scenarios have in common is that the people involved developed a certain level of cynicism and became critical about the church. It's a fairly natural stage: you were heavily involved in a sub-culture, and to move out of it you need to distance yourself and view it in a different light. Cynicism also seems to be a natural stage of the journey from fundy to liberal to whatever comes next.
But after a while, people tone the cynicism down and move on. Mostly they figure the Christian phase was a few years of their life, or their childhood, but it's over. Or if they stay within the church, they figure out a way to do so with the minimum level of cognitive dissonance possible. World-views can always be rebuilt, right?
I've noticed a correlation between the level of cynicism post-Christianity (or being more vocal about it) and the depth of sincerity that people had when they were still Christians. The more you believed it, the more heavily involved you were, the heavier the toll. It's harder to leave, harder to reconcile your life and choose a new way of thinking without coming across shreds of the older way that tear you up.
And I've noticed that I'm still as cynical as I was 5 years ago when things first started falling apart. I haven't been able to state without qualm "yeah I'm not a Christian" or "yeah I am", because I still don't know where I stand. That probably doesn't help. But as true as the mess of churchiness is, I'd kinda like to move on and create something or do something positive for a change. There's no point whinging endlessly about something if you're not going to do something to make it better.
But I've got no idea what I can do. Becoming more involved in church seems a little unwise, given my current situation. I know some of you have been here before. Suggestions?
5 comments:
interesting post :) good to see lots of thinking going on...
I don't know if I've told you this before, but I really liked what Shane Claiborne said when we went to tea with him (and many others) at the Addington Coffee Co-op a few months ago - it it's so easy for those of us who are emergent/post-modern/whatever the word is to look at mainstream church and see what it is doing wrong. And usually criticise it loudly. We spend so much time on that... And he was saying there comes a time when you just have to move on, and the best thing you could do is put that energy into doing what you think the mainstream church *should* be doing, and let that speak for itself.
You know, let people see the way it should be done - by you doing that thing, rather than you criticising other people for not doing it.
So yes, I'm in your boat of being one of those people who has deconstructed my faith and beliefs, and trying to reconstruct that foundation, but also trying to move on from negativity towards what I've come from...
One thing that I've found really helpful is having a regular catch up with people who think the same way. While that can sometimes be bad - cynics being cynical together, in a way - it can be good, for helping you think of new things to do, and supporting each other in that. That has been my replacement for sunday-morning-church, and while it isn't, by any means, perfect, it suits me more than the old way.
I think too, the biggest thing for me, is realising that it is possible that I can't reconstruct that base (the one I deconstructed when I started challenging my faith/the way I did church/everything) - sometimes you can't know those things, so the biggest challenge facing me is just moving on from that - working out that yes, I do believe this (whatever small degree that might be at times), and therefore, what do I need to do?
Something Adam and I have been talking about lately is the idea of social justice, and what it means to follow Christ. The challenge of perhaps christianity being much more about actions that we have grown up believing. And if then that is true, what do we do about it?
Long thoughts.
:)
I told Rod that I felt like I was doing the whole faith crisis thing ten years later than most people, and he said that he reckoned most people don't really have much of a faith crisis in their late teens, and in fact I'm probably ten years early.
See stage 4:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stages_of_faith_development
If it's any consolation, my own Long Dark Night of the Soul has lasted about seven years so far and I'm actually starting to enjoy it.
And see also:
http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/2219.htm
This might sound weird, but I actually found that couchsurfing filled the 'church-shaped hole in my heart'. Gave me back that feeling of contributing to something I could believe in (small though it might seem - but small is good for me these days), and having a network of like-minded and inspiring people all over the world. It really felt like being part of a family again. I think I kind of thought the church was unique in that regard. Quite pleased to find it's not. I found church a bit easier after that - maybe because I wasn't asking/expecting so much of it, so could just let it be what it is.
I dunno if that's the particular kind of thing you're after, but I guess the point is that there are other things out there. 'Green' groups and crafty things and booky things can work.
Though maybe that doesn't really solve your problem...
Get out of the Church ASAP, it's something I wish I just took on board earlier. In fact, if I had the choice to relive my life, I would not have wanted any involvement with the Church at all.
Here's an extract of something I wrote a while back:
The guy who runs the juice bar is called Nick and I found out through my workmate that he was a Church-goer. So I got talking to him and asked him about his background. He's like me too, he went to Law School, but isn't actually doing anything with his law degree now. We must have been classmates at one point because I had spent some time at Victoria as well.
He said he doesn't really go to Church anymore and he asked me why I asked - is it because I go to Church? Well, I don't really, at least not regularly. I used to. And we left it at that, because in a way, we both know what it's like. When you're at this age you don't go: "Oh, that breaks God's heart! Did you have a relationship with Christ? Because if you didn't you should go back to Church again maybe you just didn't go to the right one? You should so come to mine and do this Alpha course that we run. It teaches you all about what it means to really know Him"! It's really pointless sometimes trying to explain to evangelical/Pentecostal Christians that you were once where they were and that you actually grew out of the faith, because they can't fathom how anyone could possibly lose that Jesus is my best friend buzz that they feel every Sunday when the worship team gets up on stage to sing the latest Hillsong anthem, or when one of their prayers gets answered like how they prayed that their flu would go away and then it 'magically' did.
What made me give up on believing in Christianity? There wasn't really a single defining moment. It happened over many years, probably starting in 2003, when I found out that the girl I'd been chasing all through College was getting engaged. If anyone ever wanted to know my complete history and biography up until I was 21 she's the unlucky person who knows everything and was there on the first day I stepped into Annesbrook Community Church. And then in 2005 I had moved to Windy to get away from all the pain that was overwhelming me in Christchurch and my mate Mel realised I was going to Church so asked me what it was I believed. I told her that my faith wasn't really there anymore because I couldn't see innocence in Christians anymore and she said she knows what it means, to lose your innocence, because she gave up her virginity to a guy who told her she should try new things and wasn't intending to stop. It made me realised that, despite everything the Church claims, the Big Guy in the Sky just doesn't satisfy.
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