Thoughts on not being Christian
I'm not sure where to start my disorganized thoughts - I just know that you guys are among a small number who will really understand what I'm experiencing. I seem to be continually discovering that I do not want to be a Christian. I don't want the label or the baggage. It's not that I want to give up on Christ - I still want to be more like him, but Christian is so loaded with meaning I want no part in.
I've been thinking about postmodernity and what it means a lot since coming back. Tried the McLaren book but the writing style made me batty so I gave it up. I've been a bit of a bum about sharing my thoughts with you all because it's been easier for me to just lay them out for Chris when we talk on the phone. And it's been easier to pretend this past semester didn't really happen and I'm not seperated from teh best community I've experienced in my life. I hope someone can relate - my way of coping with being apart has been to just try to move on. I think I've finally hit the impasse where I've realized that Egypt did happen and I am different and hardest of all, that I don't seem to belong anywhere anymore.
I've been struggling really hard with what postmodernity means in the church. I tried to explain to a friend that I don't think everyone should belong to the same single church anymore. God is using diversity to glorify himself. And I believe that theology we often disagree about - things that seem mutually exclusive - might be true from both angles. Isn't God that big? Why does someone always have to be right and someone have to be wrong? Tonight my family is probably thinking I'm a heretic (well, maybe not quite that) because I said that the flood might not have occured, Noah might not have been a real person, and Jesus as a human being might not have known all the facts about Noah. My mom had wondered about Jesus referring to the days of Noah and I said that a. it wouldn't have served his ministry/truth to bring up facts about Noah and b. as a human being raised in a culture, he might have believed what the culture taught him about Noah. It wouldn't have effected his full knowledge of truth. We had a clash because modernism equates truth with fact... and I don't anymore. I was down at Chris' house for this past weekend for his dad's retirement from the Navy, his mom's birthday, and his sister's graduation. On the way home, my parents started asking me if certain aunts and uncles and friend were saved. I didn't know how to answer. I didn't realize how much I can't think in those categories anymore.
So, I'm obviously disillusioned with Christianity and unsure where to go from here... but it would clearly be wrong to just walk out on the church and give up altogether on anything but myself. And who am I to think I have all the truth either?
One last note of interest - one with a little more hope. Chris observed to me that other day that when the world moved from the medieval time to modernity there was a revolution in science. Well, there's a similar one today in that science is discovering all sorts of things that cannot be explained. For example, light is both a particle and a wave - impossible but true. I guess there's more stuff like this too. Things we can't explain are leading us to think in new ways.
So, I've just spilled a bit of my frustrations, though hopefully not to the point of bringing anyone down. Thanks for toughing out the rambling. I know there's hope to be found - I guess I'd like to have some company on the trip.
I've been thinking about postmodernity and what it means a lot since coming back. Tried the McLaren book but the writing style made me batty so I gave it up. I've been a bit of a bum about sharing my thoughts with you all because it's been easier for me to just lay them out for Chris when we talk on the phone. And it's been easier to pretend this past semester didn't really happen and I'm not seperated from teh best community I've experienced in my life. I hope someone can relate - my way of coping with being apart has been to just try to move on. I think I've finally hit the impasse where I've realized that Egypt did happen and I am different and hardest of all, that I don't seem to belong anywhere anymore.
I've been struggling really hard with what postmodernity means in the church. I tried to explain to a friend that I don't think everyone should belong to the same single church anymore. God is using diversity to glorify himself. And I believe that theology we often disagree about - things that seem mutually exclusive - might be true from both angles. Isn't God that big? Why does someone always have to be right and someone have to be wrong? Tonight my family is probably thinking I'm a heretic (well, maybe not quite that) because I said that the flood might not have occured, Noah might not have been a real person, and Jesus as a human being might not have known all the facts about Noah. My mom had wondered about Jesus referring to the days of Noah and I said that a. it wouldn't have served his ministry/truth to bring up facts about Noah and b. as a human being raised in a culture, he might have believed what the culture taught him about Noah. It wouldn't have effected his full knowledge of truth. We had a clash because modernism equates truth with fact... and I don't anymore. I was down at Chris' house for this past weekend for his dad's retirement from the Navy, his mom's birthday, and his sister's graduation. On the way home, my parents started asking me if certain aunts and uncles and friend were saved. I didn't know how to answer. I didn't realize how much I can't think in those categories anymore.
So, I'm obviously disillusioned with Christianity and unsure where to go from here... but it would clearly be wrong to just walk out on the church and give up altogether on anything but myself. And who am I to think I have all the truth either?
One last note of interest - one with a little more hope. Chris observed to me that other day that when the world moved from the medieval time to modernity there was a revolution in science. Well, there's a similar one today in that science is discovering all sorts of things that cannot be explained. For example, light is both a particle and a wave - impossible but true. I guess there's more stuff like this too. Things we can't explain are leading us to think in new ways.
So, I've just spilled a bit of my frustrations, though hopefully not to the point of bringing anyone down. Thanks for toughing out the rambling. I know there's hope to be found - I guess I'd like to have some company on the trip.
posted by Heather Joy at ١:٥١ ص
3 Comments:
wow heather, that was very well said and i'm extremely thankful that you could put into words a few of the things i've been thinking about/encountered and have been unable to articulate. again, thanks for your words and i don't really know what else to say...i'll be praying
ANdrew
أزال أحد مشرفي المدونة هذا التعليق.
Heather, this reminds me of a conversation I had a few weeks ago with the man whose children I babysit. He's a politician and a very frightening person to argue with--he knows his history and politics very very well. He was asking me about the things happpening in response to the Newsweek article about the Quran being flushed in Gitmo. He said something that disturbed me at the time, and continues to disturb me. He seemed to think that the enlightenment is what will save the Western World. As if reason is what makes us civilized. But how civilized are we really? Killing someone in defense of our holy book is considered absolutely brutal, yet we support a government and social system that does little to stop rampant poverty. We have our own sort of brutality, we just disguise it nicely with our reasonable arguments and rational thinking.
إرسال تعليق
<< Home