Losing Religion

Sometimes naked
Sometimes mad
Now the scholar
Now the fool
Thus they appear on earth:
The free men

__Hindu verse

J once said that college robs students of their religion. Liberal campuses - urban in the way of communities that actively reject traditional expectations - and faculty systematically attack the presumptions of absolutes, demonstrate the similarity of religions over time and generally breakdown the compacts that we tacitly accept in year after year of prayer before dinner and Sunday school.

I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately – about spirituality vs religion, about the theocracy movement that is gaining frightening speed, about how easy it is to have everything you think you know changed by the company you keep.

I grew up in a religious family. Sure at the time that we knew what was right – or at least what was wrong. My father still reads the Bible every day, leads Bible studies, travels to Romania and India to carry out His work. My extended family includes ministers, missionaries, evangelicals – some of whom speak about all that happens – good or bad – as God’s will.

As a teenager, I was sure. I gave sermons on youth Sundays at church, I sat on committees, penned moving speeches to raise money, championed moral absolutes.

And, I guess you could say that I lost that in college. Or, you could say that I recognized my fallibility.

It is the way of organized religion to lay claim to Right – to be so sure that their personal beliefs are Truth that they will wage war to propegate them (literally as in the crusades; figuratively as in the legion of morally-inspireds graduating from “Christian” law schools charged with forcing religious principles into all aspects of public life).

The only thing I now know for sure, is that I know nothing for sure. Like many independent souls, I have struggled over the years with what I believe on any issue – from religion to civic responsibility.

I look no farther than the evening news to see how divorced my reality is from the rest of the world. Go as far as Angola where fear and ignorance of modern medicine led to the spread of a plague and the stoning of health workers who came to help. Go as close as downtown where homeless, some plagued by mental or physical illness, wander the streets begging for something as simple as a cup of coffee. 

To be a Christian, some say, is to believe what cannot be proved, to make that leap of faith. I would argue that for many it’s much simpler than that – it’s being taught something from birth, making it as real as mathematics or any other lesson. Or it could be like any other drug, a reality that feels better than everything else. Or, the simple human want for the inclusion of community. For as many people who truly know God, I would guess there are at least of equal number who call themselves Christian for much more human reasons.

So, college … Didn’t take away my personal belief – something I have and will struggle with. Rather, it taught me that my beliefs are just that – beliefs: a theory, a world-view shaped profoundly by experience, a preference for how to answer enduring questions. I emerged a secularist – wanting to defend the independence of public spaces. To make moral choices personal choices. To enable continued exploration of what truly is Right, if such a thing can even exist.

And, so I lost my Religion – because organized religion requires absolutes – from molding laws based on derived Oughts to recruiting undecideds.  And in losing it, I gained a powerful understanding of faith, of trust and of privacy.

Comments

[df]

your linking of absolutes and god are intriguing. what happens to God when humans stop believing in things absolutely (or maybe just realizing that their absolutes are infinitely more complex than they ever realized)? does God disappear? do we then begin to make God into our own image (a hummer driving, warmonger homophobe. . . an urban environmentally conscious, politically liberal champion of social causes) Or, is this God much more unknowable, separate, different than the conjecture of creation. perhaps a relentless lover of the whole mess?)

[BillyKess]

I hope you get your faith back someday.

I don't know if your post was about religion in general or only Christianity, because the crusades were a long time ago. The 'jihad' is happening today because Islam is the only major religion that has not yet modernized.

Sure, there are radical Christians and all, but homelessness and poverty is not a result of Christianity. It's simply something that has been around since biblical times.

I consider myself Christian, but I don't belong to any particular church or anything like that. Nor do I consider myself to be within any specific domination... like Catholic, Protestant, Witness, Born-again, etc... Although they are all derived from Christianity, I have to say that I agree to an extent about organized religions. I don't care for them myself.

I simply try to do what is right and believe.

(I am also a terrible example of what a Christian should be, unfortunately - but i try)

[Alison]

I like df's last thought: "perhaps a relentless lover of the whole mess?" The need for absolutes - strong in our society today - is frightening. The unknowing and the searching and the wondering is where I find beauty and stimulation in religion.

[BillyKess]

If there is one good example of "absolutes" in religion, it's Islamic suicide bombers - as well as, of course, the 9/11 hijackers.

To blow yourself up, and/or fly a plane into a building, knowing you're going die, yet positively certain that you will be taken to paradise surrounded by beautiful virgins. To me, that's insane. Yes, and indeed "absolute" ...which is what makes it so scary.

Billy

[df]

i personally reserve the word insane for situation for which i am constantly thrown off kilter or context. call me what you will, but i feel like i can understand the motives of suicide bombers better than a lot of middle class americans. it's not that hard.

1 God demands your total sacrifice for him.
2 everyone around you agrees and has since birth.
3 current politics are fodder for jihad (it is my calling at this time and place in the 4 world to make a difference by giving my all).
5 giving of my life is the greatest sacrifice.

life is simpler. hard decisions easier to make. the world is smaller.
i'll quote our blog host for a moment to make my point.

"...how easy it is to have everything you think you know changed by the company you keep."

not "insane", just "different. ;)

[Dennis Whitcomb]

Nice post. I'm not sure what you mean by "absolutes". But it seems to me that there can be organized religion without absolutes, and indeed that some liberal christian churches provide just that. To me it sounds less like you lost your religion, and more like you aquired a sophisticated form of it...I'm more inclined to offer congrats than condolences...

[wil]

please study maths or physics or chemistry or biology. they are true and honesty lies in observing and imagining the possibilities of what is around us we don't live for ever in body and the rest is a mystery but for sure a priest or rabbi or immam know nothing more than we do. face up to the facts of exstence it's mysteries and realize that supersticion is not the answer to any question.accept that we don't know everything and we probably never will but long robes and a dour expression are not the answer.

[cipriano]

Wow!
What an absolutely incredibly profound article. Thank you for sharing this. I myself am a former Christian minister.
I can entirely and wholeheartedly relate to the paradigm shift you are describing here. A renaissance in understanding.
All the best to you.
-- Cip