On the Other Side

I haven't really been on top of this blog lately, and the number of posts per week has dropped off sharply. At first, I thought this was due to my summer schedule, which had grown a bit fuller than it was when I started this blog. But something didn't feel right about that explanation. It seemed, rather, that my intense desire to chart my transition away from Christianity and belief in God had somehow subsided, and significantly so. Why was this?


Once I started following my thoughts down this trail, a couple of observations became clear rather quickly. First, I wasn't really thinking much about the "newness" of my worldview. I still did a lot of reading both of books and folks on the web, but much of that reading was, by now, reaffirming what I now believe rather than stretching or challenging my assumptions about the world. In short, being an atheist—even though it's still strange to write those words—has become my new normal. For that reason, I'm not constantly excited and provoked by new ideas, which ultimately served as one of the sources of inspiration for my blog posts.


Second, I remembered why I called this blog "ellipsis." My idea was to blog about life "in-between" Christianity and whatever now lay ahead of me. While I still want to understand myself as in the process of becoming, I realize that, practically speaking, I've come to the other side. I'm on the firm ground of cognitive harmony again, rather than the bridge of dissonance. I don't, of course, have it all figured out: I'm sure there are many, many things I haven't "figured out." Still, the framework within which I'll face those problems is provisionally fixed.


So, while I imagine that from time to time I'll throw up a new post, I think I'm going to let myself off the hook if I let the blog fall into disrepair. The blog has, I believe, served its purpose well, i.e., to help me document this major transition in my life. To those who have read, commented, and offered support: thank you. 


Until next time...

A Backward Glance

This morning I conducted an experiment: I went to a Christian religious service. At my seminary, once a week (during the summer) a chapel service is held, and I had a friend leading the service, so I decided—for the first time since I left the church—to go.


In short, it felt weird, and I felt repeatedly that I neither could nor wanted to participate in the many parts of the service: the singing, the prayers, the "passing of the peace." At every juncture, I kept thinking: "Yeah, but this god doesn't exist. We're not talking to, praising, confessing to, etc., anyone who actually exists. We're kidding ourselves." My emotions ranged from puzzlement to anger, toleration to irritation, sadness (for others) to relief (for myself). What I did enjoy was the music (apart from the lyrics) and the funnier parts of the sermon; otherwise, I was filling a seat in support of my friend. 


The experience taught me something I didn't really get until now. My wife, seven years my predecessor in leaving the faith, hated going to church when I asked her to. She despised meeting in Christian small groups, or listening to lectures on the Christian faith, and so on. At last I see why this was the case. It's not that she didn't "like" church (i.e., a particular church didn't suit her tastes) but that church didn't really have a place for her. This morning, having attending my first service since leaving the faith, made this abundantly clear to me. What's more, it's definitely made sure that the next service I attend either will be compulsory or will take place in the distant future.


Christianity, for all its attempts to be inclusive and welcoming, is inherently exclusive and closed to outsiders. Nothing that goes on inside a church is really designed with non-Christians in mind (not that I would suggest it needs to). At best, Christian services work for people who are seeking, but atheists and agnostics (to whatever extent they're committed to agnosticism) really can't take part in Christian worship service without feeling extremely outsider-y and othered (a feeling few people enjoy).


For now, at least, I'll have to continue to rely upon non-traditional sources (e.g,. individual relationships, books, the web) to foster my sense of 'spiritual' community, and to generate inspiration and hope. It still feels strange admitting that I don't want to participate in church life, but that strangeness doesn't make it any less true.

A New Spirituality?

Friday afternoon, I sat down with my spiritual director to talk about the future of our relationship. We had been meeting for over a year when I decided to walk away from the Christian faith, and I wanted to let him know about what had taken place. I knew things wouldn't really be the same, and had pretty much decided that participating in spiritual direction wasn't really a live option any more. But, at his request, I decided to see whether it was something I could still incorporate into my life.


Prior to the meeting, I understood "spirituality" as referring to one of two things: 1) dependence upon some variety of supernatural being(s) who give meaning and purpose to life, and the cultivating of that relationship; or 2) glorified navel-gazing and positive self-talk (à la Oprah). Since I'm not terribly interested in either of these—I no longer believe in the existence of a supernatural being, and I'm already battling enough self-interested thinking in my life—I assumed that spiritual direction would be out of the picture. After all, if I called the game of the spiritual journey a hoax, then why would I want someone to guide me on it?


The result of the conversation, however, surprised me. (More after the jump...)

The Word Is Out

Some people are surprised that I felt the need to tell my friends and family about my deconversion from Christianity. A few of my wife's friends, who happen to be de-facto or weak atheists, said something to the effect of, "It's not their business what you or your husband believe." At any rate, the ol' cat is out of the bag and the beans are spilt. I sent off an email to about 40 friends, family members, and colleagues, and there's no going back.


So far, about a half dozen folks have responded already, each of them offering support, concern, and (for many) prayers. I really don't mind it when people say they're praying for me; it's a sign that they care about me enough to talk to what they think is the highest being in the universe on my behalf. Are many of them praying that I change my mind? Yeah, but if there's anyone on the other end, I hope those prayers are answered; if not, then it doesn't do any measurable harm.


Strangely enough, this feels like a bizarro version of Christian baptism, the rite of initiation into the church. In baptism, a confession is made in which one publicly renounces the former way of life, etc., and embraces the peace that comes with new life in Christ. Plus, baptism often takes place on Easter Sunday. Oddly enough, I openly admitted to my wife on Easter Day that I was no longer a Christian (tough words to say at the time), and now, with this letter sent out to my loved ones, I've made my anti-baptismal confession in public. The one thing that is the same is the peace, though it is of a very different sort, unmingled with the dependence on someone else to bring it.  

Purpose

Recently, I've found myself struggling a good deal with my "purpose" and identity. In some ways, I'm finally realizing why so many people throughout history have pursued the question of the meaning of life. After all, when you've spent the better part of three decades having this issue sorted out because of your religious system, things get pretty fuzzy once you leave that system behind.


What on earth am I doing here? What do I want my legacy to be? (Is that even a legitimate question?) What sort of work do I want to do? What is the "good life," and how will I live it? 


These questions have begun, slowly, to haunt me. I thought I had things figured out, and that it wouldn't be too hard to de-Christianize some of my earlier motivations and presuppositions, and simply carry on with life as usual. Unfortunately, those foundations are too eroded, I think, for me to continue to build my life upon them. So what, then, am I to do?


I obviously don't have many answers to this; not yet, at least. When I was speaking to a friend a few days ago, the best thing I could come up with was this: I want to live in a way that promotes the thriving of humanity and of the earth. This is a huge commitment, with a lot of nuances and competing concerns, and I don't think this notion of "thriving" can carry the whole load of discerning my own purpose in life.


I suppose, too, that my wife would appreciate it—and, of course, I would too—if I oriented at least part of my purpose to love. In a lot of ways, these notions of thriving and love, one rather objectively determined and the other radically subjective, might offer a bit of balance to my life that either one alone couldn't. At any rate, they offer at least good starting points (though there's also the bit about figuring out what "love" means outside of a Christian worldview...).

My Parents

This past weekend, I finally "came out" and told my parents I was no longer a Christian. Things unfolded like I thought they would: my parents acted as if they saw it coming (I don't think they did), they then tried to dissuade me by using apologetic tactics (none of which I hadn't heard, if not believed, before), then they gave up, said they loved me no matter what, and promised to keep praying for me. It wasn't easy, but at the same time it wasn't nearly as hard as I imagined. While my parents were visibly emotional, I had a zen-like calm (something I didn't expect), which I thought actually undermined one of their arguments that I didn't have "hope". Truth is, I have a lot more hope now than I used to!


Overall, it was a good experience, though I don't want to repeat it.

"Tomorrow"

I've been mulling over an old Scottish proverb lately: "Fools look to tomorrow; the wise use tonight." Ironically, it's been on my mind for some days, but I've put off actually writing about it for nearly a week. So what does that make me?


The notion of doing something "tomorrow," or postponing life for just a little while, isn't all bad. But what's struck me lately is the way that so many people—in religion, politics, advertising—utilize the idea of "tomorrow" to keep people from doing anything meaningful today. How many of the religious faithful have managed to avoid improving our world or tending to the poor, etc., because they were so confident that "tomorrow," that someday-paradise, a god would step in and make things right (or would remove the "righteous" from this wicked world). I think many religious leaders (though not all) intuit that if people realized they could do the work that they had assigned to God, then people would soon depend less on any god for their salvation, i.e., the health and welfare of our lives and planet.


Politicians use "tomorrow" very slyly, too, and usually to win political office. Look to Barack Obama. (Note: I'm in no way unappreciative of the things Obama has done in office; I'm more disenchanted with many of the promises on which he hasn't followed through. He's still the best option we've had in the U.S. for a while.) Obama's campaign, like so many other politicians at every level and from every party, was about getting voters to believe that with him in leadership, "tomorrow" would be a better place than today. Yet, for Americans at least, this has resulted in a dependency upon government to change the world that looks strikingly similar to that of religion. So now, many Americans sit and wait for government to improve their lives, to make a better "tomorrow," while the world around us begs for change today.

Death and Dying

One of the most difficult things about living life without a religious framework is getting my head around not living. I've always been aware that death comes to all things, but when a person is deeply entrenched in the Christian faith, death is always a semicolon; something always comes after it (i.e., heaven). But now that "after" has fallen away along with the rest of my religious worldview, I wonder how to think about death.

On the one hand, I see death as a sort of liberation, a freedom from the pains, anxieties, and hardships of life. I think of so many who suffer their entire lives from innumerable wrongs, injustices, and suffering, and I see a hope in death for them. No longer will they be confined to this life and its evils. Even for folks who live a relatively comfortable life, like me, the end of life is a positive event, a point at which all worries and pains wash away.

Yet that doesn't entirely mute the sadness of death.