Questioning Faith
When I tell people that I have been exploring faith questions and that has lead me to leave the church community I was going to, the automatic question is something like 'so are you questioning your belief in God?' They want to understand what I mean. At the beginning I wasn't even sure what I meant.
I momentarily experimented with the idea of not believing in God. I remember the moment in my car. I was waiting for the light to change at the corner of St. Anne's and Bishop Grandin. The experiment didn't last the light cycle. Before the light turned green, I was back to believing in God. I couldn't imagine life without believing in something bigger than me. I believe that a higher something has some positive impact on the world.
My big sticking point was the concept of sin. I have found that by trying to avoid sin, I just made myself miserable. The things I was doing that I labelled as sin were really just coping mechanisms. I just focused on the symptom (the coping mechanism) rather the dealing with my thinking that caused me to need the coping mechanism. I became more pragmatic about sin. If I did something that wasn't ideal, I acknowledged as a symptom and was kind to myself about it. That finally pulled me out of the loop and gave me freedom to address the things I needed to.
In many evangelical churches, they believe in total depravity. We are all sinners in need of grace. The idea is meant to be inclusive - I fail, you fail, we are all in this together and in need of God's grace. Taking the stance that I am basically depraved and in need of grace was psychologically damaging for me. It's not helpful for me to believe I am a bad person in need of grace. And I don't want to think of you as depraved and in need of grace. I would rather look for the good in everyone.
That is where it started but I began to have many more questions that I am still exploring:
- What the correct use for the bible is in my faith (that it is not meant to be a literal document)
- The thought that experience guides my faith rather than driven just be scripture (scripture and tradition still have a place but I need to see what is happening around me.)
- The concept of hell and salvation
I will explore these and other concepts over the coming weeks and maybe years. I have left my old posts here because they are a natural progression. I may not totally agree with what I have written in the past. It was as true and honest as it could be when I wrote it.
I momentarily experimented with the idea of not believing in God. I remember the moment in my car. I was waiting for the light to change at the corner of St. Anne's and Bishop Grandin. The experiment didn't last the light cycle. Before the light turned green, I was back to believing in God. I couldn't imagine life without believing in something bigger than me. I believe that a higher something has some positive impact on the world.
My big sticking point was the concept of sin. I have found that by trying to avoid sin, I just made myself miserable. The things I was doing that I labelled as sin were really just coping mechanisms. I just focused on the symptom (the coping mechanism) rather the dealing with my thinking that caused me to need the coping mechanism. I became more pragmatic about sin. If I did something that wasn't ideal, I acknowledged as a symptom and was kind to myself about it. That finally pulled me out of the loop and gave me freedom to address the things I needed to.
In many evangelical churches, they believe in total depravity. We are all sinners in need of grace. The idea is meant to be inclusive - I fail, you fail, we are all in this together and in need of God's grace. Taking the stance that I am basically depraved and in need of grace was psychologically damaging for me. It's not helpful for me to believe I am a bad person in need of grace. And I don't want to think of you as depraved and in need of grace. I would rather look for the good in everyone.
That is where it started but I began to have many more questions that I am still exploring:
- What the correct use for the bible is in my faith (that it is not meant to be a literal document)
- The thought that experience guides my faith rather than driven just be scripture (scripture and tradition still have a place but I need to see what is happening around me.)
- The concept of hell and salvation
I will explore these and other concepts over the coming weeks and maybe years. I have left my old posts here because they are a natural progression. I may not totally agree with what I have written in the past. It was as true and honest as it could be when I wrote it.
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