I've always thought of myself as a religious person. I've been going to church services regularly for most of my life, reading the Scriptures, thinking about theological issues (rather obsessively at times), teaching Sunday School, volunteering... To cut a long story short, I was a devout Christian. Although there has always been a liberal twist to my faith, I never thought I would come to a point where I would question the fundamentals of my entire belief system. And yet, it did happen.
My "prayer life" was first to disintegrate. It worked fine up until my late teens, but by my mid-20s I realized I didn't really have any clue as to who or what I was praying to, nor why I should be doing it. The concept of Heavenly Father continued to make sense for some more time to come, until it eventually collapsed, leaving behind traces of an inherently ill structure based on emotional void and fear. It finally dawned on me: somewhere along the way I had mistaken neurosis for religion. And so rather than picking up the pieces and moving on, I simply moved on. Ran away, to be more precise, as fast as I could. About two months ago, talking to a close friend, I managed to utter that dreaded word - atheist - applying it for the first time to myself, if only to see how it would sound. Nothing spectacular happened. It didn't hurt a bit. The earth didn't quake. I soon realised it's really not a word I could fully apply to myself, but that's a different story.
All of this is to serve as an introduction to a book that has helped me understand and deal with what I've been going through, religionwise. It's "Taking Leave of God" by Don Cupitt, first published in 1980 by SCM Press. While some of the chapters might be too philosophical and somewhat difficult to process, it's a very exciting book, dubbed by some a manifesto of "Christian Buddhism". Drawing inspiration from religious thinkers and philosophers as diverse as Tertullian, Meister Eckhart and Kierkegaard (to mention but a few), Cupitt attempts to establish a new (or renewed?) and almost Zen-like paradigm of Christian religiosity. Warmly recommended.
Hey man. Welcome to the club.
ReplyDeleteyes, i meant to comment on this last night but was falling asleep. i too went through something very similar and i'm better for it. now. haha. when i left my faith, i left actually still believing in it, but no longer 'approved' of it. so i thought it was reality and i couldn't fit. i felt like an outlaw. it was horrible and i remember actually saying a 'goodbye' prayer. it took a few years to finally come around to the understanding that i truly didn't believe it after all. and it set me free. i still believe in God. i just don't think God is a vending machine. like most folks, i take what i can from here and there but my beliefs now mostly resemble an eastern flavor.
ReplyDeleteI still struggle with it. Just this last Sunday I went to church after some time and couldn't stop feeling like a total odd-one-out. I like the sense of community and fellowship, but I simply don't subscribe to most of Christian beliefs any longer. I'm exploring non-theist Quakerism at the moment, as it sounds like a good place for a guy like me.
ReplyDeleteIt is difficult to truly understand where we are from until we have lived somewhere else. - J
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