I've been delaying this wrap-up post now for nearly nine months. Mostly because I'm afraid of what will come out as I write. But here we go...
If you followed this blog in 2010, you might have seen a steady deterioration of my faith as I progressed through the story of the Bible, and it all kinda culminated in the post from December 18 where my faith slipped through my fingers right in front of me. Throughout the last year, questions were raised and left unanswered. I approached the mysteries of faith with a rational brain and usually arrived at the conclusion that these supernatural elements of the Bible were either misunderstood, exaggerated, or simply made up entirely by the writers.
As I sat and sat with these issues over the last nine months, my faith has been slowly receding, even more so than while entrenched in the things that made me so angry about the history of our deity. But my dirty little secret of a dwindling faith came flying out on a road trip in April of this year.
Jilly and I took a mini vacation up to Boston to see a show. On the 4+ hour car ride home, she brought up the topic of faith. She had seen me struggling through the Bible first hand for the majority of the prior year, so she was simply checking up on how I was doing with it. My reply was something like "not good" and I went into an explanation of everything that was nagging me and chipping away at the rock-solid faith I once had. As I was pouring out my soul, I had only one hope - that she would respond with "Babe, don't be ridiculous." and reconfirm my faith once and for all. I hoped beyond hope that she had one sentence that would melt my disbelief away. Imagine my surprise when she said:
"I've kinda been feeling the same way."
Initially my heart sank right through the floormats. "This marriage is doomed" I thought. Ever since I started dating seriously, my highest prerequisite for a mate was that she was a strong Christian. I didn't think a relationship could survive without a mutual love for Christ. As we talked, I found out that she had been feeling that way for a while, partially because she witnessed how hard it was on me to read the Bible, and my fears about a doomed marriage were slowly assuaged. It's kinda cool how we separately came to very similar conclusions about faith. These are more or less our shared list of beliefs as they stand now:
- The Bible is an incredible book, and the majority of the contents are worthwhile for anyone to read and follow. In a way, it's an instruction book on how to be a better person, and create a better world around you. However, time spent pouring over every detail is better spent going out and living its message of charity, forgiveness and kindness.
- God is still a mystery. It's unclear if he exists, and if he does what - if any - influence he has on this world.
- Jesus walked this earth and lived an exemplary life, maybe a perfect life. A life that should be studied and emulated by everyone on earth. He was kind, selfless, charitable, merciful, but also immeasurably strong in spirit, and unshakably faithful. I believe he was murdered on a cross for his belief that he was saving all of humanity. I will try every day to live a Christ-like existence. However, I currently don't believe he was resurrected from the dead.
- The Church is still a very valid place. Although I haven't been since Christmas (I swore I'd never become a Christmas/Easter churchgoer, but here I am...) I've had a strong urge to return recently. The aspect of community and sharing and rallying around a common belief that we should be good to each other is something that every human needs.
- Christians aren't wrong in their beliefs. God has escaped me, or maybe I escaped God, either way he is currently not a part of my life. That doesn't mean that I think those who believe in him are wrong. If God is real to you, then he is real. To me he's just not right now. But for all I know I'm wrong, and if I am, I'm boned if I die right now.
Whether I knew it or not, my Bible in a Year project was kinda my last ditch effort to reignite my faith. To create a faith in me that would carry over to our marriage and get us both back to dragging each other to church. But it failed. In fact, it backfired. It threw a blanket over the smoldering coals of my belief in all things Christ. And I was afraid to admit any of this, even to myself, until that car ride back in April.
The interesting thing is that my rock-solid faith I had since I was 12 was based on a book I had never read. It was easy to believe when I went to church every week, and retreats twice a year and heard all the amazing things about God, and the incredible sacrifice Jesus made for me. I was surrounded by Christians for my entire faith. I worked in a Christian bookstore, I volunteered at an amazing youth group, I was in a touring Christian band, I had a Christian radio show - literally every aspect of my life was influenced by my belief in God. But when I dug through the Bible, and uncovered all of it's nastiness, and unanswerable questions, and frustrating paradoxes and mind-numbing God-sanctioned genocides, it all fell apart for me.
I'm still bummed about this though. Nine months later, I still get sad that I removed this piece of my life. This piece of me that defined everything about me and influenced every decision I made was ripped from me by the very thing that should have reinforced it - the Good Book. I had a best friend in God for sixteen years. Now it's like I sent him to the moon and he'll never be back, and that is immeasurably saddening.
At the same time though, it's liberating. Not in a "YEE HAW! I'ma go nuts and sin all over the place cuz God can't punish me no more!" kinda way. In fact, I believe that the Bible's definition of what is sinful is still valid. Doings things that are designated as sins are usually bad for you - physically or mentally or both. And confessing those sins to someone - even to yourself - is a good practice. The liberation I'm feeling revolves around my first new bullet point of what I believe - that the Bible should be read, but then lived out. In other words, I don't feel guilty for not reading my Bible every day, or forgetting to pray like I used to for the past sixteen years. Instead I feel energized to go out and do things to help people. And extend kindness beyond measure to everyone in my life.
The last and most important thing: If you are a person of faith, please don't let my failure as a Christian dissuade you from your own beliefs. The last thing I want is the responsibility for ripping God from someone else's life. It's not something I wish on my worst enemy. However, I would encourage all of you to try and read the whole Bible. You base your life around it's teachings, just as I did. It's important to know where those beliefs stem from. So read it, and draw your own conclusions, and let me know what you come up with. Hopefully it's better than where I landed.
I've also not finalized this new creed of mine. I would love for this to be an open discussion. Please comment, tell me I'm wrong. Convince me otherwise. Thanks friends.
Love,
Brandon
brandon,
ReplyDeletei occasionally read your posts during your reading of the bible. while i have never read the bible and can't say that i have any plans in the near future to do so, i found it interesting to read it through you.
my dad, who was once a seminarian, told us, when we were kids, that God was everywhere and everything. he himself had left the catholic church because counting bricks on the wall made more sense than what was being taught him.
while he may have lost sight of God, he encouraged us to find our own path or way as a moral road. he encouraged us to talk to God and ourselves to figure out how to act and live charitably and how to ask forgiveness when we did not.
he said he saw the bible as a book of parables and fairy tales with some good messages for us.
perhaps that was the reason for your journey. you read the bible to get closer to God but ended up moving in the opposite direction. in reality you actually did move closer to "Godly" or christian behaviour. in my life...oooh, all 51 years, i have met far more christians who can quote the bible and behave less christian like than those who have no clue what the bible says. maybe the God you had and now don't, wanted you to act from your heart in your daily life as a christian rather than one who follows the rote, more traditional ways. you were active in a youth group, christian band etc. now you are a regular guy...who demonstrates goodness and kindness....selflessness and love....christian behaviour in you everyday life. maybe that was your route....your moral road....your fate. just a thought.... milly
don... I have so many thoughts and things I'd like to say to you. Perhaps some day we could sit down and have a chat. However, let me say this - As a dad (PS - Can't believe you haven't met my girls yet!) I often times enjoy and delight in watching my girls do dangerous things. For instance, Quinn my 1 year old, constantly tries to climb up stairs. If I never let her try, she would never learn how to do it. I fully know that she could fall down and in fact, she has fallen many times. Every time she tries, I hope that she can do it without my help or without falling. Every time she fails, I'm right there to help her back up.
ReplyDeleteIf I never allowed her to try the stairs, she would never learn how to use them. If this continued on without stairs, as she got older, she would probably have trouble going to school or finding a job, etc. etc. Obviously this sounds silly, but I believe God treats us the same way. He allows us and gives us the freedom to do whatever we want. He hopes that we will choose the right things even though he knows he knows the outcome. Have you ever watched a movie that you've seen before and hoped the good guy didn't die in the end? God allows us to think for ourselves and make decisions for ourselves because he loves us. IF he didn't do it this way there would be no such thing as failure/sin/genocide/murder/heartache but there would also be no success/happiness/joy/triumph. This is, I think, is the hardest thing to grasp, but by allowing sin to enter the world, he loved us. We can question Him and turn our back on Him and curse Him and do whatever we want, but I think regardless of what we do, He is just like a father watching his kid climb stairs. He allows us to have freedom and failure because he knows that is the only way to truly love them.
Hey Brandon. As you probably picked up, I followed your blog pretty much regularly. It actually inspired me to journal the Bible privately as I go through it, with a similar summary/commentary format and such. I loved reading your blog, because you were honest about your struggles and joys. This is an aside, but I suspect blog writing must be weird; you are often being very open and vulnerable, and the feedback can never be as satisfying as how much you give.
ReplyDeleteI'll comment not with any convincing but with sharing a little bit about myself that may or may not be helpful.
It seems to me that you and I have had almost direct-opposite stories. You came from a childhood of faith, serving youth groups on behalf of that faith, then read the Bible for yourself when you were older and lost faith. I grew up as an atheist, with an adversarial attitude to Christian faith, started gaining faith, then read the Bible when I was older and became even stronger in my faith.
I say this not to say that I am better at reading the Bible or a better Christian or something like that; I'm not. But I present myself as an example of someone who was completely skeptical and came to the Bible with the assumption that it was inconsistent, had genocides, wasn't authoritative -- and yet somehow came out the other end devoting my life to following it as a witness to God’s story.
After my years of atheism, I started giving Christianity a chance. I started to go to ORB, and through Christian Andrews' teachings learned the story of the Bible. And I read parts of it myself, especially the gospels and parts of Paul’s letters. And it felt liberating and freeing that Christianity wasn't what I thought it was about -- about condemning people to hell and voting Republican. No, ORB seemed to be saying that God loved this world from the beginning, and though it turned away from its Creator, He wanted so badly to be with us that He came down, humiliated himself, and died and rose from the dead so that He could be with us. And this God was primarily a God of love and acceptance, liberating us from caring about impressing others or getting value from other people, and instead relying on value from God alone, who loves us before we could ever deserve it.
But as I continued through ORB, I had this nagging feeling -- is ORB just glossing over parts of the Bible to fulfill some hippie-loving agenda? I mean, almost all the other Christians I had been exposed to, especially on the TVs, said something more like this: God is a far away dude in the clouds, and life was one big test to get to him. If you do the right things or believed the right stuff, you get to be with the righteous club, and if you do the wrong things, you’re in the sinners club. So you worked your whole life to be with God when you died, and there would be endless slushies and chocolate.
Did the Bible really talk about getting our worth from God and not other people like ORB said, or was that self-help nonsense? Plus, I still had my suspicions from my atheist days – there’s no way the Bible measures up rationally. What does Genesis really say about creation? What about all the inconsistencies throughout? What about the barbaric rock-throwing stuff I heard about in Leviticus? How could God have “written” it? What about the genocides in the Bible? Why are there genocides NOW? Is the character of Jesus and the New Testament, emphasizing grace and mercy, REALLY consistent with the Old Testament?
ReplyDeleteThese are the questions I had from the beginning. And I was a lot more oriented toward skepticism than acceptance. I knew a little bit about the different sources that wrote different parts of the Bible, that there were factual inconsistencies. But even more than that, I honestly was afraid because I thought the Bible was going to be a lot more conservative and hateful and “send thee to HEEELL!!!” than ORB taught.
And then I started reading.
The first thing I noticed was how little the Bible talked about the ways to get to heaven or hell. In fact, it talked very little about the afterlife. It was surprising, since every tract/televangelist/etc concentrated on that central question: “If you died tonight, what would happen to you?” But the Old Testament barely talked about any idea of afterlife, heaven or hell, save a reference to the resurrection of the dead in Daniel. The New Testament had a handful of direct passages about your actions determining the afterlife, but they also had much more passages about the resurrection of the dead, and creation becoming new, things that were never portrayed in Christian culture.
Jesus talked a lot about the poor and what you do with your money – wasn’t surprising, but it was nice to see that was true. But He also talked a lot about the “coming of God’s kingdom” and, especially in John, about Himself being God.
In Paul, I wasn’t surprised to see some harsh talk; I vaguely knew it was in Paul where a lot of confusing stuff on women, slaves, and homosexuality are. But I was surprised to see many spots where he was harshest and most passionate. In the beginning of Galatians, he tears into Peter, but not because he accepted the wrong people, but because he wasn’t inclusive enough to the Gentile Christians! In 1 Corinthians, he is angry that there are divisions in the group – he would rather see peace and love among the community. In 1 Corinthians 5, he advocates that the community should be extra harsh – but explicitly NOT toward non-believers! In fact, it’s toward self-righteous believers who do the wrong thing that Paul is harsh with.
I knew Christians were about sharing possessions, but it excited me when I read Acts for the first time and say that Luke’s ideal Christian community looks more like a hippie socialist commune than I could have dreamed of. I was filled with joy at James’ straight-up class warfare and advocacy for the poor. I found out later that the book Philemon was about Paul equating a slave as a “brother” and subtly calling for his freedom. And throughout the New Testament I saw page after page advocating God’s followers to love others the way God loved them.
ReplyDeleteI followed a similar path that you did and read OT passages at the same time. And here is when I was most guarded and most skeptical. I came in thinking that this could hurt my faith, confronting a barbaric people advocating barbaric things in non-historical fashion.
I noticed immediately the two different contradictory creation stories. But then it shocked me how poetic both seemed, and that they both spoke to each other and felt equally true.
And I also noticed that God seemed a lot more merciful that I was expecting. Maybe it was because of low expectations – I started reading knowing that people called the OT God super-vengeful. But in the OT, if you take the stories for what they are, God seems to commit many unwarranted acts of mercy. He clothes Adam and Eve before they leave. He protects the murderer Cain before he leaves. Abraham is blessed with a crazy promise for no particular reason. God rescues Israel out of Egypt not because of anything they did but because of God’s irrational love for them. He keeps propping up a Judge for them despite the idol worship.
Even Leviticus and Deuteronomy shocked me. There were multiple laws that explicitly called for service and goods to the widows and orphans. The law requiring farmers to leave some of their harvest for the poor to pick off freely would never fly in capitalist America today. And adjusting for the cultural norms, I noticed many laws specifically designed to protect women, and came to learn that these were revolutionary at the time.
Now, of course, there was also much that troubled me. The Joshua genocides are the most obvious. Many of the Genesis accounts seems too far-fetched to begin to be thought of as real in any sense. Genesis in general seems to be operating in a vacuum compared to what we know about ancient civilization. What’s up with the ark of the covenant killing a guy for tripping? Why do so many Leviticus laws end in stoning? Why did God want circumcision and other nonsensical acts as a sign of his covenant?
ReplyDeleteBut as I read through the OT, I saw that the book felt unified by a powerful larger narrative – a God who loved his Creation, and kept chasing after it even as His people turned away again and again. And this narrative of his rescuing the whole world back into His rule through ancient Israel, as strange and foreign as it was to my Enlightenment-filled brain, was too compelling to let go. If God really was this interested in maintaining his relationship with us, then I wanted to know this God. The OT God is so passionate, so full of emotion, prone to jealous rage like a hurt lover.
It makes sense to me that the OT God and Jesus are the same God. Jesus’ grace and compassion isn’t removed and stoic. It is grounded in all the emotion of Israel’s story – no wonder Jesus weeps so much.
I don’t know if I have any end point to this. Maybe part of it is to convey that the perspective and background you bring to the Bible makes a difference. Maybe it’s to say having a church community surrounding me definitely helps as I read it. I definitely believe that we were meant to be Christians in church communities, and that includes reading Scripture. Maybe it’s just to show that you can go from skepticism back to believing, if you want to do that. And plus, you can use your God-given reason to acknowledge the “inconsistencies” out loud and still have a faith in Christ. In fact, the more I learned, the more freeing it was to understand that the Bible was never meant to be read like a one genre science text book.
I hope this helps in some way, and it’s always good to hear from you.
Chris
How odd that I haven't so much as glanced at this blog in countless months but woke up this morning knowing I had to visit it. (My family would say, "That's not odd, that's God!")
ReplyDeleteThough my heart hurt while reading this entry, I absolutely understand where you're coming from. I've been "on the fence" for as long as I can remember, having attended ORB in high school then infrequently for years, with very little Christian influence in between. I never experienced the supernatural or anything that would undoubtably reveal the presence of God in my life.
Until I was hit by a car and could have died but didn't. Things have been a bit different since then.
I haven't read your entire blog, so I'm not sure if you've touched on this, but I would encourage you to meditate on times in your life that seemed like crazy coincidences. They don't have to be as intense as near-death experiences but even little things that really didn't make any sense but happened anyway. That's where I find God. And that's where I know that regardless of the questions I have about the Bible and faith in general, that He is real and holy smokes, He must love me! (Psst - He still loves you, too. Actually, super big time for reflecting & revealing all that you have here)
The irony of my life is that after 25 years of being a non-believer, I now can't get enough of God. I've begun reading the Bible for the first time, have been applying for jobs within ministry and will be at my first ORB high school group as a leader tonight. You were on my mind this morning because I started a blog yesterday (http://standoutscripture.blogspot.com) heavily influenced by your decision to start yours.
I am actually thrilled that you posted this entry so candidly. What a blessing for us readers to be able to connect with you in a deeper way! I hope and pray that your life and marriage are overflowing with love and happiness :)