Faithless

My friends, I feel that I have left a part of myself in my past, to be remembered fondly but to be a part of me no more. It is here that I shall attempt to articulate what that means, perhaps in what may be a surprising manner to some. As always, I write to respectfully cause cognitive dissonance in myself and others, so please take any harsh language in such a context, and please disagree with me or come to me personally if you are concerned.

To those close to me that did not see this coming: I'm sorry. I do not mean to cause you any sort of surprise or distress, and I want to talk about this if you are those things. Please accept that some things go better in writing than they do in spoken words for me, and that this could no longer stay inside, bottled up, without making me burst from the pressure. I must be who I am. I know you understand.

It is not often that I use media to make a point on this blog. I, in fact, try to avoid it whenever possible. It is precisely because of this trend that I beg your indulgence today. I will attempt to describe what I need to, but the visuals and music in this video make it much simpler.

If that doesn't load very well for you or you didn't feel like watching it, here is how I must describe things.

I was alone in the desert, left behind, and I was offered a reprieve from my loneliness. All I had to do was truly embrace the life of faith. The price for that was my hope, dreams, and intellect. I fought hard against this price for a very long time.

"Hope is truly found in this life," said I, "just look at the cool glass of water that's been poured for me! I shall never go thirsty for the hope of a bright future." And yet, what kind of a future was I offered? There was the promise that all things would be reconciled, that the ideal of a world without war would exist, but those of faith differ wildly on such things, and church history is replete with war, ostracization, and excommunication. How could these things possibly add up to the kind of Love that Bell wrote about in "Love Wins" or Manning wrote about in "The Ragamuffin Gospel"? That furious love, that unstoppable grace that even the traditional conception of hell could not stand against. And yet, I was told, hell does exist, enemies do exist, and the hope I was offered came with a price...us vs them. Or perhaps more eloquently...us trying to save them. Why then, have I never felt a need to save anyone? Why have I never met a "them"? All of the hope I found was found in people, and eventually in myself. The hope I was offered was nihilism wrapped up in theism.

I dreamed of being something special. In fact, I was told I would be so from a very young age. I was told I would change the world, that I would be one of the people that made faith sensical and rational and compassionate. Why does it need to be made these things if God's work was complete? The answer, of course, was that we are in process. "Dreams," I said, "are sourced from God, for from Him all good things come." So I kept looking up, kept looking outward, kept exploring. What I've found is a universe where life is not static, but dynamic. Love is not a binary, but a journey. Our race is not the center of the universe, but a part of it that we create the meaning of. More and more evidence mounts every day that life on this planet is expressed in many forms rather than species after their own kind, and that active respect is necessary for all of it if we as a race are to even survive. I was never taught this, and so it seems odd to even say. My dreams of being some kind of religious revolutionary began to seem extremely small compared to what the universe is and what humanity is in it. From this, I realized that I am special, and I am so because I choose to be who I am, every day.

My intellect, or perhaps my thoughts, have been what's guided me through so much in life. Every situation thoughtfully analyzed, every concept making sense, and every experience noted. "True philosophy," I said, "comes about naturally from the correct presuppositions and correct ways of thinking. If God is the source of this, then it is ordered in an understandable way, and it is how to understand the mind of God." So I continued to read, I continued to theorize and understand, and I have only begun to see the way logic runs in circles, presuppositions seem to come out of thin air and are deconstructed just as easily, and philosophies are like waves in the ocean. Why does one wave matter when you have the entirety of the ocean to see? Enjoy that wave, ride it or go through it, and move forward. You may be going through it while another person is riding it, but your positions will be switched around before you know it, when the next wave comes. It can't be taken so seriously that you can't play at points or enjoy yourself.

So it all began to feel wrong. If faith truly was a reprieve from loneliness, then why was I living like a reject in darkness, and why were my pursuits so adamantly rejected by most of those I spoke with? Even the "Christian philosophers" I spoke to seemed to disagree with and reject me when it was needed. The agenda began to become apparent to me, and I began to change as a result.

"Just go back to sleep," they said, as the rag was placed over my mouth. The abuse was real, as I was silenced in every way possible, and I felt that it was warranted. Truly, my mind was bent and my heart was twisted in such a real sense that I am still recovering from it. "I deserve this," said I, "for I have failed. I am human, and I just don't understand something." However, the haunting truth was that I really believed that they were the ones that were wrong, and that their religion was not representative of my own faith, despite the realization I would only come to later that what they represented was so connected to what I did that a true revolution was impossible. The presuppositions were too rigid. This is why those in religions that are out to cause real change are always referred to as "radical," meaning back to the roots, or "reforming," similarly meaning returning to the true nature of that religion.

Some say that a sufficiently disciplined mind can compartmentalize contradictory pieces of information. I believed, truly, that I was correct because I was called to be special by God, and that I was also worthless, useless, and alone. For some reason, these things went together into a martyrdom I can only describe as capture-bonding. This is more well-known as Stockholm Syndrome.

What happens when a person endures this for long enough? They break. They either become a complete shell of who they were, accepting the continual abuse of their soul placidly, or they develop a problem with the authority so casually invading their very person, and they decide they've had enough. My study of church history took this to a whole new level, as I realized that Christianity, the faith I was raised to believe in, came about from some incredibly violent historical circumstances, and that this abuse of people had been taking place since the very beginning. My study of the hero archetype of Jesus was the last piece of this puzzle, and it made the claim that the story of Christ was more important than the historical reality of his existence (or non-existence) make a lot of sense. If I may borrow from one of my favorite shows, "all of this has happened before, and it will all happen again." If the story of Christ was not unique, and the story of the church is a power struggle like many others, with the occasional idealistic and great figure emerging to make it about good things, then what is unique to the faith I was raised in, morally, historically, theologically, philosophically, politically, or in any other way?

It all comes down to a question: who do you trust?

Once again, we are back to people. The people I trust are of all different faiths, all different backgrounds, and they are all so uniquely human.

So the last great lie I was sold that I had to reject, "the smile when you tore me apart," was that I am, and am meant to be, alone. I am not meant to be alone. I do not know if God exists or if he does not, but every religious experience I have had so far I can soundly attribute to people. Whether that is authority, friendship, love, public experiences of "worship," or family, I can attribute the things that move my soul to people, and to people alone.

My friends, I must confess that I am tired of imposing loneliness on myself, and I refuse to do it anymore. I love people, and they frustrate me so much sometimes because I believe that we can be better. No one thing can cause this, but I wish to become better by listening, by being open with people, by learning, by arguing, by discussing and philosophizing and enjoying music and art and literature and absurdity and laughter and beauty. I wish to grieve with others, to be a conduit for comfort to the hurt and the downtrodden, and to be a voice of realism to those that feel they must continue to hurt themselves to be acceptable. It is so unnecessary.

I can no longer say I have faith in the supernatural God that I was raised to believe in. What does this make me? I have no idea at the moment, other than to say that I am still the same person I have always been. I am still a critical thinker, I am still absurd and awkward and hilarious, and I am still something of an idealist. I still respect the possibility of a god, but I also deeply respect agnosticism, pantheism, atheism, polytheism, monotheism, and those who don't want to bother with any definition or framework to represent their thoughts. This is because they represent something to the people who believe in them, and that fascinates me.

So faithless I may be, but that does not mean I am different or have lost my ideals. If a god does exist that I will meet one day, it is the person I am that he will see, and judge, if that is even what will happen. However, I choose to live like I have one life, and I wish to make it count in real ways.

The Morality of Atheism and Theism: Science, Religion, and Progress

Some say the universe came into existence through a rapid expansion, a "Big Bang." Some say that it began with a single Word from God, in creativity and joy. Some say it began with a conflict between multiple gods, through war and strife. Some say the universe has always existed and perpetually will exist.

The origin and nature of humanity has been attributed to many thing as well. The prevailing scientific theory is one of Abiogenesis and Evolution, life arising from inorganic matter and continuously evolving. The religious would say that humanity was created spontaneously by God and is a spiritual as well as physical being. Others would say that we are spirits and all of the physical world is incidental, that we are spirits inhabiting physical bodies, awaiting freedom at death. To be absent from the body is to be present with God. Some make no claims about the origin of man, stating that they simply do not know.

In general, people are theistic or they are atheistic. There are gods or a single God, or there are no gods. A god is usually defined as a being that is above humanity, or as the greatest possible being. Supernatural, with power beyond what humans have, and usually immortal or possessing an ascension beyond death and usually the laws of the physical world. Many cultures have had conceptions of gods, and the Abrahamic religions are the major monotheistic ones (Islam, Judaism, Christianity). Christianity is peculiar in that it, for the most part, includes the doctrine of the Trinity, that God exists in three person, who are united in one essence. This is commonly subject to the accusation of being polytheistic by the other Abrahamic religions.

The only reason I don't speak about polytheistic religions is because I don't know them as well. I would like to remedy that through study of various theology, culture, and mythology, as I think they're very interesting. However, for now I speak of monotheistic religion.

Religion has evolved over the years, and some link it with the continued voice of ignorance and lack of progress. Unfortunately, this is often correct. The most frequent disparity is between the voice of science and the voice of religion. Indeed, you can probably see this in what I've written about so far. Scientific theories stand apart from religious theories regarding creation, the origin and nature of man, and the nature of the universe as prevalently atheistic. This is because the existence of gods have not been evidentially proven. The reason for this is because science is by nature materialistic and empirical. That is, it is about what can be observed and proven through testing and the scientific method.

I think it is fascinating that a type of morality has grown around the scientific method in our culture. Combined with the abuses that are easily observable from the major religions, science has become more than just a method; it's become an epistemological stance. Citing my own religious orientation as a reference, one need only read my past month of posts to note that Christianity, as I and many others have experienced it, is abusive, manipulative, destructive, and ignorant. Much of this can be traced back to theological beliefs, as practice naturally flows out of belief. You may believe that sexism and racism is contrary to your beliefs, but if you hold them dear and find yourself being sexist and racist more often than not, then it's possibly you are incorrect. The problem, of course, comes from the fact that your beliefs are inherently unique and informed by your experiences. This is the problem of speaking about religion: no two religious individuals are precisely the same in belief.

Regardless, the moral stance of the religious often flows from commands of their deity or from implications within religious writings. The morality that seems to be developing from the movement around the scientific method is an allegiance to the truth. Which of these is a higher morality? If a deity does exist, then are they not the same thing? It is comforting to think that a being with higher morality can direct our paths, because we often don't have a clue what's going on in our lives. Or perhaps that's just me.

In any case, the natural conclusion is that our actions matter. The epistemic stance of the culture of science is that we must always progress, the method leads us forward into truth and enlightenment, and that there is no evidence thus far of anything higher evolved than man. Humanism is what we are now speaking about, because you must believe yourself to be capable of finding the truth and with a moral responsibility to move in that direction. Evidence based epistemology is admirable for its' allegiance to the truth, but it makes several assumptions. Namely, humanity is nearly god-like in humanism. No, I'm not saying humanists are egotistical maniacs. I'm saying that humanity is able to see the simple truth and that reductionism is a natural extension of that, that nothing emerges from the evidence that is beyond our comprehension, because there is nothing else. The problem with this is that if there is more than what we can prove, then the system is merely progressive and can not lend itself to claims about things beyond its' method.

In other words, the theory of evolution is a most excellent theory regarding the origin of man. However, to then move into extreme atheism from this point does not follow, as one has not scientifically tested the universe in its' entirety (whether we're speaking of the vastness or the amount of things we have yet to understand), and a negative is not a provable premise without a comprehensive knowledge. In other words, God has not been proven to exist, but that does not mean He does not exist.

That also does not mean He does exist. It is simply not provable at this time. This is why I respect atheism as a stance. It lends itself to honesty and to asking questions, which religion often does not comply with.

The simple fact is, the term atheist simply refers to one belief. There is no God. It is not faith, it is the inverse. There is no evidence, so there is no God. Theism is the opposite (obviously). There is no evidence, therefore God transcends our evidence. Both, however, are beliefs.

This is why the divide between the atheist and the theist has lost a lot of its' meaning. There are philosophical implications of both beliefs, but they are both presuppositions. To judge a presupposition, one must ask themselves what the implications are and whether or not it is true, or compliant with reality as we know it. We must, in a sense, use epistemic, scientific, and intuitive methods for measuring our presuppositions, as none are adequate on their own.

This leads to a whole litany of questions. If there is a God, then where is He? Why is there evil if a being is powerful enough to prevent it? Why is there anything good at all if this God is evil? If there is no God, how do we explain the spiritual aspect of our lives? Are we merely evolving to a higher state of being? Is something more emerging from humanity, or has it been there all along, as the existence of religions would imply? What's the point of what I do? How can what I do not matter if it affects others and the universe?

We're all trying to understand and find meaning, but some have stopped and they think this is all there is. Their religion/stance/culture/morality is the endpoint, and they become militant while others are still asking questions, still trying to understand, still learning.

Where do I stand between science and religion? I answer yes to this question. They address two different things, evidence and intuition. The material reality and the spiritual reality. They are not so different, and they bleed over into each other. Why else would we have stories, and why else would I and those like me, as young children, go outside and look at the stars and wonder what else is out there?

I asked in my previous post why it matters what I believe and what I think. In a sense, I am merely a small being theorizing on a random blog with a few readers that hopefully benefit by cognitive dissonance. In another sense, I'm asking questions that my race is asking in its' global culture. We cannot escape from the morality and the implications of our actions and beliefs, and as a Christian, I once again come back around to saying that I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what my religion has done, for the ignorance it has promoted, for the harm it has done. What is important is to move forward from that, progress, and do better. That is the nature of repentance, and it's what I and those like me strive for. This goes beyond religion to being a person open to truth, being an explorer, and giving respect to what is around you and demanding that respect in return.

Why I am not a Western Christian: Rome, Nietzsche, and Protestantism

I've written over the past month about my history with religious institutions and movements, and where all of that has led me. I think it's fair to say that at this point I am a mix of conflicted sentiments, beliefs, logical claims, and emotions for that matter. It's difficult for me to sort through all of these things when I'm trying to talk to others about these things, and it becomes even more difficult when they have strong claims. Most of the time when an atheist tells me they can't take Christianity seriously for almost any reason, I agree. Usually there is some kind of straw man involved, as usually when people oppose something, it is because they are hurt. For me there is no escape from that. However, I believe that it's beneficial to call out one straw man in particular, even while agreeing with the reactions I often hear in the same breath.

What this means is that when someone tells me that Christianity has been responsible for a lot of killing, hurting, and obscuring of the truth, and that there are a lot of ignorant people spouting Christianity, my response tends to be two-fold. First of all, and this is usually the only response I have time to give, I agree and can only say I'm sorry. My particular convictions lead me toward the term Christian, and so I am truly sorry for all of the people doing stupid things and forcing inane beliefs on others that use the same term. It aggravates me that I'm even associated with some of them, and it's hard to see the ones that are reasonable and good people when you've been hurt by the unreasonable ones taking cheap shots and being generally dishonorable and destructive.

Secondly, I believe that this portrayal of Christianity requires nuance, at the very least. I don't blame anyone for thinking that Christianity is only its' Western expression, because I live in the west and most of the Christianity that people have experienced has been western in nature. What this means is that the Christianity people react against is at once influenced by the modernist, Enlightenment era thought, and it is usually reacting to it. A good example of this is how the Catholic Church often makes claims and takes stances on contemporary issues like abortion, the political conflict surrounding homosexuality, contraceptives, and generally will makes its' voice known coming from their "faith centered" perspective. For the devout Catholics, their faith runs through every bit of their lives through various expressed opinions and actions, and their politics and social activism are greatly affected by their theology and spread through their church's power.

Another good example of Western Christianity is the "Moral Majority." I shudder to even bring this group up because of how offensive they are. To put it simply, this movement served to take Conservative Christianity into the political realm and bring about change by outlawing abortion in all cases, oppose any governmental acceptance of homosexuals, promote a "traditional" view of family life, and target non-Christians for conversion (Evangelical activism). The Moral Majority was nearly a theocratic movement, seeking to make the US Government Christian (or return it to its' Christian roots if you ask them).

It is on this second point I wish to focus. How can I call myself a Christian and be revolted and enraged by much of contemporary Christianity?

The movements mentioned are only examples of the way Christianity has evolved in the past few centuries. Indeed, this extends far beyond Evangelical Christian Conservatives and Roman Catholics. This sort of wide sweeping agenda has been happening for centuries. Rome has been this way since the schism from the East a millenium ago, and they've evolved ever since, constantly adapting to culture and being a voice on relevant issues, reasoning from their core theology and often speculating. The Pope's "Ex Cathedra" (infallible while speaking on matters of Doctrine) has assisted with their development. The Protestant Reformation in the 16th Century reacted to the abuses of Rome and demanded a reform of the church to do away with malpractice and corrupt theology. This eventually lead to another schism of the church, and many more to follow.

Protestantism came about around this time, and they distinguished themselves from Rome with doctrines like the Solas and several different fundamental summations of beliefs. In general, the way Protestantism has come to distinguish itself is by the reliance on the Bible as its' sole source of authority, justification by faith alone, and the priesthood (some would say papacy) of all believers. What this means is that a Protestant believes that the Bible is the authoritative source of truth, salvation and justification from Original Sin (I'll get to this in a minute) comes by faith in Christ alone, and the responsibility of all Christians to act in a governing manner in the church from their reading of Scripture.

Protestantism distinguished itself from Rome by moving away from the apostolic succession of the priesthood, probably because of a denial of Papal authority in all matters of doctrine. In other words, since the Bible was now seen as the ultimate source of authority as opposed to Rome's traditions and the authority of the pope, the Bible was theoretically the Pope's replacement. In addition, priests in a Protestant Church were now every member, with a preacher in a loose leadership role. Some protestant churches use deacons, and some use elders, but this is purely for loose ecclesiastical use, as opposed to Rome's authoritative priesthood and ultimately authoritative pope. The protestant is solely responsible for their own faith, and though "good works" are seen as beneficial, they are not seen as necessary in Protestantism. "You will know a tree by its' fruit" has come to mean that you will probably see some sign that a person is saved, but Protestantism sharply reacts against Rome's "works based" Salvation. The Protestant generally shuns the Sacraments as means of Grace, usually preferring to call them ordinances or specific things like the Lord's Supper/Communion or Baptism.

Protestantism kept to their Roman roots in some other ways, however. They kept the doctrine of Original Sin as taught by Augustine, which teaches that all of humanity sinned in Adam, and so we are all guilty and subject to judgment from birth. This has lead to Calvin's emphasis and eventual teaching of predestined Election of the saved, as well as to some odd teachings like the "Age of Accountability," which teaches that before someone can make the intellectual decision to be saved, they are essential saved by their own "innocence." In Rome's case, Original Sin lead to the dogma of Immaculate Conception, which taught that Mary was born free of Original Sin, which allowed for Christ's birth of Mary, a Virgin, without it. More on Original Sin in a moment.

In a way, Protestantism has also largely held onto the legalistic views of Rome by way of their Salvation narrative. In general, Salvation is seen as an intellectual acknowledgment of one's broken and unsaved state to God, and an acceptance of Christ's death as the payment for their sin. From that point, the Protestant is now legally justified in the sight of God, saved by faith alone. Some say they can fall away from this faith given an adequate rejection of Salvation, and some say they never can. Still others say that if the Christian's salvation is rejected, they were never saved in the first place, as the predestined will persevere to death and the end of time.

What I hope you are noticing in what I'm saying here is that Western Christianity has come to be what people generally think about when you say the word "Christian." When I started at college, I made a Facebook group called "Catholics are Christians too!" I made this group after noting the large amount of prejudice against Roman Catholics on my college campus. It was common for someone to state that Catholics believe in dead religion and works based salvation, usually in a tone like they're cursing or about to spit on the people. I created this group because I believed that Catholics had just as much of a claim to the term "Christian" as any Protestant. I bring this up because often people would ask me if I am Catholic. When I said no, they'd be confused, and ask if I was Protestant. Only two options were present for them, Catholic and Protestant, with Protestant usually meaning "Christian." Obviously, not all Protestants are this way. However, it is important to note that the movement of Protestantism itself started from dissatisfaction from Rome that lead to a schism and pointed reactions against Rome's theology.

Roman Catholicism originally schismed from the Eastern Orthodox Church around 1054 AD. They schismed over several matters of theology and practice, but the deciding factor of the schism, in addition to Rome's assertion of the Pope (Bishop of Rome) as the prime authority of the church, was the addition of the filioque to the Nicene Creed.

Filioque. "And the Son." This was a phrase added to the Nicene Creed to make it state that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son, rather than simply the Father.

If you weren't raised in Eastern Orthodoxy or Roman Catholicism you may be asking yourself "who cares?" I know I did for a long time. The East saw this as an addition that brought undue imbalance to the doctrine of the Trinity, that God is a Tri-une God composed of the persons of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The balance of the Trinity was due to each person of the Trinity having specific roles as seen in history and due to all of them sharing the essence and nature of being God.

If you wonder why you never hear about the Holy Spirit unless you're talking to a pentecostal or someone involved in a charismatic movement, this would be the reason. The Protestant Church inherited the filioque from Rome (though they're generally not as rigorous in theology on this point, obviously), as well as the legalism inherent in the institution that can ultimately be traced to Original Sin.

"Original Sin" as a term, has been used throughout Christian history. It initially referred to the original catastrophic act that caused the brokenness of humanity. If we go back to Genesis, this act was disobeying God by eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. This was largely caused by Lucifer's corruption and subsequent deception of Adam and Eve into committing this act, which destroyed their innocence and introduced Death into the world. Original Sin came to mean that all of humanity sinned in this act, and we genetically inherit the guilt. I'm going over this again because this is important.

Fast forward to Christ (most Protestants do), and we have a righting of this wrong. One can be wiped free of this curse by accepting the sacrifice which Christ took on himself on the cross, and be resurrected from death in the same way Christ was literally resurrected. Legally, we are justified in God's sight by the Father allowing Christ to bear the entire punishment of Original Sin (the Calvinist at this point would say the punishment for only the chosen Elects' original sin).

Salvation has come to be a "get out of hell" card. People often refer to this as "fire insurance."

No, I am not kidding.

So, to come back to my original point. I think Christianity needs nuance. I agree with Nietzsche's reaction to Christianity, and I agree with the atheist's objections. Indeed, God is dead in our culture, and we have killed him. The Western religions of Christianity have the common threads of being legalistic, reductionistic, impractical, and omnidirectional/contradictory in reasoning in political, theological, and philosophical areas. God kills God to satisfy God's wrath so we can all go to paradise in the clouds or a city paved with gold. All you have to do is believe.

I am not a Western Christian because I think there is far, far more to life than this, and that we cannot rely on myth and storytelling to give us a literal picture of the future or of reality. Salvation has to mean more than this, and Christ's story has to be accepted fully rather than a grand total of 4 days of it. The Bible did not come from a vacuum or float down from the clouds in all its' perfection, and a book cannot possibly be the ultimate source of truth or the ultimate authority on life. I do not believe in Original Sin as taught in Western Christianity because I do not think people are born guilty, and do not think that this esoteric "imputed sin" is passed down through any genetic means. I do not accept the legalism that's been taught to me by the west because of this, and I do not accept the imbalanced version of the trinity that I've also been taught, where the Holy Spirit is either elaborate magic or does not exist, and Christ has primacy over other aspects of God. The question here, however, is why do I believe these things? Who cares what I accept and don't accept? Why does what I believe matter at all, in comparison to the true reality of the universe, if there is one?

Well, that's a story for another day my friends. That day will be next week, or perhaps Friday if I can swing it. Be well, and thanks for reading.

Moving Beyond Good and Evil: College, Universal Truth, and my Rejection of Evangelicalism

If there is one time in my life so far that has been key for shaping the person I was into the person I am, it would have to be my time at college. I've talked to a lot of people about this, but I think this is the first time I've actually come to have some perspective on all of those happenings.

Disclaimer: I don't portray my college or most of the religion I grew up with very well. This is by no means intended to be defamatory, it is simply what happened. You have been warned. Don't take it personally if you're involved in any of this.

Before I went to college, I had become good friends with the person I met in the 10th grade of high school. I'd go so far as to call him a mentor, which is a little odd, since he was about my age. Regardless, after my foray into public college, I decided to get a Counseling degree and to go to a Christian school. My friend decided similarly, but he'd be going for a more pastoral/theological path. So we looked at schools together, and we both decided to go to one particular Bible college in northeast Georgia. We went to their visitors session and it seemed to be a good fit, considering that we had begun to explore differing religious thoughts. This school seemed to be a cross-denominational institution that allowed for people with questions and freely exploring thought. So we decided to go there.

My first year at this school showed me how wrong my initial preconceptions of the place were. I don't know how much of my initial belief came from being lied to by the institution and how much was me needing to believe I could go somewhere and figure out who I am and what I believe, but I quickly found out that questions and exploration of religious thought was scary to most of the people at this school. I suppose I can't blame them, since I also quickly found out that they were definitely a conservative Evangelical institution. More on that later in this post.

In the first few months at this school, my friend and I became involved in the Philosophy club/department, and he ended up changing his major to Philosophy, while I stuck with Counseling. In many ways though, I interacted with the philosophy section of my school more than the counseling/psychology section. I signed up and became active on a forum for several years, declared a minor in Philosophy, and most of the people that heard of me at the school assumed my major was Philosophy.

I say that people heard of me because one of the first things my friend and I participated in was a formal debate hosted by the Philosophy Club. I reference this a lot as one of the key events of my College experience, for very good reason. The topic was the inerrancy of the original autographs of the new testament, and the club hosted this topic because we did not believe in Biblical inerrancy. I would come to term myself liberal around this time due to my religious leanings, which was a dirty word at my college, as were other things that I'd find out about later. However, for now, a definition.

Inerrancy. The belief that a book, usually religious, is without error in some way. The way my college and some conservative Evangelicals mean this term is that every word (plenary verbal) of the Bible (biblical) is inspired by God and without error (inerrancy). This runs into some problems when we consider the contradictory accounts of the gospels and the differing tones in the collection of books that is now called the Bible, not to mention the fact that the Bible did not exist until well after the death of the Apostles in the first Century.

Plenary Verbal Biblical Inerrancy rests on some references in the New Testament to "all scripture" being "God breathed," which is taken to mean inspired and inerrant. We argued against this on the grounds that the original manuscripts were no longer in existence, the contradictory accounts of the gospels, our understanding of church history and the canonization of scripture's time frame, and the simple fact that it cannot be proven. We won a pyrrhic and meaningless victory. Perhaps it would have been better if we had lost. Being freshman at a college, you can imagine our nervousness at being up in front of a lot of people at the school, including professors and board members and students and various others associated with the school, and debating against upper-classmen on a topic that 99% of the room disagreed with us about. That said, we obviously did very well bringing forward our argument to win the debate. We won on the grounds that we called out the circularity of the positive side in their reasoning and on the presentation of our argument in a logical and consistent manner.

We then spoke to the moderator of the debate in front of the audience about why we really believe our position and the implications for it, and then were presented with the results. The judge presenting our win corrected the positive team's error in reasoning to show that we were wrong by asserting that they did not escape circularity by claiming apostolic authority, and then a week later in the school paper there was a two part article by two of the judges about why our position is wrong, sub-Christian, and borderline heretical.

If you know me, you know that this caused me to do the exact opposite of falling in line with what I was supposed to believe. This also gave me a reputation that would stick with me for the entirety of my time at the school, as my friend left Christianity and the school shortly after to explore other options in life and religion. I never did renounce Christianity, though I did come very close following these events.

What followed was me trying to figure out some things, being told to have faith by a lot of people (apparently meaning to believe something despite reason), and generally stumbling around reading things and having conversations with people. I made some very good friends in college, and there was the standard social drama that came along with having a group of friends and with the college you attend being much closer to a small Christian high school experience than an academic institution.

We were required to go to chapel every week, 3 times a week and to attend a small group every Thursday at my school. I did this begrudgingly, and often I was put on "chapel probation" due to not attending chapel enough, which I had to work off by doing chapel summaries (watching a video of the chapel message and summarizing it to turn in) and by adequately attending chapel the next semester of school. I attended a few small groups, and ended up attending a really excellent one with some great people in charge of it. We'd go through some material and talk about it, then most of the time end up talking about our lives and praying for each other. Regardless of religious conviction, I find this small group to be one of the best things that happened to me at that school, as it was often then only time during the week besides hanging out with friends that I felt like people cared.

The administration of my school changed several times as well, and this was connected to a movement in evangelical Christianity called the Emerging Church. This movement is hard to define, but I got into it for several years in college. Basically, the Emerging Church as a movement has no set theology, and is a movement that embraces Postmodern culture. It is friendly to questions (which I desperately needed at the time), and loosely embraced Christianity as a very good story. Postmodernism, at its' core, is skeptical of metanarratives, which are stories that explain life. The Emerging Church is part of this, but in general seeks conversational change and community minded thought as opposed to a strict theological adherence and foundational epistemology. Confused yet? So was everyone else.

What this practically meant at my school was that people became opposed to each other. Some would hold fast to "true Christianity" and be conservative Evangelicals and call the "postmodern" section of the students liberal and heretical. The Emerging Church people would respond by saying they are shutting down conversation and would ask for definition. What this meant for me is that I generally sided with the Emerging Church movement, and I came to become very sensitive to the repeated accusation directed at me of "heretic."

I was told by many students and professors that I was a "false teacher" and that I was destroying other peoples' faiths, and somehow I was never kicked out of the school. To this day, I still don't know why I wasn't, and I can only conclude that the administration change (which caused a lot of people to get fired) may have been part of it. When the administration changed to a more "postmodern friendly" group of people, we were all required to sign a community covenant based on accountability and conversation with others. A lot of punishment for breaking school rules was abolished (including having to do some work on campus for free for most offenses, including failing room check), and in general, either you were talking to someone in administration or were kicked out of the school if you were in trouble. A lot of people were kicked out for things like drinking or clear violations of school rules. One of my friends was kicked out for repeated violation of the chapel policy. Somehow, I was still not kicked out, though I was now very frequently on "chapel accountability."

As often happens with movements like this, the administration went the other way after the chaos of the initial change and chose to follow a more moderate path. This was after 3 years. My experience at this time was being called heretical, fighting with people over things, having a few experiences with dating, having some good friends I could talk to, being basically infamous at the school, having to do a lot of the "free work" policy, and generally chaos around my beliefs. My friend who'd left the school wanted me to leave Christianity to explore some other religious movements more in line with gnosticism (which is ironic since a lot of American Evangelicalism is basically gnostic in practice), my friends were every which way, and the administration basically considered me unsaved, as did most of the rest of the school that didn't know me personally. Having a reputation is annoying.

I did not even try to figure out anything from all of this chaos. It was simply impossible. I made my beliefs a personal thing and stopped talking to anyone but close friends about philosophy, theology or my religious beliefs. Of course, this was hard at a school where you're basically supposed to talk about these things constantly, so I started to simply say what I needed to say to get through my classes and chapel. I began repeating to myself that no one cares what I have to say when someone's theology pissed me off or made me want to say something, and the only place I regularly went to debate topics was the Philosophy board, which I was still a part of for a time. I did that until a Professor told everyone I didn't care about the Truth, then I left. The board was hacked and taken down a while after that, and a new board was put up on the school's website for Philosophy discussion. I joined that and made a few topics. Half of my posts were deleted and I was basically told to stop talking, so I left that as well.

As the reader, you may now have one of two opinions that I can think of. You may be asking yourself why I even put up with Christianity anymore at this point and why I didn't just leave the school and say to hell with it. Good question. You may also think I should've just fallen in line with people that have more experience than me, people that were older, the majority, and wonder why I didn't just conform and learn from people. Also a good question. In either case, I think the core question is "why did you put yourself through so much of this unreasonable insanity?" I asked myself this question frequently. Here is my answer.

When I first started having some difficulty with the religion I'd been brought up with, I considered leaving it. I thought it was a fable that a lot of people believe because of culture. However, something was really bothering me about that assertion. I'm not sure if it was because of the way I was brought up or some other feeling, but I did know a few things. My family and some really really close friends have always contrasted with my terrible experiences I've had with religious institutions. They were not uniform in belief by any means. My father is Reformed, my mother has a lot of the same thoughts I do about religion, my sister is in the process of asking her own brilliant set of questions, and a lot of the people I respect have religious beliefs entirely different from mine. Some are conservative Evangelicals, some are postmodern Emerging Church, some are atheists, some don't care about movements and have their own beliefs. The common thread is that they respect every person around them. Their beliefs and claims do not take away from that respect, they don't take cheap shots at people, they don't take advantage, they're self-aware and generally respectful and well-intentioned people.

I learned from this that my religious convictions needed to align with how I treat people. I believe very deeply that every person is worthy of basic respect. They are a person, and they should not be manipulated, taken advantage of, stepped on in any way, or disregarded. This does not mean you allow yourself to be taken advantage of, it means that you do the correct thing when no one else does.

I also read a book early on in my questioning called Velvet Elvis. I was ready to leave Christianity, and a friend recommended this book by Rob Bell (who a lot of people have called a heretic for reasons that have nothing to do with reality). This book basically took things like a triune God and an inspired set of writings from the ancient near-east and interacted with them with skepticism and facts from history. It also was my introduction to narrative theology, treating something like the Trinity as a story, which I still assert is the only way it makes any sense whatsoever.

From this I learned that theology and religion have no context whatsoever outside of history, narration, and intuition. I also concluded that science and religion are two languages talking about the same thing: the universe. This would stick with me as I have interacted with the differing branches of the church, differing religions than what I grew up with, and especially different philosophies. It was very freeing because I'd been taught growing up that religion is an intellectual decision, and I absolutely refuse to ever believe that again. It interacts with logic and philosophy, but that is by no means all of what it is.

Why did I stick it out? For two reasons. First of all, I had a sense that I was in the right place at the right time. Even when my days were mostly terrible, I knew I was doing some good just by creating dissonance where uniformity is demanded. Secondly, once that time was done I wanted to finish what I started, so I put my head down and plowed through it. I graduated and promptly cut the institution out of my life completely, with the exception of the friends I made there. I believe I've visited once since then, and I never plan to again. While I enjoyed seeing some friends, I was very obviously not welcome at the institution, and I will not willingly be back there ever again. Some things belong in the past, regardless of forgiveness. It took me a long time to forgive what was done to me, but being able to do so has allowed me to see how I grew during that time and why I am who I am after going through those experiences.

From all of the chaos of transitioning from high school through my college experience, I have learned that the truth is what all people should give their allegiance to. Regardless of my particular religious beliefs, I want to know what the truth is.

All of this said, about halfway through my time at college, I basically rejected Evangelical Christianity completely.

Evangelicalism. Evangelicalism is a movement originating in early fundamentalism that initially crossed denominational Protestant lines and came to stand for a certain set of focuses and practices. The "fundamentals" of Christianity are the inspiration/inerrancy of scripture, the Virgin Birth of Christ, the belief in the Atonement for Sin by Christ's death, the bodily Resurrection of Christ, and the historical reality of Christ's miracles. They also emphasize the need for personal conversion (being "born again"), biblical authority, the death and resurrection of Christ, and the active sharing of the gospel, which can be summed up in all of the previous emphases and an intellectual decision to accept guilt for sin and Christ as the sacrifice for salvation.

Over time, Evangelicalism has become a cultural, political, and religious institution that wields a unique kind of power. I rejected Evangelicalism due to its' wielding of power for its' own ends and mainly due to rejecting its' particular theological emphases as reductionistic and imbalanced. What this means is that I came to see Evangelicalism as another movement of people looking to have control over others, using fear-based proselytization and theology with disturbing implications about God. The Evangelical God is much the same as the movement: conditional love, manipulative and capricious, and more concerned with a person's legal standing than the person itself.

The overriding reason I began to disassociate from Evangelicalism, however, is because of its' activism. I do not believe it is my place to convert any person to my faith (mainly because I'm still figuring it out). The Emerging Church redefined evangelism as conversation, and I found that I resonated with that a lot more at the time, mainly because I learn just as much from speaking with people that don't share my beliefs as they learn from me, especially when the conversation can be respectful.

So in a nutshell, Evangelicalism is a separationist movement that created its' own culture and set of values, being generally concerned with who is "in" and who is "out." Through my experience with this subculture, I began to see less and less of any real distinction between the "in" and the "out," and in many cases, I shared more values with those that the Evangelical would be attempting to evangelize with fear based tactics. Separationists are those who believe that they should stand apart from liberal Christians, who do not take theology or the Bible as literally. So obviously, I became one of the "out" in college.

Being an outsider does give one a unique perspective however. I held onto my faith through my own choice, though it was never the same after college. That, however, is a story for another day. Please note that I have a lot of friends that are Evangelicals, and even though I criticize the movement itself, I do not believe it is my place to pass judgment on the intentions of others.

Indeed, I can write about this with a critical mind only because I forgive the institutions and persons involved for the pain I went through. It is the past, but the past is something good to learn from. I'll continue my story with the rest of my college experience next week. Please leave me a comment if you have any questions or comments.