A Safer Space

This month has been pretty interesting with respect to this journey. Easter came and went and I didn't even really notice, except that my mom asked me if I was going to dinner at Granny's. That usually means a major holiday is on the horizon. Then I considered appealing to my boss that we should be allowed to leave work early on Good Friday since it was an important day to Christians and all. I decided that I couldn't effectively pull that one off, as she knows where I am in terms of re-evaluating my belief system as much as anyone who's in contact with me these days.

I have had quite a few interesting conversations with people about religion and what they believe. One such conversation was with someone I know who considers herself Pagan. She is an atheistic Pagan (as I have learned that there is great diversity among Pagans). This conversation led me to put feet to my notion that I was in the process of learning about other religions. I've been saying that that was something I've been working on in this journey, but the truth is that I bought a couple of books and I haven't really read them yet, or done much else for that matter. In the middle of my conversation with her I googled "Unitarian Universalism". I figured this would be my best shot at a one stop shop to learn a little about a variety of different belief systems and thereby compare them to my own to evaluate what I really hold to and what I'm not so sure about. It seemed like a safe enough place to question my own Christian beliefs, even if I don't agree with the beliefs of the others around me. I decided to give them a try.

The service felt just like church. The congregation I went to was rather traditional in that the place looked like a church, there was a minister and a choir and song books...you know, like church. The Sunday I went was a special music service, so basically the choir was in charge of the whole shebang. They sang songs from different traditions and the choir director gave the historical context for each song, as well as the spiritual components that each song highlighted. I think most of the songs were Christian, as I knew a whole bunch of them. One was an African-American spiritual. I remember there was one from Costa Rica; I think it was from an earth-based tradition. There were a couple that weren't in English, one in particular was from an African tradition. There were interesting concepts in each of them and the connection between them was the concept of Spirit.

I didn't exactly know what to make of it when I left and I'm not sure I know now. I don't know that I want to be a Unitarian Universalist, but I do want to be in that space right now while I work through my own theology. (Yes, I am sure that it is a theology, because I am certain that I believe in God.) I need to be around people who have their own beliefs, but aren't dogmatic about them. Dogmatism annoys me, especially among Christians who keep saying the same things over and over again that I already know. I know what Christians believe. I know the spectrum of Christian beliefs. My journey at the moment is to decide which (if any) of them I believe.

Belief systems are inherited. We aren't born with one, it is shaped for us from our environment--our families, friends, those things to which we are exposed. I am certain that I became Christian because I was raised by Christians. I would have been Buddhist had I been raised by Buddhists. Anyone raised to believe that their belief system is "the truth" to the exclusion of all else will accept that teaching as true. I think I'm a late bloomer with regard to questioning that reality, and I believe it's largely because of exposure. I've always been around Christians. I've never spent any time getting to know anyone who holds to fundamentally different beliefs, who has a different idea of what truth is. I'm getting to know those people now, and while I've heard plenty of things that I am sure I don't and can't believe, I know it is a necessary and responsible exercise for me at the moment.

I offer this example. In my process of de-constructing my Christian beliefs, I am stuck at evaluating what I believe about the person of Christ. At the moment I am caught up on the doctrine of the Virgin Birth. It has always been a pretty incredible (in the unbelievable sense) part of the story for me. I have a difficult time believing it, regardless of what I believe about God and what he is able to do. I don't think I have questioned it because I have always thought that believing the Bible means that I have to find a way to make it all fit in my mind, or just accept what I don't understand (or believe, really) "by faith". Well, when one makes the decision to lay all beliefs aside and build them back up one by one, it's interesting when you don't rebuild them in the same order they were taught to you. I haven't dealt with what I believe about the Bible yet. So, my beliefs about it don't get to dictate my beliefs about the stories it contains. So, here I am with a story I don't believe that (to many Christians) is fundamental to whether or not one believes in Christ's deity. I don't necessarily see it that way. But it doesn't matter at the moment, as I haven't gotten to the deity of Christ anyway. I'm still working on how I believe he got here. I do believe he got here, by the way.

During a discussion about the virgin birth a cute 12 year old chimed in to offer his 2 cents ($20.00 in my book) to the conversation. He mentioned that the virgin birth that we were discussing isn't the only time people of faith have believed that a deity has impregnated a mortal. He rattled off a list of Greek and Roman gods who have the same fame. I thought he made a brilliant point. What makes Christianity's virgin, god-mortal birth any different than the Greek and Roman ones? Same mythology repeating itself? There was a time in Europe's and America's lovely Christian history when I would have been burned at the stake for such a suggestion. But you know, as well as most Christians can innumerate the atrocities done in the name of Allah, they seem to be completely oblivious to those done in the name of Christ. I don't think that statement validates one faith or the other. It's just an observation, just like the god-mortal pregnancy parallel.

I don't have any more answers today than I did a month ago and I'm perfectly fine with that. I don't think this process will be a speedy one. I don't want it to be. I have been inclined along the way to just give up and stick with the tried and true because it's less exhausting than all of this. But I can't go through the motions as a Christian any more. If I give up in this journey, I'll give up and be nothing before I give up and return to my default just because it's what I "know". I was invited to a conference next weekend about making the church relevant to 20 and 30 somethings. I have read one book by one of the guys who's speaking at the conference, Don Miller. It should be interesting, but I think I am going to feel like an outsider. I'm not so sure an outsider will have much to contribute to an internal discussion. Do I think I'm an outsider among Christians? No. But I think most Christians would think I am if they knew my questions and lack of conclusions to this point. It will be interesting to see how I feel in that space. There have been moments in this journey that have gripped me and convinced me of my faith in God. I'm wondering if the same will happen with regard to faith in Christ. We shall see. It should be interesting.