Liberal Dose of Confusion
Wednesday, November 25th, 2009
I confess I didn’t spend enough time in liberal denominations to understand the mindset of that brand of Christianity. Raised to value the truth above all, I don’t understand why spend your life praying to a God just because it makes you feel good. The abstract concepts of a Bible maybe or maybe not inspired by God escapes me. If there is no god, why bother worshiping him? This makes the truth very important to me. I want to make sure I’m not wasting my life spending hours trying to get to know something that isn’t there. Believing out of tradition without any care to whether or not it is actually true often throws me for a loop in discussions. It’s not enough of a difference that understanding it would draw me back, because I came to atheistic conclusions, not a-theological ones. But I still don’t quite grasp it. There are other things that make you feel good, give you purpose, provide meaning, so why God?
I guess the logic breaks down for me like this: The Bible may or may not be the inspired word of God, so take out the bad parts (like anti-gay, sexism, hell, etc) and explain it away as cultural or meaningless for one reason or another. But what does that leave you with? To me, it comes across that God and religion are nebulous concepts full of questions and non-answers. Answers don’t matter because it’s not about dogmatism. It’s about. . . I don’t really know what it’s about. Feelings? Traditions? Hardly seem worthy of worship to me. Those who attempt to reconcile dogma with what they know intelligently confuse me. The Bible is very dogmatic. If you don’t like it, why do you worship the God of it?
But it seems like the more liberal denominations aren’t really concerned with logic or truth as far as religion itself is concerned. They apply logic to the outside world, but for whatever reason, it seems that religion exists solely to enrich their life (fundamentalists would say that, too, but they go about it radically differently. And then they would feel guilty for feeling enriched when they are supposed to be glorifying God. It’s like the enrichment part comes in the selling points during the come to Jesus speeches, but once you’re in it, it doesn’t matter how enriched your life is–you have to sacrifice!) I don’t understand how it works, though, or why people don’t care about whether or not they’re right. I can respect them more than the others, because at least they know that not everything in the Bible makes sense. But it’s like when I say, “Well, the Bible says,” and they say, “Oh, I don’t really believe that!” I blink a few times and shut up because I don’t understand it. Catholicism really throws me for a loop because I have very little experience with Catholics, as I was part of the group that thought Catholics weren’t really Christian, and were destined for hell. The eternal kind, not the purgatory kind.
What am I missing?
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November 25th, 2009 at 1:04 am
The liberal Christian tradition I was raised in – Methodism – does believe strongly that the Bible is the inspired word of God.
They just don’t think it’s some sort of step by step instruction book for human life. Inspired, not dictated.
So they preach the stories, and the history, as stories and history; they read Epistles as being about that period of history in the church, not as if Paul is in charge of 21st Century congregations.
There’s a strong emphasis on the Gospels, and the life of Jesus, as an inspiration for life – I would have to drag out my hymnal to get the exact wording, but the affirmation when we joined our last congregation (1988) included affirming our intent, and the congregations intent to help us, use the power God gave us to bring justice to the oppressed.
Now, if I’d seen more of that in action I might have stuck with it – my grandma was a United Methodist from 1928 to 2005, and I was attending with her about once a month until she passed away.
November 25th, 2009 at 1:51 am
A lot depends on the liberal Christian denomination you are looking at – most do believe tha the Bible is the inspired word of God, but just as Jesus spoke in parables, some of the Bible is a parable too. The fundies toss out the stuff they don’t like either (ever have a cheeseburger while you were a Christian?) The Swedenborgians believe tht the Bible is all about the soul’s internal journey (as far as I understand what they are saying) so the story of Adam and Eve isn’t literally true, but it is a story about your own personal journey. Which is pretty totally cool. Orthodox and Catholics are more like Jews and Muslims in that they don’t believe in sola scriptura, they also believe in the traditions and teachings based on the Bible.
I was a liberal Christian, and I can assure you that it didn’t feel made up to me. I just didn’t think I needed to submit to some guy. I thought that following the Golden Rule, and reading the words of Jesus seriously were enough. Paul aggrivated me so I dumped him. I still love Jesus.
Anyway if you are seriously interested in exploring this, reading some Forest Church (a UU with a Christian Expression), Marcus Borg, Reinhold Niebuhr or John Spong might be interesting. Or just read Terry Waite’s Taken On Trust about the 4 years he was held in solitary confinement by Iranian militants. Its remarkable, and will show you the power of a liberal faith, as well as the power of profound forgiveness. I don’t share his beliefs, but he is a far better person than I can ever hope to be, and his belief system is what helped make him who he is.
November 25th, 2009 at 3:12 am
Laura —>”I don’t really know what it’s about. Feelings? Traditions?”
Hi Laura yes i think so.Customs and superstitions as well most likely too.And remember folks back then didnt even understand things like lightning . They were sure some supernatural being must be angry up there in the clouds,cause it looked frightning and maybe they knew of folks who had even been killed.Not understanding weather patterns,well it must have seemed to them like the drought must be punishment from gods for something like sin.they just made it all up then as they went along, just as they try making it up as they go along now too
” I blink a few times and shut up because I don’t understand it”
Yeah i find it hard to understand too..I think its all just relative to what folks personally think,like it always was. I find it funny when folks will say stuff like ” oh some things about gods is just not for us humans to know”. Im thinking oh yeah? ok hmmm . So wonder who gets to decide what supposedly thought can be known, and what supposedly cant be known?
November 25th, 2009 at 6:45 am
I think you are confusing categories here. I am not a liberal but I understand their way of thinking.
First, religion is more than just a feeling. The only people who think that religion is just a feeling are the godless. Liberals believe that without faith you cannot know love. They are correct. Love has to be more than just a feeling because the call to self-sacrifice is not a good feeling.
Liberals are inconsistent as you stated though because they understand that love is a reality outside of themselves; however, they believe that the Word of God only points us to this reality rather than being a part of that reality.
The thinking is: If you know love, that is the best person to have in our society. In otherwords, they believe that the Bible simply points us to the reality of love meaning that this reality is greater than the Bible itself.
Evangelicals on the other hand believe both in the reality of love and that the Bible is the Word of God being another expression of love to mankind. We believe they are both the same.
That is the real difference between the two so here is the breakdown
Godless: Love is a feeling (chemically created)
Liberals: Love is more than a feeling being a reality that does not depend on the Word of God. Love causes us to sacrifice self-interest.
Evangelical: Love is a reality that does depend on our knowledge of the Word of God since the Word of God is a part of that reality. Love causes us to sacrifice self-interest.
Hope that helps…
November 25th, 2009 at 7:47 am
Laura, I should also add that it is clear to me that Bob didn’t even know the basics of the Christian faith. If he understood the basics, he would have explained these fundamental things to you. It is pretty clear that you don’t understand Christianity.
I have found that people like Bob do show up who love power rather than love God. Love for Bob was about self-empowerment (self-love) which is completely opposed to the Christian faith.
The fact that you don’t have a clue on these foundational issues tells me that you certainly were not ready to be a pastor’s wife at all. You were just as prepared as Bob obviously.
You have a very sad story; however, it could have a great ending in you discovering what love really is.
The godless are clearly wrong and that is why the vast majority reject it. Love is not just a feeling as you can get good feelings by eating a Bon-Bon. Love is actually the sacrifice of your feelings out of your knowledge of a reality that is greater than yourself. Christianity gives you something to live and die for. Atheism only says you are going to die.
If Bob knew this type of love, he would have shown you great honor as a woman knowing that you have been endowed by God with great value and worth. Bob never knew the love of God since he was only looking in a mirror. Real love looks into the eyes of God.
Bob if he is a Christian is very immature and will have to grow in His knowledge of this reality. Conversion is only the beginning for a Christian because all Christians have to grow in their knowledge of the love of God that is found in Christ Jesus.
November 25th, 2009 at 7:51 am
Great insights! I appreciate it! I really do want to understand. Thanks for the clarifications and explanations!
November 25th, 2009 at 8:09 am
“The godless are clearly wrong…”
That’s a bold claim you’re making there. I’d ask you to back it up, but to be frank I’ve asked far more effusive theists than you to give me evidence of that, and they’ve all failed.
November 25th, 2009 at 8:21 am
I’d that you probably got big doses of Christian apologetics and teaching about a biblical worldview while you were a Christian. Most of that teaching just assures believers that they are right instead of convincing anyone with a different view that they are wrong.Christians typically drown their youth with this type of information so that they will not be influenced by anyone else. It pretty much either turns the young people away from the faith or closes their minds to the rest of the world. It’s very focused on truth and being right about that truth.
Although I can’t pretend to speak for liberal Christians, I don’t think that they spend much time on this psuedo-intellectual indoctrination. They just don’t seem to be very interested. Although they believe what they believe, they just don’t seem to think that being right is the most important thing the same way that fundamentalists and evangelicals do.
My experience?
The best piece of advice I ever got in my whole life was this: “No one cares that you are right.”
I know that is hard to believe – it was hard for me – but it is true. Not only do people not care if I am right, being right about something is not always the most important thing.
Case in point: My niece has asked me to talk to her mother, who is not in very good physical condition. She wants me to talk to her about her diet, and tell her that she just can’t keep taking pills to correct her problems. She has to take better care of herself. Well, I can do it, because I know a bit about it and I’ll be right about all the information. There is no doubt about that. But it really does not matter a bit whether or not I’m right. Her mother has a volatile personality and the only thing that really matters is whether or not I can preserve our relationship. Chances are that she will become very angry and not listen to me. But because I love her I need to talk to her. I can’t get hung up on being right.
Liberal Christians seem to not be hung up on being right, but being right about loving others.
November 25th, 2009 at 8:34 am
I mean: Liberal Christians seem not be be hung up on being right about the capital “T” Biblical Truth, but on being right about loving others.
November 25th, 2009 at 8:58 am
I was a Methodist when I rejected God. I never would have considered them as a liberal flavor of Christianity, but denominations keep splitting when they don’t agree with something, so who knows.
I am amused at how Christians claim the Bible is the Word of God, but they choose what parts of it to believe. Yes God, you created everything and everyone, but I don’t like what you said here so I am choosing to ignore it. No wonder people are annoyed with them; most of them don’t even believe what they preach.
When you strip it down, Christianity becomes like every other religion out there. Man’s (gender neutral form of man) way of trying to understand the spiritual side in his own limited mind. In reality, you can just randomly pick one and get the feel good feeling that you are being a good person and continue on with your life.
Zdenny – I understand what you are trying to do, but your argument is wrong. The vast majority are godless? Even the Bible say that many who claimed Him will be rejected because they never knew Him. I personally know a lot of people that go to church every week and sing their hymns and get the sermon and don’t have a clue who God is. They feel good about going though. Lighten your argument a bit. Try not to be so condemning in your approach.
November 25th, 2009 at 10:07 am
Haha, I love the line about Catholics because that is how I was raised and that is what all 80something people of my extended family are. I’ve given up the God thing. None of them know. It should make for an interesting holiday season, where I am expected at Mass and to pray before meals. I’ve not told because I am 22 and rely on my parents’ support for almost all of my finances and hope to maintain some of that support through grad school. I do live a small lie, but the God part is so small in the Catholicism I knew anyway that I don’t find it hard. To my family it’s mostly about community and culture. Expectations on lifestyle, a common place to mingle, attend school and have activities. It’s really not so much religion…
November 25th, 2009 at 10:19 am
WOW, dude you are misogynistic. You say Bob didn’t know Christianity, therefore, there’s no way for Laura to have figured it out on her own. Whatever Christianity she knows has to come from her husband.
You’re an idiot. Laura has a brain too, you know.
November 25th, 2009 at 10:34 am
Okay, I was at an extremely liberal church 2 weeks ago, and I’ve been in a number of them over the years (esp. Quakers and UU).
This is just not true: “Liberals believe that without faith you cannot know love.”
It is actually the opposite of true. I think the most preached bit of the Bible I’ve heard is the Letter to the Corinthians. ” if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.”
Most of the religiously liberal (that is, people who accept that they don’t have the special answers about everything, not people who are politically liberal & religious – though there’s an overlap) believe that there are many paths to God, and the God of love wouldn’t punish people for having the wrong theology, as long as they are motivated by love.
Because if you don’t believe that, but you do believe in God or in Christianity specifically, there are only two horrific lenses to look at human history through. One is that everyone but you is wrong, and there will only be a small group of all the humans who ever lived who will be saved. The other is that your own theology is likely wrong, given the muddiness of human understanding and the vast number of things people have believed.
Christians have solved this different ways over the history of the faith. If your read Dante’sInferno you can see the theology of the time, that pagans who did good works went to hell – but the outside, less tortured, rings of hell.
I run into a lot of people who believe that “Christ died for our sins” means *everyone*, not just Christians – so we’re all saved whether we know it or not, no matter how we behave, and behaving badly can damage out lives and hearts in this world, but not in the next.
November 25th, 2009 at 10:50 am
Xander, I never would have either, but lately I’ve been reading a lot of bloggers who consider Focus on the Family to be “mainstream” Christianity, so maybe I’m getting warped. A commenter at a fundy site i was reading actually said “some people don’t consider Methodists to be Christians” which is astounding – but matches the useage I’ve heard in real life where born-again people call themselves simply “Christians” as if nobody else is.
The Unitarian Christians’ take on faith vs. love is the same. They have the same belief that the Bible was inspired by God but written by humans (i had to look this up to make sure, since I’ve never studied Unitarianism, just sporadically attended. My source is http://www.americanunitarian.org/AUCChristian.htm)
UU Christians are pretty much the definition of “liberal Christianity”, I think, and for reality-based types Methodism is right in the center of mainstream Protestantism.
November 25th, 2009 at 10:51 am
Laura,
You are not missing a thing! You are confused because liberal Christianity (like most religions) is a schizophrenic, contradictory, nebulous, guilt based, fear driven mess.
They take the parts from the bible that are convenient, affirming, and easy to live with, and they embrace those parts while rejecting everything that they don’t like.
Then those same people will tell the rest of us that our morality is based on our own whims and that people need an unshakable moral foundation that only the bible can provide!!
I know as well as anybody that while you are following one mind set, it is very difficult to step back and have an objective perspective. However, when you reject it all, the fractures, and the damage, and the mixed messages, and the judgment based discrimination are really easy to see.
I was going to make a couple comments about Zdenny’s argument about turning away from God because you weren’t devoted enough, or indoctrinated enough, or aware enough, or your heart wasn’t open enough, but after reading just the first page of the anti science nonsense of his blog, I don’t need to. His own words place him more firmly on the philosophical spectrum than I could in this comment.
That you don’t have all of the answers, and that you are willing to admit that speaks volumes about your thoughtfulness about the journey of this life. The people that we need to keep an eye on are the ones who claim to have all of the answers beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Have a great Thanksgiving!
November 25th, 2009 at 11:39 am
The reality of love slowly changes people from selfish (godless people) to loving people who sacrifice self-interest for the good of others.
Christ death on the cross for humanity is the pattern for all to follow. As a result of the death of Christ, His love has changed the world.
We are no longer godless barbarians killing and destroying each other; rather, there is an attempt to act according to reason. We see the virtue of love as being the pattern for all mankind to follow.
If you need proof, just look at any godless nation compared to a Christian nation. The difference is stark. This doesn’t mean everyone is a mature Christian in a Christian nation; however, it does mean that we live a better life because the reality of love is bringing all of humanity together into One Body. The reality of love is based on love, peace, truth, justice and life.
Those who reject the reality of love will be lost for eternity by their own volitions because they rejected love. God doesn’t force you to love Him and become a part of His reality (forced love is a contradiction); rather, God is calling you like a man calls his wife who then has to decide to accept or reject the call.
Even when a couple is married, this doesn’t mean that they know love. With many, they begin marriage as godless in practice with a focus on lust which eventually becomes empty overtime. Most married folks have to grow in their knowledge of love. Over time your love should grow stronger if you really know love; however, most like Laura and Bob didn’t grow in love and opted for conflict (based on self-interest) which eventually destroyed their marriage and created a bipolar and insecure condition for their child.
In my opinion, Bob is the most at fault because he didn’t value, honor and respect his wife which is an aspect of love. If he did, I think Laura and Bob would still be together today. Laura doesn’t seem to be the godless type to me at all… She tries to be respectful, encouraging, positive, open to ideas, etc.. most atheists reject this mentality (at least that has been my experience).
God Bless.
November 25th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Can you name a godless nation, please? So we can take you up on your offer?
Or are you saying atheists and nonchristian theists are the same thing?
You’ll notice that the least respectful and open to ideas person in these comments is the one person who claims to know God the best.
November 25th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Just need to put out there that Unitarian Universalists do not necessarily believe in God, gods or whatever. Its a covenantal religion (meaning we agree on some things) but not a creedal one (in that personal beliefs are subsumed into the larger group.) We agree and affirm on the 7 principles. But at our fellowship, there are Pagans, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Jews and the largest group of all – Atheists. The thing is, though, that we also agree to embrace the mystery and not claim that anyone knows for sure.
November 25th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Wow Rex is that ever offensive. So you do have the whole truth about everything and anyone who doesn’t agree with you is an idiot? And you don’t actually know anyone in liberal Chrisitianity. I can assure you that a member of the UCC would never tell you that your goodness is based on whim.
http://www.stillspeaking.org (The United Church of Christ.)
http://www.uua.org (this is the Unitarian Universalist site. The American Unitarians are a different organization.)
November 25th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Yeah, I hope I wasn’t confusing in my comment – that’s why I specified Unitarian Christians.
November 25th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
And, holy shit, I didn’t realize the Unitarian American site was some sort of reactionary breakaway group. I’m sorry about the misleading link.
The individual Christians I know who are Unitarian Universalists, seem to have the same take on the Bible as the folks I grew up with – but when I went looking for an “official” church line the site I found was a group that’s trying to have Unitarianism without nonChristians.
November 25th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Zdenny –>First, religion is more than just a feeling. The only people who think that religion is just a feeling are the godless
That might be true . But just because they are godless doesnt prove them wrong.
November 25th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
**But it seems like the more liberal denominations aren’t really concerned with logic or truth as far as religion itself is concerned.**
From what I’ve seen in my encounters with Christians who would fall on the non-literal, 6,000 year old earth scale, they would say that they are concerned with logic or truth. It just has a lot more … well, shades of gray than a literalist viewpoint. For instance, when a literalist says that the Bible is true, it’s true in the same way that 2+2=4 is true. For a liberal Christian, saying the Bible is true is like saying that “loving one’s neighbor is a good thing” is a true statement. There’s more shades of gray to the second statement because the definition of “neighbor” or “good” or “love” can vary based on who utters that statement.
Both statements are true. One is simply a straight objective statement, and the second one has a lot more subjectivity to it.
**I don’t understand how it works, though, or why people don’t care about whether or not they’re right.**
Maybe because the ramifications are different? In conservative circles, it matters a great deal as to the beliefs one holds because wrong beliefs means one goes to hell. In liberal circles, there’s a lot more flexibility, because many could feel that there is more than one path to God, or that even the non-Christians can be saved a Christian way. The wrong belief in this life doesn’t necessarily translate into a one-way ticket to hell.
November 25th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Ok, so according to your breakdown….
Morris Albert: Godless
Boston: Liberal
Gnarls Barkley: Evangelical
Get it?
November 25th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
I grew up in a fairly areligious family. My dad used to be a youth group leader and Sunday school teacher in the united church but I cannot remember ever going to church as a child. Nor do I remember ever having any real understanding of religion in general other than talking to my Grandmother, occasionally, till I was in middle school. I think that my parents are atheists but again, we never really talk about the subject.
Both me and my sister(but not my brother) became very religious for awhile in our late teens and early twenties after years of going to different churches and synagogues trying to find what we thought we were missing.
I have been a half ass Catholic, Lutheran, and Anglican. I eventually landed in a Missionary congregation that I attended for six or so years till I left the faith altogether.
Liberal Churches really act as a sort of gateway drug for many Christians. It allows you to believe in God without having to divorce yourself from reality completely. Catholics, like Anglicans (Episcopalians) and most other liberal churches are a mixed bag of more fundamentalist older congregants and younger more liberal young congregants, so I don’t think it is entirely fair to paint them all with the same brush. There is a whole mess of animosity in most liberal churches I attended because of this more “democratic” form of worship and dogma. You are correct though, that the majority are “soft” or “small c” Christians who believe in God but also believe that faith needs to evolve in line with culture to remain relevant.
I think from the exposure that I did have to more fundamentalist churches that they proclaim to take the bible literally but don’t really believe 100% of what the bible says or come up with some pretty weird interpretations of scripture to change the meaning of things they don’t like very much. Liberal just go one step further and say “well if God thinks genocide is fine but the fundies throw that out, then why not let homosexuals live with dignity, or women have control over their own bodies, etc.”
Lets be honest, no one follows the bible to the letter or else they would be considered a sociopath, or psychopath, and likely would go to jail. It’s not all wine and roses in that book, there’s a lot of “bad stuff” in there.
Liberal churches let reasonable people come into a church and feel relatively comfortable, and let people with serious doubts about speaking in tongues get some welcome sanity without becoming the “A” word.
November 25th, 2009 at 8:19 pm
@zdenny: If you need proof, just look at any godless nation compared to a Christian nation. The difference is stark.
What’s so bad about Sweden?
November 25th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
Sweden is SOCIALIST! So therefore the debbil. Because Jesus apparently was a capitalist, despite all the nonsense about having two coats so you give one to someone else.
November 25th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
I think part of the problem here is that there is no one way to be a Liberal Christian. Some Liberal Christians are essentially atheistic, others are apophatic mystics (i.e. Karen Armstrong), some fuse Buddhist concepts into Christianity, others strip it down to just a philosophy, and many are just like mainstream Christians with a few eccentric beliefs thrown in.
I think of Liberal Christianity as the most individualized form of the religion. Friedrich Schleiermacher, the theologian who sort of kicked things off, placed a great deal of importance on one’s own inner religious feeling. In the process, he basically discarded massive amounts of Christian doctrine. I don’t think he ever really found a use for the trinity, the incarnation or the cross. Some of his followers discarded them entirely.
I think that “inner religious feeling” is the crucial part. Being a Liberal Christian usually means going with whatever moves you. That means that ever Liberal Christian is a bit different. Some like certain kinds of Christian philosophy, some people get all melty over the word “love,”some like the feeling of being connected to 2000 years of tradition, and others just like the singing and ritual Liberal denominations like the UU stress openness, diversity and a willingness to let their members be whatever they want to be.
Of course, those of us without any inner religious feelings are kind of mystified by it. I was a Liberal Christian for a few years, of the hyper-intellectualized John Shelby Spong variety. But I eventually realized that all that endless speculation about the nature of God was just that: endless. I just didn’t seem to find the whole thing as elevating as some others did.
November 26th, 2009 at 4:48 am
EXCUSE ME you offensive cow, but I love my family with all my heart, and I love my lady with all my heart too – and I am most certainly NOT religious! Who the hell do you think you are to claim that I can’t know love because I don’t believe in God?
“We are no longer godless barbarians killing and destroying each other; rather, there is an attempt to act according to reason.”
A CHRISTIAN says that to an ATHEIST?!?! What balls! Are you claiming that the 2000 years since Jesus’ birth HAVEN’T been filled with cruelty and bloodshed in his name? I suppose you’ll tell me next that the people doing that aren’t Real Christians (TM)?
You are a horrible, ignorant person. Claiming to “love” people and then being supremely offensive to them just makes you a hypocrit too.
November 27th, 2009 at 3:56 am
“Liberals believe that without faith you cannot know love.”
I’m perpetually amazed by people who make blatantly counterfactual statements without the least bit of shame or hesitation. Is it possible you actually believe this is true? I think that would be even more depressing than finding out you were a shameless liar.
Reality is pretty cool. Try it some time.
November 28th, 2009 at 7:33 am
I think part of the trouble here is in how “liberal,” is actually defined. All these terms are relative, and subjective. I’m sure to folks in my husband’s church I would come across at least some of the time as quite liberal.
But, in my own denomination, I probably would be considered as more conservative. It depends on someone’s whole frame of reference.
The issue for me is not about being liberal, or conservative. It’s more what it means to follow Jesus.
Truth is very important to many Christians in the mainline, but I think it’s also central to discern what are the essentials of Christian faith, and what are things that people can agree to disagree while still affirming the truth of the gospel together.
It seems to me that we also better throw a healthy dose of humility into the mix, since even Scripture says that, “We see through a glass darkly…”
Also, it’s entirely possible to be quite progressive politically, and very orthodox, and evangelical theologically, and the converse is also true.
November 30th, 2009 at 10:25 am
Laura,
I have pretty much abandoned the evangelical faith and have instead moved on to a faith whose main definition is “I don’t know anything for sure but I still love Jesus.” So my wife and I have started going to the Episcopal church where we know we won’t be preached at by dogmatic assholes filled with truthiness (like zdenny). I can be an episcopalian and not be bothered by Hell or the conviction that my gay friends need to commit to celibacy or get re-programmed (which is really creepy when you think about it). Now you ask the question, why retain a “liberal” faith at all? I have several reasons. One is that I love Jesus. Two is that I really would like to believe in an afterlife or “heaven” (I just don’t like the thought that this life is all there is, it’s too damn short and filled with pain). Three is that believing in God and Jesus gives me sense of purpose and control that I don’t think I would feel as an atheist. Lastly, although I don’t think this characterizes you and your attitude toward your believing readers. I don’t like “atheism” because I think it’s kind of dogmatic and too assured of itself. Why abandon religious dogma for irreligious dogma? I just don’t like dogma. What I do like is epistemological humility and a healthy emphasis on “I just don’t know for sure”.