Today's question comes from pages 140 and 141 of the SoulPancake book.
"What do you do when you can't wrap your head around certain teachings in your religion?"
Last night, two friends and I were at a bar chatting. Somehow or
another, our conversation drifted into the topic of religion and faith, and I
asked my friend Jaxon why he was a Christian. When most Christians answer this
question, their response is usually something to the effect of, "Because I
have faith that the Bible is true." Jaxon's answer was more thought-out
than that, and to someone like me who can't yet latch onto the ambiguous
idea of faith, it was much more understandable, too. It went something like
this: "I've studied a lot of religions. I studied the Bahá'í faith, the Muslim faith, and a lot of others.
The reason I circled back around to Christianity was because, after studying
all of those different religions, Christianity was the only one to acknowledged
the fact that I was fucked up and that I was going to make mistakes, but also
acknowledged that there was something else, something more, to help me."
I’d never heard that kind of explanation before, and it made sense
to me. It’s important to know that I grew up in church. Some might say I was
"born a Christian." I was raised to believe the fundamental values of
Christianity and to accept the Bible as an absolute. In my house, to doubt the
words of the Bible was to doubt the words of God, and therefore to doubt God,
and that was considered sinful. So for 17 years, I never questioned a thing. I
accepted that a man could part a body of water straight down the middle, and
that another man could live in the stomach of a whale for three days, and that
yet another with superhuman strength could destroy an entire army of men with
nothing more than a donkey's jaw-bone. I accepted these things because the
threat of Hell hung over my head like a damn raincloud, and I was too terrified
to question an “absolute” truth.
But
one day, just a week after my seventeenth birthday, I had some sort of
epiphany. (A slap in the face is more like it.) I decided that I wouldn't
-- couldn't -- devote myself to a set of religious beliefs out of fear. Thus
began my indefinite hiatus from church and my search for truth. I still
maintain that, should the day come when I no longer fear Christianity but have
faith that its teachings are true, I'll rekindle my relationship with God.
Until that day, I refuse to follow a religion with the wrong motive. And be
assured: fear is absolutely the wrong motive for religious devotion.
Even so, I still believe in God, but I question many things about
the Christian doctrine. People often ask me if I feel like I’m “missing
something” by not being in church. The answer to that (right now, anyway) is no.
These past two years that I’ve been away from church have been extremely kind
to me. I’ve discovered things about myself that I never knew were in place, and
my journey to find happiness and peace has been successful. I’m happier and
more confident now than I’ve ever been in my life. Before, my religion was part
of my identity, and when I couldn’t live up to the standards that Christianity
set for me, I became distraught and insecure. When I separated myself from that
religion, from my former identity, I was forced to find and completely recreate
myself. The person I am today is a directed result of my decision to leave the church
and embark on a journey of self-discovery, and what I’ve discovered is
substantial.
During
our conversation last night, I eventually asked if Jaxon really believed that
Jesus was the son of God. “I believe Jesus was a man and I believe that he
existed,” he said. “But was he the son of God? I don't know, and that's
something I'll always struggle with."
The truth of the matter is that, in every religion, there are teachings that simply cannot be understood. Even if we choose to accept these teachings, we will always struggle. But the important thing to remember is that it's okay to question -- questioning is not a sin. In fact, it often leads to great discovery.
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