It started as something of a joke, but the question of whether I am an apostate or merely a heretic becomes an increasingly more pointed one in my mind. Just a few short years ago I might still have entertained the possibility that I was merely a schismatic but I really don’t know if that one will fly, anymore. I no longer have any definite opinion on whether Jesus Christ literally existed as a human entity in history, let alone any issues of virgin birth or resurrection. Certainly I don’t particularly believe in the veracity of any of the histories of the Old Testament, the literal existence of the Patriarchs, ancient miracles, and so forth. It appears to me that, despite vast expanses of uncharted territories, the whole of existence presents a seamless naturalistic face, that all phenomena will reduce to consistent complexes of material events that require no spiritual, metaphysical, or supernatural component to be included in their explanation.
This is not the same as saying I do not believe in the spiritual, the metaphysical, or the supernatural. But it’s hell and gone from orthodox Christianity.
It raises the question of what I’m really about, for example, when I’m reciting the Apostles Creed in church. I think of a story related by Dave Sim, perennially controversial self-published comics pioneer, regarding his attempts to attend a conventional Christian church, before he fully developed his peculiar personal theology based on taking Judaism, Christianity and Islam seriously simultaneously and fundamentally became a church unto himself. But before all this, he describes trying to adhere to the principles of biblical truth as he saw them, while simultaneously participating in worship in good faith: he describes reciting the Nicene Creed. “Always scanning ahead a couple of lines: I allow myself to recite this next part. The two lines after that I won’t allow myself to say….”
I really don’t want to go down that kind of road (needless to say the road I’m going down is utterly divergent from Sim’s in almost every respect aside from the fact that it seems increasingly divergent with orthodox Christianity). I really don’t want to end up with my own singular synthesized theology in a church of one. But I can’t deny that the sorts of feints I sometimes make in my mind at justifying my participation in mainstream Christian worship with the way I see things frequently smack of rank sophistry to me.
It’s not that I’m on my way to becoming an atheist, or even an agnostic (although a certain degree of agnosticism seems to me to be inherent in merely considering oneself to be infinitely limited in comparison to God). I guess you never really know your future but it seems to me that I’ve gone about as far down the path of skepticism as there is to go: my spiritual experiences remain, they remain what they are, and I have yet to come upon any rational justification for not taking them seriously. But beyond that, religion, scripture for that matter, all seem very constructed to me. Or perhaps, rather, it seems impossible to prise out just exactly what it is in the Scriptures and in religious tradition and practice that actually resonates (and seems inextricably bound up with) my personal spiritual experiences - from what is constructed of the usual human toolbox of language, tradition, tribalism, confusion, greed, lust, power-huger, reason, conservatism, imagination and poetry…
Whatever else, the two things - religion and my spirituality, and not just religion but specifically Christianity - are inextricably bound for me. Beyond that native connection, no particular orthodoxy holds sway. Leaving me with the question of what I am to make of that connection - and how I am supposed to deal with the many aspects of the Christian religious hegemony that I just can’t uphold…
Which was what I intended to be talking about this installment. I also intended to wrap this up at leas an hour ago. Good intentions.
originally posted at spiritofsalt.com Feb 10, 2009 at 1:20 AM
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