Deva

I just wanted to revisit my thread and update it since April. Last month I took a big step and decided to join a Church! Its not the Anglican Church I previously wrote about, but a different mainline Protestant one (Congregational). I know that I need to find and let more people into my life. I am in hopes that eventually this church will help with that eventually, but my expectations are not high. At least, nothing I have heard or seen there so far has made me want to run for the hills. The church reminds me of the Methodist Church my grandmother attended. In the meantime, I do enjoy singing some of the hymns. I like the Pastor. He permits various ideas and ways of understanding the divine. That is one of the prime requirements that I had. The slogan seems to be "God is still speaking". I like that. I guess I could never accept that the Bible is the final word and all that God had to say. It took me years and years to discover enough about this to be able to formulate in my own mind why the religion I was raised with was so unsatisfactory. Although I prefer some of the high church Anglican ceremony for aesthetic reasons, I cannot abide that Church's politics, which are very conservative. I am also not on board with the spiritual authority of priests. I know that this would eventually cause me to run. I think that is because, it is like the great philosopher Spinoza said "We feel and know that we are eternal." I feel this and I don't see how another person can speak for God when God resides in all. Just my thinking now on a subject that has confused me for a long time.

Its pretty small, its a break-away from the Episcopal Church. I think there are some 250 churches total in this denomination. I like it because I know it is close to historical Christianity as it was 1,000 years ago when the eastern and western churches were undivided. I only know this because of extensive reading of church history back in the 1990s. Really a very similar service to the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches, of course with a few differences. I like the feel of walking into an old, traditional service, with a sacramental emphasis, yet in English and not Russian, Greek or Latin. I'm sure its not for everyone, but that's OK too!

So, I went to the Easter Sunday service at the Anglican Catholic church. Quite nice indeed! I enjoyed it, except the people next to me were all talking among themselves constantly, which was a bit distracting, since I was trying to follow the service. I spoke with my mother on the phone and I told her I was attending an Anglican Church. I might as well have said I was Buddhist, the tone of disapproval was unmistakable - it was "Oh.." and not much more. Its quite painful, because I do love her very much, but she cannot see past the fundamentalist Baptist thing as being the only right way. Or the non-denominational megachurch entertainment scene would probably be more acceptable. I have completely given up being able to please her in this area. The dispensationalist, apocalyptic nonsense of what I was raised with I can never accept. Fortunately, I learned as an adult that this is not the only type of Christianity out there.

Thank you for your post Overcast. I do appreciate it. I have scoped out most of the nearby Orthodox Churches and I have settled on an Anglican Catholic church that I will probably visit a few times and might even join.

I personally cannot accept the inerrency of the Bible. It is a set of writings by different people of different times and perhaps some of them were inspired by God, perhaps some not. I don't think some of the authors (Paul when he wrote his letters, as an example) ever envisioned their writings being included as sacred scriptures, true for all time. Its not really possible to understand the Bible without a lot of knowledge of the times it was written in and other background knowledge. It is always up for interpretation - and by some who want it to serve their own ends.

A major problem I found myself struggling with was how God was so defined that all the mystery was taken away. I was raised Baptist where they may talk about mystery in relation to God, but there really is no room for mystery, just some kind of a "personal relationship" as if God were just another person. That was how I saw it. Now if you read writers like Meister Eckhart, you know they come from a completely different place, but still considered themselves Christian even if they were thought by others to be heretics. The early Church had to make definitions in order to attain unity and have some authority. But from the beginning there was always mystery. That is the reason when I was much younger I was attracted to books of the Bible like Revelation and Daniel. They captured a sense of mystery for me. The Orthodox have a saying that is something like "God became man so that man could become God." Understood properly, I think that is right.

Thank you for that beautiful post, Soma. I like what you said about communion. Yes, I feel the need for some kind of communion in some way. I want to feel like I am not just a solitary lonely entity - me against the world. And I know all my liife I didn't feel that way. I want connection with something greater. That is certainly a part of the reason I am going back. Happy Easter to everyone here on this board!

None presently. But I was Episcopalian 20 years ago - that only lasted six years, but I will probably go back to an Anglican church of some kind. I had visited an Anglican Catholic church around the early 90s - will probably go back there. They are traditionalists, but they have the old liturgy that I like. I did visit a congregational church last year that was supposed to be liberal, but it didn't do a thing for me. I seem to get most out of a celebration of communion with candles, incense, statues, pictures, etc..that kind of a service. I would consider going into the Orthdox Church if it wasn't so ethnic. As to the other question, I keep my beliefs private, unless the person asking is someone I trust.

Joseph: I don't honestly know what to make of my foray into Buddhism. Probably it was an attempt to resolve an internal conflict (which I won't get into here) and not really even anything relating to religion per se. It may have been an experiment that failed, I don't know. Sorry, that doesn't make much sense, I know. I have turned a corner and I am going to go back to being some kind of Christian - probably with a mystical understanding of it. I may be able to find a church but there is a good bet that some things will be said or preached that I won't like and might set me off, but I need some ceremony and some ritual - I will probably go to an Anglican church for that reason.

Thanks Steve. Yes, I would say that from your definition of "faith" I suppose I never lost it. I found many difficult things about Buddhism, even so, for a few years it served as a kind of spiritual focus and beauty when there wasn't anything else. I thought Tibetan Buddhism was very beautiful, but I never ceased believing in a God/Gods. Later I realized how I was Christianizing Buddhism despite reading probably a hundred books on Buddhism and trying my best to understand it. Certainly one ceremony does not make a Buddhist. I was tired of overthinking the subject and obsessing about it - I think now that God is mostly a mystery and although we have scriptures, this sense of mystery is what may keep me being some form of Christian. It is there, in some forms of Christianity and where I can get this sense of beauty and mystery is where I will end up. At least I know what isn't going to work for me. A purely intellectual approach or a "belief is everything" type of approach is sort of torture to me. It was what I was raised with in the Baptist Church. Then I would always be wondering how much belief is enough? There was never any kind of certaintly or security, although you were supposed to feel it. It just doesn't happen. Ultimately I will return to some kind of church.

I can hardly believe it, that after 15 years of being an "Ex-Christian" I can actually have some faith but its starting to happen. I don't understand it, at all. A year ago it wasn't there, but I can see that I signed up on this site 5 years ago. I still wanted to have some form of Christianity. I find myself want to go back to a church service. How committed will I be, will people like me? Will I find some friends? How much religion can I take before I just leave again? What demands will these people make of me if I stick around long enough? These are the questions I have been asking myself. I have decided that it is a fact that I am irrevocably Christian, no matter how much I try to run. I have tried all my life to resolve the conflicts with limited success. I have tried running away, but discovered I can't do it over the long term. The church life is a difficult move for me. I like the services of the Anglican Catholic church, but I don't know if I can do the social thing at all. People's expectations... I suppose Easter Sunday is the least threatening time to attend a church. Many people go at Easter that don't probably attend regularly. Maybe I won't be scrutinized and asked too many questions. At least I hope so. I have been attending Buddhist ceremonies and practices for about the last 8 years. I guess no matter how much I tried, I didn't feel like I was a Buddhist, or that it would ever "work" for me. That's where I am.