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Losing whose religion?
http://www.christiancentury.org/blogs/archive/2014-01/losing-whose-religionFROM THE CCBLOGS NETWORK
Losing whose religion?
Jan 30, 2014 by Tammerie Day
Surf’s up on religious doubt. We’ve heard about millenials leaving the church in droves (although—trust me—young folk are not alone in disenchantment with organized religion), the spiritual-but-not-religious, the backlash against SBNRs, and atheists holding Sunday go-to meetings. Now we are turning to the Janus of doubt/faith. But rather than Doubt and Faith facing away from each other, it seems Doubt is taking a hard look at Faith, and Faith is taking a hard look right back.
Of late, pastor-turned-agnostic Ryan Bell is blogging his journey and its surprises at Year Without God. He spoke with Becky Garrison at Religion Dispatches about his experience:
To be honest, it feels a bit surreal. Having lost my career after being a pastor for 20 years, I’m really questioning the virtue of religion. Yes, I know people tell me religion and God are different, but everything we know about God comes to us through religion.
So to lose one’s religion in such a dramatic fashion as I did, it made sense for me to just walk away and examine the basic tenets of my faith, especially now that I’m not responsible for a church full of people.
So to lose one’s religion in such a dramatic fashion as I did, it made sense for me to just walk away and examine the basic tenets of my faith, especially now that I’m not responsible for a church full of people.
It’s early in Bell’s quest, and he is still searching for language to express his questions. Perhaps he will discover, as I have, that we do not have religion to thank for “everything we know about God.” Framing the God question in terms of “knowing” makes it an epistemological concern. But for many people, God is more mystery than epistemological challenge: their God is beyond knowing, a God of sense and experience. I am in that camp; my experience of God is direct and of a mystical bent. I have never felt excited, convinced or reassured by arguments for God’s existence. Can I then doubt? If my experience of God is not based in “knowing,” what is the nature of my faith?
Bell seems to have lost his religion (or was it just some of his privilege?) when he crossed the line in solidarity with LGBT folk. As an activist for LGBT rights in the conservative Seventh Day Adventist church, Bell gained enough notoriety that his church asked him to resign. When he embraced the questions to the point of evaluating life without God, he lost his adjunct teaching positions, too. He acknowledges that he has often felt like the odd man out, and so this is nothing new (albeit more costly).
more at link