Posted by Helen on: 09.06.2006 /
Last week I ran across a mention of my newspaper article on a blog called Theology Brief. The author begins his blog entry Changing Faith with:
Helen Mildenhall, a former Christian turned atheist, writes of her experience and why she has changed. At first, my righteous indignation was invoked and I wondered how someone could be so brazen and wrong. But the more I read, the more I found myself identifying with her. Her honesty is what makes her story plausible. Her struggles are common, while her decisions are a bit off the hook.
He goes on to say:
Mildenhall’s story is not isolated. People of faith, particularly the Christian faith, seem to be going through a metamorphosis. A change is taking place where people are fundamentally inspecting what they believe and why they believe it. The pat answers of the past are no longer working. People are looking for—I am looking for—something that is genuine, something that will bring peace to the interior life.
Religion is hemming people in, putting them in boxes where personal discovery and growth are irrelevant. Blindly following the ideals of organized religion is leaving many unfulfilled and wanting more. I am not sure that going to the extent of Mildenhall is what needs to happen, but there is a revival of personal faith, where the individual’s quest and journey takes precedent over organizational identity.
He ends with the interesting questions:
What’s your take on all this? Has your faith changed in recent years? How do you related to the organized church?
I’m happy for people to discuss theology on this blog. But I don’t want the entire conversation to become so abstract it loses its connection with practical daily living.
So the questions I’d like to ask are:
Comment by: lisa w
1 09/6/06 11:21 AM | Comment Link |I would say that my language around God has changed a bit, namely that I say the word/name “God” more often in conversation. I do this with the casualness of discussing what I ate for dinner or who I met for lunch. I have decided against the ‘don’t discuss religion/politics’ rule.
I don’t really have an evangelical bone in my body; having been raised Catholic I’m hard wired differently I guess, but the conversations spawned from being more relaxed around the topic of God seem to be rich and relaxing.
Comment by: Helen
2 09/6/06 11:34 AM | Comment Link |Thanks for your comments, Lisa. I’m glad to hear that you have rich and relaxing conversations about God!
Comment by: David H
3 09/6/06 12:23 PM | Comment Link |About 10 years ago I became an atheist of sorts. I stopped believing in the God of my father. It was probably quite a bit longer than a decade ago that I stopped believing, but it was about that time that I became aware.
I stopped believing in my father’s God because I realized my father was false. He was a former pastor who had physically abused his children and sexually abused others who were in his care. He was also a man who always talked about ministry and his duty to God. When his true nature began to become apparent I had no choice but to examine this God to which he was devoted.
My father always spoke about a God of laws, a God to whom my personal conduct was important, a God with standards I was expected to meet. In short, he believed in a God of perfection before whom I had to come and beg forgiveness for all my failed attempts to reach that standard. Perhaps my father truly believed in such a God. I could not.
The strange thing I found, though, was my awareness didn’t cause me to stop believing there was a God. I just realized that I didn’t know him. What I had been taught was obviously a lie formed for the convenience of the liar. So I began to seek.
I have to admit that I began my search with an implicit belief that God does exist. As I searched I also began to believe that I could know that God, not fully, but in some sense. Let’s face it, a God who can’t be known in some way just isn’t trying. And a God who isn’t trying has no practical purpose in my life (yes he can destroy me or make me miserable or whatever, but there really wouldn’t be a lot I could do about that, so why care).
So, I decided, if there is a God who does care, what does he care about and how is he trying to reach me? What are the tools with which I can seek him?
I began by listening to people who seemed to have faith. I read writers who told me to deconstruct my belief system and re-examine the traditions of Christianity. I read about other religions and considered how it would sound to the majority of people in the world to be told that Jesus is the only way. I also read the Bible, just not in the way I had been taught. As a child it was a book of do’s and don’ts, they were buried everywhere and reading those words was a scavenger hunt for the nuggets of truth that build a holy code of conduct. Instead I began trying to find the reasons people did and said the things recorded in the Bible. I attempted to apply that even to things written about Jesus and God.
By reading the Bible differently I discovered two seemingly contradictory things. I gained more respect for what I found within its pages and stopped believing it was an aspect of a (quadroon?) God. I found myself separating from many other “Christians” because they worshipped neither Christ or the Father, they worshipped the Bible. Perhaps they should call themselves Bibilians?
Today I have a different faith then I did before. I like to think that it is a far simpler faith. I still believe that Jesus was the Messiah and an aspect of an infinite God. But I now believe that they (God the father and the son) care less about what I do then why. And even though that why is often wrong, because it is based in selfishness or fear, they always forgive. And if their grace is enough to always forgive me, who has taken an oath of allegiance to Christ and God, then it must be in some way greater for those who don’t yet believe.
I can’t know the full extent of God’s love, but it was so great — I am told — that he extended it in the form of his son to a world that had separated itself from him. He did not extend his grace to believers, he gave it to the unbelieving. If he did it then and time does not exist to God, then he is still doing it now. That means I am called, in my flawed way, to do likewise. It also means that I can’t necessarily know everything there is to know about how God can repair the breach between himself and people like me (i.e. sinners).
So I still speak about Christ crucified as an atonement for sin. I still believe that his life provides an example for people (though not in the way I was taught as a child). I still think Jesus is the most direct path to the father. But is that all there is? I don’t pretend to know.
Besides, it isn’t up to me. By belief in Jesus — hence the word Christian — I have accepted the call to be a messenger. I am charged to carry the Gospel (good news) into the world. But what is the Gospel? Is it “believe this or spend eternity in agony”? That doesn’t sound good to me.
If it is good news I am charged to deliver, then it must be this: God loves us. He showed his love by sending his son. Is it possible to believe in the love without believing in the son? Like I said, not for me to say. The son does, however, seem to be tangible proof of the love (I won’t pretend there is a way to prove God).
But, if God does exist and if he does care and if he has attempted to bring people back into communion with him, then at some point we will all stand before him in some way. If that happens, maybe the whys will be just as important as what we have or haven’t done.
That is how my faith and values have changed in recent years and how it has affected my life.
Comment by: Rachel
4 09/6/06 12:43 PM | Comment Link |That was beautiful, David. Thank you for sharing.
Comment by: Mike O
5 09/6/06 1:23 PM | Comment Link |Wow, that was good!
I especially liked this part: But what is the Gospel? Is it “believe this or spend eternity in agony”? That doesn’t sound good to me. If it is good news I am charged to deliver, then it must be this: God loves us. He showed his love by sending his son.
For me, my faith has been fairly consistent my whole life. I ‘got saved’ when I was 4 at a concert my mom and dad made me go to. I remember the moment, but it wasn’t an altar call.
When I was 17 I realized that the reason I was a Christian was because my mom and dad were. I mean, I really was one myself, but the reason was because that’s what they taught me. So I went into a time of serious questioning. I questioned everything. I got to the point where I remember sitting with my youth pastor and I told him I wasn’t sure if I believed in God or not. His response, and I’m not so sure this would always be a good thing to say to a teen, was ‘Then tell Him you don’t believe in Him any more.’
I couldn’t do it.
Somehow in that moment, and I can’t quite explain how, but I knew that God did exist. Something happened spiritually. And now it was just a matter of finding out whether or not my parents were right all along. Turns out they were. I mean, I don’t agree on every point, but they were right about Jesus.
Ever since, I’ve been a consistent follower of Christ. Growing sometimes. Sliding at others. Sometimes it’s intense. Sometimes it’s boring as, well, you know. But through it all, I have consistently worked on my relationship with Him.
In the past year, the significant change has been my view of the world outside of Christianity. My son turning 17 and raising all sorts of valid questions really opened my eyes to what the world is really like (or at least what I think the the real world is like, which has got to still be skewed!). The church as got to reconnect with the people Jesus misses most! That’s my passion.
Comment by: lisa w
6 09/6/06 2:16 PM | Comment Link |david H. Great sharing, thank you. It makes me even more hopeful when I see people rising from the ashes of such a destructive upbringing.
And I especially liked this:
Comment by: Paul
7 09/6/06 3:53 PM | Comment Link |Did you agree with the author’s take on you Helen? Other than not going to church do you think that you are are that different in your thinking/take/view/ on God?
Comment by: Helen
8 09/6/06 5:14 PM | Comment Link |Paul wrote:
Yes, pretty much.
Paul could you clarify: are you asking whether my viewpoint is much different from his? Or are you asking whether mine has changed much from what it used to be?
Comment by: Helen
9 09/6/06 5:19 PM | Comment Link |David, thanks for sharing your journey of faith with us. It’s interesting to read how you rejected the specifics of your father’s faith but you didn’t reject God altogether.
That’s how I think too - that I am called to ‘do likewise’.
Comment by: David H
10 09/6/06 7:38 PM | Comment Link |While I didn’t reject God out of hand, I did have trouble singing that old hymn: “Faith of Our Fathers.”
However my siblings (save one) have all, to a certain degree, embraced my father’s God. They have a bit of trouble with me because I’m too “liberal.” My younger brother appears to truly believe that the first job of an evangelist is to convict his subjects of their failings and convince them of their need to live a moral life. Once they become morally right, apparently, then they can be saved. I once asked him if he would throw a man drowning in sin a rope or the stone tablets Moses brought down.
Others have told me that it seems odd I didn’t discard my faith, I find it more inexplicable that I decided to examine what I believe. Almost all of the children on my father’s side of the family have adopted and accepted the faith of their fathers.
Oddly, almost all of them consider my father outside even the possibility of God’s grace. He is evil. He is unforgivable. That would be a simpler choice for me.
One of the challenges of believing in God’s infinite love and forgiveness is that I have to figure out how to pass that along to my dad. I don’t know how. He is not completely in charge of himself. The things that drive him are so deep that he can’t escape them. So he deserves grace. But he willfully and slyly seeks out opportunities to sin in his special ways even though he is past 70. So how can I forgive? How can I even trust him when he is around my own children?
I spent the past year fighting the pastor of his church who gave my father a “ministry” position that allowed him unsupervised access to young people. The pastor ignored me until my father was caught abusing his position. Then I had to fight that pastor to take responsibility for his role in enabling my father.
The issue of forgiveness isn’t easy. I have walked away from “Christian” counselors to my father have told me that I am commanded to forgive. But, by the same token I do feel it as an obligation. We are all sinners who fall short of deserving God’s grace.
But to get back on topic, that is another way my faith has changed. No one can simply be considered outside the pale. What I now believes requires that I constantly reconsider my preconceptions about groups and individuals. It requires that I think of no one as less deserving of forgiveness than me. And it forces me to struggle with how, in my flawed way, I can try to live that way.
Comment by: Karen
11 09/6/06 7:58 PM | Comment Link |David, what in the world is he doing around young people if he has a history as a sexual predator? Does he have a criminal record? I’m sure it would have been difficult, but considering that the pastor was very irresponsible, did you (or anyone in your family) think about notifying the authorities in the jurisdiction where your father was attending church?
The potential for child sexual abuse absolutely must be taken seriously. It absolutely can scar a child for life, and it’s horrifying that in this day and age, people still don’t understand that. :-(
I’m so sorry you’ve had to deal with this in your family, David. And I, for one, do not believe you’re under any obligation whatsoever to forgive him. It’s unbelievable that a counselor would even tell you that you are “commanded” to do that.
Comment by: David H
12 09/6/06 8:20 PM | Comment Link |No criminal record, due to the mistaken grace of many. Authorities notified, but unable to do anything for a variety of reasons (statue of limitations, no victims willing to come forward, etc.). Supposedly the FBI has him under surveilance and the events of the last year have forced him into a program for sexual predators. However, the harsh reality is there really very little anyone can do other than refuse to remain silent.
I ended up having to tell the pastor of this mega-church (a few thousand members) that he had to act or I would show up one Sunday morning and speak from the pulpit about what he was permitting. They had just completed a multi-million dollar building project, so I have a sneaking suspicion his cooperation had more to do with financial issues than anything else.
But as for the issue of forgiveness, there is an obligation, but not — at least for me — of the kind that makes me feel guilty for not meeting it. Eventually, I may figure out what it should be. At a minimum I have to think about the subject. But I also have to recognize both my needs and limitations in trying to determine what that would be.
Old school Christianity says “forgive and forget,” except toward those who don’t deserve it. The undeserving just get condemned. The faith I have discovered says everyone deserves it and I can’t condemn anyone, but forgiveness still iisn’t as simple as forgive and forget.
In many respects my father is out of my life and I don’t “miss” him. But in many ways he will never be gone and never forgotten. He is part of me in ways I recognize and some that I don’t. Part of forgiveness is figuring out how to deal with those things, not just for myself but also for my brothers and sisters, daughters, cousins and countless others whose lives he has affected. But I also can’t rush those things.
Comment by: Paul
13 09/7/06 1:35 AM | Comment Link |Thanks Helen, just where you think you have changed your beliefs and where they have pretty much remained unchanged. Do you think you have some distinct differences in outlook about christianity to what you once had? Is it your beliefs that have changed? Your attitudes? Both/and?
Comment by: Helen
14 09/7/06 3:58 AM | Comment Link |Hi Paul, thanks for clarifying.
I’ve made three attempts at writing down the changes - maybe you can read those and let me know if you still have questions:
1) The newspaper article referred to in the author’s blog entry: Why I don’t go to church anymore
2)A rather long account I wrote in parts on the CatE discussion board, called “My story: The questions which didn’t have the right answer” which now is on my personal website also:
db version
personal website version
3) A much more concise version on my personal website: My Story: Taking off the duct tape
Comment by: Helen
15 09/7/06 4:15 AM | Comment Link |David, I’m sorry it was hard to persuade the pastor of the mega-church not to put your father in a position where he could abuse others. I imagine that was very frustrating for you.
In thinking about forgiveness I’ve found it helpful to distinguish between a) forgiveness b) reconciliation and c) trusting the person again.
a) is a letting go of wishing evil on that person because of what they did to you or others. You’ve probably worked on that already. But it tends to be a process in which the anger sometimes creeps back in (maybe a new circumstance triggers it) and then we need to address it again.
The benefit of this is that when we let go, we remove the ability of what they did to keep hurting us. I remember hearing one time “They hurt us once (or for a period of time) but each time we think again about what they did we let them hurt us all over again”. That seems very true to me.
I prefer ‘letting go’ to ‘forgive and forget’ because we never really forget. The goal is to take the ‘emotional charge’ out of the memories so they no longer have undue power over us or control our lives.
We don’t have to tell the other person we forgive them. Whether that’s a good idea depends on their attitude - and that gets into b) Reconciliation
b) Reconciliation is about our ongoing relationship with the person who hurt us. We can always forgive but we can’t always reconcile because that depends on the other person as well as us. If they aren’t willing to admit what they did then it’s probably unwise for us to try to have any sort of close relationship with them. If they do admit it and seem repentant and want to make the relationship work then we can be open to that, but, cautiously, not relying on their words but telling them they need to earn our trust again by their behavior. Even so, there are some things we may never let them do again - which gets into c)
c) Trust - the person might earn our trust to some extent but I see no reason why we should have to take undue risk. I would not put someone with a history of abuse in a situation where they could easily abuse again. I see no reason why you should be expected to let your father be around your children in any way in which he could abuse them. That doesn’t mean you don’t forgive him for what he did to you, or that you’re not reconciled to some extent. It simply means you don’t want to tempt him in a way in which he’s not been able to resist temptation in the past - for his sake as well as the sake of your children.
I don’t know if that helps - I hope it helps a bit.
Comment by: Julie Marie
16 09/7/06 4:57 AM | Comment Link |David, first, thanks for sharing your journey. I am both humbled and encouraged by your story.
Comment by: Mike O
17 09/7/06 11:53 AM | Comment Link |Helen, you stole my thunder. I’m big on separating the concepts of forgiving and trusting. Forgiveness is a lifestyle, not an event. Forgiveness is coming to the point where you can honestly say (to that person? I don’t know) “You owe me nothing.” But trusting is a whole other thing. Forgiving someone doesn’t change their character, it changes ours. But trusting is relying on their character.
I, too, believe that “forgive and forget” is just asking for touble. “Forgive and forgive” is what I believe. Because a) you shouldn’t forget becuase their character hasn’t changed and b) You can’t forget anyway, so you can only forgive again when you remenber.
I heard it put this way … a bank may forgive your debt. And if you do, you don’t owe them any more even if you come to the place where you could repay the debt. But although the debt truly is forgiven, don’t expect them to loan you money again. I believe that is actually a biblical approach to forgiveness.
Comment by: Phil
18 09/13/06 10:13 AM | Comment Link |Hi Helen,
I read the article that defined your reasons for not going to church any more.
Quote: All I want to do is get on with my life and respect how other people get on with theirs—as long as they’re trying to make the world a better place.
First Observation: Is “getting on with your life” a reason for church attendance? Church attendance allows Christians to worship God in a corporate setting. It does not guarantee that hypocrites, crooks, and posers will not be in attendance. In fact, in a real church, people who do not have any faith would be in attendance.
Second observation: Again, church attendance is not designed to make the world a better place, it is designed to help people become better people….so in that sense church attendance has been very effective in your life. You no longer attend but still feel strong desires to be a better person and respond “Biblically.”
That’s interesting.
I like your blog….quite interesting.
I do think you may have attended a church that had drifted from its main purpose…maybe….sorta. Who am I to judge.
Peace, Phil
Comment by: Helen
19 09/13/06 7:22 PM | Comment Link |Thanks for your comments, Phil.
I think my story would have been essentially the same if I’d been at a different conservative evangelical church.