Something that rattles me a little bit is how often I hear people say something like, “When I let go of belief x and grabbed onto belief y, it was so freeing - I felt liberated.” I grew up a Truman Christian and heard that verbiage all the time. The problem is, people say it just as easily when moving away from atheism to Christianity or the other way around, or away from liberalism to conservative Calvinism, or away from patriarchalism to egalitarianism, or… Many people use this “freeing” experience as evidence that they have found the real deal. Yet, I think that experience alone is either partially or completely suspect, at least in terms of evidence of truth.
My experience of becoming a christian, age 15 involveda feeling of ‘freedom’ and a finding of answers to those deep existential questions that only a 15yr old can feel with such intensity ;) My experience of joining a church was somewhat less ‘freeing’. Since leaving the whole shebang behind, some years ago now, I re-found that sense of freedom. I don’t use that ‘freedom’ feeling as evidence that I have found anything at all. I’m just simply enjoying the state of freedom for what it is, as I continue seeking meaning and explanation that I haven’t yet found.
ss, I agree. These days I am pragmatic, enjoying freedom when I find it and not feeling compelled to prove that my freedom is based on ‘truth’.
In fact one of the freedoms I came into more recently is the freedom not to care what is ‘true’, regarding what I now consider relatively abstract concepts that don’t need pinning down in order for me to live a meaningful life.
My ‘conversion’ experience carried no immediate sense of anything. I reached a point where I had messed things up enough (I was looking at charges with a prison sentence attached) and it was a no brainer, Jesus’ humanity was categorically better than my own or any other that I was aware of.
My wife actually experienced intense emotional pain upon her ‘conversion.’
Comment by: seekingsomething
1 08/14/07 5:47 AM | Comment Link |Yes, I thought it interesting, too.
Commenter #8 ‘Matthew’ said:
My experience of becoming a christian, age 15 involveda feeling of ‘freedom’ and a finding of answers to those deep existential questions that only a 15yr old can feel with such intensity ;) My experience of joining a church was somewhat less ‘freeing’. Since leaving the whole shebang behind, some years ago now, I re-found that sense of freedom. I don’t use that ‘freedom’ feeling as evidence that I have found anything at all. I’m just simply enjoying the state of freedom for what it is, as I continue seeking meaning and explanation that I haven’t yet found.
Comment by: Helen
2 08/14/07 6:03 AM | Comment Link |ss, I agree. These days I am pragmatic, enjoying freedom when I find it and not feeling compelled to prove that my freedom is based on ‘truth’.
In fact one of the freedoms I came into more recently is the freedom not to care what is ‘true’, regarding what I now consider relatively abstract concepts that don’t need pinning down in order for me to live a meaningful life.
Comment by: Karen
3 08/14/07 5:46 PM | Comment Link |What in the world is a Truman Christian? I’ve never come across that term before.
Comment by: Steve S.
4 08/14/07 8:51 PM | Comment Link |My ‘conversion’ experience carried no immediate sense of anything. I reached a point where I had messed things up enough (I was looking at charges with a prison sentence attached) and it was a no brainer, Jesus’ humanity was categorically better than my own or any other that I was aware of.
My wife actually experienced intense emotional pain upon her ‘conversion.’