Remembrance of things past...

I've returned to this blog (my other one still exists in impoverished form) because I'm more concerned with general, rambling thoughts than with being 50 (which continues to be great!).

Lately I've been thinking a lot about religion. As in, Christianity. I was converted as a teenager into Evangelicalism (the story is all there earlier on this blog if you care to look). And from a very troubled place I came to a point of relative calm, though the legs were paddling away under the surface as I approximated to Adult Life.

A friend of mine who was an Anglican Priest for many years has just come out as 'having no faith left' and it has made me think again about my attitude to what I have left behind. It's particularly hard as an ex-Evangelical because you are taught all the Bible verses about the dangers of falling away, and even today I can remember my abject fear of doing so, and my determination never to desert Jesus.

And yet - I have. It astounds me still, after twenty years as a clergy wife and having brought countless people to faith through reasoned discussion and prayer, that I find myself in this place. But a pilgrimage can't just be abandoned when you find a comfortable roadside cafe. I always promised myself that I would never give up using my brain (which after all was presumably God-given) to question my faith, and that if I found it lacking in integrity, I would do whatever it took to remain in a place of integrity as far as was possible.

What I never expected was to feel angry. I have spent a good many years suppressing anger in my life; as a child I was prone to terrible rages which terrified me and left me hiding from the power of those emotions. Christianity enabled me to 'rise above' that - although to be fair it was my interpretation and not the Church or Bible which taught me to hide from such a large part of myself. The Bible clearly says we ARE to be angry when appropriate. I had just hidden too well from myself, and it took a few different counsellors to help me see that it was safe to be in a room with myself however I was feeling. Dampening down anger meant that I dampened down every other emotion, and I've been on a long, slow learning curve back to 'normality' (whatever that is!)

Now, I DO feel angry at how the brand of Christianity I bought into robbed me of the realisation that I possessed huge inner strength. By attributing all my successes to 'God', I externalised everything.

GOD was strong, I was weak. All loving thoughts came from God, I wasn't a loving person without him. I didn't realise how many inner resources I had until I was in my forties. Until then, I truly believed that I was nothing without God, and that everything I needed had to come from/through him. So I was able to shift all the responsibility for major decisions onto him too. "God doesn't want me to have sex..." "I have to stay in this job /relationship/place because God hasn't told me to move on..." etc.

I realise that a lot of this reflects on me, not the Church per se. However, nobody at any time encouraged this naive young (and later, older) person to move on in her view of herself, to take more responsibility, to dare to make decisions. And in fact I know many people in unhappy situations who are there 'because it's what God wants'. It couldn't possibly be the case that God might want them to take risks and be uncomfortable, to face their inner demons and admit their faults. Oh no, it's God's will that no boats are rocked.

There are those who have taken precisely the opposite approach. God has told them to go out and do daring and wonderful things. Can you imagine a Billy Graham who admitted to loving having power over people and being a public figure? Or even a St Paul who had a midlife crisis?

It is all much to ponder, and I continue to do so.