A Love Letter for Redeemed Pagans and Lost Christians
Tue, 08/05/2008 - 21:02 | rlp
There is only one righteous way for you to be saved if you’ve spent too much time in the Church. You must lay your religion down. Lay it down hard. Drop it. Leave it on the trail and walk away from it. And you have to mean it. You can’t fake this. You have to renounce religion and leave it for good. As far as you know, you’ll never pick it up again.
After that you can walk freely in the wild places where faith can still be found. As you walk, stretch out your arms and touch the foliage on either side of the trail, because these trees are the borders of your faith and this earth your true home. And every leaf jutting into your path is itself a fossil, laid down before the ages, suddenly exposed and within hand’s reach along the cut-edges of the trail.
Who laid bare these leafy walls? Who cut this covenant trail and left these leaves exposed to my eyes and my hands and my mind?
If fear has seized your heart, and you want to look back at what you left behind, hear this: There are no religions of The Word. Because if there is a Word our frail ears can’t hear it. What we have are religions that clamor after The Word and talk about The Word and market The Word and brand themselves as keepers of The Word. It’s all best guesses and hearsay, and if you can’t own up to that and still keep faith with your brothers and sisters, you’re just fooling yourself and maybe that’s okay with you. That’s all some people want - to be nicely and gently and comfortably fooled.
I know the Bible, for I have spent half a lifetime looking there, but it cannot give you The Word. And if you treat those words as if they were The Word, then the Bible will be dead to you. The stories will turn their faces away from you, fold their robes over their shoulders, and go to sleep.
So you won’t have the Bible to cling to. I’m sorry.
But there is earth for your feet and air for your lungs and stars for your eyes and flesh for your desire. All religion begins with these, and if you ever lose them you have lost your roots and your guts. You’ll have your precious scriptures, but they will be like desiccated skin stretched over bleached bones. No flesh or desire there.
Start with what you can see and feel and touch. Start with what makes you cry. And if you do not cry, ask yourself why not. Start with what brings you joy. And if you feel no joy, ask yourself why not. Start with what draws your eye and your attention and your obsessions. And if you do not see or notice or obsess, ask yourself why not.
Start with these things and pay attention to your dreams and to myths, which are the common dreams of all humanity. Come as a child, naked and innocent, and the myths will jump to life. The stories will awake, uncover their faces, and hold you gently, with such a lovely and old embrace that you will cry, and you will feel joy, and you will see and by seized by the truth.
Now STOP! Stop right there. Repent. Turn around and go back down the trail to retrieve the religion you left behind. You were fearful to leave it, but returning to it now is terrifying; I know. Take up your religion for now it has no power to curse you but only the power to bless. Take it up like a man takes up his grandfather’s worn tools. Take it up like a child cupping a palm of water from a spring. Take it up like a woman lifting her man’s hand to her lips.
Behold, the very Word of God. It was there all along. I lied to you when I said you would not find The Word in your religion. But all you could hear then were lies. And now, only after this long journey are you able to know the truth.
rlp
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Does it mean that one must
Does it mean that one must first feel life itself before one finds life in religion?
I'm not sure what it means.
I'm not sure what it means. I just followed my gut and wrote down what came out. Sometimes I write that way. I guess it means whatever it means to whoever reads it. One of those kind of things, you know?
Yeah, I like it. I like the
Yeah, I like it. I like the twist at the end, if twist is the right word.
This is exactly what I
This is exactly what I needed to read today. I am somewhere between the hard drop and turning round. No timetables or road maps.
Holy wow
Wild applause from this corner of Jerusalem.
Like Brilliant, only better
I don't think I've ever heard anyone explicitly state that one must leave one's religion/beliefs/faith behind in order to find them. It's not said enough.
Bravo to revealing the way to the Way.
Whiteraven
"Some things have to be believed to be seen."
This is lovely
Thank you. It speaks to me this night, reminding me of the paths I've walked to where I am, toiling with tools I discovered and grew to love before I learned that they'd once belonged to my grandfather and his before him.
This is why I come here to
This is why I come here to read. You always put into beautiful words thing I feel (sometimes without realising it) but am unable to articulate.
Thank you for these words on a grey London morning.
You got that right
Yes. Oh yes. That's what I did. That's exactly what I did.
Thank you!! Thank you for
Thank you!!
Thank you for posting that.
Way cool!
Way cool!
Thank you so much! That
Thank you so much! That spoke to my soul.
This is beautiful in a
This is beautiful in a poetic way, in that one focuses on the overall feeling of this piece. It can tell its truth not just with the words, but with the images and with each persons place along that path. Nicely done.
I have found this to be true
Looking elsewhere leads me right back to Christ as revealed in the bible.
You had me till the walking back bit.
Maybe there is a new way of religion just a little further down the road. One that avoids the trappings of the last and embraces the discovery of the way, rather than defining it.
The religion I left behind is in conflict with most of the things I have learned on the trail.
Beautiful. I will be linking
Beautiful.
I will be linking to this on one of my pagan newsgroups. There is so much truth in here for anybody following a spiritual path, regardless of the wrapping.
If it annoys people, so be it. :D
Uh, wow. Caught myself
Uh, wow. Caught myself staring into the monitor, too deep in thought to see or even move. Thanks RLP.
Righteousness doesn't produce relationship;
Righteousness doesn't produce relationship; relationship produces righteousness. Religion gets everything backwards. We think we can please God with our obedience, but we feel guilty when we disobey. We wake up every morning wondering whether we're facing the God of the Old Testament or the God Jesus told us about in the New Testament. Religion teaches us to pray for our needs; relationship teaches us to pray that God will be glorified in our needs. Religion enslaves us to a genocidal and angry God; relationship reveals that God's wrath is directed not at the sinner but at what sin has done to those He loves. Give me a relationship, to hell with religion.
Exactly! Thank you. Thank
Exactly! Thank you. Thank God.
I loved it!
I love how you lead us one way and then switch back in this story, how you order us to lay down our religion in order to gain our faith, to lay down our life to gain it. I think our search for easy answers has led us here, to churches where there is more concern about budgets and programs and leadership than about the really important stuff: loving, really loving, God and everyone else. I don't know if you're familiar with it, but I'm reading a great book called "How (Not) to Speak of God" by Peter Rollins. Rollins' message is similar to yours, and just as scary, just as important. He suggests that our words, our formal liturgies, our debates over theology, our denominations, etc., have effectively become idols because we think they contain or capture or describe God, when at best they are icons, places that point to God and where God can speak to us. They are not, however, God. Thanks for this, Gordon.
stunned
You know. I read stuff like this, and I think, "Thank God, I'm not alone." Since we've met, I've puzzled and puzzled over what you do that works so well. It's just my analytical nature, I guess.
But here it is: you remind me that I'm not alone.
Not alone in questioning.
Not alone in doubting.
Not alone in clinging to traditions and prayers even when they feel empty.
Not alone in feeling empty.
And not alone on the path to find life again.
nodding the head to what you
nodding the head to what you have said, too. Much power in that knowledge that you're not alone, isn't there? We get wrapped up in our wonders and thoughts and begin to feel if others share them. Turns out they do. We're in this together, and it's refreshing to find that to be true with our fellow pilgrims, isn't it? (Blessings on your journey)
I've surely laid my religion
I've surely laid my religion down but I'm not ready (nor certain I ever will be ready) to pick it up again -- even in the truly honest way you've described. My experience still reeks to me of dishonesty, delusion, nescience and humiliation. Yet a pinprick of hope rises in me ... in reading you. Can I pick it up again and find it good and honest? I don't know ... but I am so happy that you can/have.
good stuff to ponder
Nodding the head, and pondering. I'm pondering especially the gifts of earth, air, stars and flesh and relating that metaphorically with your images and the ones in my own mind. I'm pondering at the cyclical nature of the spiritual life, repentance, renewal, and return. (and do it again, and again, all our lives. Never quite "done" methinks!) I love your return images of "taking it up", too. Good post that I will ponder a good long while.
Yee HA!
I spin like a dervish in the Desert of the Real! Someone FINALLY HAS TOLD THE WORLD WHAT IS HAPPENING TO MMME!
(raises hands over head and howls to the moon)
I've gotten involved in an
I've gotten involved in an online debate about religion between several internet acquaintances of mine. I linked this post to one of those guys on a hunch that he would identify with it.
I was right.
Our debate has now taken a turn towards recognizing the bits of faith in one another instead of trying to crush those bits of faith in our opponents.
This is beautiful. It
This is beautiful. It reminded me of reading Stephen Levine's autobiography "Turning toward the Mystery"; especially the passage where he spoke of meeting Jesus while he (Stephen) was sitting on a zaboton in Buddhist meditation. Stephen had had a particularly rough night visiting with a dying man. He says that even if Jesus had never lived we would have made him up because he is the archetype of suffering -- the man acquaited with grief. Reading this description of this Buddhist's encounter with Christ made Christ more real to me than anything I have ever heard in church. After all Stephen wasn't trying to sell me on Jesus or save my soul to get another notch on his spiritual gun belt. He was just relating an experience. I wept with joy to for a moment feel so filled with faith and grief that I have never had such a moment in church...
A birthday gift
Gordon, you've made me realize birthday gifts can be retroactive. You posted on my 43rd celebration, and as I read, I saw myself, my past 17 years, clearly.
I did just what you said in '92, and several years later came back to the Lord, naturally. What an embrace I have received in that decade. What a sound the Word rings out when it's not overdubbed with the noise of my church, your church, or thier church.
Funny, too, how this comes at the very time where the din of my church is overshadowing the truest of sounds.
Long blather made short - thanks brudda for the good writing, insight, and simpy cry for me to recognize what's been going on. Truly, one of the two best gifts this year.
Peace, Schlegs
(BTW, the best was a World Vision contribution made in my name - my wife & kids rock!)
Yes, this is exactly what is
Yes, this is exactly what is in my heart and what I am discovering. Thanks, its good to feel understood.
I was a little pissed when I
I was a little pissed when I got to the "Now STOP! Stop right there" part. I read that paragraph several times and then all of a sudden my heart softened and I understood what you were saying. I walked away from religion a few years ago. It was exactly what I needed to do. I've been on a journey similar to what you described. I've never thought about religion that way...as something that has no power to curse, only to bless. I think I could almost embrace that. Maybe I can go back. At least I'm willing to think about it and that's something new. Thanks.
Thank you. I surf by
Thank you. I surf by occasionally and today I found the words I needed. Bereft of my collar by my own choosing I found some affirmation of where I had found myself wandering.
Waiting for the time to turn around.
Sounds all too familiar
RLP,
I just graduated from seminary and am pastoring a church up in the mountains of Montana. This essay sounds a lot like my journey. As a preacher, I am sometimes stunned by how hard it is to preach blessing, love, hope and faith in the face of judgment, anger, loss and unbelief - and by that I mean what I see in myself and in the Bible, not in the people in the pews though I am confident many of them seek what I seek and see what I see. I walked away from the church for about 15 years. No one was more surprised than I when I returned that what I picked up was not what I left behind. What I picked up is what you describe here. Thank you for all your work.
Peace!
Seth
wilderness
thanks - i'm up in the mountains at a beautifully amazing place called Fallen Leaf Chapel. it's near the trail head of Desolation wilderness. I'm the chaplain for two weeks - and i'm trying to restore my soul from a very difficult year pastoring my church.
many thanks - i'm off to the trails.
debra
This softened my heart as a
This softened my heart as a 29-year old husband, parent, friend and "Jesus-admiring/agnostic/humanist" living amongst and loving (though rarely agreeing with) my evangelical Christian friends.
This helps me so much at the stage I am at in my journey! Utterly awesome. Thank you!
I don't believe you
Oh, I've done the first part. Not necessarily voluntarily, but the deed has been done. What angers me is how you have assumed that afterwards, the "wild places where faith can still be found" would be there for me to find. I haven't seen any. Kind of hard to move forward after that, so I guess I won't have to worry about whether someone can actually turn back the initial decision.
LLB, Perhaps you could begin
LLB,
Perhaps you could begin by asking yourself, "Why am I angry at this man, who has written about his own experience and the experience of some people?" I can only tell my own story, and sometimes I choose not to do so in the first person, which allows me to include other people if their story is similar. But it doesn't mean that what I've said describes every journey. And if your journey doesn't line up with mine, that doesn't invalidate my story and my writing.
Writing is an approximation of life, and it doesn't line up with everyone's experience. So okay, this little story doesn't fit what has happened to you. Then keep seeking, sister pilgrim. I think maybe you are in some kind of wild place. Maybe one day, after you have gone through it, you'll write about your journey and describe another kind of truth.
And if you need a listening ear along the way, you can send me an email anytime.
peace,
Gordon Atkinson
It doesn't appear to be written that way
I want to thank you for responding to me with a gentle tone, but I still do not believe you. This article was not written with in the form of someone's subjective personal experience, but as advice to those who have spent too much time in Church.
Surely I must qualify for that demographic set. I was certainly on the religiopathic side of the spectrum for religious belief, even to the point of creating harmful turmoil in my family all for the sake of a more pure, more "faithful" religion.
I don't really have a problem with understanding why I am angry. I am bitter, that is easy to understand. My anger towards you was simply an extension of that. Your advice, and it is certainly written as such, was bad. Maybe it wasn't bad for particular people, but it wasn't given in a discretely personal manner, but disseminated in a broad fashion and for a general audience (at least general for those who fit your description).
But thank you for your kind wishes. I wish it was true too.
Anger
I think the problem is simply related to the nature of a blog, not to RLP's theology. There's not enough time and space to write an essay that expounds on every point he tries to make. Taking offense at something that was presented generically is like being offended because you were stereotyped when that simply wasn't what happened. The problem isn't really that of the writer but of the receiver.
Having said that, God doesn't expect you to suddenly receive an eye-opening revelation and immediately everything falls into place. What He's interested in doing is to peel back every petal of anger in your life and reveal to you the root of your anger. This may be a painful experience, much like undergoing surgery and a lengthy recovery; but in the end you'll find yourself cured and you're going to know God's love in a more intimate way. One of the most dangerous prayers we can make is to ask God to change us. Change is painful.
It simply just doesn't happen to us all at the same time. For me, it's been 57 years of growing up in a church before realizing that the righteousness taught and expected of Christians in the Church is more of a hindrance to our relationship with the Father than actually coming to Him as we are (like a child) and letting Him love on us. Righteousness born out of obligation will only create guilt; righteousness born out of a relationship will bring peace.
The purpose of a church - of meeting with other believers, is to celebrate what God is doing in our lives. Rituals and ministries/programs accomplish little more than trying to live under the Law that Jesus freed us from. When Christians feel like they've invested too much in the organization to allow it to be threatened, there's going to be fights and church splits. God is not glorified in church, He is glorified in those who walk honestly with Him. I do believe RLP is on the right track with what he said above...not all, but some.
So it's my fault
I followed his advice and discovered that what he said after step one wasn't true, and that's my fault? I don't have "petals of anger" to peel back, so lets not pretend to delve too deeply into my psyche. I was upset for the reasons I've already stated.
I also wouldn't recommend making long term predictions about me discovering the love of a god I no longer believe in (again, thanks to step one).
I understand that many of his audience found this post to be insightful or otherwise edifying, but gamely telling people to just drop their religion without any qualifier but the one I have already mentioned is asking for criticism from those who have done exactly that and found it to be other than advertised. He should have been expecting it, and certainly not been surprised or have tried to turn it around and make it the readers problem.
I write as well, and when I write sloppily and someone calls me on it, I accept it. Even if it isn't entirely my problem, I can at least acknowledge that what I said could have been written with greater clarity.
Cute...
...but there are some who simply will not become Christian again. You can't win them all, priest.
For LLB
Just because you have not found "the wild places where faith is still to be found" does not mean they do not exist. You could be standing in the middle of one right now. But if you won't admit the possibility of its existence, you'll never see it.
And arguing that because *you* don't have the same experience it doesn't exist is the ultimate in sloppy writing/thinking. It's trying to prove the unprovable negative.
The preacher offers a gift, a perspective, a story.
You reject that gift. That's fine.
But at least have the guts to take responsibility for that rejection. It seems to me that you've revealed the heart of the issue:
Blaming the Giver for not giving you the gift you think you deserve.
Strong work there Sean
I'm starting to notice a theme here, where it's more popular to criticize the reader then reflect on what was written. Oh, that and the apparent ability to psycho-analyze with tremendous accuracy and insight from long distances and with only the barest of information available. Truly remarkable.
But apparently the trade-off for this skill is a deterioration in literacy, since I said that the post probably did encourage a number of readers here, as was obvious from the comments that preceded my own.
The rest is laughable. I've rejected the gift. Oh, and blaming the giver, huh? I wonder if you've even taken his advice given the amount of righteous indignation you've been able to throw my way.
LLB
You still sound angry.
I've never known God to chase anybody around beating us on the head with a Bible. Christians do that. We know all the right things to do and the things we shouldn't be doing, but just following some rules or adhering to a code of ethics doesn't create a relationship with God. Churches have attempted to come up with a formula by which people can enter into a relationship with God. We've also created an institution that requires our time, attention, and commitment. That institution can become a substitution for God. The institution can't satisfy our needs; only God can.
Even those of us who have experienced God moving in our lives have learned that He's not going to impose on us unless we invite Him. God has heard you when you say you don't want anything to do with Him. It doesn't mean He's stopped loving you or that He's going to stop taking care of you. He can and will bless you for the rest of your life without demanding your love or obedience or church attendance. But as one who is, and who has experienced God's love, I can say from personal experience that whenever I'm in the moment with Christ, there's nowhere else I'd rather be.
All a church is for, is a place where believers can come and celebrate God's love and provision. Our relationships in church should be like they are in a family: acceptance, love, support, loving correction, and appreciation of God. The other stuff is man's attempts to earn God's approval. You don't need His approval - you have His love. The way you know you're in an authentic church is when you can't wait to get there and can't imagine not being there to celebrate God. Unfortunately there aren't many of those churches. Even those who find fulfillment in their ministries might be missing out on the personal relationship God desires with each of us.
thank you. your words offer
thank you. your words offer me hope. I look forward to being able to take back my religion.
Resonates with me
Long time fan, Gordon. Thanks for an amazing post. You touched on several things related to my journey and thoughts I've had. I don't want to give a autobiography other than to say I left pastoral ministry and church a couple years ago after a lifetime of it. I did lay it down hard. Surprisingly, I didn't get struck by lightning. I've been at peace about it all. I haven't declared myself agnostic, atheist, or any other label. I'm just me.
There are some things that I no longer hold to be true. New found wonders that I've discovered, and a lot of things I'm just not sure about. I'm really comfortable with not knowing. I don't like people or religions that have all the answers. It's rather arrogant. I believe the real challenge is live with the mystery and the paradox, to find beauty and truth wherever, whenever, and in whomever you can.
I miss some things from my years spent in church, but much more that I don't miss. Some of the music is emotionally and spiritually satisfying. The language of the Bible has always been seductive to me, even though I see so much of it now riddled with contradictions and skewed by agendas. I found a "liberal" baptist church here in town. The pastor told me he knew you well, maybe you guys went to school together or something. I enjoy going there, even though I haven't been in a while. I like it as much for what it is, as for what it's not.
I'm not sure where I'll end up, but I know for sure it won't be hell. (Nice post on that btw.) I doubt I'll stop and repent, throwing myself on anyone's altar any time soon. I miss the smell of my grandfather's workshop and the feel of those old tools in my hands, but I don't know if I'll step into the pulpit again. Most people I found in church go to be told that what they believe is the way it is and not to be challenged to think of an alternative. That must be why I got tired of pointing people elsewhere and decided to go myself.
Thanks again.
rlp... I just discovered
rlp...
I just discovered your blog today. I've literally wept as I have read some of your posts. I left the church several years ago, and all but abandoned my faith. I have seen the harshness and hypocrisy of those I loved the most when they turned. Reading your words of grace have renewed my hope that not all Christians are like that. I guess I'm on the journey you wrote about in this post, not sure where it will end up. One thing I do know, I have no intention of going back to where I was.
From time
to time I wander back to this place, I look at what you've written and I remember WHY I wander back here. Thank you, my friend, thank you very much.
Ray
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Thanks for putting this into words
Thanks so much for writing this. I'm trying to work up the guts (is that the word?) to "lay it down hard." Who would have thought it would be so hard to walk away, even temporarily, from something I can't make myself embrace right now? I can't tell if I'm afraid that I won't turn back one day, or if I'm afraid that I won't like the person I have to become in order to turn back.
Again, thanks for articulating to your readers what I haven't been able to articulate to myself.
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