Content with Not-knowing

I have realized that in the past couple of years I have become more and more content with having fewer and fewer certainties. I have come to the point where I don't believe that any belief, any group, any religion has all the answers (or for that matter anywhere close to a majority of the answers). And, I'm OK with that. It doesn't mean that I'll stop searching for new explanations and information. I find the search for new ideas and explanations to be stimulating and many times enlightening.

I still have my favorite authors and speakers whom I respect greatly, but find myself often disagreeing with something that one may have to say. That is also OK. It doesn't cause me to lose any respect for that person. I enjoy all that each of them have to offer.

Does This Describe You?

About five or six years ago, I read a book called,  If Grace Is True, by Jim Mulholland, a Quaker minister, and his friend, Phillip Gulley. I was impressed by Mulholland and Gulley's universalist leanings which were very evident in the book. I was fully exploring universalism at the time and the book spoke to me deeply.

My atheist friend, Andrew recently posted that Mulholland has left the faith completely, and gave a link to Mulholland's website called "Leaving Your Religion".  On the website, Mulholland offers a Questionnaire for folks who think they may be in the process of leaving their religion or suspect they might already have. Leaving your religion doesn't necessarily mean leaving God. Maybe it's just leaving your old version of God or a particular kind of theism.  I know that is very true in my case. I continue to explore the spiritual side of life even when it looks nothing like what I believed it to be for so many years. The following is the result of the questionnaire of one who probably is in the process of leaving:

         

You’ve been in a crisis of belief for months or even years.  You are probably not attending religious services often, or you are participating in the most progressive element of your religious tradition.  Yet neither of these choices has made you completely happy.

You no longer believe many of the key doctrines of your religious tradition.  You are increasingly uncomfortable with many of its rituals and practices.  You have tried to hold on to a core, but that core gets smaller and smaller.  Reading your tradition’s holy writings no longer helps since you have serious doubts about the reliability of those writings.  When you pray, you often wonder if anyone is listening.

You struggle with how to identify yourself.  You try to make a distinction between religion and spirituality and may call yourself a mystic or a spiritual seeker.  You may have read about or dipped your toes into other religious traditions.  You probably still believe in God, but your definition of God is quite different than that of your religious tradition and difficult for you to explain.  If truth be told, making sense of religion has become exhausting.

You have mixed feelings about your religious tradition.  It has been a powerful force in the past.  It is part of who you are.  But it isn’t working for you any longer and you can’t pretend any more.  You may feel sad and depressed about this crisis.  You probably feel a void and real loss.  You may even be angry at or hostile toward your religious tradition.  You may feel like you were duped.  Sadness and anger are normal responses.

For the first time in your life, you’re seriously considering leaving your religion.   You may find yourself envious of the non-religious people and curious what life would be like without religion.  You may be both frightened and excited about the prospect of living outside a religious community.  Regardless, you can feel yourself disconnecting from your religion.

Does this describe you? What's your opinion? I am interested in what my friends think of the result and the website leavingyourreligion.com

Marcus Borg on Atonement Theory

"The image of Jesus as the 'once for all' sacrifice for sin has often been misunderstood in Christian history. It has been placed within a theological framework that emphasizes that we are all sinners, that our sins must be paid for in order for God to forgive us, and that Jesus is the sacrifice who paid the price. This theological framework is a later development, not present in the first thousand years of Christianity."

~Dr. Marcos Borg

IMO, that pretty much settles the case for the validity of atonement theories.  Atonement theories were one of the first things I discarded eight or so years ago. I respect Dr. Borg tremendously and have followed his back and forth commentary with Tony Jones, whom I also respect, on the how we should see the resurrection. Here's what Dr. Borg has to say, and here is Tony's comments.

Tribal Thinking

Tribal thinking, believe or not, is one the strongest characteristics of our human condition. Here is one of the best, if not the best explanation of “tribal thinking” that I have read. This comes from John Shelby Spong’s latest book on the Gospel of John, “The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic”.

            …It is the nature of human life to feed our ever-present security needs by displaying fear in the presence of anyone who is “different.” This fear grows out of not knowing how to interpret behavior that has not been vetted by the norms which govern tribal life and into which tribal members have been incorporated. This is why it is in the biological nature of human life for us to respond to the stranger with heightened suspicion. Strangers speak a language we not understand, so we do not know how to process their words; and as a result we fear their motives. When we do not understand their words, our latent paranoia is fed and excited. Strangers who are not of our tribe also have different ethnic characteristics. Tribal thinking always defines the characteristics of one’s own ethnicity as “normal,” which immediately suggests that to be different is to be “abnormal.” Strangers also worship in a different way and since the primary, primitive meaning of worship is to solicit divine protection for ourselves, worship that is different from our norms might turn out to put us at risk of losing the protection of our deity to the deity of another tribe, who might well be malevolent.

            For all these reasons, xenophobia is a natural human survival technique that is present in all of us. We cannot lay it aside because it is part of what it means to be human. We can escape it only by escaping the limits of our humanity. Making that escape thus reflects a transformational moment, one in which we cross a boundary and enter a new level of consciousness and begin to perceive the reality of human oneness. That is not easy, for survival drives all life, and survival always demands barriers behind which we can find security.