I used to love the Christian artist TobyMac. I would listen the album Tonight, over and over. One of the more popular songs from that album, City on Our Knees, begins:
If you gotta start somewhere why not here
If you gotta start sometime why not now
I am starting a new chapter of my life. The here is Harrisburg, PA. The now is Wednesday September 4th, when I will begin my placement working with the Pennsylvania Council of Churches supporting a grant they received to minimize the practice of solitary confinement in PA's prisons.
I signed up to work for a year with the Episcopal Service Corps, an organization that invites people to engage in a year of service with a focus on vocational discernment and spiritual development. The only problem is: I'm still not entirely sure I even believe in God. As a result, I thought it would be important for me to think through my journey with Christianity. I share it here in the hopes that it will provide comfort for people who struggle with their own relationships with religion.
I used to be one of the most religious members of my family. When I was little I found believing in God easy. It was not hard for me to imagine that Jesus died and came back to life three days later. This was a fact of life to me just as much as the fact that I went to afternoon kindergarten.
When I was about five years old my grandmother passed away from brain cancer. The years I got to spend with my grandmother were some of the most magical of my life, because my only job was to learn things and experience the world. Everything about my time on Earth with my grandmother was good, and then she was gone. I took really great comfort in the idea that one day my grandmother and I would meet again in heaven.
Christianity started out to me as the reason I would get to see my grandmother again.
I talked to myself all the time as a child so prayer came pretty naturally to me. I turned my conversations with myself into conversations with God. God was like the grown up replacement for my imaginary friend.
Christianity was a way to not feel so alone.
By the time I turned ten years old I began suffering with what became a lifelong struggle with depression. In middle school, I took refuge in my bible. I became confirmed in the Episcopal church and committed myself to following the example of Jesus Christ. I became self-righteous as an anecdote to feeling incredibly isolated by my peers. While other kids going through their emo phases were listening to Fall Out Boy, I was jamming out to Skillet and praying to God I could fit in.
Christianity was a way to cope.
At the same time, around the age of twelve my cognitive dissonance surrounding religion began to set in. I had a giant crush on a kid in my confirmation class. When we were discussing the ten commandments our teacher explained how even looking at someone with desire could be considered committing adultery in your heart. I was twelve. I did not want to be thinking about having sex with this kid in my communion class, but I couldn’t help it. I remember thinking “why did God make us with hormones and sex drives if it’s a sin to think about sex?”
Christianity became about guilt.
One of the most reoccurring messages I received from middle and high school youth group was the importance of reaching out to people who were alone. During those years, I sat in youth group feeling the most alone I had in my life. I was bullied at middle school church retreats. I was let down by adults in the church. I have been hurt in some of the deepest ways by Christian people.
Christianity stopped being a guarantee that I would feel loved by the people who practice it.
At a high school youth group retreat we explored the question of why bad things happen to good people. The adult who facilitated the discussion said evil exists in the world because Adam and Eve decided to eat from the Tree of Life. This story, which made so much sense to me when I first heard it in Sunday school, suddenly seemed like an insane explanation for evil.
Christianity stopped feeling logical. Or even intelligent.
The bad thing that was happening to me at the time of our discussion was my depression, and I could not see God anywhere in it. For a while, the promises of scripture sustained me. I was doing everything right. I prayed, I read my bible, I went to church and youth group. I thought I was supposed to have a personal connection with God and He abandoned me. He wasn’t carrying me. All I saw were my own footsteps in the sand. The things I was taught about God stopped making sense to me in the context of my depression. If I was fearfully and wonderfully made, why was I made this way? If God has a plan for my life, why do I spend so much time wishing I wasn’t alive? If God doesn’t give us more than we can handle, why can’t I handle this?
Christianity became about false promises.
I took Advanced Placement world history my sophomore year of high school. It was the first time I was ever really exposed to other religions. I realized most major religions seem to think that treating others as you wanted to be treated is a good idea. Everything else started to seem pretty arbitrary to me. Religion looked more like different paths to the same end goal. I overheard a conversation between my teacher and another student where the student expressed a similar sentiment. My teacher acknowledged this and stated that he had found the path that made most sense to him.
Christianity stopped making sense to me.
In that same world history class I shed tears while my history teacher described the torture of the Spanish inquisition. Earlier that year we learned about how many wars were fought over religion. Later on we would learn about the “white man’s burden” and how Christian missionaries colonized many different parts of the world. I hated learning that something that was supposed to be about love was used to inflict so much pain.
Christianity is sometimes a tool for oppression.
I stopped saying the Nicene Creed (a declaration of faith) in church because I didn’t want to be a liar. I still mostly enjoyed church, because it was a consistent ritual with my family. The sermons usually carried good messages. The music was really enjoyable. And my family would get sandwiches after.
I gave two different sermons for youth Sunday, one my junior and one my senior year of high school. I thought of myself as an atheist, or maybe agnostic. A few years prior one of the youths mentioned in their sermon that they considered themselves an atheist, but they really liked our congregation because of the people. I decided I agreed, but still wasn’t ready to admit it in a sermon. I felt like I was faking my faith for the sake of appearances.
Christianity, to me, became more about food and fellowship than the bible and hymns.
In college I joined an Episcopal church because my older sister went, and because they gave out scholarships. I pretty much only went to church when we had a required scholarship meeting afterwards. We wrote spiritual autobiographies. I felt like I had to do a school assignment correctly. I didn’t feel connected to my faith at all at the time. I didn’t apply for the scholarship the following year because I didn’t think I was worthy of it. I had pretty much given up on the church.
And then someone invited me to a party at the church house. And there was bread and ice cream and a different kind of communion. It was what I needed to feel comfortable in church spaces again. I joined a small group called Amateur Theologians and we discussed different theologians writings on the Trinity, Communion, Human Nature, and the Kingdom of God. I realized it’s okay to not have the answers to every religious question, because even people who studied these things for years disagreed.
Christianity, to me, became a reverence for the unknown.
I’ve called myself an atheist at the dinner table. I’ve told my friends I don’t believe in heaven or hell. I’ve started referring to myself as a “bad Christian” because parts of the Christian doctrine seem incompatible with loving humans, so I have chosen to reject them. So naturally, my family was a little confused when I told them I signed up for a year of living in community with the Episcopal Service Corps. They thought it sounded like something I would hate. And in part, they’re not wrong, because Christianity has been both an incredible force for good, and an incredibly isolating and destructive force in my life. I hold these two things in my heart simultaneously as I start this year working with a faith based organization to reform Pennsylvania’s prisons. I am skeptical. I am uncomfortable. But I am also full of hope.
Christianity is radical love. Christianity means breaking the law when the law is unjust. Christianity means sharing bread in communion with anyone who comes to the table. Christianity is something I struggle with a lot.
But mostly, Christianity means to me that I am never alone in that struggle.
As I start this new chapter of my life, I do so knowing that I am putting love at the center of it. Love seems like a good place to start.
