Wednesday, March 05, 2014

Lent: give me strength for round 5

Lent is upon us. Some of you are probably still recovering from Mardi Gras, which I completely forgot to celebrate this year. We did make it to our church's Ash Wednesday service tonight. Every year during Lent I think more than usual about religious themes, which I know is not of interest to some of you, so I'll put "Lent" in the title when that's the case. The posts won't be specifically about Lent. Or at least I don't think they will be, I've only got two planned at the moment. And just 40 days to go.

Awhile ago I decided--as I periodically do--that I should make yet another effort to come to terms with the evangelicalism of my youth, this time by reading books by evangelicals. So I looked through the Christian bestseller lists and the awards lists and picked out eight or ten books that looked promising. Most of them I pitched right back into the Salvo box after a few chapters, but I made it all the way through a few of them.

I left Evangelicalism behind thirty years ago, so I am not new to the effort to define my beliefs by comparing them to my past. I've had decades now of figuring out what I believe and how it differs from the way I was raised.

For the most part, I am pretty unconflicted about this. I have no desire at all to be an Evangelical again. There are so many things that bother me about Evangelicals these days it's hard to know where to start: the intertwining of faith and politics; the lack of questioning of consumerism and materialist values; the willingness to reduce the New Testament message of love, joy, peace and mercy to a couple of harangues on maintaining 1950s middle class morality. As a friend of mine said a couple of weeks ago, we've come to the point where people see the church as "exterminators of sin" instead of "dispensers of grace," and I think Evangelicalism is the primary culprit in that.

But that's not to say that all Evangelicals are like that. There are still things I can learn from them, and learn I did from a few of these authors. But over the past couple of days I've realized that my reading had an unintended and unwelcome side effect: it re-awakened a voice in my head I thought I was done with. It's the voice that just-below-the-level-of-consciousness tells me over and over again that I can't trust myself, I can't trust my experience, my ideas aren't worth anything, and it's a little ridiculous to think that my opinions are valid compared with the weight of all those other opinions out there, isn't it?

It's a voice I learned at least in part from being raised Evangelical. It's clear to me that not all Evangelicals have this voice, but I am naturally a person who asks questions, and the answers to my questions were often that's not how it is or accept our beautiful system of belief and stop asking questions. Or simply: you're wrong. I learned very early to keep my questions to myself and not rock the boat.

I hate rocking the boat anyway. That's why I post my opinions here in this little blog that only about 30 people read, and I make very little effort to increase my readership. Because even though I love to ask questions and to consider what I think and believe, I also hate to cause problems. I like peace. I like it when people get along. I enjoy listening to a lively discussion, but if it turns into an argument, I head for the door. I hate conflict. I am a wuss.

So anyway, for a minute--ok, maybe for the past month or so--that reawakened voice in my head caused me to forget that I do trust myself. I do value my own experience and my own opinions. (ha, and suddenly I'm remembering the post from last week that was also about learning to trust myself. This seems to be a theme.) My opinions may not be orthodox, and I may not be able to write down a logical defense that will convince anybody else, but that's OK. That's not the point.

When I finally realized what was going on, it was like a load of bricks falling off my back. Oh, yeah, I remember now. I'm OK. I can let go of that bit of legacy thinking that insidiously tries to tell me that I have to rely on an authority to tell me what to do and think. And THANK GOD for that. Literally.

6 comments:

  1. Oh. That voice. Even those of us who were not raised Evangelical hear that one.
    Probably not with quite the same tone, but, oh yeah, it certainly murmurs nasty things in the back of my head. "Who do you think you are anyway?" in a really condescending manner.

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    1. yup, that's the one. I'm glad to know I'm not alone!

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  2. Thank you, Barb. Some of us ADORE your theological maunderings!!

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    1. You're welcome! Hoping to see you soon, by the way.

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  3. I echo Cheery-O (Hi Cherri). And for me, what I brought out of that pesky Evangelical upbringing is the little voice in the back of my brain that says that I am not ever going to be "good enough". That God can only love me if I am following that true Baptist way. Condemnation here, condemnation there.

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    1. Oh, I've got that one, too. Lucky us. And see YOU soon, too! yay!

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