An Epiphany -- Going back to church

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

That does it, I’m going back to church. Easter Sunday, I think. That’s a good time for resurrecting one’s spirituality. It’ll be the local Episcopal Church, with which I have so much history. I was back in the old pile of bricks a few weeks ago at my mother’s funeral – didn’t realize how much I miss the people, the music, the liturgy. But none of that is enough to compel me back into the pew.

This is. It’s a very long thread, but read the first page or two and you’ll see that there are Dawkinsites out there whose mission it is to destroy religion. While I’m not a devout Christian, neither do I want to see these venerable old institutions destroyed, and the people who need them bereft of spiritual leadership.

I tried to sit on the fence, being a moderate agnostic/atheist/whatever who respected religion, tolerated the zealots and worked wherever possible to promote logic, reason and fellowship. But the challenges in the Dawkins thread leave me no choice – you are either with them or against them. And if I’m going to be against them, I’d may as well go all the way.

I’ll make no bones about my skepticism. The rector will be fully aware of my convictions, and I will seize every opportunity to challenge the fundies and, as far as possible, force them to recognize the intolerance and unreason of their positions. I will be a moderate Christian, one of those the Dawkinsites see as more evil than the fundamentalists.

Is this what they mean by being “born again”? It must be – I feel better already.

2

You really find the tiny minority of militant anti-religionists that threatening?

3

Sunrazor, I’m not sure if you’re serious, but if you are, are you really going to decide your religious conviction based on a few people who are being reactionary? They’re reacting to fundamentalists by being inflexible and becoming one of them. I’ve seen many debates about whether militant atheists can rightly be called fundamentalists. Whether they can rightly be called that technically, they’re behaving like it.

As for myself, I’m going to church for my own reasons, but I’m really clear to tell people that I’m a non-believer. I also sat on the fence for a long time and can see both sides. But if I’m going to err in representing myself to others, I’m going to err on the side that makes me most uncomfortable in the beginning because I think it’s unfair to mislead people into thinking that I think like they do only to spring it on them later that I don’t. I’ve seen a few too many Christians use that tactic in reverse to be comfortable with it myself.

4

Sunrazor, last November I returned to church also. It wasn’t for any great compelling religious reason. I’ve never lost my spirituality or my faith. But there I have found ways of learning new things while at the same time helping some other folks. Renewing old friendships has been a bonus too.

I’ve been homesick for a long time and “home” really isn’t there anymore. Yet many of these people have known in old age the young couples that I knew in my childhood. There is a sense of completion for me. Full circle.

After forty years I have left the Episcopal Church and returned to the small Cumberland Presbyterian denomination that brought me up. The Episcopal Church is in need of clear thinking people with hearts full of love. And you are certainly that. I have great respect for the new directions the church is taking.

I’m sorry for the loss of your mother. May she grow from strength to strength in his presence.

Peace be with you.

5

I thought you said you were going back to an Episcopal church. You are going to spend an awful lot of fruitless effort hunting around those precincts for fundies.
(Yeah, you can find intolerance in any group–religious, irreligious, apathetic, or whatever–but fundies are generally pretty rare in Episcopal churches.)

6

Are you familiar with the Charismatic movement of the 1990s? Speaking in tongues, dancing in the pews, the whole bunch. Oh, it’s not your grandpa’s Anglican Church any more. Yeah, we’ve got a bunch of 'em – Biblical literalists, anti-abortionists, anti-stem-cellies, anti-homo – the only thing we’re missing are the snake handlers. Not that this is the majority, but it’s a small church, and in a church that small, it only takes a handful to change the whole tenor of the place.

Yes. To explain that would get this thread moved to GD. So, yes.

Hefalump, I probably wasn’t forceful enough about makng my skepticism well-known. As my answer to tomndebb above states, we have some real wingnuts in the local Episcopal church, but we have some real skeptics, too. I’ve been mulling this over in my mind for a long time – my apostasy was part of a spiritual search. Sometimes it wasn’t so spiritual. I found complete atheism liberating and simplifying – and yet missing something I seem to need. I know most churchgoers think their pastor and the Bible can provide all the answers. I don’t think we’ve even started asking the right questions.

I have always believed there was something more to human life than just being the most technologically advanced mammals on the planet. More than a decade ago I stopped trying to figure out what that was. Maybe it’s time to start the search again.

Besides, as some of the Dopers on the GD thread referenced in my OP said, it’s the moderates who are the most dangerous. And I like the idea of being dangerous.

I have some things to work out in all of this, and I have tremendous respect for the intellectual power that I’ve seen on the SDMB boards. Guys like Der Trihs, tomndebb, polycarp and **oakminster ** have given me some vigorous intellectual workouts, just thinking about the stuff they’ve posted. I hope that power keeps emanating in all directions. But I gotta’ go do this.

Zoe, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Virtual hug coming your way.

7

It must differ by diocese. Anglican friends of mine are always complaining about the fundamentalist presence, and influence, in the Sydney Anglican Archdiocese - generally considered to be the lowest of the low.

8

Heck, I’m familiar with the Charismatic Movemewnt of the 1970s. Of course, in the Catholic churches, those folks tend to get marginalized pretty quickly. We either put them in college Newman Club ghettoes or give them the 7:30 p.m. Saturday mass and they leave the rest of us alone. I didn’t realize that they had any serious influence over among the Catholic Lite.

9

Now there’s a list you don’t see very often. Guessing I haven’t gained a convert for Karana…

In any event, may you walk in light.

10

**
Sunrazor**, I apologize for arguing with you in this MPSIMS thread. I pretty much disagree with a lot of what you said to me, but it looks like you’re looking for support and encouragement here, not more arguments.

So may you find what you’re looking for on your journey. Good luck!

And btw, if you remember offhand any of the threads where Oakminster was imparting his wisdom regarding religion, I’d be interested and would appreciate a thread title or even some search words. I did a search on his posts, and in the last 10 pages of his posts, the only vaguely religious/non-religious comment he made was one from DS9.

11

Your Episcopal church still has charismatics? I think all the charismatic Episcopalians I knew in late 70s-early 80s have joined either my church (Assembly of God) or the three local independent charismatic churches in town.

12

Probably not religious posts in particular – I think **oakminster ** is stronger in law, logic, philosophy, that kind of stuff. I also remember when he first logged on as a guest and somebody dragged him into the pit almost on the first day he posted – the man defended himself with tenacity, courage and pure reason, and gained my everlasting respect and admiration. There’s something Hemingwayesque about some of his posts – rich in content, spare in structure.

If you have arguments with some of the things I said in that post, it means I haven’t explained myself adequately. Drop me an e-mail – I’m sorting some stuff out in my head, and I want all the input I can get. I’ll probably argue with you at first, but in doing so it’ll cause thoughts to rise to the top for me.

13

It also varies from county. My sister-in-law lived in Australia for a while, and was surprised at how low-church the Australian Anglican church was, compared to the Canadian Anglican church. She found the Sydney diocese to be remarkable in that respect.

14

Wow. Thank you.

15

Since the arrival of the brothers Jensen, Anglicanism would give the Southern Baptists a run for their money in the fundamentalist stakes.

16

You’re welcome.

Now put down the shotgun.

17

There are some high church Anglican dioceses in Australia. It’s just that Sydney most definitely isn’t one of them.

18

His convictions aren’t changing, only his behavior. I go to Mass in countries where it’s in Modern English (i.e, if I can find a church where they use a translation more modern than the King James), Italian, Spanish, Portuguese or French. I don’t go where I don’t understand it. That’s not a change in my convictions.

19

I didn’t read it the same way you did. My understanding was that he was going to go back to being a moderate Christian from being an atheist based on the behavior he saw.

I also go to church but I am not a Christian and I make it clear to those around me that I am not, so I know that behaviors and beliefs are different things.
**
Sunrazor**, thanks for the e-mail invite. I’m considering it. I was going to turn it down. I don’t normally try to convince people about beliefs or have them try to convince me. But I’m at a searching place also, so maybe we can learn from each other.

That was quite an endorsement of Oakminster’s posts. You got me curious, so I went back and read some of his older posts.
**
Oakminster**, Janeway can kick both Kirk’s and Picard’s ass. She’s ruthless and wouldn’t stop to romance anyone.

20

I don’t see why their demands that you make a choice actually force you to make a choice. You’re allowing people you disrespect to, in essense, make your decisions for you.