I've been feeling pretty, well, un-faith-filled of late. My life's gone pretty pear-shaped, and I've ended up completely stopping attending CU at uni, basically stopping attending church meetings, and my relationship with God just doesn't seem to be there any more. To put it bluntly, I don't want to be a Christian.
It's not that I have particular trouble believing in God (although sometimes I'm skeptical and as I've said I don't feel it right now), or that Jesus lived, was amazing, and even rose from the dead two millenia ago, but I hate the culture of mainstream evangelical Christianity, it makes me feel sick to my stomach and I don't want to be associated with it. I know they're doing their best, but all I ever seem to see is the damage and hostility their good intentions cause. If that's really what the Christian faith is all about then my faith is dead, as I want no part of it.
Fresh hope has come for me tonight in the form of the concept of 'Otherlyness', put forward by Jim Henderson et al (see: www.offthemap.com). It is 'the spiritual practice of noticing and serving others in ordinary ways'. I love that! 'Holyness' now has such bad connotations for me of superiority complexes and a refusal to engage and grapple with the world's problems, maybe this new take on it has a better angle. I'd love to read Jim Henderson's books 'Evangelism without Additives' and 'Jim and Casper go to Church' and learn more about his take on things. Maybe they'd help me work out what to do about the thorny issues of church and CU.
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3 comments:
Hi Claire, how did you hear about Otherlyness and Off The Map? Thanks for the mention, anyway :)
When I stopped going to church and Bible study, it was hard because those were where most of my friends were. And that was my fault because I had preferred to be with Christians.
It helped a lot when I started getting to know people for whom church and Bible study wasn't a big deal. Who didn't mind whether I went or not.
So maybe it would help you if you looked for ways to make new friends at university who are fine with your non-attendance at church and CU. That way maybe it will be easier not to care about the people who disapprove of you not going.
Claire, I emailed a link to your blog to Jim Henderson and he e-mailed back "Tell Claire if she lets us know how she heard about Otherlyness and Off The Map and sends us her mailing address we will send her a copy of Evangelism Without Additives and Jim and Casper go to Church".
If you'd like to do that please email me at helen(at)offthemap(dot)com.
Helen
You beat me to it with the free copies of the books from Jim thing =)
Claire,
Thank you for your honesty. You might also enjoy the writings of Brian McClaren--he's another guy who feels a lot like you about a lot of mainstream christianity and yet writes with astounding hope and honesty and clarity.
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