Why Do I Hang On?
By Adele Sakler
i’d love to thank William Lobdell and his book, ‘Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America – and Found Unexpected Peace’ for inspiring this post. While in Indonesia diving, we met a lovely couple from the Bay Area who are currently living in Shanghai, China. She was reading Lobdell’s book as she had worked with him at one point in her career. She told me what it was about and i immediately knew i would resonate with it and told her i’d have to read it. Coming back to our villa one afternoon after diving, i found his book sitting on the chair on our front porch. She said it was her gift to me, and it was in more ways than one for sure!
Lobdell has a similar journey as mine and in the course of writing and covering Picture-1 religious stories for the LA TIMES thought of this as G-D’s calling on his life. He fervently sought out the most interesting stories to tell and attempted be as authentic and neutral as any human could be in his line of work. He covered ALL religions with enthusiasm, integrity and as a way to learn more about others. Naturally when stories emerged about the Catholic Church and the abusive sex scandals perpetrated upon innocent children and the attempts to cover up and dodge any responsibility, Lobdell was a natural to cover the stories.
Throughout the years of covering positive religious stories through his evangelical eyes and then on his journey to converting to Catholicism, Lobdell then began questioning why a ‘GOOD G-D’ would allow these horrible things to happen. He wondered why so many times Christians really did not act all that differently from people who claimed no religion at all. In essence, he was not seeing any real transformation in the lives of people who cling to their religion. Often, religion is a power tool to be wielded to control, conceal, keep up appearances. He talked with close friends but came to the point in his life where he did not need G-D in his life or the assurance of an afterlife. He de-converted from his faith and came to peace and freedom in his life.
Excerpts from Lobdell’s Epilogue that have caused me to pause and chew:
‘The laws of nature, circumstance and coincidence make more sense than the divine’ (p. 276)
”At least now when I see injustice and suffering – my guitar teacher’s beautiful boy, all of three years old, died of a brain tumor the day I’m writing this – the randomness is just that. A God in heaven didn’t sit by while the little boy died. To simply know the tragic stuff just happens is a much more satisfying and realistic answer.’ (p. 277)
‘What the Bible promises – peace and serenity – I’ve found in larger measures as a nonbeliever. My morals and values haven’t changed…As a believer I tried to live up to the standards for living outlined in the Bible…Nothing has changed since my loss of faith. I still try to follow the same general ideals – morals and values that I’d argue are inherent to each human being. I still find myself stumbling, but now I don’t blame Satan. Usually when I do wrong, it’s due to selfishness and poor judgment overcoming common sense, self-restraint and experience. Truth be told, my actions aren’t much different from when I was a Christian. Many of my basic life struggles are the same…’ (p. 277)
‘So what has taken the place of God in my life? A tremendous sense of gratitude. I sense how fortunate I am to be alive in this thin sliver of time in the history of the universe. This gives me a renewed sense of urgency to live this short life well…’ (p. 278)
‘…I wouldn’t have predicted it as a Christian, but I now feel wonderfully free – not to go on a binge of debauchery like the Prodigal Son, but to stop wrestling with the mysteries of Christianity…’ (p. 279)
‘I guess time will tell whether my decision was foolish or smart. But I have no regrets. For me, it was the move I had to make.’ (p. 283)
There is so much just in those excerpts but even MORE in the entirety of his book. i have asked the same kinds of questions he raised about Christianity and G-D. i know of many of the religious figures he mentioned and covered in his reporting. He mentioned a Benny Hinn crusade in Las Vegas, NV where a blind boy was brought for healing by his babysitter. Out of fear the boy said he was healed. Hinn made a big ta-do about it by saying G-D told him to pay the boy’s medical bills and his education. When i read this i realized i had been at that crusade. A friend who was battling terrilbly chronic health problems asked me to drive with her to attend the healing crusade. She was desperate to find relief and i agreed even though i had no respect for Hinn. i had attended a crusade of his years before and felt like it was all a sham. i just felt i needed to support my friend and it was a way of spending some quality time with her. The boy was never really healed. Lobdell wrote about the boy, William, and his uncle and guardian, Randy, that, ‘It took two years, a series of phone calls and my inquiry before his family was told that a $10,000 fund had been set up in William’s name. Randy still couldn’t get any details on how to access the account until a second story appeared about William.’ ( p. 187) i remember that display of ‘hearing G-D’ really rubbed me the wrong way while i sat there next to my ill friend. i remember feeling uncomfortable yet cautious that i was being judgmental of one of G-D’s children. Then when i read about all of the follow-up, i was a bit more comforted in my sensibilities at that time. i believe there is a difference between judging people and using one’s brain in critical thinking and observation.
i have deconstructed my faith and continue to do so as i see it as a simultaneous and continuous process in tandem with reconstruction of my faith and beliefs. i guess in some sense i see it as an arduous process of wrestling with a thesis, deconstructing and looking at what the antithesis possibilities are and coming to some sort of synthesis. Maybe i am wrong but this is where i am at and how i deal with my faith. i believe intellect, reason, emotions, personal experiences, limitations of humanity, etc. ALL play a part in our lives, whether we believe in some form of a Divine Being or not. After reading Lobdell’s book, finding myself wrestling with so many of the same damn questions as he did, i am in a quandary as to why do i still hang on to a belief in G-D. Yes, many of my once-held beliefs like the inerrancy of the Bible, black and white, easy pat answers, with certainties taken at face value, are no longer a part of my faith. i hold things loosely as i am a human not fully capable of knowing the mind and purposes of G-D. Yet, like Lobdell, the answers often given as to why bad things happen to good people and why G-D allows it all, are just tired, tortured and plain unsatisfying. YET, why do i still hang on when someone like Lobdell de-converted and left his Christian faith all behind and found utter peace? WHAT makes me different; not better, mind you? Am i just afraid to let go or am i stupid or deluded? It took me years to get to the point of accepting my sexuality and coming to peace with G-D about it. i FINALLY have peace and joy in my life like never before. Like Lobdell, i am still the same person with the same morals and find myself ever more grateful in my life. Like Lobdell, i still stumble and fail miserably as a human being. What makes me and Lobdell so different with such similar stories of faith journeys? Why did he decide to stop wrestling with the mysteries and questions and find peace outside of his faith while i find comfort and peace in the mysteries and wrestling? What are your thoughts?
i leave you with this quote:
“The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear.”
– Jiddu Krishnamurti
Adele Sakler currently resides in Sacramento, California with her partner, and their cute Tibetan Spaniel named Mushu. She suffers from, and is in treatment for Chronic Lyme Disease, a few other Tick-Borne diseases and Heavy Metal Toxicity. She considers herself at this point in her journey a Christian agnostic because she just can’t seem to sign on the dotted line and ascribe to all the doctrines and long-held man-made traditions of Christendom. She loves G-D and is a failing Christ-follower. She blogs at www.existentialpunk.com and is the creator and site administrator for www.queermergent.com.
November 16th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
Hi, I’m new; my name is Brigitte. I am a conservative Lutheran by confession and don’t understand exactly what “emerging” is.
Forgive my sounding like a clod, if I do. I do try to listen to people carefully.
I’ve saved a few links to atheist stories and this is one that makes a lot of sense to me. Maybe this is why you still believe. Materialist or reductionist positions just do not jive with the depth of life and experience.
http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2009/04/conversion-experience-atheism
Recently, I heard a talk by a man who had no church background but when his first baby was born, he was away from his wife and way up in the arctic. He just went out into the snow to reflect and rejoice and he realized somehow that there was so much more to life than what he had reduced it to (fun, etc.) and he started his spiritual search. He became an Anglican minister in the end. (He spoke about forgiveness because his son had been shot. Tabor school shooting in Tabor, Alberta.)
I can relate to this. There is so much more in having children, living and loving and dying, in beauty and sound and and and… No matter how attractive atheist materialism sounds it does not resonate in the soul. To me and others it is just self-evidently “wrong”, no matter how reasonable or attractive it is made out to be.
And when I look at the religions, I know I want to be with Christ and his good news of forgiveness. It also becomes self-evident to me, no matter how much of life does not make sense. (I just lost an 18 year-old son, as well.) It does not make any more sense in the materialistic mind-set. But forgiveness makes sense.
November 17th, 2009 at 1:31 am
Brigitte,
There are many spiritual atheists out there (I’m not one), people like Sam Harris embrace the spirituality of Eastern cultures and try to break it down into more natural phenomena, trying to distill the essence of what meditation, trances and inner peace actually mean. This is relatively controversial to some atheists who see it as another form of woo or fuzzy thinking but I thought I’d let you know not all atheists are rigidly scientific, clinical and materialistic.
The problem with your position is that it appears, from the outside, to be a default position – as does the example you gave. To have a profoundly spiritual experience, a sense of the transcendent joy that a child has given you (ignoring the fact that this can mostly be explained by biology) and to apply that to your cultural religion is a cop-out. If the experience sends you on a journey of self-discovery and you research various religions and one jumps out at you that’s one thing, but you appear to have used the experience, applied it to Christianity as it was closest and you knew it best.
You may be right, but to follow Jesus as a moral teacher, a spiritual guide, does not mean you have to buy into the fact he was son of god or was resurrected. You do not have to follow the teachings of a thoroughly immoral organization like the Catholic Church or subscribe to the man-made beliefs of various Christian churches.
November 18th, 2009 at 11:57 am
I take a much more cognitive approach to what peace, etc. is. The spiritual comes through the word, through truth, through even scientific discovery, not trance, etc. The mystical is too subjective, fleeting, self-manufactured, and often self-centered to me.
The fact that the birth of the child is more than a biological experience and sets someone off on a spiritual search speaks to the fact that most people at some points in their lives, highs and lows, start looking for explanations of why these times in their lives are so poignant.
“The problem with your position is that it appears, from the outside, to be a default position – as does the example you gave. To have a profoundly spiritual experience, a sense of the transcendent joy that a child has given you (ignoring the fact that this can mostly be explained by biology) and to apply that to your cultural religion is a cop-out. If the experience sends you on a journey of self-discovery and you research various religions and one jumps out at you that’s one thing, but you appear to have used the experience, applied it to Christianity as it was closest and you knew it best.”
This is a characterization that simply dismisses what I said, I feel.
There are many problems with the Catholic church and everywhere I meet people who have been completely turned off Jesus Christ and the faith because of it, which is to their great loss, in my opinion and grief. I wish they would try over and just read the scriptures and see what it is saying and what it is not saying.
Whether or not you believe that Christian teachings and/or scriptures are man-made, the objective fact remains that we steadily need reconciliation with each other and with the spiritual. (horizontal and vertical dimensions.) If that is just my cultural baggage, you may believe that, or perhaps you may find that is what you need to. Forgiveness lets you live a life free of defensiveness and it is a beautiful thing.
November 18th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
I just wanted to say that I am not unfamiliar with other religions or the history of such, having taken 10 religion courses at the undergraduate level and reading all the time. Many are not Christians basically just because of our cultural upbringing, although we know that is often a strong factor. Yet, the world has been quite secular and multicultural through most of my time and my places, as most likely has been yours, so therefore many individuals have wrestled with quite a number of views and practices. I come to Christianity because I believe it is actually true historically (unlike things that just happen in peoples’ minds), rooted in time and place, that the message of God’s love who was willing to go as far as Jesus Christ did, is the message and hope I need. All this it outside of myself, not only a feeling (though feelings I have as well, however, they are formed by the message).