By Elroy
You may also go directly to any one of these related articles. Why Focus on the Family is of the Devil A former Christian's perspective A Letter to my Younger Self What I would tell him if I only could The Big Lie Undoing the many years of Fundamentalist Christian indoctrination How to Fight the Religious Right A guide to defending yourself against Fundamentalist Christians Do Unto Others A guide to striking back at the Religious Right Proud to be Liberal Why Liberal thought is better in line with American values than its Conservative counterpart The Basic Assumption A discussion on the nature of truth A full listing of articles can be found in the Even Horizon Rider listed below The Event Horizon Rider Elroy's poetry on love, loss, and sorrow can be found in Mental Equations listed below Mental Equations Elroy's music is available for download in MP3 format listed below Talk About Spiritual Incest				Tim is worried. He's a dear friend from years gone by - and actually was a high school kid in the first youth group I helped run in the early 80's. In 1986 we traveled to Ireland together and shared many good times over a Guinness or two. On the road we developed the kind a relationship where a good debate equaled a game of darts while raising the wrist and bending the elbow in an Irish pub. At the time the issues seemed pretty insignificant, but we had a good time. Now that I have publicly criticized Focus on the Family and finally denounced my belief in the Christ of the Bible, Tim and I have once again entered into debate - but this time the issues is more personal. To some degree it may be because Tim joined the work force at Focus on the Family for a time (he has since moved on to another organization). While he never claimed to be an apologist for Dobson or the organization, he also did not find fault with the them the way I have. I also believe he is seriously concerned for my soul. I have decided to put the last correspondence online because Tim took great pains to articulate his concern for why I left the Faith, and I spent considerable time answering his critique. I had planned to write a new essay entitled "Why I Left the Faith," but I realized I had basically already done so in this reply to Tim. Tim's words are in blue. Mine are in black. All indented words come from Tim's email to me, though some are quotes of my own words from a previous email. When it comes to shock, the only unusual thing that I felt was that you let go of your essays. I, *obviously*, have little idea what place they hold in your life, but I am surprised that you threw them all away. They reflected your ideas, didn't they? Now, I suppose one might argue that you have retained them in some way, but this can not be the case. Sure, they still remain at your website, but they shouldn't. (This is not the *moral* "should", but the common sense one.) Certainly you do not still subscribe to any of what you wrote. In fact you can hardly subscribe to the essays, including the note to your younger self, that you have included since. It would be better to say they reflect my journey out of the faith. They are a good representation of my own thought patterns as I became convinced that what I had chosen to believe was too badly flawed to be correct after all. "But it's true. I can no longer abide by the idea that it is all true. And in my mind, it needed to be all true in order to have any truth at all. Of course I know some good Liberal Christians who would argue that point with me, but it's not up to them to decide what I believe. It's just up to me." Of course you meant for the "it" in the preceding snippet to refer to Christianity, but it doesn't. "It" refers to your essays. At this point, if you are still reading, you must be thinking that I have no authority to tell you what you think and what your intentions may or may not have been. They were clear to you, and I am just some hack from the past. But I am not the one who needs to convict you, or could convict you for that matter, it is your own words that tell the story . . . As long as you believe my essays need to be some cohesive representation of my current "truth" then perhaps what you said here would make sense. But I do not feel that way. I currently feel no need to "have" the truth. I am not seeking it. That has been the biggest part of my whole journey, giving up the need to be right about everything. My essays are my opinions. They are not someone's gospels. They do not claim to come from God. They do not claim to give the right path one should take in order to go to heaven. They are merely opinions written over many years by a man who changed greatly over that time. But that does not make them invalid. I read much Walt Whitman. His early works were filled with such dreaming and beauty, such admiration for the life around him. Then he worked as a nurse during the Civil War, and his poems changed to laments, many of them. Does that mean his earlier work is no longer valid, because the author changed over the years? I think not. Changing my point of view does not invalidate the journey I took to get here. Those essays remain a valid reflection of my positions over time, and they map out the road that eventually pushed me out of the faith altogether. But such a change would be very problematic if indeed my words were suppose to be divinely inspired from God, and if my instructions were what everyone needed in order to be "saved" from themselves. You write as if being a Christian means being Christ. Now as for the 5,000 "true believers", I can hardly believe that you would esteem what they say in any regard whatsoever -- for good or for ill. Meanness, pettiness, and extreme abuse are possibly the three greatest signs of someone who is completely self-absorbed, probably loneliness is in there too. You seem to have followed in their footsteps. NO, you have not become mean, petty, or abusive, but your response certainly smells of a truly self-absorbed reaction. Two points here: One, I am self-absorbed, and I admit it freely. This is my life. It is my choice what to believe. And I am the one who must live with those choices. The notion that our faith is not a form of self-absorption is ludicrous at its very core. From what do most Christians want to be "saved"? What do they seek to gain? Why is the fear of hell a part of any faith except to encourage people to join in order not to suffer in the afterlife? And if not the fear of hell, what about those carrots called Joy and Happiness. Or worse, in those "Name it, Claim it" churches, where our faith is meant to give us health and wealth as well, what is the reason people believe? Would you have me believe such motivations are not truly self-absorbed reactions to the insecurities of life? And two, being a Christian does mean being Christ. Indeed is that not what the Bible means when it calls believers "The Body of Christ"? But I understand why you wrote what you did. All my "Christian" life I was presented with the argument that we cannot judge Christ by his followers - that we just simply ignore all their failings and believe anyway. It was easy to accept this because, after all, even Christians still sin, right? And, to be more honest, it let us off the hook of actually taking responsibility for all the times we were not Christ to others. With this nice little notion in mind, we could expect that people should still believe in "our" Christ despite our failings. But in the end I realized such a notion is absolutely counter to Christ's own words that we would know his followers by their love. What exactly does that mean if not that those who follow Christ should have noticeably different lives than those that don't follow Christ? And that is my point: they don't. Christians are just as messed up as non-Christians, and in fact many are worse because they want to judge the behaviors of others while asking those same others not to judge "their Christ" by their own behaviors. (This, by the way, is the root of my objections to Dobson and his so-called ministry.) True, having a faith does make some people follow a friendlier outward path. But this is not limited to one particular faith. It is true of almost all faiths and thus cannot be the result of following the true Christ (unless you want to admit that all religions are completely valid ways to get to God). Also true is that there are many "friendlier" people in the world that do not ascribe their attitudes to any particular faith at all. It's also true that having a faith can lead to living a more "moral" life. In fact, one of the greatest examples of a very moral society was the Aztecs of old Mexico. There was no public drunkenness, very little cheating on your wife, few babies born out of wedlock, great respect for elders, and the creation of what was described as the most beautiful city in the world, completely decorated in flowers and murals and arts of many kinds. Of course, this religiously-based society also believed in sacrificing those people opposed to its beliefs as well as many select people from within the faith that believed sacrificing themselves would grant them a greater place in the afterlife - as well as keep the sun rising the next day so their friends and family could continue to live. We could easily argue that this was the "true" faith since people behaved so much better than Christians do today. But we must also consider the motivation of why people behaved so much better. Was it truly that they followed the right Gods, or was it that people do what they do because of their self-absorbed reactions to the insecurities of life? Only someone who is completely self-absorbed would demand that it be both completely true and apparently completely clear. You don't even require that standard for what you write! As a matter of course and because I remain your friend, I am calling you on this. You are right. I don't demand that what I write be completely clear or completely true. But as I said before, what I write never claims to be the gospel truth or the way to heaven. Just because it is written doesn't mean it has to be true. And what I had to realize is that this same notion applies to the Bible as well. Just because it claims to be the words of God does not make it so. On what, then, do we base our faith? I demand that it be able to be tested beyond my own subjective nature. I demand that it stand up to its words (a.k.a. that you will know them by their love). I demand that it be based on something other than my personal experiences that I can so easily choose to believe are coming from God rather than from my own mind. But I do not demand those same things of what I write because my words are simply my experiences that are there for others to read and believe or not believe. My words carry no eternal significance to anyone's soul. It is no coincidence that one of the attributes of the self-focused is loneliness; it can be no other way. You so blithely write how you "stepped outside the neat little role models we played" never once addressing these roles and who made them. What churchgoing goofball who lovelessly makes the role-model back-patting round in the pews is actually emulating Jesus? And if said goofball is not reflecting the love of Christ, what do you care? You just toss Jesus? If so, now you are the one who lacks the unconditional love you so desperately call for from others. You may not be hypocritically pew-hopping, but becoming the "self-authenticating" (read self-absorbed) existentialist is not the only option, and you know better. Then perhaps I am now less self-focused than ever before. I knew far more "loneliness" in my Christian life than I do now. I lost loves while still a Christian. I did great damage to others while still a Christian. And I lived a secret life where I could not be who I really was while still a Christian. It was inherently a false life with half of me hidden away. That is loneliness. The tiny community I have now knows all of me - the dark and the light, the bad and the good, and they give me unconditional love rather than condemnation for my choices. I had a wonderful sexual encounter with a beautiful Italian woman while in Mexico a couple months ago, and I immediately told my best friend Daniel. And he was happy for me because I was happy for me. As a Christian I would have kept such things hidden, even though I am not in a committed relationship with anyone and have no reason to keep such things hidden. I would have kept it hidden because of those people in the pews who supposedly represent unconditional love. I would have kept it hidden because as Christians we are not suppose to enjoy our lives in such frivolous ways as having sex with someone we meet while traveling. I would have kept it hidden because I would not have been able to honestly say that I regretted it. Now I don't have to keep it hidden because it was wonderful. It was a work of beauty between two travelers from opposite sides of the world who will probably never see each other again. It was joyous and tender, comfortable and fulfilling. I have finally grown up in my life, but it was because I have learned to be honest - and that came from removing myself from those messed up people in those pews and the fear I let them hold over my head for so many years. It was my own fault. I allowed it to happen. Not anymore. But that was not really your point here, I don't think. Or was it? No, I think it was to ask why I should let all those messed up people in the pews change my belief in Christ. I think I have already answered that above, but suffice it to say that the goofball in the pew IS suppose to be Christ to me, and so it does make a difference what Christ's "followers" do. And what I "know better" is that as a Christian I wasn't really suppose to believe that God actually changes people, which meant that I should just ignore a Christian's behavior while still accepting what he said. Now I know better than to "know better" like that. And tell me, since when is rejecting someone's beliefs a lack of unconditional love? Just because I no longer believe in their Christ doesn't mean I should love them any less. I would expect the same from you - just because you may believe me having sex with strangers is a sin, is it a reason to love me any less? Should you follow my beliefs as a sign of your unconditional love for me? Of course not, which is why your argument here is fatally flawed. Another response, one not just your liberal colleagues might endorse, is not to chuck the baby with the bathwater, just chuck the bathwater. You toss Christianity because of the Christians? Objectively, you can see how that is sort of goofy. You deserve to give yourself a better response than that. How good should they have been? How much agreement would have been enough? Ridiculous!! You know the Bible passage, "for now we see through the glass darkly, but then in full", look it up once more and find where it is nestled. You seem to be making the same argument over and over. But to answer using the same metaphor as you, if the baby was God and claimed that I would know his bathwater from all other bathwaters because it would reflect the goodness of the God baby, and yet I found the water to be repugnant and vile, I indeed would throw out the baby with the bathwater. Your argument doesn't work because it fails to take into account that your "baby" is supposed to have a self-proclaimed positive influence on the water around it. Rather than finding my position "goofy" therefore, I find yours, and the one I used to support, as being of the goofy persuasion. How good should they have been - well at least better than those that don't follow Christ. They are not. How much agreement would have been enough - at least more agreement between "Christians" than between members of any other religious mentality. There is not. In fact, there is more division and animosity between Christian groups than between and amongst almost all other people of faith. And yet you don't have a problem with that? (I admit that I am out on a limb in this paragraph) I would suggest from my darkened position here below that it is not love, unconditional or whatever, but trust that you find lacking in so many Christians. I wonder if this has transferred into your life in a rather destructive way. I have no idea really, just something to think about when looking back on your life. Your note to your younger self was rife with problems with trust, and where to go and what to do when trust failed you. Actually I would say the two biggest problems within the faith were Fear and Dishonesty. The problem my younger self had was fear, lots of it. And I let that fear drive me to dishonesty, with myself as well as others. And that caused so much damage I cannot tell it all. I am still trying to recover from the damage I allowed to be created in my soul as well as the damage I have caused others because of my fear. As for trust....hmmmm... trust in what? In God? What does that really mean in the end? That everything will work out for the good? That I won't starve to death? That I will find true love? That I won't go to hell? What exactly is it in which I should be trusting? And when I don't find true love ever again? And when I do starve to death? And when nothing works out for the good? Is it because I didn't have enough trust? I am interested in your answer. Just what exactly do you trust, and how does it have an impact on you? As for religion, or religious sects, denominations etc. . .you know better than to listen to that, parsing out all the differences as if they mean squat in terms of your personal relationship with Jesus. So the Methodists do this and the Presbyterians do that, what possible difference can that have made to you. I mean, do you really want to be in that position? Far from being freer of mind, paradoxically, now you seem more like the pharisees who ALL followed the same code. They missed the Christ in part because they were all in one accord. Are you actually trying to argue that being of discord is a better sign of truth? I can't believe you would actually want to push that idea, but it does seem like perhaps you are - as if the freedom to disagree with each other's interpretations of the Bible is a sign that you have somehow found God's true words. But again, that's not your real argument here, is it. Again you go back to the idea that we can't judge a God by his followers. On what, then, do we judge our Gods? On the Bible? Do you take the stand that the Bible is so perfect that I should base my belief in Christ solely on what I, myself, read in it? Or do I need Bible scholars such as yourself to help me understand it correctly? After all, maybe I'm not reading the right translations of the original languages? But wait, if I use other scholars, then how do I not "parse out all the differences" they entail? After all, which scholars should I use? I was recently lambasted by a very high-ranking Catholic Bible scholar. But his translations of the Bible put the Pope and the Catholic Church as being the ultimate arbitrators of truth. Should I use him? Or should I use scholars from the Orthodox Christian church? Or should I use only Luther, or maybe I should use some of the modern conservative ones like Dobson does? Do I need to go on and on here to make my point? And if you come back and say I indeed should make my choice to believe in Christ solely based on my own reading of the Bible, with no help from anyone else, then I would claim I had already done that in the last emails we had - and I came to the conclusion that the Bible is flawed, and cannot, therefore, be the Word of God. But wait, there's more! Maybe it is NOT that I should base my faith on just the Bible, but rather on how the Holy Spirit teaches me through reading the Bible? Is that what you mean then? Or perhaps it's not the Bible at all - maybe it's just what the Spirit does to me when I choose to believe or to "trust" or to ask Christ to be "Lord of my Life." Is that what you think? And if so, then what exactly does that mean? Does it mean my hair changes color? Do I have a physical change in my appearance? No? What then does it really mean to feel the Spirit telling you something? Do you "just know" it in your heart? I beg the question because I know the answer. I lived it for many years. People decide to believe in their brand of faith because it gives them an experience they interpret as being from God. And once they have interpreted that experience as being from God, via their chosen belief system of course, they use it as proof that their belief is the right one. It is self-fulfilling prophesy in all its glory. You tell someone who feels unable to change herself that your God is almighty, that he is her maker, and that he can, therefore, change her. You tell her that your God can do what she believes she cannot do. You tell her that if she actually decides to believe in that God she can be changed, and that it will happen if she just does this and says these words and really means it with all her heart. And then, when she believes and does what she's been told and really means it with all her heart, her incredibly powerful mind will make the change for her. Yes, her own mind does it - not God. The problem was never that she could not make the change herself; it was that she did not believe she could make the change. And belief is everything. Believing in a God gives us enough faith that real changes happen. Miraculous ones. If we could just have belief as big as a mustard seed..... if only. I digress. In this example, the woman has a true experience because of her belief in something greater than herself. But it was the belief that made the difference, not the God in whom she believed. People of all faiths share the same experiences. They all have the same result. They have an extraordinary experience that they interpret as coming from the God of their choice, and it is that experience that reinforces the faith of their choice and gives them the ability to believe even more fully. It is also why there is so much division in religions - because they are based on subjective experience rather than on objective truth. Each person who really believes - and I mean really believes with all her heart - puts herself into a mental situation that almost requires that her mind deliver an answer - and that answer has to be that the given system in which she has chosen to believe must be the right one since she followed that particular system's "God-given" mandates in order to have her experience. But don't take my word for it. I'm going to copy and paste yet another letter that I just now received. You tell me if it doesn't follow the exact system I described above (the senders email has been changed): From: khsmith@abs-gnd.com To: el@elroy.com Date sent: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 17:44:12 -0500 El, God did not say to follow what man does or says because he knew we all were imperfect. If you wonder about God and what He really teaches then ask Him... not man. If you pray and tell God that you don't know if He is real, but you want to know and ask Him to reveal Himself to you...He will. The only thing you need do is have a open mind to receive His words. May God richly bless you and give you the answer to all your questions. May He reveal Himself in such a way that you will never again Lose your faith! God is Good! It is man that distorts and twists God's truths to suit himself. Ask for His revelation and guidance. In Christian love, Karen People base their faith on experience, not on objective truth. If you have that experience in a mainline Protestant church, you'll probably always believe that Protestants have got it right. If it came from the Catholic Church, you'll most likely remain a Catholic and use the Bible to defend Catholicism with all your educational ability (like that scholar who lambasted me). If it was Buddhism....well, you get my point. It's very rare that people change faiths after having a "religious experience." My very dear cousin is a devout Jehovah's Witness, and her faith is absolutely as authentic to her as yours is to you. She has studied the Bible probably better than most of us. And she chooses to remain in her faith despite the many notable errors you and I may see in it. She's a very smart woman, so how can this be? Is it because she can prove her faith through the Bible? Is it because she sees how much better off all Jehovah's Witnesses are compared to non-Witnesses? Or is it because she has had an incredible "religious" experience that has convinced her that she is on the right path? It's so obvious to me that it's a false religion. Why is it not obvious to her? If I bring up all the flaws, she will counter with all the great answers her own church's scholars have generated over the years. And do you know what she will say? She'll say the same thing you said to me when I complained about the bible having contradictions in it. She'll say that as long as there is a plausible (though maybe not probable) answer to a given "perceived" contradiction in her faith that she has no reason not to continue believing it. And on the contrary, it is so obvious to her that her faith is absolutely correct, so why is it not obvious to me? And is that not indeed what you are now also asking me? I am keenly aware that because this is your life that I am talking about, it may be rather uncomfortable and just plain disagreeable to have read through this, but do me a favor and give me a considered response. I honor your friendship even as I disagree with you. Because of that, I feel you will also read through my considered response with the same level of courtesy and consideration. It is not uncomfortable for me to read your thoughts on these matters. I have no truth to defend - only what I believe is not true. Here we go again. No, I am not even going to argue whether or not James Dobson harmed anyone, I simply wonder in your general direction how the behavior of JD combined with his professed Christianity could possibly have any bearing on your Christianity. He has no bearing on mine. But he has a lot of bearing on the many people who, unfortunately, allow themselves to be swayed. As I stated above, one's faith is a very powerful thing because it often comes with a powerful personal experience that we interpret as meaning we've found the right way to God. When someone uses a position of authority within that faith structure to manipulate those who follow it, it can have a huge effect - for both good and bad. I'm sure Dobson has done good things. I'm also very sure he's done damage - not only to those who follow his belief system, but to their families as well. I have read pages and pages of letters from those who profess that damage. It breaks my heart each time I receive a letter from a gay man or woman whose family all but destroyed them because James Dobson said they had "chosen" to be gay and could be healed of it if the family tried hard enough. And try they do - because Dobson says it can be done, and because he's a "Man of God" after all, so he should know what he's talking about, right? Some have been driven so far into depression over scenarios like this that they have attempted suicide. Others have had friends who succeeded rather than just attempted. I can either believe them, or I can reject all of them and believe what Dobson says, that it is the "lifestyle" that has depressed them so much that they killed themselves. Which do you choose to believe? "Nothing personal against you my friend. Just my little, insignificant opinion. It means nothing." I agree that our opinions mean very little to about six billion other folks on the planet, but since they derive from our convictions and feelings I would suggest that they mean something to us, especially when they end up changing our lives. It was interesting to see you chose the word "feelings" to describe part of how you base your opinion. I guess I wasn't too far from the truth when I said that people (yourself included) base their faith on their own subjective experiences. Take care, Brian Elroy Go to Full List of Articles Send Comments to: el@elroy.com
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Copyright © 1995-2005 Brian Elroy McKinley