To be more precise, I stopped believing about a couple months ago. Although that was part of a longer process of doubting and reconsidering, and I’m still making sense of my new lack of faith (which is why I haven’t posted anything on it until now).
It’s still a bit weird to think about. My faith was pretty much the central part of my life. This blog was just a personal blog, but it pretty quickly became almost entirely a religious blog. Heck, I was thinking about becoming a consecrated religious at the start of the year.
Why?
It’s difficult to pin down exactly why. There are a lot of reasons and they are all tangled up together. But I’ll try to untangle them now. I’m not looking to offend or convert anyone, or start an argument, but just want to share my thoughts.
1. Christian ethics and spirituality is too passive and weak (sorry)
I’ve read a lot of Christian spiritual books, and at the heart is a deep submissiveness to God, to authorities, and even to oppressors. The central theme is giving ourselves up, abandoning ourselves, passively trusting and submitting. The Church and scriptures talk about the Christian as a child, a servant, a slave, and a bride (in a clearly patriarchal sense).
Now, I’m not saying that this is all wrong. It’s not. There’s a deep truth and beauty to it really. But it lacks the wisdom of the opposite principle, that life has to be grasped, that (at least at times) we have to imitate Jacob and wrestle with God. We have to fight for justice and our rights, both for ourselves and for others.
I don’t want to be too harsh, but Christianity appears to be a religion for losers, that praises being a loser. “Blessed are the poor”, “the first shall be last”, “give to whoever asks of you”, “resist not evil”. We can make sense of this by taking a deeply anti physical, anti world stance, holding that everything the wicked might take, even our lives, are ultimately worthless, and I think the early Church did believe this, but the Church no longer really holds such a stance and I don’t want to either. I want to stake my claim and fight in this world, for this life. I don’t want to be a slave/servant/child/bride, I want to be the master of my own life.
2. The Church doesn’t believe
The more you try to take the faith seriously, the more you see contradictions, and the more you realise that most of the Church, and in particular the hierarchy, don’t care. They care about some things very passionately of course, from various points of doctrine to social causes to liturgical minutiae, but I think very few really care about the faith or holiness. I’ll give a few examples.
- Confession – if confession is really so important, why is it so infrequently offered? The easiest answer is that few priests think it really matters.
- Hell – why are so few people scared of hell, both for themselves and for their loved ones and for the non Christian majority of the world? Again, the easiest answer is that no one really believes.
- Women veiling – why did the Church abandon a practice with crystal clear roots in scripture and apostolic tradition? And why is there not even a proper justification given for this change? People claim it was merely a local cultural practice, but the scriptures themselves explain it on a completely different basis, arguing from nature, the creation account, and the angels. The easiest explanation again, is that the Church just doesn’t care. [For the record, I have no desire for women to be covered, I just wanted my church to be consistent with its supposed beliefs]
- Jesus’s teachings – too often I went to mass and Jesus says something remarkable, only for the priest to either ignore it completely to speak about something else, or even worse, they contradict or weaken Jesus’s words to the point of being just dull. Again, it seems they just don’t believe.
3. Hell
The doctrine of hell brings a whole mess of problems. I’ll list them out:
- Does God want people to go to hell? If not, then in the end He doesn’t get His way and His victory is incomplete. If He does (as Aquinas and others taught) then He’s not so loving (except in an abstract “ground of being” kind of way that isn’t what anyone really means by love).
- Is hell a good thing or a bad thing? If God is willing to send sinners to hell as a punishment, why shouldn’t we be happy with this outcome?
- Is the criteria really right? ‘No salvation outside the church’ – that’s just absurd. I know there’s the idea of “invisible Christians”, but that is either an exception to the general rule, or it’s a sneaky rejection of the rule itself (like the Church’s change in policy towards the practice of usury).
4. Many minor points I had overlooked
When you start questioning, suddenly every issue you had questioned previously, not found a solution to, and decided to leave and come back to later, comes back all at once.
- The divinely sanctioned and commanded violence in the Old Testament
- The shortcomings of the Law, including treating women as property and tolerance of slavery
- Contradictions in the scriptures eg in the resurrection accounts
- The lack of good reasons for denying women access to the priesthood
- The general tendency to treat morality as a system of laws
5. Where is the love?
Jesus said that his disciples would be known by their love. Can we really say that Catholics or Christians as a whole are known by their love? I can’t.
What now?
Now, I’m making my way through life as my own master. I’m still figuring out exactly what I do believe now, and reading a lot of philosophy in the process. I’m enjoying it so far! Life is good, and I’m embracing it wholeheartedly. Feel free to continue following this blog or to stop as pleases you.
Now that all that’s said, I wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year!
As A Little Child 
Dear Ignatius,
Thank you for sharing this and not just tip-toeing away, saying nothing.
I have not replied so far because my mind is full of cottonwool due to the treatment I’m undergoing and also because I did not want to insult your intelligence and integrity with easy answers. Furthermore, I’ll not try to address every point you make, sometimes because I agree with your unease about certain things but may draw different conclusions.
Why are some people losers? Perhaps in part because they were born into poverty, disability, inadequate parenting. It seems to me that for the last 150 years that I know something about, the church through different ministries (schools and higher education, clinics, SVP, agricultural development …) have helped and are helping people not to be losers, and through Catholic Social Teaching can give a coherent account of the principles behind this work.
Confession is much less frequently offered or received. We need to re-examine what this Sacrament means, going back into history as well as looking at today’s world. How are people reconciled to God and each other today? I’m sure the vast majority of priests would hear a confession at short notice. Sermons: who hasn’t written an alternative homily to the one preached? And those burnt out priests were once as enthusiastic as you were.
Hell – part of the answer is ‘perfect love casts out fear.’ Perfect love, of course, comes from God, exemplified in Jesus. The repentant Peter does not express fear of hell, but ‘Lord, you know I love you.’ It was men he feared on Maundy Thursday.
Minor points are being worked on all the time. As well as sanctioning slavery, at the same time the Church was working to liberate slaves. I won’t improve attitudes to women by leaving the faith. The church will always be a mass of contradictions and so will each one of us. Beware of being master of your life: there will be surprises, good and bad, to make you change your mind.
Just a few thoughts to demonstrate that I care about what you’ve written. My brain is not up to more and my heart says I should delay no longer in sending this reply.
God Bless,
Will
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Dear Ignatius,
Thank you for sharing this and not just tip-toeing away, saying nothing.
I have not replied so far because my mind is full of cottonwool due to the medical treatment I’m undergoing and also because I did not want to insult your intelligence and integrity with easy answers. Furthermore, I’ll not try to address every point you make, if only because I agree with your unease about certain things but may draw different conclusions. I don’t want to bully you back into the fold.
1. Why are some people losers? Perhaps in part because they were born into poverty, disability, inadequate parenting. It seems to me that for the last 150 years that I know something about, the church through different ministries (schools and higher education, clinics, SVP, agricultural development …) have helped and are helping people not to be losers, and through Catholic Social Teaching can give a coherent account of the principles behind this work.
2. Confession is much less frequently offered or received or sought out than 50 years ago. (I know, I was there!) We need to re-examine what this Sacrament means, going back into history as well as looking at today’s world. How are people reconciled to God and each other today? I’m sure the vast majority of priests would hear a confession at short notice.
Sermons: who hasn’t written an alternative, often better, homily to the one preached? And those burnt out priests were once as enthusiastic as you were.
3. Hell – part of the answer is ‘perfect love casts out fear.’ Perfect love, of course, comes from God, exemplified in Jesus. The repentant Peter does not express fear of hell, but ‘Lord, you know I love you.’ It was men he feared on Maundy Thursday.
4. Minor points are being worked on in the church all the time. As well as sanctioning slavery, at the same time the Church was working to liberate slaves. I won’t improve attitudes to women by leaving the faith. The church will always be a mass of contradictions and so will each one of us. Beware of being master of your life: there will be surprises, good and bad, to make you change your mind.
Just a few thoughts to demonstrate that I care about what you’ve written. My brain is not up to more and my heart says I should delay no longer in sending this reply.
God Bless,
Will
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Hi Will, thanks for replying, and sorry to hear your treatment is causing you issues. I hope it goes well.
I think I should have been a bit clearer on the bit about “losers”. That was my bad. I didn’t mean that the poor or those on the bottom of society are inferior in any way. But I think Christianity does praise and sort of fetishise being poor and lowly and meek and submissive, making them into virtues. And I think this is actually at the heart of the gospel. But helping people better their lives and take control of their lives is a very good thing. Catholic Social Teaching is really great too, and it’s a real shame it’s so under appreciated, both in the Church and outside of it.
The trouble with the rest of the issues I mentioned, is that it seems we’re just not willing to face the actual implications of really believing what we’re supposed to. We’ve compromised, and I guess sometimes I liked that and wanted more, and sometimes I didn’t like it and thought the Church should go back and be more radical, but what’s the point of a divine revelation you need to compromise on? Can you really believe it’s divine?
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If I need to compromise, that’s probably because I’m not divine. As Peter wasn’t, even after his reconciliation with Jesus at the end of John’s Gospel. He was still messing up well into Acts.
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