Sitting on a black leather covered banquette in a funky basement performance space in the East Village last night while a group of passionate and talented writers read smart, often hilarious, stories about their bumbling, stumbling and wrangling toward faith, the seemingly simple but always loaded question, "What kind of Christian are you?" left me searching for words. "What kind of Christian?" I returned the question with a question, instinctually buying time before attempting to muscle my way toward an answer.
I was at the release party for a compilation of personal essays called Believer, Beware: First Person Dispatches from the Margins of Faith. The anthology, "a collection of true confession, skeptical testimonies and personal revelations of religion lost, found and then lost again," is the second anthology to emerge from Killing the Buddha, an online literary magazine for people "made anxious by churches, people embarrassed to be caught in the spirituality section of the bookstore, people both hostile and drawn to talk of God." The site is worth a visit if you love good writing and want to be challenged - no matter what you believe.
"I'm a Christian," I repeated over the noise of the bar, hoping he just hadn't heard me the first time. "I know, but what kind?" he asked, betraying a hint of friendly frustration and outing himself as a person schooled in the reality of the distinctions that exist within the Body of Christ. I could not sure where he was coming from but, having fielded this query from all matter of believers, non-believers, conservatives, progressives and everything in between, experience said that this particular question is rarely posed by people who don't have strong feelings about how Christianity should or should not be done.
"Well," I started, surely looking as uncomfortable as I felt, my eyes rolling upward as if an articulate way of saying "I have no idea" might be written on the ceiling.
I went on to briefly discuss how I'd grown up without faith and, after years of atheism, had come to faith in my late 30s - thrust into it by way of a radical conversion and naive to the fact that that there were more kinds of Christians than there are flavors of ice cream. I told him that I sometimes feel like the Goldilocks of Christianity - confident that I'd found a home in this faith, but still walking from room to room among churches, denominations, styles, doctrines and political and theological factions tasting porridge, sleeping in lumpy beds, and sitting in too-big chairs wondering why it is that I am expected to find a "tribe" within the Christian "TRIBE." He smiled, told me a little about an upcoming book project, and offered to send me a readers copy of his new book for a possible review. He also said he'd be happy to take a look at mine.
About an hour later, an author friend/mentor and I were walking to the train and talking about endorsements. She dropped a name of a New York Times bestselling author who might be hard to get to, but is "exactly the kind of person I needed to endorse my book."
"Are you kidding me?" I chirped. "That's the guy I was just talking to! He said he'd have his publisher send me a copy of his upcoming book and that he'd read mine!"
Now I am not sure if this will actually happen. Lots of promised connections never actually get made. But, to me, the outcome is not the main event. When I think about my faith and what kind of Christian I am becoming, I find these moments - moments I think of as Holy Spirit serendipity - compelling. They propel me forward as I attempt to learn more about what it means to be Christian, to follow the teachings and example of Jesus and to become, one day at a time, the woman I am meant to be.
So, what kind of Christian am I? Only time will tell.
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I don't mean it as a swipe at Christianity or Christians. I just like to troll beliefnet a bit, spar a little with the conservatives read diZierga and anyone else who has something interesting that day. I couldn't resist a cheesy one-liner.
My own spiritual journey just took me in a different direction. I grew up Catholic in the 70s and 80s when it was much less dogmatic and shrill than now, went the altar boy route, the whole bit, for a time even wondered about the priesthood. Ironically, 12 years of Catholic school taught me some good critical thinking skills and I decided the idea of original sin and salvation was rubbish, that I wasn't going to prostrate myself before some Semitic storm god and that the whole of institutionalized religion was corrupt. I was a secular humanist for about a decade until I came to know a number of pagans, Their world view and sense of ethics appealed to me greatly, and even though I found myself in sympathy with them, I thought it absurd that an educated man in this day and age would style himself a "witch".
I laid the whole thing aside for the better part of seven or eight years but was drawn to it more strongly with time. The long and short of it was that Goddess was calling me, and I answered when I finally had the shred of wisdom and insight to walk that path. At age 35, I knew it wasn't some Goth fantasy or parental rebellion. When I went to my first large circle gathering, I felt like I had been called home from exile. I wept both for the time I was lost and Her grace in returning me to my tribe. On one other occaision I had a true experience of being in Her presense. Pure radiant timeless gentle, mother's love.
Had a valuable but stormy three-year involvement in a coven, learned a lot about myself and what constitutes a healthy group dynamic (or not). Got married in our tradition. Learned some hard lessons and had life's usual setbacks, but never once regretted my journey. I still have a certain amount of bad blood with institutional Christianity and political Christianism in general, but I try never to hold it against individual pracitioners. I try to extend the presumption that their faith journey is genuine (a courtesy not always reciprocated). I have also come to know that anyone I encounter in this life might have something to teach me, and some of the most valuable bits come from those outside of my world view. I wish you all well on your journeys.
Hi Kenneth. Thanks for the post. I used it as the stepping off point for a two-part post...
Peter: Thanks for this. I am still searching - not only for an answer to the question, but for a way to be both fully Christian (standing firm in this sometimes confounding faith without trying to bend it to suit my personal convictions) and fully loving (embracing others who do not share that faith unconditionally). It is far easier to choose one side or the other...
No Andi, I did not hear it from you, which makes it all the more interesting. I believe they are planning some other events. Will be sure to let you know.
Thanks Colleen. It will be interesting to see what happens!
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