Losing faith in church and religion
Sophie, 28, is a grad student and former member of a mainstream protestant church which she attended from childhood along with her parents. She has recently made the decision to leave the church and now calls herself a Bright or skeptic.
Question: Question: Sophie, you spent your entire childhood and teen years in church. Was it a good place to be a kid?
Sophie: Yes and no. My family's church was a middle-sized, middle class church, very middle-of-the road in its theology, no hellfire and damnation but nor did it ever take a stand on important issues such as gay rights.
I guess it was like most mainstream churches. It did whatever it could to keep the community together, which often involved doing nothing at all. I didn't notice this as a kid; it was just a place where I spent Sunday mornings. I met friends, later boyfriends which was cool, but on the whole I was pretty bored there. In most churches, adults make the rules and kids have to obey them.
As far as I know, our church didn't have any of the abuse scandals which have troubled so many other churches, especially the Catholic church. Ours was a safe place for kids. Well, it was a safe place for me, I can't speak for anyone else.
Question: Can you describe how your loss of faith took shape?
Church crises, scandals, and abuse
Husband had an affair with pastor's wife
Sophie: I have always been someone for whom things have to make sense. You can't make me believe something by saying, It says so in the Bible.
I have to have good grounds for believing something. I have to be convinced. Knowing all that we now know via modern science, you are never going to convince me that the earth was made in six days, that Jesus literally rose from the dead, or that a few loaves and fish fed thousands of people.
I can accept that in the same way I can accept any story, or I can accept it as poetry, or as an example of how simple peasant folk thought, but I cannot accept it as fact.
Question: The mainstream protestant churches no longer believe that the earth was made in six days, do they?
Sophie: You would be surprised. Most people turn their intellects off in church and they believe what their parents and grandparents believed. They don't question it. The Bible is true. Period.
Look at the antagonism toward Darwin and the theory of evolution, which is a theory the church should embrace because its celebrates the tree of life, it says that all living things are linked. But no, for the majority of American protestants, Darwinism is a lie and a sin.
I do not want to belong to an institution which mocks and ridicules science. If anything, science is a gift from God, it is our way of understanding the world, how it works, how things are connected, why things are as they are.
If the church rejects the work of brilliant minds in order to cling to primitive beliefs and superstitions, it will continue to lose sophisticated, educated and, most of all, young people. There will only be the very old and uneducated left.
Question: What do you think the church should do to prevent it's decline?
Sophie I don't think there is anything that can be done. Religion will continue to lose its hold over people's minds and lives in American. That's not a bad thing in my opinion.
The least the church should do is take a strong stand against fundamentalism and ignorance. It needs to encourage members to accept that the Bible can be read as myth (not myth as in the sense of a lie, but more as an example of how people in the past thought), metaphor, and poetry, not as literal and absolute truth.
It should allow young people to ask difficult questions. It should encourage those young people like myself who wanted the opportunity to say, That does not make sense to me. Explain it better
.
It should stop its foolish war against science and embrace whatever science can tell us about the origin of the universe, of life, and of us as a species. It should also be open to non-theistic definitions of god.
Question: What do you mean by non-theistic?
Sophie: There is a retired bishop and theologian called Shelby Spong who has argued this point eloquently. He says that we can still call ourselves Christian, still believe in God without believing all the old, supernatural mumbo-jumbo. It doesn't diminish God to see God as a human invention, an idea or concept that evolved over millions of years to express our desire for there to be more than the material world. But this doesn't mean there is actually a supernatural, supreme being out there who is pulling the puppet strings on our lives, a God who allows Americans to prosper while Africans starve.
The supernatural notion of God is no longer viable. We can't with any credibility continue to believe in ghosts, spirits, or supernatural beings. We should accept naturalistic, scientific explanations of natural events. And if we don't have an answer today, we shouldn't be so eager a make God a God of the Gaps.
We used to believe that God caused droughts in order to punish people for not believing or not performing the correct rituals. We don't believe that anymore. Nor should we believe any of the superstitious nonsense that many modern day people are attached to.Question: That's a big agenda. Can you see it happening?
Sophie: No, I can't. I think that the American mainstream churches will become like European churches, irrelevant to most daily life but still important for baptizing, marrying, and burying people. That's more than enough work for the church, and it does those jobs very well.
Question: You don't see yourself returning to the church at some point in the future?
Sophie: No. Once you've grown up you don't want to become a child again. If I were to join a church, it would be the Unitarian Universalists because they welcome atheists and agnostics.
Question: Thank you, Sophie, for this candid interview.
Marcia Thompson
Readers respond
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Fran, Nashville Let's face facts. The church has long been a safe haven for abuse and abusers. The balanced view is that the church has done a lot of good and a lot of harm. It aims to serve God but is run by sinful human beings.
Cindi, Dallas The pastor of our church preached from the pulpit that gays were going to hell. Behind our backs, he was having affairs with young men. Ordained men can be flawed too. Some of them are going to Hell.
Bill, Bowling Green Pastors are overworked and underpaid. If a woman shows them too much understanding, a pastor can easily be weak and submit to carnal desires.
Joan, Calhoun, Georgia I had an affair with our pastor. He said his wife didn't understand him and didn't give him what he needed. I was young and naive and gave him just what he needed until he asked me to leave the congregation.
Nelda, Wichita The pastor of our church slept with at least five married women. He was a real charming guy with a good heart, but he could not control his desire for female flesh. I guess it was his one weakness.
Connie, Toronto Most men, whether straight or gay, have a high sex drive, which is why we love them and hate them in equal measure. I was once married to a man with zero drive. He loved the couch, beer, and television. I could have been sleeping with an entire football team and he wouldn't have noticed.
Leighton, Denver It's no wonder that churches are losing members by the millions. People are perfectly capable of distinguishing between right and wrong without the influence of corrupt and abusive clergy.