In the ongoing interest of honesty.

I'm officially feeling fully at home in Seattle, this beautiful, international melting-pot of a city; and Capitol Hill, my home, where the queers and the artists live. Not disconnected from this I've had a few blog posts itching to get out of my head, this one finding space in my schedule because of a canceled meeting. Sometimes I post for other people's edification - this post really is self-indulgent. I think I've been in need of a cathartic public declaration or two.

Growing up, my evangelical community really was good to me. My parents and family were great, I loved my friends, I was treated really well by mentors, I had profound religious experiences facilitated by my church, and I was happy throughout most of my Christian college experience. Because of that, my transition out of that culture and community has been slow and painful at the deepest levels - a personal disconnect from people who didn't do anything to deserve it, other than holding a worldview that I can't any more. Somehow, though, it's time for me to move on from this transitional part of my life. I've got to stop wrestling so much with what it means to be post-evangelical and to devote more energy to wrestling with what I am now - which is a theologically and liturgically progressive Episcopalian, and in principle a 'capitol A' Agnostic.

For three years I've worked in a parish that probably leans conservative theologically as far as Episcopal churches go, and that's been somewhat difficult. That community is pretty accepting though, and this blog is the place where I've really felt the post-evangelical struggle. I'm conscious that what I write is public, and is read by friends and family from college and back home. As a result, to some degree I've held back, or spoken tentatively on some of my core theological shifts. My pulling back from evangelicalism has been deeply painful, and from the early time when I realized it was happening (starting senior year of college) it's been my instinct to protect others from that - to not go too far out of my way to convince others about my conclusion that some of their most deeply held beliefs are probably wrong - not unbelievable, just probably wrong. I'm realizing though that most of that instinct is really about self-preservation, and is condescending. People can handle my opinions, which are really not so brilliant as to be devastating.

Maybe you've figured this out indirectly, but the point that I've talked around is that, for several years, the last supernatural vestiges of my traditional beliefs have been gone. Stated bluntly, I don't believe in a God who inspired any scripture in a direct way, I don't subscribe to a literal resurrection of Christ (and probably not of me), and I don't believe that the old miracle stories happened as recorded. For some people this is old hat - mainstream in the liberal churches, I think. For some people it isn't the point, and "God" in quotation marks and Bible as allegory are just fine. For me, coming from where I have, I need to state it in a clear and public way if I'm truly going to be an honest priest someday. It's quite a hard thing for me to say, actually, especially (?) in writing, because it does feel like a concrete step away from people I care deeply about - whether or not it actually is.

Because you can't seperate religion from worldview, losing the traditional shape of my faith has also led to a crisis in my understanding of what religion is about. (I think most people who end up where I have leave behind organized religion altogether - at least in Seattle, where there's little social value in remaining a practitioner.) Without a gospel of salvation from sin and everlasting salvation, it's been awhile since I had a clear understanding of what religion might be for. I owe a lot in that regard to my neighbor Ellen Dissanayake, whose 'What is Art For?' has also helped me to put a framework on my sense of the ongoing value of religion, although that wasn't her intention in writing.

So what is religion for, in my view, now? 1) It's still about 'evangelizing the lost' - or, I suppose, helping people along the way in their quest for deep truth. 2) Rituals that reinforce values, and make them stick for us, and for our children. 3) A real, deep connection to a community. 4) A regular, organized and facilitated experience of the numinous, as Tony Jones said this morning on Facebook. 5) A communal pursuit of Justice in the sacrificial way of Jesus Christ.

I know you can do all of this without participating (or giving money to) traditional forms of organized religion, which is an issue for an aspiring vocational priest.

And, I must say, it feels good to get that out.