I read an article in my college alumnae magazine that came the other day about a man who "converted" to the Eastern Orthodox church after being in a mainline protestant church for his growing up. He mentioned how he felt connected to all the saints who had gone on before him as he worshiped in this new church. As I read several books on Catholicism from the Catholic point of view last year, I can see how this more encompassing view of church history and our place in it can enrich one's spiritual life. What I appreciated most from my Catholic readings was the emphasis on remembering the Christians who have gone on before us and seeing the continuity of the church from Jesus until now.
These past few years have been a time of spiritual upheaval for me and I am still processing through a lot of things. I have read about church history and the tenants of other Protestant faiths and the Catholic church (and even others outside these groups just to see where their beliefs came from). The last time I went through such spiritual wrestling was after my mom died twenty years ago when I asked the questions "Who is God and what does He want from me?" I went through the Bible and every time a verse said "God is...." or talked about an attribute of God, I wrote it down into a long list.
This time, however, I have focused on studying core beliefs and what can be considered "open for interpretation". I wonder, too, how much our gravitation towards a particular flavor of Christianity has to do less with the way we were brought up (although that is a part of who we are) and more with our personality (preference for hymns vs praise songs, charismatic vs liturgical) and stage in life. As the man in the article stated, when he was young, the Eastern Orthodox church "made sense" to him, it was a good fit for where he was in life (and he ended up becoming ordained in that church). As we move through the years, our needs change and the expression of who we are changes. I know I am not the same person I was twenty years ago and what would meet my needs spiritually is different in some ways now. Perhaps as a teen-ager one might prefer praise songs and as one matures, might prefer a more liturgical style worship (or the other way around). As a young adult we might hold certain teachings more strongly than we might later on when we have had a chance to grow more in grace.
My belief in the core tenants of the Christian faith remains the same and in some ways even stronger than before. But being encouraged by the emphasis in other Christian traditions has broadened my thinking and enriched my faith. It has soothed the wounds inflicted by oppressive teachers (most specifically in the homeschooling realm) and helped me to grow. It has helped me view the Christian faith as a journey and that the outward expression of one's faith can change in response to what is happening within us and God's moving in our lives.
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2 comments:
Jennifer - I love everything you just wrote. Especially that last line. Beautiful, and so well said. One book you may be interested in, more from an emotional than academic viewpoint, is "The Body Broken" by Robert Benson (Waterbrook Press, 2003). The whole book is really stating that there is so much more that Christians have in common than what divides them, and that we should all be more focused on that concept. He talks about his faith journey, and reaches some of your same conclusions - that it's more about what we need in order to hear God at different points in our lives. Thanks for putting this out there.
Hi Jen,
I enjoyed reading your thoughts on this subject. Lately, I've been thinking a lot about how our personalities and religious backgrounds determine how we relate to God. Personally, I've been coming to recognize that I best connect with God through more "liturgical" avenues such as using a prayer book and worshipping in liturgical-style services (when I get the opportunity). Part of this may be a reaction to having grown up in a church tradition that is decidedly extemporaneous and "contemporary", but I think that it also has to do with how God made me. Melancholy, artistic people like myself seem to feel most at home amongst creeds and candles! For interest's sake, I recommend checking out a series of prayer books entitled "The Divine Hours" by Phyllis Tickle. She's essentially adapted the Book of Common Prayer and the practice of fixed-hour prayer to make it more accessible to contemporary Christians. It's been freeing me from the tyranny of spontaneity and helping me to approach God in a whole new way.
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