November 2, 2009

  • Fighting for Faith: Intro

    So, I had an interesting conversation with a Satanist this morning on Instant Message, and...
    No, it's not a joke, ha, I did. I didn't know she was a Satanist when we started talking, and we eventually got around to religious topics. We probed each other's beliefs a little bit with questions, then cheerfully said good-bye. It was a little amusing--she grew up Satanist, I grew up Christian. Some of the selling points of our "testimony" were rather similar. Given a change in families, perhaps we would have had exact opposite perspectives, to be honest. Anyway, I tried to do my best not to hide the weak points of Christianity. And it reminded me, I need to have more conversations like this, where I talk honestly about my faith--explaining its weaknesses, but also how I have overcome those challenges and maintained my belief in Jesus, the Bible, and Christians.

    When I was thinking about what this month's theme should be, I was sure I wanted to talk about the Christian faith. I know a lot of you are Christians in your 20's, and you're starting to lose your commitment to the Christianity you may have once believed in. Step by step, you're walking away from that faith. And to be honest, that troubles me. I would feel less disturbed about this if I felt you were leaving for good reasons. But it seems more like many of you are just giving up on Christianity, or lack the energy to try to adjust your faith to new challenges. Or, I see a lot of compromise blogging--"I'm a Christian, but it's ok if you..." Such blogging often is merely weak-minded appeasement because the blogger is too lazy or dumb to come up with a good argument, and wants to be seen as open-minded.

    Here's a news flash. Unless you fight for your faith, struggle for your values, you will lose them. We are lazy people, trapped in cycles of self-indulgence and anger. We have to fight for our values, or they will quietly disappear. There's a verse in the Bible where Paul tells Titus that older women should be "train(ing) the younger women to love their husbands and children." I used to laugh at this verse. Seriously, women need training in love? But I'm older now, and unfortunately, I see the truth of this verse. Unless we fight, even our love for our family is at risk of being worn away by the struggles and cares of living.

    I am not a theologian. But I have grown up in church, read the Bible several times--even memorized much of the New Testament. I will do my best to take on what I see as the biggest obstacles to maintaining a Christian faith. Before I do that, let me open it up for discussion so I know better what the struggles are:
    What have been the biggest challenges to your Christian faith?
    You can answer as a former Christian or current Christian--and you can send me a message, or e-mail xangagreek@ gmail.com .

    Note: This month will be more for Christians than for non-Christians. To save some time and effort, I am writing as if I am writing to a Christian audience, or at least an audience familiar with Christianity. Non-Christians are welcome to ask questions, but this really is intended to focus on the Christian experience. If I feel you are mistreating commenters (e.g., mocking them for faith, or calling something "stupid"), you'll have earned yourself a one-way ticket out of my comment section. Faith is a sensitive topic, and I want people to be open without fearing being sniped by another commenter

Comments (14)

  • Thanks, I'm really interested in what you have to say this month :D

    that came out wrong...i'm interested every month...but very much this month.

  • complacency

  • Hmmm...I could totally write a book on this!

  • Probably the difficulties with the degree of evil and suffering that God allows to exist in the world. I understand the freewill explanation but it's still hard to comprehend at times. Even God allowing really bad things to happen to Christians.

  • Bold.  I like what you're doing this month.  It may even coincide with something I'm considering writing about on xanga.

    I might as well tell you, since the odds are, I'll never do it.  So you can use it for your site.  I heard that if you type in "Why I left" in google, it will automatically fill in "the church" or "facebook" in the search field.  While it may be interesting to find out why people left facebook (doesn't really tickle me at all), it is absolutely interesting to see what some people might be saying in regards to why they left the church.  I was going to peruse some of these search results and start responding to some of them on my site.

    It's just an idea.  And until someone does something about it, it will remain an idea.  However, I have to thank you for pushing me to write again. It's got the brain juices flowing and I'm certainly entertaining the notion.  Perhaps we can even double team some of these ideas, if you're interested.

  • If you type "why I left ____" into google and hit enter, top results to fill in the blank are:  The Oneness Apostolic movement, Jihad, Atheism, mainstream medicine, Twitter, the Ministry, Islam, Tehran, Academia, and the Contemporary Christian Music movement (LOL!).

    I think your question could be answered from several angles, but for my part, I would say that one of my biggest challenges to [maintaining] my faith over the years has been a lack of solid discipleship.  Unless we are actively growing and deepening our relationship with the Lord, it is much more likely that we will get enticed away by other worldly things.  I think this is one of the big things that is happening with people in their 20's who lose their commitment to Christianity - its likely that growing up they only had a shallow commitment to and understanding of their faith, which was enough to get by, but when they come into their own and go out into the world, they are bombarded with so many other paths/enticements/messages that the weak foundation of their faith crumbles.

  • My values have never disappeared. Training women... was wondering what they sold those collars for.

  • This is a great theme! I'm excited to see what you have in store for us this month!!

  • We definitely have to fight. There are warnings throughout the Bible about that, esp. as you look at the NT letters. This is an excellent topic b/c as we become more aware of what causes us to stop moving forward in the race (e.g.-the devil's wiles & our weaknesses, specific areas of temptation), then we'll be more likely to be diligent in addressing them proactively and more quick to recognize when we've actually stopped moving forward in the race and then respond properly to get back on course.

    (If someone is truly born again, he can't lose his faith, though he can backslide. I John is an excellent book to see how a true believer should be acting. Changes in attitude toward God, sin, other believers, false teaching...)

  • I was thinking and thinking about this one. I have never once doubted that God is real or been tempted to stop believing in him. I think that rock solid foundation was put in place because I was encouraged from the time I was a child to think of God as a friend and to question him about anything, complain to him about anything and run to him with everything. So when things got tough or when I got angry at God I would go out and shout at him shaking my fist at the "injustices" I perceived in the world. He was always patient with me and taught me what I needed to know. I thinking knowing He was a real friend and not some distant God was what kept me from walking away.

  • it seems to me the things that should have been the biggest shakers of my faith were the things that only solidified it, like having close family members pass away. instead it's the little things that get me off track, just getting caught up in daily life and missing reading the Bible or sleeping in instead of going to church. i'm looking forward to reading what you have to say this month!

  • this is interesting. i think i will participate. i will have to contemplate on how though.

  • wow this is late

    i'm having troubles staying with it because it hurts
    not being close to God, no, He's stellar

    it hurts to be in a church where no one is authentic, everyone is judging everyone else about anything they can think of
    from "she doesn't know her bible well enough, must not love Jesus" to "he cheated on his wife, must not really believe in God" to flat out "ew, i don't like X,Y, or Z about this person, so me and my church clique aren't going to engage them""
    and no one seems to want to have a real true challenging and deep discussion about faith and life and trials and little victories and the wonder of it all
    it's so shallow, so dead, and i've tried many churches over the years, because i want it so badly
    and it just hurts, it hurts to see these lies in what is supposed to be a house of truth

    that's why i don't want to do it anymore. i may sound like a whiny brat but all i want is a little authenticity.a place where people are as open about their failures as they are about their triumphs

  • "I used to laugh at this verse. Seriously, women need training in love?" - Yes, I remember as an 18 year old new wife and stepmother to two children the way the older women in my church 'ladies circle', brought me into their group and taught me what real love was about. Their advice and leading through my marriage helped me be a much better wife and mother. Now, it's my turn to teach the younger women how to love and I find it a pleasant and natural continuing of the process.

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