Faith Without Anxiety is Dead
To write or not to write? That is the
question. I find myself in a bit of a quandary over whether to address
this topic of post-WCG anxiety. I strongly suspect it to be a great
part of the experience that many have when leaving the comfortable
confines of friends, church and the comfort one gets from knowing how
all of life will turn out for you. I could have never imagined the existential anxiety that is generated from the loss of religious
belief and faith. I do now.
Evidently, I did not invent this.
Lynn Min
"Spirituality can make a significant difference in sufferers of anxiety. There exist numerous studies indicating that religious people are less likely to become anxious than their nonreligious counterparts.
In 1993, researcher Harold Koenig studied the relationship between religious involvement and anxiety in 2,969 individuals. He found that young and middle-aged individuals who attended church at least once a week were significantly less likely to have anxiety-related disorders than those who did not attend church regularly. Devotional activities such as prayer and Bible study were associated with lower incidence of agoraphobia and other forms of anxiety. Regular church attendance was also correlated with lower levels of anxiety.
Anxiety can be viewed holistically. Their beginnings manifestations are not simply psychological, physiological, or social. It is the interaction of all of the above, plus the spiritual. Consider the following example of the spiritual component of anxiety. Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl pointed out the type of anxiety which follows from the belief that one's life has lost its meaning. In other words, if I begin to believe that my life is without purpose, the result can be anxiety. While the resulting anxiety is coined a psychological disorder, the root of it lies in the deep spiritual search for life’s meaning. "
I am writing this
while having yet another round of the anxiety that seems a genuine
tendency for me personally as a result of the loss of faith, friends and
fellowship along the way. I could be smarter perhaps and keep it to
myself and just get through, but what is the use of a common experience
if you don't share it. I am quite able to blow off the advice I know is
out there to "come back to Jesus," or "you're problem is...." I
cannot help how I feel nor can I help the conclusions I have drawn, for
now, over this entire WCG fiasco.
My only choice seems to be does it dominate the rest of my life, or can I find a safe place to file it all away as just another experience meant to teach and take one further on a more genuine life journey? The impression of being stuck has hurt personal relationships and probably contributed to the loss of friends and contact. I also can't seem to help that as stuck is stuck and it would probably be obvious when unstuck has become the norm again.
My only choice seems to be does it dominate the rest of my life, or can I find a safe place to file it all away as just another experience meant to teach and take one further on a more genuine life journey? The impression of being stuck has hurt personal relationships and probably contributed to the loss of friends and contact. I also can't seem to help that as stuck is stuck and it would probably be obvious when unstuck has become the norm again.
I find I don't
find comfort in teachings I doubt or in history that is not presented as
it really was or is. I am not inspired by those who are so sure the
Bible is without errors or contradictions knowing they refuse to even
look at what the problems might be. That behavior, common in the COG
perspectives , simply does not work for me. I know how COG ministers
think and I know how little study outside the acceptable box they do. I
also know current COG ministers and frankly, a number of other minister
types who freely admit, to me, their skepticism and realizations, but
you would not know it when you hear them preach or write. I have heard
the phrase "I know that is true, but I will lose my job," more than once
from these men. There are two of them, the one inside and the one
they show, and their church only sees the one they present to them.
They also seem much less inclined toward anxiety living in two worlds
instead of picking one. Something does not have to be true either
literally or at all to keep the beast of anxiety at bay. All it takes
in belief that it is so, even it it isn't.
For example, I
have always had a problem with prayer. Oh I know the should's and
must's of it all, but it was always difficult for me. I always had a
sneaking suspicion that I was just talking to myself. I did a lot of it
though. But then I realized how sincere the prayers of the people of
faith are when they find themselves in harms way and beg God to save
them and they die some horrible death. I wonder what a Christian in
Somalia feels when they get a gasoline filled tire hung around their
neck and they know what's coming or have to dig their own grave while
soaking in gasoline. I know they are begging God to help them and there
is no help coming...ever. I have buried a lot of children who inspite
of "Their Angels do always watch over them," are quite dead and no Angel
showed up in time. Then I think how stupid my asking for a calm spirit
or a bit more security in this or that area of life really must sound to
a real Deity who neither helped the poor soul in Somalia begging for
mercy or saved the child leaving muddy hand prints along the edge of the
pool trying to get out. I just think like that and it does indeed fuel
an anxiety that simple faith, justified or not, seems to keep at bay.
I think the world
needs its skeptics to keep those who use critical thinking in what they
accept into their beliefs honest. I say critical thinkers because
frankly I knew few if any among my ministerial peers. I read some of
the articles they write to inspire their current followers and just
shake my head over whether or not they really believe what they say or
are just on auto-pilot saying what they are used to saying or are
expected to say. A recent update from LCG showing how pet store pythons
left to grow big and eat the animals in the Everglades relates to
prophecy is a great example of this silly kind of connections that are
almost unbearable to read. I suppose runaway cudzu is also a sign that
time is short.
So here I sit and
spin out an anxious, which really a somewhat fearful, chemistry.
Perhaps the price of knowledge is anxiety. I know it is a byproduct. I
felt ever so much more safe in the group. No matter what happened, I
had hundreds of friends there to answer the call. We all had each
other. We all believed the same thing, and whether it was right or
wrong did not matter. Shared errors. if never looked at, are
comforting.
Critics will use
the fact that those who press ahead and aren't easily sold the ideas of
others having anxiety as proof that they are outside of the grace and
plan of the Deity. I don't believe that either. If we left everything
up to the church, we'd still be in the Dark Ages. Progress is fueled by
inquiry and even the anxiety caused by just standing still, or getting
stuck perhaps. If everything is totally comfortable, where is the need
or motivation to learn anything else or examine what the current belief
is? Belief is not the same as truth, but ever so much more
comforting. Is not passivity, compliance and "whatever you say," the
dream state for the one man religious show to get his followers in? I
simply cannot do it. I felt this disturbance often at the Feast when
other ministers gave their standard sermons and everything in me was
saying, "and you know this?" or "yeah, yeah, fine...can you speed this
up?" My bad.
So
now, during the course of writing this (I am at school with the
occasional student wanting to talk to me), I feel the anxiety lifting.
Writing off loads it for me as does talk with a patient and
understanding friend. I love study and learning the things I was never
told either because they weren't known or were but not spoken. I can
only take my journey. The Universe is beyond huge. In the scheme of
things we are just one of billions of galaxies each containing millions
of life yielding planets. Quantum physics and cosmology informs us that
reality is not what you think it is and we may just be one grape on a
cluster of many universes in one local vineyard. Paleontology informs
us that evolution is generally true and the mythology of Adam and Eve is
merely that. I kinda knew this all my life but now we know more than
at anytime in the history of humans, we are conscious hairless apes with
an amazing past. This does not preclude the existence of a Deity, but
perhaps does the cultic one of the OT. While fundamentalists will argue
for the mythologies of the Bible being literally true, they are not.
While the stories have a meaning, it is not related to literal origins
of everything from the Grand Canyon, language or conscious humanity.
So the price of
breaking free seems to be a round or two of lonely, bouts of anxiety and
a smattering of with at times for good measure as meaning takes a hit.
. I suspect this is the normal progression in the lives of those that
are seeking rather than judging everyone based on what they feel they
have found and no longer need to let any new information in to rain on
their parade. That approach, in spite of the anxiety produced in not
clinging to fables, myths and hearsay as being literally true or
comforting is simply no longer acceptable or an option. I cannot unring
the bell of skepticism formed by my WCG experience or the facts that I
have let in to inform me on theology and religion. If I could do it
again...well I wouldn't have.
Thank you for listening...
Dennis C
DenniscDiehl@aol.com
DenniscDiehl@aol.com
