Leaving the faith

What struck me most when I first studied Nietzsche was that I identified strongly with the master mentality and yet also with the church and the Christian faith even though I largely agreed with and accepted his description of them as opposites. How were these three compatible? For a while I sat comfortably with this apparent contradiction or paradox and merrily continued my active involvement in the church. I did become more conscious of my personal strength and developed a sense of leadership, utilizing that strength for the benefit of the church community and to help others find their own inner strength too.

After a couple of years though this developed to a point where I found much of the language of the church unhelpful, an excessive consoling of the weak which simply allowed them to remain as they were, satisfied with mediocrity. The strength of Nietzsche’s criticism began to ring true. I spent 18 months or so wrestling with these theological/philosophical differences which I decided centered on the nature of the God that the church proclaims, a patriarchal patronizing God. A God who is all good and almighty contrasted with humanity as bad, sinful and frail. This is summed up in the fact that when anything good happens, Christians say ‘Praise God’ and when something bad happens they say ‘Sorry God we stuffed up can you please forgive us’. I experimented for a time trying to identify with other notions of God from other parts of the church. A mother God; a God of no gender; but I could not escape the residual image of a strong God who picks us up when we fall over, of humans as the children of God.

Gradually this sense of discord grew until one Sunday at the end of 2003 the call to communion was “Come because you are weak, not because you are strong” and a series of phrases based on the same theme ‘Come because you are ____, not because you are ____’. I had a strong sense that this invitation did not include me, so I stood up and walked out. It was really a decision of the heart not the head. My theological differences simply reflected that I had grown out of my relationship with God to the point where I no longer sensed his presence. I no longer had the spiritual connection or personal relationship with God that had always been the basis of my faith. So I decided to leave the church, attempt to de-socialise myself from its culture, find a new community and begin to construct a new understanding of the world. At the time I wrote:

I want to find a community
of values, spirit and critical thought
free of institution, doctrine, and expectation
where I can be inspired and challenged by others
but make my own decision
about what, how and why
life is, God is, the world is and I am.