Agnostic (Deist?)

The last post talked about how I slid through Postmodernism and the Emerging Church in the early to mid 2000s. Up until two or three years ago I still identified as a Christian. On more and more topics, though, I called myself a "Christian...but." That is, I identified with some aspects of Christianity but other aspects of it greatly troubled me. There were so many things that I didn't know.

Imagine if your parents went to one of your siblings and told him that, in order to preserve family harmony, he should do items X, Y and Z. Another sibling was told that item X was still mandatory, Y was only open to certain people, and he could do option Z if it didn't lead anyone else astray. And then your parents came to your house to say that they didn't care what you did or did not do about X, Y, and Z.  That what really mattered was how you treated the most vulnerable people in your community.

Much of what many Christians would call the Word of God I see through the lenses of cultural and social preferences or traditions.

A church community in one culture may teach that God never intended women to hold positions of leadership in the church, the secular world, or in their own romantic relationships. That same-sex relationships are intrinsically disordered. That God is male. That the earth was created less than 10,000 years ago. That the bible is inerrant, infallible and meant to be interpreted literally. And they know all of these things to be true because their pastor believes it or they can find bible verses supporting it or  it's what their family or church has always believed.

A church community in another culture will teach the exact opposite of these things, also in the unshakable belief that what they know to be true comes from the Word of God him(her)self.

It made much more sense to for me to believe that these differences are due to the wildly different cultures that nurtured these communities than it  did to think that everyone who doesn't agree with God's Opinion (whatever that may be) is being misled or that God gave contradictory instructions to different groups of people for purposes beyond our understanding.  And so I began to identify as Agnostic...but.

I'm Agnostic because ultimately I don't know, as simplistic as that may sound,  and I cannot close myself off to any reasonable possibility. It's too big of a question to answer most days.

I'm  a Deist because some part of me thinks there is a higher power out there. Naturalistic evolution doesn't answer all of my questions. But I don't necessarily believe that this higher power is as personally invested in our lives as the God of Christianity and other religions.

My thoughts on this topic change quite rapidly, though. One week I'll feel more Agnostic, the next Deist, and the next Universalist. I can only hope that, if there is something out there, it understands why I can't be certain of any one set of beliefs. :)

(Photo credit.)