How I Lost My Faith, and Other Success Stories

In the part of Ohio where I'm from, and in that part of the country generally, being raised religious was and is largely a given. We're talking conventional creeds, in my case Catholicism, as exciting as old clothes. When I was nineteen I was evangelized away from my native faith, birthed into a fundamentalist one that was much more dynamic, personal, and meaningful, at least originally.

What lured me was the chance to break from the prejudices of Tradition. The new believers talked a good game, about spirit over the law especially; the liberation of faith. I admit it was exhilarating, to throw off the clunkiness, the antiquated rituals of belief. Growing up in that milieu it seemed there was no outside to a faith-based existence, and while fundamentalism seemed an improvement, it didn't take long to realize my compadres were as bogged down by prejudice and hate as the old-timers I thought I'd left behind. I deal with the subject in The Lede to Our Undoing.

In the same way the Catholics claimed they were the one true faith, the new gang believed that Catholics were unsaved; that the pope was the anti-christ; that gay people were doomed to fry; and all the same-old, same-old bigotry to which I was long accustomed. Just like the Catholics that talked up the primacy of love-and-only-love, what it really came down to was Us vs. Them: we're saved; they're not. True believers vs. The World. The rank contradictions––the hypocrisy––was glaring. I soured on the evangelicals, certain that as a movement it was headed in the wrong direction. For a time I hung out with a group of lefty catholics who really were free-spirited––and fun. They'd blended or assimilated the Enlightenment discourse on human rights; they made it possible for me to realize an unbigoted form of faith was possible, even for me; some were too free for the Catholic church and ended up excommunicated. But by then I'd already moved away.

What happened next I've fictionalized in Ojo. The beauty of going away is that though the place you left has it's talons in you still, they begin to relax over time and eventually go away, nearly completely. To the point that I was able to come out, free myself from much of the bigotry of religion, on a host of subjects. In Denver I found my chosen family; including my spouse. It was starkly clear that those unchurched heathens knew more about christian kindness than any of the evangelicals I'd ever worshipped with.

At the time I still maintained a private faith, one I didn't talk much about. Then I enrolled in school, taking philosophy and lit courses to start with. If anyone fancies maintaining their system of belief I'd suggest avoiding those two subjects, because the former forces you to think critically––always a dangerous thing where faith is concerned––and ancient lit in particular reveals the lie about the uniqueness of the christian stories. In fact you come to understand just how much the biblical texts were borrowed, to put it nicely, though plagiarized is a better word. It is one of the themes of Bare Life.

In fact my recommendation would be that anyone highly invested in their faith never study ancient traditions generally, which lay bare the problematic roots of modern faith, not the least of which is the way the Roman emperor, Constantine, converted to christianity in the fourth century and started the process of making it the thuggish force it is today; in ways subtle and overt he pushed it on the empire. The growth of the sect wasn't organic; in fact it was flailing. Constantine put the machinery of state behind it, the message of which was, increasingly over the centuries: convert or die. That had more to do with the fascist growth of first the papacy and then its protestant offshoots than anything. And the incestuous pairing of faith and secular power, as we continue to see distressingly today, is as alive as it was in Constantine's day. The current regime in the U.S. makes that abundantly clear.

The problem is epistemoligical, in the nature of faith itself, one of the three irrational epistemologies. In it's most fanatic form it's characterized by a willed blindness to the two logical epistemologies, including science (which is also flawed in its way, as postmodernism makes clear––a discussion for another day). Faith's purview tends to shrink into itself instead of expand. Basic truths, about the realities of bare life, including human psychology and difference; environmental destruction; and so on are denied and demonized. Take a look at what Trump is trying to abolish by presidential decree (!) and you have everything you need to know about the nature of religion in its most imperial form.

It shouldn't surprise anyone that christian nationalism is raising its ugly head today, that it is macho, patriarchal, and bigoted. I saw through the traditional Catholics' and fundamentalists' love-talk back in the 1970s. It really was about an in-group, power, and numbers; remaking others in one's own image, in the "right" and "correct" way. It opposed democracy, which truly is a secular idea. Religion has no use for democracy, rights-based or otherwise (the founding fathers who created the original, flawed version in this country were deists, not christians). The perennial goal of christianity in the modern world is to overtake democracy and secular culture. That is Trump 2.0.

As Viktor Frankl lamented in Escape from Freedom, an effort to determine how the Holocaust could emerge in a christian country like Germany, free-thinking is too unsettling for most people; convention and group-think are safer. That's how you end up with not just the Holocaust but the slave system, rampant homo- and trans-phobia; and the genocide in Gaza. All have their roots in and are perpetuated by unquestioned religion. The notion that god favors one group over another. It takes guts to think and act freely, and to grant the same freedom to others; it takes guts to resist. I would argue it's preferable to staking your life on a fantasy, on old versions of ancient myths that are rooted in tribalism.

(Photo credit: Hrvoje Slovenc)