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Faith has never been either trivial or ancillary in my life: from childhood to the present, it has always carried a noted cost. This blog began primarily as an extended letter for my friends and family, who will no doubt struggle to understand exactly why I have come to reverse my position on issues of faith. The purpose of Journey is to convey as clearly as I can the tumultuous year that has transpired in the quiet background, consuming my attentions, troubling my dreams, and robbing my sleep. It is not my purpose here to persuade, except perhaps to plead that I have not gone mad or shifted recklessly. There have been only a few with whom I could struggle through these things, and that with fervor and diligence. The struggle has also been largely private with the hope of staving off unwarranted turbulence in my broader circle of friends and family.

The hope of the situation naturally diffusing has since passed, and so these private struggles come now to a juncture of inevitable and broader transparency. I will attempt to be utterly honest, as I hope to be in all things. But it has been for me a dire struggle, and it will not be short in the telling.

Yet I see in the journey a crisp and lucid conclusion, with daylight on the distal side of this unbidden and stormy course diversion. And despite the struggle, the loss, and the pain (past and yet to come), I must affirm that I wish I had known sooner. There were a number of authorities in my past which had been in a position to lift the veil. I am not grateful for this dubious yet well-exercised prerogative. Truth over comfort, and may comfort follow. In respect of my self-disposition and in recognition of how little I differ in substance from my neighbors, I suspect that there may be others who feel likewise. But I may well be mistaken.

Finally a brief plea: postpone boxing me up at least a while. Having been within the church for a long time, I recognize the lens through which we view people’s changes of position on faith matters. But our labels and categories contain blind spots, and I realize looking rearward how I have mislabeled others. I also thought my own position was fully bulletproof.

What changed? It is possible to bring down a structure by removing the right component, the right foundational brick. The brick in this case was removed; worse – it proved imaginary, and had never been. And I now find myself in a strange place that I thought did not exist – one that had no place among my former categories – as a sort of conscientious objector.

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A note on the blog structure: the Journey pages sketch my re-education and personal changes of the past year, but they do so with something of an arc, which peaks with my Personal Thesis. There, the various tributary threads of information coalesce into what, for me, has been a complete terminus of my past beliefs. For those interested in skipping to the high points, I do suggest a look at the Thesis.

Thanks for reading.

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4/1/2013