by Gary T. McDonald, author of The Gospel of Thomas (the Younger)

You may be aware that there is a community out there of former Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals. It exists on reddit and Facebook and sites like exchristian.net. There are also online support groups for those who feel they are survivors of various Christian cults. I support these efforts and have written about their concerns.

Then there are the atheist and humanist groups who one would think might be sympathetic to the former groups, but sometimes take a snarky attitude toward anyone who was ever religious.

Within all of the above there is a distinction to be made between those who were born into the various Christian cults, those who briefly (or even for some years) subscribed to the beliefs and those who never did. Those of us who were born into it are almost a different species. We were brainwashed from birth with a theology/ideology woven so intimately into our perception of reality that we can only approximate what life is like for others. Life is very different for someone who was raised without religion or who (however briefly) took a turn into and then out of it.

I write critical analysis of the Bible. (And fiction based on my analysis.) Some atheists dismiss that as a waste of time. They even seem offended that one would even bother with it. I can’t imagine that these people think that the study of literature is worthless. But when it comes to Biblical literature, that’s what some of them say.

To me, investigating the sources and motivation behind Biblical writing is a no brainer for anyone interested in how Western civilization developed over the last two thousand years. The Bible certainly had a profound influence there. And even today, when evangelicals have elected a president and other lawmakers who deny science, you’d think trying to get at their belief system by writing critically, using their own texts, would be deemed important by humanists and atheists. But I don’t get the sense that it is.

But back to the other thread here. Ex-vangelicals who have popped in and out of religion are very different from those born into it. They have the benefit of a sense of reality that does not include the notion that you must believe a certain way or you are eternally damned. That sense of reality was there before they became “born again” and it’s there waiting for them when they wake up from the Christian delusion. For people like me, it’s different. We are forced to struggle with our most basic programming for the rest of our lives. We are trying to change our default mode using just our reason, our will and sometimes rage, but that programming is the operating system. We can change it intellectually, but there are parts of the deep brain that we cannot get at. And so we suffer.

For me, Buddhism has provided an answer. Before you say, “He’s just traded one religion for another,” let me protest that Buddhism for most Western practitioners is not a religion at all. It’s a philosophy, a psychology and… a practice. It demands that one question every assertion for validity and accept nothing because the Buddha or some other teacher said it. Its sole purpose is to deal with psychic suffering. If you are stressed or anxious about things in your life (including your deep default programming), Buddhism offers a method of investigating and eventually diffusing that suffering through introspection and practice of virtue. It’s not about grace attained because one believes something.

One of the most basic Buddhist tenets is that desire causes discontentment. If you want something, you are not content with what your present situation is. You are discontent until you fulfill your desire, but the resulting contentment will be fleeting. People are obviously stressed by thinking they need to obtain more and more material goods. They are stressed by wanting the right romantic and family situations. They are stressed by wanting to validate their own self-image with the acceptance of that image by others. They are stressed by wanting things to go their way. That’s obvious.

What might not be so obvious is that the desire for answers about the meaning of life also causes stress and anxiety. Religion has been the classic response to that dilemma. If you need to know why you’re here, why the universe exists, what you should believe, what will happen after you die — “Well, we’ve got a religion for you!”

Those of us who are trying to make peace with the fact that intellectually satisfying answers to these questions are not available have to make do with existentialists’ ideas. That life’s meaning can be found only in the way we choose to live our lives. For some, this means joining (or pursuing alone) a struggle for something — a better life, a better world, the futile search for a satisfying answer. For Buddhists, it means accepting reality as it is and being content with it. Sure, we can try to improve things on the margins, but that desire will probably cause us to suffer. It’s just a question of how happy you want to be. Renounce a bit of desire, you’ll be a bit happier. Renounce more, you’ll be more happy. Renounce it completely, you’ll find complete happiness and freedom from stress and anxiety. Your choice.

Buddhism is all about this equanimity, but also about compassion. Teaching the way to achieve this peace is one way of expressing compassion for those who are suffering. Ex-vangelicals can benefit in this way from Buddhist teachings. I know I did.

Various Buddhist teachers have lists of samyojanas — fetters, or things that hold us back from achieving this happiness and freedom. On some of the lists you’ll find sīlabbata-parāmāsa which translates as attachment to rites and rituals, but I tend to see as religiosity in general. To me, it means getting caught up in a religious belief system rather than simply acknowledging and abiding in reality, right here, right now. Looking back on the past, worrying about the future and applying religious panaceas can only lead to more suffering. Buddhism in the East (like all religions do in their own way) promptly fell into this trap with the common believer seeking to earn after-life merit at the feet of golden Buddhas. But that has nothing to with the Buddha’s actual teachings.

I’ve spent a lot of my life dealing with the New Testament. It has been my life-long struggle. These days, I imagine the historic Jesus was, like the Buddha, a humble, but charismatic teacher, not the demigod figure we find in the gospels and Paul’s theology. I imagine he was not much concerned with religiosity, but far more concerned with abiding in the infinite richness of the present moment. I’ve written a book re-imagining this more credible, non-supernatural Jesus and the crazy origins of the Christian cult that would become a worldwide religion. It’s called The Gospel of Thomas (the Younger). I invite you to learn more about it at www.garytmcdonald.com

“A convincing faux gospel that challenges orthodoxy. Thomas traverses his world encountering First Century figures from Jesus to Nero bringing his times and the origins of Christianity alive in a fresh, new way with wry humor and exciting storytelling.”

―Winston Groom, author of Forrest Gump

“Gary T. McDonald is a born storyteller, and his research is impeccable. The book is fascinating from beginning to end, and his long-overdue, iconoclastic portrait of the Apostle Paul made me stand up and cheer.”

―Lewis Shiner, author of Glimpses

“An inherently fascinating and deftly crafted work of truly memorable fiction,The Gospel Of Thomas (the Younger) is an extraordinary novel by an extraordinary writer and unreservedly recommended…”

― Midwest Book Review