Has Christianity Failed You?

Dawn · Thu Apr 07, 2011 1:08 am

Has Christianity Failed You?
Having just finished reading a book by this title, I am interested to hear responses from this virtual world to this question. Someone has said it’s not so much that Christianity has been tried and found wanting as that it has been found difficult and not tried . I’m interested to know people’s actual experiences with Christians and with the Christian church—particularly evangelical versions. How have you been disappointed? How have you perceived Christianity as failing you? I realize that I am inviting scorn and cynicism and sharply emotional responses. If we could minimize abrasive intolerance here and keep our responses as objective as possible, given the subjective nature of the question…it would be helpful.

The author asks (and offers his answers): "Why are so many today not only living with silent doubt but actually leaving the 'evangelical fold' for something else? Is there something wrong with the message, with the communicator? with the hearer? or all three?"

How would you respond to this based on your own experience?

Dexter · Thu Apr 07, 2011 4:30 am


	Quote: Is there something wrong with the message?

Yes, it's false. But the fact that so many people believe it means it has been extraordinarily successful.

DWill · Thu Apr 07, 2011 9:39 am

I'm a little surprised, Dawn, to hear the author say so many are leaving the fold. What we so often hear is that the evangelical segment is the only one growing. This is only peripheral to what you asked, but I don't have any experience with evangelical churching, only some with the old mainline Protestants.

geo · Thu Apr 07, 2011 11:51 am


	Dawn wrote: I realize that I am inviting scorn and cynicism and sharply emotional responses.

What? Who? Me?

I was raised Catholic, went to church every Sunday, and I was even an altar boy for a time. The ceremonies, the sermons, the Homily, the Creed, miscellaneous Latin phrases meant nothing to me. The messages about God and Jesus just never resonated with me. Church was something your parents made you do and when I got older I looked for ways to get out of it. Later, I married a Catholic girl, and we went to mass sometimes because it was expected of us. Not going would have been very upsetting for our parents. Eventually we moved away from our home town and gradually lost interest in church altogether. Religion was and is, for me, a complete waste of time.

It was only later that I actually began to question the very concept of God, and one day it occurred to me that the God just might be a human fabrication. That might allowed me to open my mind to the possibility that God doesn't exist. I had never put much thought into it before then. And by doing that I could see that God's existence was highly improbably. Or, at least, if God did exist, he certainly could not be the entity that humans conceived in many iterations over the past few thousand years. We are limited being, with limited senses and limited imaginations. Furthermore, it is obvious to me that we want to believe. It is most likely that we have manufactured a concept of God. The religions of the world are engaged in worshiping a concept.

I wouldn't say that my family's religion failed me because all religions that teach faith in an invisible being are starting from a flawed premise, or false promise if you will. There's no way a religion can be done right because it teaches belief in something that for all we know doesn't exist.

As for evangelical Christianity, to me that is offensive. When we know these things: that humans are biased creatures prone to faulty reasoning, that we are limited beings with limited senses and limited imaginations, that we are very likely wired to believe in an entity that is greater than us, that we come from a tradition of ignorance in science from which a wellspring of myths have arisen, and as such there are a multitude of religions that exist in the world, how can anyone in good conscious, assume their religion is true and spread what are almost certainly lies to others?

Interbane · Thu Apr 07, 2011 12:36 pm

I was never introduced to evangelism thankfully. My mother was wise enough to keep me away from that, and my crazy Baptist grandmother. Though my mother was a Lutheran, and beleived in god.

From as long ago as I can remember, I always remember being of the mindset that god is this idea that may not be true, but a lot of people believed was real. Holding this tenuous duality allowed me to see the error of holding too tightly to belief when there is nothing but confirmation bias and subjective experience as the reasoning. In other words, the only people I've ever seen beleive in god believed for false reasons. So I knew at least those people didn't have a clue. And if there wasn't actually anyone who had a good reason to believe in god, what was the point of the idea? Around the time I was in high school I began to realize the point of the idea is to fill a psychological need. It has nothing to do with there actually being a god. There is no good reason to believe in a god, it's all a result of cultural evolution and residue from our evolutionary heritage.

I also know people are extremely imaginitive and intelligent, and can fool themselves into believing things with what appear to be good reasons, but are actually rationalizations and wishful thinking. The only thing I've ever uncovered in discussing god is that the people who believe are motivated to believe. The source of motivation, in every case, does not depend on the existence of a god. It is motivation rooted in the natural world, without any need for divine explanation. In some cases it's a sort of intellectual withdrawal, where the lack of a higher intelligence would leave a meaningless void with only a clockwork universe ticking away in the background. The desire to avoid that is motivating. Or the fear of hell, that is motivating. Or the comfortable buzz gained from attending a church service(do the devout realize it's a "buzz"?)

The question of god is not a question that has any referrent 'out there' in reality. It's a question of the human mind, and why the idea of a greater intelligence is comforting on many different levels to different people.

lady of shallot · Thu Apr 07, 2011 1:25 pm

Christianity has not failed me. In fact I think it has enriched my life immeasurably because of my love for the ritual (I was raised Episcopalian) the architecture, the music, the visual art.

Maybe those things could have been brought into existence through some other belief system, or no belief system at all, but what we have has been done in the name of Christianity.

As a small child I just went to church as I was told. We said our prayers at night. None of this meant anything to me emotionally. It was just something that was routine. I had Sunday school lessons and I remember that the pictures of Jesus always seemed to portray him as a blond blue eyed man. This seemed pretty silly to me as I got older. As an early teen (maybe 13) I got really turned off by the message of man as a sinner. We had just emerged from the second world war and I could see how difficult life was for people. It began to seem that this was a really wrong message.

I didn't think much about the existence of God and did continue to believe in Jesus. When I got a little older I realized how silly all the stories were of Jesus birth and life but still believed he was a real person. When I got older still I realized that it probably was very unlikely there ever was a real person as depicted in the Bible.

If belief and non belief could be balanced by scales for each individual, I would say that non-belief for me was always more heavily weighted and just became more so as I got older.

I have no personal experience with Evangelicalism, or only briefly. When I was about nine some woman tried to get me ensnared in some kind of attendance at some religious programming that was not based at a church. My mother nipped that right in the bud. About the same time a boy in my fifth grade class got down on his knees to beg me not to become a movie star!?! I remember his name and actually tried to get in touch with him via the internet, but he did not respond to my attempt to communicate with him. He did become a leader in his church.

Dawn I hope this is what you wanted. All my relatives who are believers attend either the Catholic or the Episcopalian church.

BTW my friends pleas were not needed! Hollywood never came calling!

Robert Tulip · Thu Apr 07, 2011 4:14 pm


	Dawn wrote: Has Christianity Failed You? Having just finished reading a book by this title, I am interested to hear responses from this virtual world to this question. Someone has said it’s not so much that Christianity has been tried and found wanting as that it has been found difficult and not tried . I’m interested to know people’s actual experiences with Christians and with the Christian church—particularly evangelical versions. How have you been disappointed? How have you perceived Christianity as failing you? I realize that I am inviting scorn and cynicism and sharply emotional responses. If we could minimize abrasive intolerance here and keep our responses as objective as possible, given the subjective nature of the question…it would be helpful. The author asks (and offers his answers): "Why are so many today not only living with silent doubt but actually leaving the 'evangelical fold' for something else? Is there something wrong with the message, with the communicator? with the hearer? or all three?" How would you respond to this based on your own experience?

Thank you Dawn for posing these questions. My view is that the problem for evangelism arises from its theology of fall and redemption. The Gospels contain a deeply accurate understanding of cosmology, with a vision that humanity has fallen out of contact with divinity, and that restoring this contact, the process of redemption and atonement, will take a long time. However, the impatience of the early church for temporal power meant that the message of the gospels was systematically misunderstood, and the church developed a supernatural theology that was riddled with error at its foundation, wrongly interpreting the creative spirit of the universe, God, by analogy with finite entities.

In Matthew 24 Jesus says the Gospel will be spread to the whole planet before the end will come. My reading of this saying is that the end means a recognition of the true message in the Gospel through a reconciliation of faith and reason. This reconciliation is hindered by evangelical clinging to obsolete fantasies about heaven and hell and miracles. The Gospel discussion of these ideas is allegory, using symbolic images to portray real vision. However, evangelism is part of the fallen loss of contact with the presence of divinity in nature, and takes its errors as absolute truth.

The general secular scorn for evangelism arises from the simple clash between evangelical claims and empirical observation. Evangelism holds that the story of Christ is evidence of a miraculous magical intervention by God in nature. However, there is no actual evidence or reason to believe that such intervention actually occurs, and much coherent evidence to suggest there was systematic collusive delusion within the church that led it to promulgate false dogmas. Christianity needs to go back to first principles and reconcile its beliefs with what is scientifically possible. While evangelical faith continues to cast doubt on the universality of the scientific method of restricting assent to claims that are backed by observation, the evangelical church will continue to decline in respect and popularity.

Dawn · Thu Apr 07, 2011 11:50 pm

Dexter wrote:


	Quote: Is there something wrong with the message?

Yes, it's false. But the fact that so many people believe it means it has been extraordinarily successful.

What's your experience been with 'church', Dexter?
Why do you suppose so many people believe it, but you don't? I'd be interested in knowing the context in which you first heard the message of Christianity, assuming you have...
I don't mean to pry. Of course you're free to disregard my inquiries if you're not comfortable with them. Just thought I'd ask.

Dawn · Fri Apr 08, 2011 12:00 am


	DWill wrote: I'm a little surprised, Dawn, to hear the author say so many are leaving the fold. What we so often hear is that the evangelical segment is the only one growing. This is only peripheral to what you asked, but I don't have any experience with evangelical churching, only some with the old mainline Protestants.

The evangelical segment is growing by leaps and bounds in many other parts of the world, with dramatic growth happening in parts of Africa and China, also in the Muslim world surprisingly. The author is here evaluating what he sees in the North American church. I don't have any statistics as to whether there is still overall growth in N.America despite the loss of those referred to...

What was your experience with the mainline Protestants? Which denomination?

Dawn · Fri Apr 08, 2011 12:19 am

geo wrote:


	Dawn wrote: I realize that I am inviting scorn and cynicism and sharply emotional responses.

What? Who? Me?

Thanks Geo :roll:

I was interested to hear your story. I wonder how many times this has been repeated? The very ceremonies that are meant to declare truth become a lifeless, meaningless repetition. Boring. Truth should not be boring. I appreciate hearing how your drift into confirmed unbelief happened. It was a process I guess.


	Geo wrote: As for evangelical Christianity, to me that is offensive. When we know these things: that humans are biased creatures prone to faulty reasoning, that we are limited beings with limited senses and limited imaginations, that we are very likely wired to believe in an entity that is greater than us, that we come from a tradition of ignorance in science from which a wellspring of myths have arisen, and as such there are a multitude of religions that exist in the world, how can anyone in good conscious, assume their religion is true and spread what are almost certainly lies to others?

Do you perceive of evangelicals as intentionally spreading what they know to be lies? This could be conceivable, even believable if one is thinking of people who obviously make money on their 'message'. But it doesn't explain very well to me the innumerable instances worldwide of believers doing so at risk of their own skins! We aren't told much about this in the media but it is very common and well documented by such organizations as Voice of the Martyrs and Open Doors. Seems inexplicable if there is no truth in what's being spread... I suppose the evangelical answer in part to your objection would be that for all those reason of human limitedness, we are dependent on revelation of the truth. We can only find out so much via observation... But heh, I appreciate hearing your 'story'. And you did it so graciously. Thanks very much!

Dawn · Fri Apr 08, 2011 12:38 am


	Interbane wrote: I was never introduced to evangelism thankfully. My mother was wise enough to keep me away from that, and my crazy Baptist grandmother. Though my mother was a Lutheran, and beleived in god. From as long ago as I can remember, I always remember being of the mindset that god is this idea that may not be true, but a lot of people believed was real. Holding this tenuous duality allowed me to see the error of holding too tightly to belief when there is nothing but confirmation bias and subjective experience as the reasoning. ...There is no good reason to believe in a god, it's all a result of cultural evolution and residue from our evolutionary heritage. I also know people are extremely imaginitive and intelligent, and can fool themselves into believing things with what appear to be good reasons, but are actually rationalizations and wishful thinking. The only thing I've ever uncovered in discussing god is that the people who believe are motivated to believe. The source of motivation, in every case, does not depend on the existence of a god. It is motivation rooted in the natural world, without any need for divine explanation. ... the comfortable buzz gained from attending a church service(do the devout realize it's a "buzz"?) The question of god is not a question that has any referrent 'out there' in reality. It's a question of the human mind, and why the idea of a greater intelligence is comforting on many different levels to different people.

Thanks Interbane, for your perspective. I might have like your 'crazy' grandmother.

Was she your mom's mom? Were you a 'brainy' kid in school? Sounds like you have always been an independent thinker. As for people being quite capable of rationalizing and wishful thinking, this is pretty evident everywhere...and being motivated to believe or disbelieve. Ditto. I wonder though if there aren't a number of skeptics that are skeptical for all the wrong reasons as well? Psychological motivations of hurt, pride, and etc. are pretty powerful on both sides of the fence I think. The human mind does have quite the capacity, as you so aptly demonstrate :wink:

.
Thanks for adding your thoughts here!
Incidentally, yep, there is an artificial 'buzz' to be had in a church service. It's all too common I'm afraid. Some recognize this. Many don't. But don't forget that behind most imitations there is a real thing...Be careful where you attend if you'd rather not meet Him. :roll:

Dawn · Fri Apr 08, 2011 12:47 am


	lady of shallot wrote: Christianity has not failed me. In fact I think it has enriched my life immeasurably because of my love for the ritual (I was raised Episcopalian) the architecture, the music, the visual art. As an early teen (maybe 13) I got really turned off by the message of man as a sinner. We had just emerged from the second world war and I could see how difficult life was for people. It began to seem that this was a really wrong message.

Well, it's sure not a nice message. Then again the war kind of underlines the truth of it maybe?


	LofS wrote: If belief and non belief could be balanced by scales for each individual, I would say that non-belief for me was always more heavily weighted and just became more so as I got older. I have no personal experience with Evangelicalism, or only briefly. When I was about nine some woman tried to get me ensnared in some kind of attendance at some religious programming that was not based at a church. My mother nipped that right in the bud. About the same time a boy in my fifth grade class got down on his knees to beg me not to become a movie star!?! I remember his name and actually tried to get in touch with him via the internet, but he did not respond to my attempt to communicate with him. He did become a leader in his church. Dawn I hope this is what you wanted. All my relatives who are believers attend either the Catholic or the Episcopalian church. BTW my friends pleas were not needed! Hollywood never came calling!

Thanks, it is precisely what I was interested in. I wonder how different things might have turned out if that woman had 'ensnared' you? Any idea what 'club' she was promoting? It is interesting to see how people's paths diverge and the impact teaching in childhood has (or loses) with age...

Dawn · Fri Apr 08, 2011 1:12 am


	Robert Tulip wrote: Thank you Dawn for posing these questions. My view is that the problem for evangelism arises from its theology of fall and redemption. The Gospels contain a deeply accurate understanding of cosmology, with a vision that humanity has fallen out of contact with divinity, and that restoring this contact, the process of redemption and atonement, will take a long time. However, the impatience of the early church for temporal power meant that the message of the gospels was systematically misunderstood, and the church developed a supernatural theology that was riddled with error at its foundation, wrongly interpreting the creative spirit of the universe, God, by analogy with finite entities.

Robert, you are certainly on another wavelength than I... one basic reservation I have with this sort of thinking is how are the 'masses' going to be helped if they can't understand this 'gospel'? You have to admit, or maybe not? it's kind of 'out there' and hard for the average person to wrap their mind around... And too, it's like you have all this mythological symbolism but no real-life counterparts. Where did the 'story' come from if there was no real-live fall or atonement (etc.) truth underlying it?


	Robert Tulip wrote: In Matthew 24 Jesus says the Gospel will be spread to the whole planet before the end will come. My reading of this saying is that the end means a recognition of the true message in the Gospel through a reconciliation of faith and reason.

I have to admit this interpretation is a new one and a dramatic stretch for me! But in this case, time will tell. I'm seeing some pretty literal nation against nation, earthquakes and famines in the news...not sure we need to take all the literalism away here...


	RT wrote: The general secular scorn for evangelism arises from the simple clash between evangelical claims and empirical observation. Evangelism holds that the story of Christ is evidence of a miraculous magical intervention by God in nature. However, there is no actual evidence or reason to believe that such intervention actually occurs, and much coherent evidence to suggest there was systematic collusive delusion within the church that led it to promulgate false dogmas. Christianity needs to go back to first principles and reconcile its beliefs with what is scientifically possible. While evangelical faith continues to cast doubt on the universality of the scientific method of restricting assent to claims that are backed by observation, the evangelical church will continue to decline in respect and popularity.

I guess you could have written your own book on this...you've come to a different conclusion than the author, though he does address miracle and naturalism vs. supernaturalism as part of his answer. Interesting conclusion about reconciling science with Christianity. Depends which is the God I suppose as to which needs to bow to the other. The respect and popularity issue will for sure always be an issue. It gets worse before it gets better in this case but holding to the truth has never been about numbers.
I appreciate your spelling out your views on this, Robert. Hope you don't mind my contrary feedback.

If you're interested in the author's answers to these questions, I've posted a review at: http://thestacksofdawn.blogspot.com/

Robert Tulip · Fri Apr 08, 2011 5:59 am


	Dawn wrote: how are the 'masses' going to be helped if they can't understand this 'gospel'? ... The respect and popularity issue will for sure always be an issue. It gets worse before it gets better in this case but holding to the truth has never been about numbers.

Dawn, do you see the contradiction between your two comments quoted here? You are saying stick to a simple literal faith, even though it is wrong, in order to be popular, but then, when it suits you, stick to an unpopular anti-scientific doctrine and claim that your isolation shows your purity.

What you should do is start with the evidence, and reject beliefs that are not compatible with evidence.

DWill · Fri Apr 08, 2011 6:54 am

Dawn wrote:


	DWill wrote: What was your experience with the mainline Protestants? Which denomination?

To answer your intial question, no, Christianity didn't fail me. I don't see how I could say that, not ever being aware that I was invested in it. If I had been attached the beliefs, then later found that they didn't serve me well, I could say Christianity had failed me.

I grew up going to a Congregationist church in Connecticut. But I didn't say in a Congregtionalist church because although we went to it often (I think), and I went to Sunday School and in the 8th grade went to classes leading to "confirmation," there was never a sense that we as a family cared about the religion. My father was a practical man, a country veterinarian, who thought that a responsible father had his faimily go to church. He would sit there winding his watch and my mother would scold him. Given a different family background, it's more likely that I would have gotten convictions about God and Jesus, just as I had the conviction that the Republicans were the best party, because my Dad was a Nixon man. As it was, these ideas were present, but on the periphery. I do remember I developed a superstition about being punished or having bad luck if I didn't say the prayer my mother taught me, so if I happened to get into bed without saying it, I'd slide out real quick and mumble it at the bedside.
In my house, we never said grace at the dinner table and I never once recall my father mentioning God or Jesus. Yet if asked whether he is a spiritual man, I'd reflect on his integrity and sense of compassion and say 'yes.'

After the eighth grade, my family moved, and we never got established at another church. So my church-going ended for about 30 years. When we had our fiirst daughter, after a while she asked a couple of questions about God, out of the blue or because her babysitter was a religious woman. Because I didn't want to experiment and had nothing against religion itself, I decided to take her to a church, which also meant that I and my wife had to attend. I chose Presbyterian after lengthy research: my in-laws were Presbyterian and I liked them, plus it wasn't too far away. Not to make this story overly long, I stayed a member of that church for eight years. Because it was very small and I have trouble saying no, I even got tapped for some leadership stuff, but I was always uncomfortable with it. I did think the experience, overall, was good for our daughters. The congregation was caring and simply the presence of several generations in one body was a good thing. My wife's and my family are far away, so the church was a substitute extended family to a small degree. I also believe in the importance of knowing about how we're connected to past generations, and the Bible provides some of this.

There were times when I could benefit from the feelings that the service produced in me. There was a reach into my unconscious. But also prominent was an instinctual feeling that it just can't be so, that a religion cannot be so founded on events that were said to have merely happened. Why should those things, of all things, be considered as a foundation? It didn't make sense to me and it still doesn't. That largely explains why I eventually resigned.

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