A Loss of Faith Doesn't Mean a Loss of Personal Faith - Meet Brie Stoner

Indie Artist Brie Stoner

As a follow up to my last article, A Loss of Faith Doesn't Mean a Loss of Personal Faith, I came across Brie Stoner's interview in the West Michigan Entertainment Guide. Brie is an Indie Artist/Musician who coincidentally came from the same fundamentalist church I had come from many years ago. She is also about 25 years younger than myself placing her firmly in the X-Gen's and speaking out why a God of Love and a loving embrace of one another is de facto presto! where Christianity should be right now rather than the White Christian nationalism we see it embracing and forcing upon American society.

Going to the same church my wife and I knew Brie's parents who were a bit older and former ABWE missionaries to Spain. It was there her folks had grown up in Madrid as missionary kids. Our church had supported her grandparent's in missionary service and were similarly invested in Brie's parents missional outreach. Moreover, Brie's uncle and aunt were close friends of ours as we, and several other single (no kids) Baptist couples from area GARB churches, spent a lot of time together over a ten span.

Hence my surprise yesterday when rediscovering Brie's bio. There was also her connection with Mars Hill Bible Church, of Rob Bell fame, where she, like us, had ministered for a time in her career before losing faith, letting it all crash to the ground, then going back to her Christian roots via MTS studies at Chicago Theological Seminary. Afterwards Brie worked with several socio-political faith organizations before returning to music.

Even as I went through a painful period of faith-loss and later recovery, so had Brie. Even more surprising (but not really, as re-birthed Christian's journeys go) we both came to the conclusion that a God without Love is a God best forgotten. Though I find little comfort in my generation's indifference to it's crashed faith, I find a lot of encouragement in knowing the generations behind me might have the intolerance and anger to stand up for Jesus and shout all that's right with a Christ-bearing Christian faith.

Thank you Brie for your wise testimony and deep words of conviction. To our journeys ahead!

R.E. Slater

July 3, 2022

If Religion Doesn't Change You Then it Isn't About Love

by Brie Stoner, April 10, 2021

2:25 min

In this episode I chat with artist, musician and friend of the show Brie Stoner. You may have heard Brie on Richard Rohr's podcast Another Name for Every Thing (ANFET).

We discuss:

• Contemplation
• What is a Mystic?
• What is Mysticism
• Progressive & Conservative Christian World Views
• Did the Resurrection Literally Happen
• Inclusive Christianity
• Our Never Ending Battle with Superiority (Dominionism & Patriarchy)
• Us vs Them Ways of Viewing the World

Connect with Brie at https://www.instagram.com/briestoner/

Deconstruction Mysticism & Christianity with Brie Stoner

Apr 4, 2021 | Full podcast Episode

1:25:40

* * * * * * * *

https://bluetoad.com/publication/?m=62960&i=752501&p=1&ver=html5

* * * * * * * *

Brie Stoner’s multi-lingual, indie dream-rock songs

of ‘longing, fury and feeling’

• by John Sinkevics
• |   June 10, 2022

The acclaimed Grand Rapids singer-songwriter returns to the stage Saturday while preparing a two-pronged studio release. The story and this week’s Local Spins on WYCE radio podcast.

Belonging Fiercely to Herself: Brie Stoner has finally found her musical harmony. (Photo/Brian Kelly Photography)

 

SCROLL DOWN FOR MUSIC VIDEO, RADIO SHOW PODCAST

Support our coverage of
West Michigan's music scene

Brie Stoner has experienced the ups and downs of the music business, the dichotomy of living in different countries, speaking different languages, striving to meet different expectations for her art.

“My life has been a series of paradoxes,” the singer-songwriter readily admits after finally arriving at a comfortable, congruous place for her music.

“When you’re young, when you’re a teenager or even in your early 20s, it feels like you’re being handed a lot of shoes to try on and being told what to do and pushed out onto the stage. ‘You should sound like this and not like that.’ ”

And while Stoner feels she grew as an artist during those early years more than a decade ago, “I didn’t really know who I was yet.”

A ‘Homecoming Experience’: Stoner will release a two-part album starting later this year. (Photo/Brian Kelly Photography)

Motherhood, the isolation of the COVID pandemic and acceptance of her uniquely varied background have allowed her to “kick all of those shoes off that I was being handed and just feel what it felt like to walk on my own bare feet in the direction that I wanted to.”

It allowed her to “harmonize,” creating music that represented “all these disparate pieces” of her character.

“This was a real homecoming experience for me,” she concedes. “I am more than just one thing.”

After releasing three singles in recent months, the Grand Rapids singer and musician also has formed a new “indie dream-rock” band with plans for releasing a two-pronged album project, “Me Veo,” over the next year.

For this week’s edition of Local Spins on WYCE, Stoner showcased two of those singles – “Hungry” and “Honey” – while sharing the story of her journey. Watch the video for “Hungry” here and scroll down to listen to the full interview and radio show.

VIDEO: Brie Stoner, “Hungry”

(Directed by Jaimie Skriba, cinematography by Josh Skinner, edited by Matthew Bouwense)

Growing up in Madrid, Spain, Stoner quickly became fluent in Spanish as well as English, and has since picked up some French as well.

Her music and her singing have attracted industry attention over the years – featured in a Victoria’s Secret ad campaign, “Orange is the New Black” and “The Affair,” as well as in other international TV and film projects.

And while she hasn’t performed or released albums in several years, she insists she’s remained active – singing to her children, writing new material and otherwise staying engaged with her art.

PODCASTING, FORMING A NEW BAND, RELEASING AN AMBITIOUS ALBUM PROJECT

“I never stopped writing or making music, but when I had kids, there was something singularly satisfying for a season to have their ears be the only ones who heard me sing,” she recalls.

“But even with little ones, I was singing and recording music for TV and film with my side project duet partner, Daniel Johnson in Detroit.”

She’s also a writer and a successful podcaster: She co-hosted “Another Name for Every Thing,” which garnered millions of downloads, and has since started her own podcast, “Unknowing,” which explores the spiritual path of creative possibilities with various authors, activists and artists.

‘Triumphant Culmination’: Stoner’s new music. (Photo/Brian Kelly Photography)

Now, her focus has turned squarely toward performing and releasing her music. At 7 p.m. Saturday, she’ll lead a full band in concert as part of the Listening Lawn series hosted by Listening Room on the Studio Park piazza in downtown Grand Rapids. Tickets are $15 and $25, and available online here.

Her band features guitarist-singer Vanessa DeCouto, drummer Scott Gentry, bassist Luke Shoemaker, electric guitarist Ben Erhart and keyboardist Enrique Olmos – and fans can expect a “very visual,” fashion-forward affair.

She’ll also perform as part of the WYCE Jammie Awards at The Intersection on June 25, and join Valentiger for a Listening Room show on Aug. 25.

Singing in English, Spanish and French, Stoner’s “Me Veo” project will be released in two parts digitally – the first part in the fall and the second next winter. The entire album and a bonus track will be available on vinyl in spring 2023.

“I recorded the album at my home and at Local Legend Recording studios, and it is produced by my dear friend David Vandervelde, whom I’ve worked with and known since we were both high schoolers,” she says, citing influences ranging from Neil Young to Mazzy Star to Fleetwood Mac.

“The songs are full of longing and fury and feeling. I drop deep theology while singing about sex in one line, and then arch into protest against industry and capitalism in another. Everything belongs on this record maybe because I finally belong fiercely to myself. And I guess this album to me is a triumphant culmination of my own sovereignty in that way.”

This week’s episode of Local Spins on WYCE – which spotlights Michigan-made music at 11 a.m. Fridays on WYCE (88.1 FM) and online at wyce.org – also featured music by Djangophonique, Strange Heart, In the Valley Below and David VanderVelde (the musician’s picks by Stoner), Biomassive, Jack Droppers & The Best Intentions, KJ & The Good Time Family Band and Sorry, Not Sorry. Listen to the radio show here.

PODCAST: Local Spins on WYCE (6/10/22)

localspins · Local Spins on WYCE wsg Brie Stoner (6/10/22)

Note: The Bridge Blast mentioned in the show actually runs from 3 to 11 p.m. Saturday. Details here.

Copyright 2022, Spins on Music LLC

New DNA Technology Is Shaking Up The Branches of The Evolutionary Tree

A short comment here.... My Christian heritage was devoid of evolutionary studies. Occasionally I will place biological, geological, and astronomical evolutionary articles into Relevancy22 to help those new to Whiteheadian/Cobb Process Philosophy and Theology understand that it will always accept and embrace academic studies as being current with the best of the sciences rather than shy away from them.

For Process Christians there is every need to incorporate science into Process thought. They each need the other in order to progress further into the areas of their own respective studies... as well as importantly resting together in mutually symbiotic relationships with one another as relevant interdisciplinary studies with one another.

As example, as quantum technology explores artificial intelligence, sentient consciousness, nanotechnology, and the algorithmic processes available to quantum computing, process thought can help open up quantum processing into its own right without any need or reliance upon its past Binary/Boolean/Silicon self-history. Amazingly, such process-based quantum  computer-processing / A.I. studies have been pursued as early as the 1960s (cf. Tim Eastman's, The Gordian Knot series)

Similarly, process thought can provide direction into all areas of scientific inquiry: from cosmo-ecological societies, psychological/sociological speculations, neurobiology, even education and socio-political eco-economies. Process Philosophy/Theology is not only a philosophical/theological study in its own right but applicable into all areas of human study.

R.E. Slater

July 1, 2022

Ernst Haeckel's 'tree of life' sketch | Click to Enlarge

New DNA Technology Is Shaking Up The

Branches of The Evolutionary Tree

article link

by Matthew Wills, The Conversation

June 25, 2022

If you look different to your close relatives, you may have felt separate from your family. As a child, during particularly stormy fall outs you might have even hoped it was a sign that you were adopted.

As our new research shows, appearances can be deceptive when it comes to family. New DNA technology is shaking up the family trees of many plants and animals.

The primates, to which humans belong, were once thought to be close relatives of bats because of some similarities in our skeletons and brains. However, DNA data now places us in a group that includes rodents (rats and mice) and rabbits. Astonishingly, bats turn out to be more closely related to cows, horses, and even rhinoceroses than they are to us.

Scientists in Darwin's time and through most of the 20th century could only work out the branches of the evolutionary tree of life by looking at the structure and appearance of animals and plants. Life forms were grouped according to similarities thought to have evolved together.

About three decades ago, scientists started using DNA data to build "molecular trees". Many of the first trees based on DNA data were at odds with the classical ones.

Sloths and anteaters, armadillos, pangolins (scaly anteaters), and aardvarks were once thought to belong together in a group called edentates ("no teeth"), since they share aspects of their anatomy.

Molecular trees showed that these traits evolved independently in different branches of the mammal tree. It turns out that aardvarks are more closely related to elephants while pangolins are more closely related to cats and dogs.

Coming together

There is another important line of evidence that was familiar to Darwin and his contemporaries. Darwin noted that animals and plants that appeared to share the closest common ancestry were often found close together geographically. The location of species is another strong indicator they are related: species that live near each other are more likely to share a family tree.

For the first time, our recent paper cross-referenced location, DNA data, and appearance for a range of animals and plants. We looked at evolutionary trees based on appearance or on molecules for 48 groups of animals and plants, including bats, dogs, monkeys, lizards, and pine trees.

Evolutionary trees based on DNA data were two-thirds more likely to match with the location of the species compared with traditional evolution maps. In other words, previous trees showed several species were related based on appearance.

Our research showed they were far less likely to live near each other compared to species linked by DNA data.

It may appear that evolution endlessly invents new solutions, almost without limits. But it has fewer tricks up its sleeve than you might think.

Animals can look amazingly alike because they have evolved to do a similar job or live in a similar way. Birds, bats and the extinct pterosaurs have, or had, bony wings for flying, but their ancestors all had front legs for walking on the ground instead.

(Oyston et al., Communication Biology, 2022)

Above: The color wheels and key indicate where members of each order are found geographically. The molecular tree has these colors grouped together better than the morphological tree, indicating closer agreement of the molecules to biogeography.

Similar wing shapes and muscles evolved in different groups because the physics of generating thrust and lift in air are always the same. It is much the same with eyes, which may have evolved 40 times in animals, and with only a few basic "designs".

Our eyes are similar to squid's eyes, with a crystalline lens, iris, retina, and visual pigments. Squid are more closely related to snails, slugs, and clams than us. But many of their mollusk relatives have only the simplest of eyes.

Moles evolved as blind, burrowing creatures at least four times, on different continents, on different branches of the mammal tree. The Australian marsupial pouched moles (more closely related to kangaroos), African golden moles (more closely related to aardvarks), African mole rats (rodents), and the Eurasian and North American talpid moles (beloved of gardeners, and more closely related to hedgehogs than these other "moles") all evolved down a similar path.

Evolution's roots

Until the advent of cheap and efficient gene sequencing technology in the 21st century, appearance was usually all evolutionary biologists had to go on.

While Darwin (1859) showed that all life on Earth is related in a single evolutionary tree, he did little to map out its branches. The anatomist Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) was one of the first people to draw evolutionary trees that tried to show how major groups of life forms are related.

Haeckel's drawings (shown at the top) made brilliant observations of living things that influenced art and design in the 19th and 20th centuries. His family trees were based almost entirely on how those organisms looked and developed as embryos. Many of his ideas about evolutionary relationships were held until recently.

As it becomes easier and cheaper to obtain and analyze large volumes of molecular data, there will be many more surprises in store.

Matthew Wills, Professor of Evolutionary Palaeobiology at the Milner Centre for Evolution, University of Bath.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

* * * * * * *

For further reference:

The Tree of Life: Tangled Roots and Sexy Shoots

"Tracing the genetic pathway from the last universal

common ancestor to Homo Sapiens"

https://www.dhushara.com/book/unraveltree/unravel.htm#Anchor-Three-47857

by Chris King

Dec 2009-Feb 2022

Genotype: 1.5.32

click to enlarge

A Loss of Faith Doesn't Mean a Loss of Personal Faith...

A Loss of Faith Doesn't Mean

a Loss of Personal Faith...

But Perhaps It May Mean a Reorientation of Faith

by R.E. Slater

June 28, 2022

I came across Bob Schneider's article the other day and thought he made some important observations about why his Jewish faith was important to him as versus say, no faith, or the Christian faith he grew up in.

In contrast to Bob's experience, my own faith holds a lot of good memories of exploration and discovery, albeit from a Fundamentalist position, for the majority of my youth until I married into a conservative evangelical Reformed church. The conservative part was composed of pastor and board (which later changed under a new pastor) and the progressive part was it's congregation. Years later this all changed again.

During that time I had just finished my psychology major and bible minor degrees at a private Christian college and had begun to attend seminary at the same school. It's roots were my roots - fundamentalist Baptist (GARB), but had by this time moved into the evangelical phase of Christianity (from 1930-60s dogma to 1970-80s semi-progressive thinking) because of its non-rural urban center.

My home church was also part of this movement where I had done a lot of urban ministries before leaving for a large university to study math and science, then transferring three years later to a private Christian curriculum. At that time I felt the Lord calling me into these next six years of study (a four year M.Div. degree) and student ministries which carried through until my mid-50s. As I have said, I had a full and happy spirit-life under many good teachers, preachers, professors, and friends. Then it all changed....

Removal and Renewal

As I read Bob's personal stories and experiences they resonated with me because I was immersed in my own growing evangelic faith which was moving towards a progressive stage in seminary, then an emergent Christian stage much later, and finally, a mega-progressive version of itself when I finally moved out of conservatism altogether.  

Somewhere around the years of 2000-2010 I became cognizant of evangelicalism's culturally regressive movement (begun in the 1990s with its inerrancy declaration) towards a militant, excluding, even threatening, fundamentalist expressions of itself socio-politically and doctrinally. I speak to this as Dominionism. Others as Kingdom Reconstruction, that is, replacing any socio-politico system with a theocratic version of itself as determined by church rules, beliefs, and legalisms.

Evangelicalism's refusal to grow into contemporary academics and an expanded awareness of their own growing uncivil democracy (re fairness and equality) towards Muslims, women, lgbtq, immigrants, etc., had caused me to break faith with its "moral majorities" and "literal bible"  claims to knowing God in 2012, ten years ago. Little did I know I was joining other dissenting Christians choosing a progressive verson of evangelicalism over its recalcitrant regression back into its dogmatic shell.

It also left me hanging out in thin air completely abandoned by my fellowship which refused to ask the hard questions I was asking of it to make. And so, began my journal here at Relevancy22 through many, many years of self-directed, and prayerful research, study, and personal writings.

A New Beginning...

I consider those early years of leaving what I had known extremely important to where I am now. During those first seven years of my journey here at Relevancy22 I was carefully laying out: i) what I was learning, ii) why it was important to me, and iii) where I thought it might be leading me towards. Those difficult and demoralising years required a lot of parsing of my faith and Scripture to get to where I am today.

Lately, these past three years, I've become very focused and directed in what I might generally describe as a post-evangelical expression of my immersive faith. One, I might describe as adding new elements, or character changes:

• One large change which was made from my tradtional Christian heritage was to remove my traditional Christian faith from it's synthesized forms of Greco-Western thought based in neo-Platonism. To do this, I had to explore Continental thought (I found it nicely tied into my earlier psychology and philosophy studies) which later led me in a round-about-way to Process thought ala Whitehead, Cobb, et al. And it is this latter outlook which has greatly expanded and informed this newer version of  my reclaimed Christian faith into full conversations with today's sciences and academia. It is also where I try to focus a lot of my current articles these past recent years. To do that, I had to write myself out of the Old and into the New, proceeding theologically, and later, philosophically and culturally, as I intersected my faith with society.

• Another large change was to abandon the theological position of Calvinism altogether and to transition my theological upbringing back to my Baptist roots of Arminianism. As I did, I also repositioned my Reformed theology to a less harsher form of itself based upon a God of Love as versus its God of wrath and judgment. I found both of these adjustments to be very healthy changes to my own faith. Hence, when I speak to a Process Christianity, it would more specifically speak to my Protestant upbringing which I am familiar with. I do not pretend to know Catholicism or Orthodoxy well but can say that Process Christianity can quite easily absorb these theologies quite capably. And, I might add, many, if not most, of the world's religious and non-religious thought. Process Philosophy is what can be described as an Integrative Philosophy. Which is why it speaks so easily to evolution, the quantum sciences, and nano/bio/quantum technologies, et al.

• One last, though there are more foundational reasons then these several I am setting out here.... I had initially tried to discover a more pervasive hermeneutic for interpreting the bible but later realized  after some years of research that my understanding of the bible actually needed a new philosophical basis, not a better hermeneutic. One that could more easily embrace an enlarged, interpretive, socio-progressive, biblical center (my evangelic background lies in Covenant Theology as versus my earlier fundamenalist position of neo-dispensationalism). A new hermeneutical approach to the bible could not resolve what was required. I needed an altogether different philosophical foundation... Not a better interpretation of Scripture. It took seven years of trial-and-error to discover this.... But again, it is why the Spirit of the Lord brought me through such a desperate time of spiritual pain, anguish, and blackness. Without this personal experience I would not have had the resolve to have endured as long as I did at this formidable task. But like any figure of the bible who has come through a loss of faith I came out of my own upheavals with an exceptionally clear vision of what needed to be done, thanks be to God's leading and guidance.

A Renewed Christian Faith...

The tasks set before me were:

• First and foremost, to deconstruct and dissent;

• Second, to begin reconstructing a better theology more conversant with society; and,

• Third, to settle in enough to expand this new theologic center.

Moreover, this renewed Christian faith had to be:

• One centered around doubt-and-uncertainty, not strict positionalism;

• One which leaves a lot of room for open-ended discussions to future discoveries and human learning;

• One that might be expansive enough to receive all faith-seekers yearning for something beyond the material realm knowing that a living faith meant a living God;

• One which was deeply relational and dynamic in its faith expressions which moves progressively upwards with one's communities; and lastly,

• One whose absolute center of faith is founded on a God of absolute Love. For without love, even God himself would be like a clanging cymbal:

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. (1 Co 13.1)

Now you would think this was an easy task to discover a better expression of God-and-faith than the evangelical one I knew but it was anything but easy. When begun, I went into a spiritual tailspin I can only describe as having all I thought I knew-and-believed removed from underneath me.

This desert land of wilderness was a harsh place to live for the length of time the Lord left me there. And it was in this spiritual space I refused to move unless the Lord drew me out. Several times I nearly abandoned this Spirt-enforced wilderness but it was nearly a year before I felt I had the Spirit-vision needed to leave by the Lord's call even as he had called out to Lazarus to "arise and come out of the lands of death" which encircled and held him in its grasp.

Remember too, I had no one to help me in this task though I tried. Later, I would be joined by many other questioning faith seekers (the late Rachel Held Evans was one) whom the Spirit had come upon to stir their heavy hearts and souls. And later still, I would find the foundation I was seeking. But it would take a few years to get there.

Hence, this next stage of Christ-renewal was one of removal, relearning, acquisition, and announcement. I had to have time to rethink my past evangelical theology so that it would make more sense to those who, like me, had fallen out of their church's belief system through disappointment, disillusionment, or lost of perspective.

Below, Bob's journey took him in a similar, but different, direction than mine own. But one just as valid for his own spiritual life as was mine. Though I must insist on Jesus and his atoning work as the center of my Christian faith I can understand why the Jewish faith has become important for so many others.

However, as point of fact, Process Theology's center is that of relationality. It is the outcome of a Loving God embracing creation. Without a relational faith with our Creator/Redeemer, with one another, or with God's creation, we would be spiritual paupers.

Hence, Judaism is not the only faith centered in relationships. A good Christian faith - like the one I grew up in before it fell apart - runs around this center of relationality in its faith-theology. And in Process Christianity (which is similar in outcome, but significantly different in its doctrinal foundations, than progressive evangelical Christianity) "relationality" is its very core. Thus it is aptly described as a Process-Relational Theology whose outcome is social progressiveness in the embrace of a society in search of faith-communities center around God's love as expressed through Jesus' salvation.

Peace,

R.E. Slater

June 29, 2022

Follow up article

A Loss of Faith Doesn't Mean a Loss of Personal Faith - Meet Brie Stoner

An XGen Indie Artist Speaks Up for Jesus

* * * * * * * * *

A popular, but incorrect, meme found on Facebook

WHY I'M NOT AN ATHEIST

article link

  Bob Schneider

June 26, 2022

The Bible is a collection of stories about myths and legends not to report or record history, but to make a theological point. 

I suspect this article will irritate two groups of people: atheists, and Fundamentalist Christians. I’m not judging your religious beliefs, or lack thereof, rather I am often asked why I am not an atheist? I am asked this question nearly equally by the two above-named groups. Many of my friends, and family members don’t understand my reasons for abandoning Christianity, my mother’s religion.

On social media, I mentioned that the Bible is not the word of God. It is a collection of myths, stories, and often questionable history. A few fundamentalist folks immediately proclaimed me a heretic and an atheist.

This event followed my visit to an Atheist site that proclaimed the Bible a lie, and that people were worshipping a fantasy. The atheists proclaimed me an ignorant fool who prays to thin air and is anti-science.

Neither case is true, especially the latter.

I was raised in my mother’s Baptist tradition, complete with two Southern Baptist minister uncles. I could memorize phrases from the Bible and use them as “proof” of truth with the best of them.

As a boy, I ran into a buzzsaw at the Wall Street Baptist Church in Kankakee, Illinois, my hometown. My sins must have been memorable because I was sent to the church’s basement with the minister’s wife, so she could engage in some one-on-one brainwashing.

She was not the most intellectual of women.

Here was my deep sin that caused hand-wringing and great concern for my immortal soul. I dared to ask a Sunday School teacher in front of kids why there were two creation stories in the Bible? I wanted to know why Genesis Chapters 1 & 2 are contradictory, with only a shred of similarity?

Rather than answer the question, I was told there weren’t two and I should learn to read. Undaunted, I asked if we all were descendants of Adam and Eve, and she said yes, they were the first created by God, and every human on earth is their descendant.

This was where I ended up in the basement. I asked the teacher, how could that be? Eve had three sons, and who were these people later that Eve’s sons married? Exasperated, the Sunday School teacher told the kids to lay hands on me as she prayed for the demons to be cast out of my soul. She then left, returning with the pastor’s wife.

I won’t regale you with the conversation that led the minister’s wife to hate me until the day she died. Those are stories for another day.

There is a big problem the religious have, and that is a lack of faith, and so they need to hang their faith on a book that is comprised of myths, legends, shakey history, and some outright fiction. It is a trap many thinking people are pushed into, only to fall through the door into believing it is all a lie.

My Mother left our small church primarily because of me. My ability to read, not accept anything at face value and question authority made her scorned by the church management. She had given birth to a heretic and my questions reflected on her as a parent in a negative light.

My mother taught me to question and challenge authority, and she is from where I learned how to state my case the right way. My curiosity reflects on her as a parent in a good way. There is not a religion on earth that doesn’t try to encourage unquestioning, blind obedience, and people like me are a pain for ministers.

Mom stopped taking me to church, and that probably was best for my spiritual life. I was free to read, and question and she didn’t tell me I was Hellbound as I had heard in church. I decided that Christianity was not for me, but I delayed dropping that bomb for a very long time.

I trudged off to college, and in my first semester took a course in religious studies. It was finding an oasis in the desert of religious anti-intellectualism. There is an ocean of differences between biblical scholarship and promoting faith to the masses.

On day one of the class, after a lecture from the professor about statements based on scholarship vs. faith statements, she delivered the news that Moses did not write the first five books of the Bible. I wanted to jump up and scream, “I knew it!” In the Torah, I read laws prohibiting Jews from intermarriage with people from nations that did not exist at the time of the Exodus, and would not come into existence for hundreds of years later.

Many people come to college, take religious studies, and turn to atheism. They feel they are worshiping a big lie. Some adopt atheism as a religion and run around with the zeal of any Christian evangelist spreading their Gospel of Don’t Worship a Lie.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

I was lucky. I had a professor who taught more than just scholarship applied to religious writings. She taught me how Bertrand Russell in the meme above got it very wrong.

Her Doctorate is in ancient literature. She taught, and I believe, that the Bible is a collection of stories about myths and legends not to report or record history, but to make a theological point. Approaching it in that light took away the big lie stigma others face when scholarship meets faith. Instead, I was studying literature.

I thought of myths in terms of Greek Mythology. Surely no one believes that man received fire because Prometheus gave it to humans, thereby angering Zeus to the point that Prometheus was chained by Zeus, and his liver eaten by eagles. While it is absurd to believe that myth, there are stories in the Bible no less sensational. In later courses, I learned that the writings of Homer share much in common with The Bible.

The stories that sell myths are literature, and often fiction with tales of magic. They explain the unexplainable and are enlarged by the authors not to be taken literally, but to illustrate a point and teach a theological lesson.

From Dr. Morey-Gaines, I learned about many of the allegories in the Bible. For those who need a refresher on the definition of an allegory, it is a story or poem that is used to illustrate a moral or a political point. Emphasize the word story, because as a story, absolute fact is not required.

The Sodom and Gomorrah story is a prime example. A “righteous man” as the yarn unfolds, does not accurately describe Lot, the protagonist of the tale. There are many messages and sub-messages in the narrative that has nothing to do with sin and debauchery. Two of the central messages of Sodom and Gomorrah are: “get away from evil people,” and “don’t look back.” Whether a city was destroyed, or a woman was killed is not the point.

The dual stories of creation are not the only contradictions in the first five books. I read a source that counts thirteen dualities and contradictions in the Torah.

The Babylonian Creation Myth is the foundation of Genesis 1 and 2, which makes sense, as tradition places Abraham as from Mesopotamia. The myth is present in other religious traditions. Judaism borrows from other traditions, like borrowing the creation story, and puts a local spin on the stories.

In 2022, there are no purely native religions. All have borrowed one another’s material. It grates on the nerves of those who practice religious orthodoxy when I say it’s all good. That is my steadfast belief.

I don’t accept the notion that the Bible is dictated by God. When it is called The Word of God, that is marketing. It is the work of men and many men.

If the religious among us read this far, and I doubt many will, they may ask themselves how can this guy be a theist? Likewise, I am sure some atheists somewhere will think the title of this narrative is clickbait, and deep down I am one of them.

There is another element to my story that I have not brought up. That is the Jewish element, which is central to why I am a thinking person, yet not an atheist.

Whether Jews and Christians want to admit it, the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple was a seismic event for both religions and forced the two branches into a decision. For Jews, it was the birth of Rabbinical Judaism. With no temple, there was no longer a need for Priests, so the Sadducees became people without a job, while the bookish Pharisees emphasized reading Torah and praying, laying the foundation for today’s Judaism.

The loss of the Temple forced Christians to cope by extricating themselves from Judaism and concentrating on the person of Jesus of Nazareth to fill the Temple void. So the destruction of the Temple, rather than the crucifixion in my view was the splitting of Christians and Jews.

In my studies of Judaism, the Torah, Tanakh, and readings in the Talmud, Judaism appeals to me because it concentrates on how we are to relate to one another charitably in this life, rather than emphasizing a life to come. It is about my relationship with a Creator in the here and now and has no hoops to jump through to find God while providing me a guidepost on how to treat others.

Judaism is a three-thousand-year-old tradition, and I am part of it. It horrifies some members of my family who are incredulous at my decision. However, it is my decision, and I am now part of that tradition.

Judaism was good enough for Jesus, and it is good enough for me.

If there is any interest, I will write another text about how I feel about Christianity. It is the religion of my mother and her family. I have no hostility or disrespect for the faith. It is a beautiful religion as they all are when not weaponized for political ambitions.

I have wonderful memories of Christmas with my mom’s family, and with my former wife and children, filled with warmth and love. I can belt out a round of Hark the Herald Angels Sing with the best. Many find comfort, meaning, and God through Christianity. I respect that and my beliefs do not invalidate their religious beliefs.

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

When I was a young man, often I would try to imagine infinity. I tried to picture the universe expanding with no end and try to comprehend how it all started from nothing.

When I failed in wrapping my brain around that which can’t be enclosed, my only conclusion was the same as the desert dwellers three-thousand years ago, as they sat by their fires telling stories that one day would become scriptures: There must be a God.