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

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

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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

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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

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, the church board, and its affiliations (which later changed under a new pastor, Ed Dobson) 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.

Supporting Hawk Nelson's Frontman, Jonathan Steingard's, Uncertainty and Doubt

Supporting Faith,

Doubt and Uncertainty

by R.E. Slater

June 1, 2020

About nine years ago (2010-11) I went through a deep despair in my Christian faith. I knew going into it I would need to let everything go in order to see more clearly beyond my faith background and experiences. Little did I imagine how deep this would become or how titanic the struggle would be in the lost wilderness of my experience.

During that time I had no one to pray with me. No one who could guide me or talk with me about this chasm which had ripped open my spirit. I was utterly, utterly, alone. What made it worse was my sense that God was not there. I felt this intensely and it sadden me.

But at the same time God's Spirit was me. To this day I can't explain the difference only that God seemed very closed off from me; His heavens like brass to my prayers. And yet, in a paradoxical twist to my unwanted dive into the underworld I felt the presence of His Spirit leading and guiding.

I can't explain it. I can only say that I felt no need to leave this unearthly wilderness. My spirit told me to stay in it. Learn from it. To take my time to explore, ask questions, many questions, and to walk as much as this spiritual darkness as I could. Only when God said to leave would I leave. Not before.

And so, for nearly a year, I lived through very dark and spiritually difficult times. What I began to learn is that my faith foundation was solid but that it's particulars needed to be re-weighed, re-envisioned, and brought into the contemporary world of today. It required letting go of what I thought were most central to my faith and placing into that void a new center to help guide me through everyone of God's Spirit-ordained tasks lying ahead of me.

It was a time when I could reimagine everything I had known at a very mature age (55y) filled with many, many ministries, community services, church lay ministries, working, raising a family, learning to partner well with my spouse, and a host of other activities, central around them was my hunger to read and know what I hadn't learned in my undergraduate and graduate years.

The Lord had always challenged me to strive in His Word, to express it well in everyday living, to learn from loss (there have been many), from relationships (many again) and community activity of sundry sorts. Looking back, the Lord was preparing me to loss my faith that it might be regained again a hundredfold.

So I'm glad I allowed God to lead me, against my wishes, and quite unexpectantly, into His wilderness. It was not mine alone, but a land that He had graced and walked Himself. I saw His footsteps everywhere. His insights and teachings upon the very ground I tread. I was following after my Lord, being led by His Spirit, unto a new calling I did not want.

The burden which had grown into me was that of anger. Anger that all my preacher contacts and Christian friends were unwilling to enter the lands of unfaith. Their absence upon its desert spaces only had room for one. I thought these to be far more capable and prepared them myself. They had the tools (not that I didn't) and the personal vocations to be able to do this. And yet they entered not. It was left for me alone.

As such, I was angry that it had to be my little voice to speak up for the gospel of the Lord in a way which was not clear at all. Not until I had entered into these Spirit-filled spaces and then be lifted out of them as quickly by the Lord as I had been led into them. I cannot explain. But after that I knew what had to be undone. What had to be unsaid. And what I must do when deconstructing my fundamental and evangelical faith for a more relevant faith which might reveal the Lord more clearly than all my biblical knowledge I had obtained a mere 11 months earlier.

I latter learned what I went through is commonly termed a process of uncertainty and doubt. Its the bogey man term of the Christian world. It is the place where fallen sinners go into a personal hell of agnosticism or atheism never be delivered out of again. Though I knew of this things, and how people may look from the outside casting aspersions upon the fallen, my own experience only taught me to rejoice along the spiritually hard paths. And this I did as I struggled with the Lord for as long as He wanted me there.

When I think of people like Jonathan Steingard, the frontman for the Christian band, Hawk Nelson, and his recent admission to leaving the Christian faith, I feel only sorrow. But not in the way you would think. No, sorrow as I would for anyone in public ministry with high expectations placed upon them. that they did not have the personal space as I had to collapse into darkness with no one's care or worry.

What I had that so many in ministry do not is a personal place to go to see the Lord afresh. A hidden cleft in the rock; a lonely trail through burning brushlands; a garden undisrupted and without foes and enemies seeking my soul. When our brothers and sisters lose faith it is essential that they do if they are to find again in whatever way the Lord is leading them.

We cannot know how deliverance will come, if ever it does, but we must love, guide, and pray with our wounded warriors who may never really have had a time in their lives to ask the hard questions about their faith. My own testimony says that it often comes only after a long time of service in ministry, in study and prayer. Had it come sooner when I was younger I may not have had the ability to course-correct under the Spirit's guidance.

Jonathan Steingard is a young man, a young faith, and a faith disciple. I, myself, chose to allow him his time of wilderness walking. What will become of that walk we do not know. But I pray for God's goodness and blessing along his forbidden journey that in what ever way becomes of him the Lord continues to be His guide and stay. Amen? Yeah, verily, Amen.

R.E. Slater

June 1, 2020

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Jon Steingard (Hawk Nelson) REJECTS Christianity

Welcome to the Daily Disciple with Isaac David

Jonathan Steingard, Christian singer,

reveals he no longer believes in God

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/27/entertainment/jonathan-steingard-atheist/index.html

by Lisa Respers France, CNN

May 27, 2020

(CNN) Jonathan Steingard, frontman for the Christian rock band Hawk Nelson, has gone public with some personal news. In a recent lengthy post on his Instagram account, the singer shared that he no longer believes in God.

Jonathan Steingard, singer for Christian rock band Hawk Nelson, says he no longer believes in God.

"I've been terrified to post this for a while - but it feels like it's time for me to be honest," he wrote in the caption to his multi-image post of his statement. "I hope this is not the end of the conversation, but the beginning."

In his note Steingard explained how he came to his latest view:

"After growing up in a Christian home, being a pastor's kid, playing and singing in a Christian band, and having the word 'Christian' in front of most of the things in my life - I am now finding that I no longer believe in God," he wrote in his statement.

"The last few words of that sentence were hard to write. I still find myself wanting to soften that statement by wording it differently or less specifically - but it wouldn't be as true."

According to Steingard, "The process of getting to that sentence has been several years in the making."

He wrote that he started by privately processing his doubts and then sharing them in conversation with some close friends.

To his surprise, Steingard said, he found that his unbelief was shared by others who also had grown up in church, but who -- like him -- feared "losing everything if they're open about it."

Steingard said he felt like the timing was right to share given that his band is currently sidelined because of the pandemic.

His fellow band members supported the singer in a statement to USA Today, saying that Hawk Nelson's mission is to "inspire and encourage all people with the truth that God is FOR them and not against them."

"God is still FOR Jon & he still matters," the statement read. "Why? Because that truth doesn't change just because we question it."

Hawk Nelson - Drops In the Ocean (Lyric Video)

Jon Steingard of Hawk Nelson Plays the Crying Game

[Jon Steingard of Hawk Nelson is a new father to his son,

"little G" Gray Steingard. Will Jon know the differences

between his son's crying sounds?]

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Hawk Nelson frontman Jonathan Steingard

Jon Steingard: From His Bandmates:

Daniel, Micah, David

One of our best friends, one with whom we have walked, worked and lived alongside for 20 + years revealed some of his innermost feelings on his faith journey this past week.

Our mission as Hawk Nelson has always been to inspire and encourage all people with the truth that God is FOR them and not against them. In that message’s most simple and purest form, that THEY matter.

So now we turn that truth towards one of our own. That God is still FOR Jon & he still matters. Why? Because that truth doesn’t change just because we question it.

How we treat one another when they are at a different stage in their journey based on their life experiences is part of a bigger conversation. We are called to love one another unconditionally, as God loves us. We should also encourage and challenge one another in our Faith, seeking truth.

Are we the authors of our own salvation and eternity? Has God provided a way to salvation for us through Jesus? These are the questions that we each must ask and explore.

In the Bible (Romans 8:38) Paul writes, “… I am convinced that nothing can separate us from God’s love… neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow - not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below - indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The same Lord is Lord of all, and gives richly to all who call on Him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Ever thankful and grateful for how God has used this band, the music and the relationships and how He continues to do so.

Daniel, Micah, David

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My Response to Evangelicalism's
Reaction

by R.E. Slater

May 27, 2020

Jonathan Steingard's expression of unbelief is an instance of honesty meeting doubt and uncertainty. Though it will lead him to the sidelines of institutionalized Christiandom it may also lead him to a well-needed space for faith introspection and revival which many other public Christian faith figures have taken in recovering their faith from the untruths taught by the church, or the unChristlike actions seen within the faith.

From such courage God can do great things in hearts seeking His love over other Christian beliefs disclaiming God's love in favor of practices, attitudes, and errant doctrines proclaiming God's searing judgment. I find in Jonathan's act an act of hopefulness to such a one brave enough to question his or her's faith and the teachings he or she have been raised under.

I took such a journey not too many years back myself only to discover God in uplifted and broader ways beyond my "conservative" biases. If we don't ask the right questions or challenge who we are then our faith cannot be lifted out of its misdirections. For many, its simply finding a more real Jesus culture away from the Christian secularism that too often surrounds the evangelical church. They may call it unbelief, but its more an unbelief in a Christian culture which has produced trumpian doctrines of lies, gracelessness, slander, and oppression.

Embracing empire culture is certain death to the church and its mission. I cannot fault Christian celebs who see this so starkly as to walk away from its chaining shackles. There is a better way. That way is Jesus. And those Christians and churches who chose Jesus must let go of the graceless teachings which bind them so that they may see God afresh again.

This then is the Spirit work of doubt and uncertainty. A process where the Master Potter remolds his pottery in shapes of freedom, declaration, and missional zeal for the Gospel of Christ.

R.E. Slater

May 27, 2020

Addendum

by Grant Alford

May 28, 2020

I completely agree with your assessment, and it seems in such contradiction to another posting of the same news item and the "Christian" response that seems to have all the pat answers and 'alarm'. My observation there was that the Evangelicals seem to write these people off as some kind of "Demas" who has responded to the siren voices of "the world, the flesh and the devil" so they can pursue some kind of hedonism or immorality or wealth.

My sympathies are with these who honestly and intellectually can no longer accept the "God" that they have been indoctrinated into believing.

The Evangelicals have sold a false bill of sale.

They offer a Four Spiritual Laws easy-believism, or a prosperity gospel.

They present an "Omnipotent" God who could DO ANYTHING and these ones who are "quitting the faith" wonder why, if God can do anything, has He not stopped the maniacs and dictators and perverts and sickness.

They talk about some kind of personal relationship in terms that just never materialize: "I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses, and he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own".

They speak as though they just had a voice from heaven and a warm hug and everything is hunky dory.

These faiths and churches are the ones who are bearing false witness; who sit on their blessed assurance having never faced any doubts. 

I liken such faiths to the "cute" 6 or 7 year old child star (of the faith) who sings Amazing Grace, "How sweet the sound that saved a WRETCH like me." To me these faith expressions are no different than well trained parrots who mouth words which have no meaning. 

Or, they have "received Jesus into their hearts" and according to their various theologies they do so because they are the elect or children of the covenant, and if they question or quit their covenanted faith it must be because they never TRULY believed in the first place. [Circles in circles in circles of faith logicisms, as they say.]

I, too, marvel that the alarmists seem to think that the same honest intellectual questions are likely to end now that they have "walked away from (that) faith". I expect that it is these sincere ones who will pursue the options and may well be the leaders in a movement that will proclaim JESUS as the Saviour rather than the Trumpian churches, or some MAGA madness, seeking to establish some earthly kingdom (sic, Empire Christianity, or Christian Reconstructivism).

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

An image of the proposed Temple for Atheists in the City of London, as called
for  by Alain de Botton. | Photograph: Thomas Greenall & Jordan Hodgson

Alain de Botton's Atheist Temple is a

Nice Idea, but a Defunct One

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/feb/02/alain-de-botton-atheist-temple-defunct

by John Gray

February 2, 2012

Alain de Botton has reinvigorated the conversation on religion. His new book moves away from the tedious debates of recent years to a more reflective consideration of the role of religion in sustaining values many people share.

Religion as a human phenomenon is too vast, pervasive and complicated to be discussed in simple binary terms of belief and unbelief. The evangelical atheists of the past few years may not be notable for sceptical doubt, but religious practitioners are often quite uncertain in their beliefs. De Botton is writing for the sceptics, whether they belong in any religion or not. It's a welcome shift of focus.

Atheists who aren't bigoted enemies of religion will agree that it has made many positive contributions. They are less likely to accept that they should have a religion of their own – complete with a temple in the City – as de Botton goes on to propose. Establishing atheist places of worship isn't exactly a new idea. As de Botton himself notes, an ambitious programme of atheist church-building was part of the Religion of Humanity, invented by the 19th-century French thinker Auguste Comte.

An obsessive, and at times unbalanced, personality, Comte – a fervent believer in phrenology, like many atheists at the time – developed an elaborate daily ritual that included tapping the forehead at the points where science had supposedly located the impulses of progress, altruism and order. He also created a "virgin mother of humanity", based on a married woman whom he had fallen in love with. When she died, he appointed her grave a place of pilgrimage.

Such eccentricities were not destined to last, but a number of atheist temples were established – not only in Paris, Comte's base, but in Rio de Janeiro, New York, Liverpool and London, where a church of humanity opened on Lamb's Conduit Street in 1870. In line with Comte's creed, these were temples where disciples could worship the new supreme being – humanity. As far as I know, none of the buildings is used for religious purposes today, though the Brazilian church seems to have been active until some time late in the 20th century.

When he proposes building a temple for unbelievers, de Botton is reinventing a wheel that never really turned. The fad for atheist temples lasted for perhaps 60 years, while places of worship dedicated to something bigger than humanity have been around for many millennia. There is a nice irony here. For all his loony notions, Comte was more intelligent than most of the atheists who came after him. He saw clearly that religion is an enduring human need that cannot be denied. Yet despite the formative influence it had on writers and philosophers such as George Eliot and John Stuart Mill, Comte's religion of humanity disappeared leaving hardly a trace – just a handful of sites, whose history as places of worship practically nobody remembers.

Even if Comte's church was ephemeral, he was right in predicting that religion would not die out. The world is awash with formless religiosity, much of it flowing through non-traditional channels. During most of the last century, politics was the principal vehicle for religion. Communism and the cult of the free market are examples of large, flimsy ideas being turned into articles of faith.

Today, faith is more often channelled through science. Not only the pseudo-science of crop circle enthusiasts and UFO cultists, but genuine advances in science and technology are being used to promote hopes and dreams that are quintessentially religious. People who believe that the human mind can be uploaded into virtual space and so be immune to death are recycling the fantasies of 19th-century spiritualists, who also argued that their beliefs were based on science.

Comte wanted his new religion to be based on science, so the temples of humanity pointed only as far as science could reach. That is why his new church failed. The very idea of a science-based religion is an absurdity. The value of religion is that it points beyond anything that can be known by the methods of science, showing us that a mystery would remain even if everything could be finally explained. The heart of religion isn't belief, but something more like what Keats described as negative capability: "being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason".

Rather than trying to invent another religion surrogate, open-minded atheists should appreciate the genuine religions that exist already. London is full of sites – churches, synagogues, mosques and other places of worship – that are evocative of something beyond the human world. Better spend the money that is being raised for the new temple on religious buildings that are in disrepair than waste it on a monument to a defunct version of unbelief.