I’ve been fairly vocal about my journey into nontheistic religion, and the response from fellow Christians has been a tremendous amount of anxiety. I’ve found myself in twitter disputes over faith, and I’ve had more awkward coffee dates with concerned Christians than I’d prefer.
Continue reading “Nontheism and Anxiety”
Why do I relate to the figure of Satan? Why, in my deconstruction, has the figure of Satan emerged as the far more sympathetic, heroic, and interesting character? I can go on and on about post-modernist reframings of classic stories (if Gregory Maguire can do it with the Wicked Witch of the West why can’t I do it with Satan?) but, none of that really gets to the heart of it. I think, for me, it all goes back to being gay.
Continue reading “I Have Always Been an Abomination: On Homosexuality, Satan, and The Church”
My faith is evolving from a religion of revealed truth to a religion of language and symbol. The faith of my childhood and young adulthood – taking for granted that a personal God is real, that scripture is God breathed, and that there is an after life – is now effectively dead. I question all of that, now. I don’t know what happens after I die, but I think “nothing happens” is the most likely answer. My understanding of God has expanding into something so abstract and impersonal that I can hardly call it God at all, and the personal God of my old faith is long gone.
Stephen Bradford Long 