I started this blog under a pseudonym because there are many people who I do not want to read my writings. Call it arrogant if you want but most of my friends and family are incapable of handling (accepting?) questions about faith and react angrily to anything that might “redefine” what being a Christian looks like. This is evidenced by my wife whom I love.
By expressing my doubt and voicing my less than full faith in the Bible I have deeply wounded her. I have launched an assault on the things that she believes most deeply and holds most dear. She believes with every ounce of her being all the core beliefs of a good Billy Graham evangelical. My rejection, complete or in pieces, of these core beliefs is an affront to everything, even our marriage vows.
To her the Bible is without error. If confronted with a contradiction between the Bible and an external source such as historical records, scientific evidence, etc then in her view it is the extra-biblical material that must be in error.
Below is quote from a blog I recently read. I find the last line to more accurately portray most evangelicals view of Christianity than anything I have read in recent memory.
“… I recognize that Christian belief emerges from a matrix of the text of Holy Scripture, the history of interpretation, cultural and sub-cultural presuppositions, the use of reason, the place of experience, the wisdom of the teachers of the larger church and the work of the Holy Spirit in revealing more light. I embrace this more complex understanding of Christian belief as part of the great stream of Christian existence, and I reject any notions that Christian belief falls from the sky as a magic book that exists apart from other components of human experience.”
“…Christian belief falls from the sky as a magic book that exists apart from other components of human experience.”
This might be my favorite line ever written.
So back to Walter Mitty.
If you are mildly interested in literature you may have read the short story “The Secret life of Walter Mitty” by James Thurber. It was required reading in one of my high school English classes. I hated English in school. I guess it would be more appropriate to say that I hated English teachers, so the fact that this story has stuck with me through the years says something.
It’s the story of a man named Walter Mitty who is driving his wife to town for her weekly appointment with the hairdresser. We are introduced to his wife as she berates her husband for going fifty-five miles an hour when he knows she does not like going above forty.
Walter’s laps in memory is because he is day dreaming about flying a Navy plane in the middle of a storm. The story of his trip to town is interspersed with several episodes of his daydreaming. A pilot, a surgeon, a pilot again, then finally a firing squad. The message is clear, at least to me. In order for Walter to muddle through his life he must compartmentalize and live a “secret” life. In his case it is in his mind and puts him at the center of the plot as the hero of the story.
I have believed for some time now that my life may well end up like this short story. This blog is part of the evidence. Here I can “daydream” if you will about my true thoughts and feelings without risk of hurting those I love. (I do realize that my lack of belief causes them pain) I can live a different life as Walter Mitty.
Work is another example.
I was once a pastor. My greatest gift was preaching and I have to admit I was damn good at it. However, I was disrespected, treated poorly, stolen from, and generally abused by Christians in the church. (read some of my other posts for humorous treatments of these events.) Now, I work in the business world. I am becoming increasingly versed in finance and have good command of many topics we hear discussed in the news and in print. I interact with sophisticated investors on a daily basis and I’ve been interviewed on NPR regarding the economic downturn. I have found that I posses a rather unsuspected knack for thriving in the corporate world and I plan to make as much money as I can. My career goal is to become the mythical “MAN”
Here’s my current mindset in a nutshell.
You’ve all heard the following pithy statement, or something similar “Be careful that you don’t get to the top of the ladder only to find that is was leaning against the wrong building”. Christians love this one and it gets repeated at least once a year in most churches. My thought is maybe the church has been wrong for along time. I’ve tried the churches way and it sucked, so lets try it the other way and see if the church is right.
Back to my point
The idea of this kind of life does give me some pause though.
Maybe it’s the lack of a bigger purpose for my life. I’d like to be very cynical about this but in reality this is one the things that does bother me about a change of ideals. I want to provide for my family and make enough money to pursue my interests. This is the sum total of why I exist. Maybe that’s shallow but I don’t really care and the fact that I don’t seem to care, concerns me.
I do wonder though if many years from now lying on my deathbed if I will look back and recognize that I didn’t live with a big enough purpose and feel great sadness. Walter Mitty seems like a reasonably effective way to muddle through a less then extraordinary life but I’m not sure I will be happy with the results in the end.
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