When remaining silent isn't an option

Has your time to blossom come?

“The time came when the risk it took to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” This quote that a Connections reader sent me, by Cuban-French author Anaïs Nin, struck me as an apt description of how many Christians come to expand their understanding of God and the Christian faith.

Too many of us spend years clenched in tight buds with regard to our religious beliefs instead of letting ourselves open into the blossom that every bud is meant to become.

Instead of doing the questioning and exploring that spiritual growth requires, we mindlessly stick with the first descriptions of God and Jesus that we ever received, from our parents, the church, or our culture. We tend not to risk blossoming until something nudges us into recognizing the pain that staying in a tight bud is causing. 

Nudges can be necessary

Providing the necessary nudges is part of what churches need to do for their members and for the wider world, but too many churches prefer to provide only comfort. That’s unfortunate, because they harm us when they keep us so comfortable that we never feel motivated to blossom into more mature faith.

I hear a lot from Christians who have finally felt the pain enough to risk blossoming. After years of trying unsuccessfully to believe what their upbringing or a church told them they were supposed to believe, these Christians finally started considering what they really did believe. They’ve made some changes as a result. Some have decreased their church participation or changed churches. Some have become active in trying to promote change in the church. Most have started working more actively to promote justice and combat injustice. 

Reading and hearing some blossoming Christians’ stories recently, plus working with friends to describe what we see as progressive Christianity, has made me think again about my own current beliefs. As a result, I’ve been trying to put them into writing.

It can be hard and even scary

Writing what I now believe has helped me get clearer on it. But doing that isn’t easy. Every few days I look back at what I’ve written and see a spot that still isn’t clear enough, so needs revising. I may never finish. And I suspect that even if I reach the point of seeing the writing as good enough, by that time I may realize that some of my beliefs have changed slightly. I see continual,  lifelong reevaluation and occasional revision of them as important parts of being a Christian. 

My credo effort has been scary at some points. Trying to write exactly what I believe about Jesus, for example, required admitting in a way I hadn’t quite dared to do previously, even to myself, how different my beliefs are from what many of my friends and fellow church members apparently believe about him. That realization made me wonder if I should just go back to trying to make myself believe what “everyone” else seems to believe. But I can’t do that. 

Painful, risky, but exhilarating

Turning loose of beliefs that have never seemed convincing but that we’ve thought were compulsory can feel risky, but the risk is greater for some of us than for others. For me, the process has included pain but the risk has been relatively small and the benefit has been great. I’ve lost some friends and been shunned by some church leaders, but I’ve also found new friends who have essentially become my church, and the new insights and friendships have often been exhilarating. 

For other lay Christians, the risk is greater. Some risk losing not only friends but also customers and therefore income if they openly admit having minority beliefs. If they’re in the political world, they may lose votes.

For Christians in church-related professions, openly straying from church doctrine or majority views is more risky. Pastors may lose income or status if they openly disagree with official doctrine or policies. Pastors’ openness can make members uncomfortable by making them aware that beliefs they have counted on might not be true, and most pastors, it seems, want to comfort people rather than to risk making them uncomfortable.

Letting the bud blossom can be risky for professional scholars, too. Expressing beliefs that differ from what they have previously written or taught can lessen their credibility. It can even jeopardize their jobs. Besides, as editor Charles W. Hedrick points out in When Faith Meets Reason: Religious Scholars Reflect on Their Spiritual Journeys (Polebridge Press, 2008), “ ‘Confessions’ have never been part of the modern academic study of religion, since they fall outside the purview of the objectivity demanded by critical studies.” But he notices that “scholars generally avoid such subjective personal reflections for a wide variety of reasons, not the least of which is an inability to resolve some of the basic questions for themselves.” 

No escape if we’re true to ourselves

Here’s what scholar Robert W. Funk, whose personal story also appears in When Faith Meets Reason, says he had to consider in deciding whether to risk blossoming. “At what point does the discrepancy between what I know, or think I know ... and what I am willing to say publicly become so acute that my personal integrity is at stake?” But he reached the conclusion that I and so many others have also reached: “There is no escape if you wish to be true to yourself.”