Maybe One Day You'll Stop and Realize the Throne that You Serve Is Dead

"History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake."
-Stephen Dedalus

A common misunderstanding is that all of those who have turned away from the faith, have done so out of rebellion or a desire to indulge in the sins of the flesh. The image of the prodigal son is called upon and applied to those wayward souls who have left their Father's house to gorge themselves hedonistically on Earthly pleasures, yet ever mindful of their Father's presence and love awaiting them upon return.

However, there are others, myself and some of whom I know personally, who have witnessed the entire collapse of God and faith from within their Father's house. For some it was a slow process, a series of small events and questions piling up; and for others it was one monstrous moment, perhaps a stark, potent image... maybe a small coffin fit for a child. But I digress...

What becomes obvious to one really looking, isn't so much proof positive or negative as to the existence of a God, but rather that the church and the people around you have created a god in their own image, a vain reflection of all that is specific to their culture including fears, prejudices, values, standards and so on. A god painted on a ceiling, obscuring the sky. A mirror. A projection.

Of course, many would argue against this, saying that the understanding of God and the Christian faith is built upon the Scriptures. I have two things to say about this. The first is that from every sect of Christianity down to every person who calls themselves a Christian, there exists a process of picking and choosing, a filtering of how and what is accepted(and excepted) from the Bible. And what are the deciding factors? The person's discretion is based upon their own cultural values, peer relations and personal experiences. The Scriptures are another mirror. Secondly, there is the palimpsestic nature of doctrine and interpretation specific to each sect or denomination. Upon this ancient collection of Jewish and Greek Literature that we call the Bible, there are overwritten new narratives that have been transmitted and expounded upon from priest to priest, pastor to pastor, father to son, and cult leaders to the credulous. After centuries of parallel developments and ill-motives (such as political) obscuring the histories and intent of the Scriptures, it becomes almost impossible to read the Bible without all of these prepackaged meanings jumping between you and the text.

So what does all this equate to? Well, it means that some are going to conclude that the God they were raised with was simply an image or embodiment of the culture they grew up in. And this is hardly a cause for celebration. Forlorn, many will throw themselves headlong into hedonism now as a result of this, maybe some of these will claim that there is no God at all and search for truth now along the more substantial avenues of science and materialism. One can hardly blame them for this.

So yes, there are those who have slipped out of church attendance to a life of sin, probably without a thought to what and why they do what they do, and they were probably ignorant and apathetic all the same to the inner workings of the Christian faith while in it. But then there are those who could no longer live with what they saw as a sham. They had to go. They had to throw their arms in the air and admit humbly that maybe they don't know what actually is going on. Whether they chose to believe in a god or not, they must continue in the search for truth and will seek along what paths they deem authentic or legitimate. While the Christian from within the church might picture the prodigal as grossly rolling in endless orgies, he or she might never imagine the horror and aloneness of that moment when the existential weight of responsibility descends upon one who is coming to grips with his place in an unfamiliar, unexplained universe. And beyond this, he or she could not imagine the freedom that follows.

And in the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson:
"The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion of revelation to us, and not the history of theirs? Embosomed for a season in nature, whose floods of life stream around and through us, and invite us by the powers they supply, to action proportioned to nature, why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe? The sun shines today also. There is more wool and flax in the fields. There are new lands, new men, new thoughts. Let us demand our own works and laws and worship."