The following comment appeared in the Losing God comment thread. Please read it, with special consideration of what is said, not the person saying it (whom I don’t know and neither do you.)
I do not struggle with “Is Christianity true?†vs atheism, Islam, Hinduism etc.
My “spiritual depression†is caused by the continual dueling (in my mind) of the various theologies within Christianity: Reformed, Wesleyan, Lutheran, Catholic, Orthodox, and on and on.
How can I know which, if any, are truly true? All have scads of brilliant and holy adherents. Is it all subjective? Just close my eyes and pin the tail on the donkey? As Lewis said, we cannot live in the hallway (mere Christianity.) We must choose a room.
To continue to study systematic theologies only seems to drive me further into “depression.†Yet it is like an unbreakable addiction.
Since my wife’s move to the RCC was related to her own healing from depression, I’m quite interested in this topic.
I’d like to invite the comments of those who have a thoughtful response to make to this person. I will not post anything other than serious and mature comments. I realize that most commenters will have made a denominational choice, but this is not the post on which to sell your church as the winner.
What I want to know is….
1) Why does this search matter so much? Is there some question of the availability of Jesus?
2) Why is this related to depression?
3) Why, for some people, is this search so compulsive and addictive?
The Internet Monk Archives 
“blest” has pointed out (and I have removed because it was a personal message to me) that I made an innacurate statement about my wife’s parish. It was inaccurate and rather inane for me to say that it was a pre-VII parish. My apologies to “blest” and others for the error.
In our personal discussions, my wife has not acknowledged reading VII documents on protestants. She has brought home a pre-VII catechetical book with a view of Protestantism that is highly inaccurate. The spirit of VII relations with protestants is, in my opinion, considerably lacking.
That’s the end of my comments about this sort of thing. I appreciate “blest” keeping an eye on me and what I write.
Just remember “blest,” you folks are getting quite a wonderful person there and I hope your church greatly benefits from my and my family’s loss.
peace
ms
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[Mod edited] Since we’re on the subject — about the comments about me rejecting the Magisterium:
I never said any such thing. But in the RCC the only people — in general — who really worry about it are the Religious because they have all taken a vow of obedience.
The hierarchy is there as servants to the laity (one of the Popes titles is “Servant of the Servants”). Their job — what those in the Magisterium Hierarchy are busy doing every day is keeping the people “happy, joyous and free,” (actually from the AA Big Book, but it fits.) I agree with everything they teach. And sometimes I even do some of it …. ;@)
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I don’t mean to sound too postmodern, but perhaps the reason it is so hard to grasp theology (and thus so easy to disagree with others’ conclusions) is because we are dealing with an infinite being, not a finite part of creation which we can dissect, study, and comprehend. Take the doctrine of the Trinity for example. No denomination is silly enough to presume to understand the mystery of tri-unity, yet we all believe it. Such theological thought has driven a friend of mine to say that “The Trinity is not a doctrine I believe, it’s a relationship I embrace.”
In reality, theology necessitates truths in tension. For instance, Jesus was fully man and yet fully God. Christians are sinners and yet also saints. God is absolutely sovereign yet man has free will. Jesus said “This is my body and blood,” yet it still looks and tastes like bread and wine. Grace is free, yet it is not cheap and it will cost you everything. The Law demands absolute perfection as the standard of holiness, and the Gospel promises imputed righteousness to all who believe upon Jesus. It’s no wonder theologians have drawn differing lines in the sand. I think doctrinal differences occur when we attempt to rationalize these apparent “truths in tension.”
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Reading biographies of great people of the faith can really help with spiritual depression. When you are being persecuted for the cross, there is not a lot of time for quarrels. Brother Yun’s book The Heavenly Man mentions that as an Eastern person moving to Germany and speaking in the United States, he believes and has noticed that the greatest form of persecution in the West is the way we treat one another in different denominations. We doubt one another’s salvation and worry and bite our nails, and ultimately it is very hurtful and definitely not of the Lord.
But consider that this is a man who fasted in prison for months and was supernaturally sustained by the Word of God. This was a man who memorized the entire book of Matthew and Acts because he had to keep his Bible buried. When he preached to the Chinese people starving for scripture, he simple quoted the scriptures to them, and many were converted. This is a man whose wife was told to get an abortion by the Chinese government when she became pregnant with her second child, and the day before she was scheduled for the abortion, she went into labor (at seven months, and many people were fasting and praying for her). She had the baby without any pain.
Many people in the West criticized his book, his powerful witness, and his testimony as being fabricated.. perhaps because their own denomination has since neglected belief in real miracles. His book challenged my view of the supernatural and the power of prayer and fasting. It also got me out of my small-minded, un-persecuted framework, and made me less interested in the “about scripture” and more interested in memorizing and knowing it.
Brother Yun remembers receiving sacks of Bibles from the West, but at the top of every bag was a different denominational tract, trying to convince or sway the new Chinese Christians into one perspective or another. He said this was one of the single-most hindrances to the joy of the gospel for these new believers… they became confused and their knowledge of scripture started to suffer because of questions and fears.
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To paraphrase and slightly modify Thomas Merton: The different denominations are like different road signs, all pointing to the same place. The point isn’t to stop and worship one of the signs or to argue over which one is right, it’s to go where the signs are pointing.
In my view, if you follow any of the signs (denominations), you will end up in the same place (Christ). It’s like a mountain top. There are lots of ways to get to the top and none is objectively right or wrong. So long as the path your on keeps you headed up, you’ll end up at the top eventually. And so will many others, even though their paths may look very different than the one you followed.
I think the obsession for finding “the one true” church or doctrine stems, at least in part, from a highly suspect idea about the nature of God. To think that God will only save those who intellectually assent to some particular dogma seems to me to make God something like a sadistic game-show host. “Here are 500 doors to chose from. Behind 1 of them lies eternal bliss, and behind the other 499…HELLFIRE AND BRIMSTONE!!! So, which door will you choose?” In this type of scenario folks will obviously get pretty obsessive about choosing the right door.
But I think that God isn’t that sadistic or that arbitrary. God is infinite, and our tiny little brains are finite. It is therefore a certainty that whatever beliefs we hold about the Divine will necessarily fall short of the full reality. God is bigger than any of our doctrines or beliefs. I think the best we can do is to find the denomination and congregation that we feel most comfortable with, and have faith that if we are honestly searching for God, then God will find us.
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As someone who was born Catholic, went to a PCA church for 10 years, and is now Catholic revert, I have to say that this question has kept me up at nights. I’ve struggled and wrestled with it until I’m completely exhausted.
1. Why does it matter?
Sigh. If I knew the answer to that one…
I honestly don’t know. I believe the Catholic Church to be true, but I cannot discount all of the amazing Protestants I’ve learned from along the way, nor can I discount the 10 yrs I spent at the PCA church.
The only thing I’ve been able to settle my mind on is a quote from (I believe) St. Augustine, who said that God gives grace through the sacraments, but is not limited by the sacraments.
2. Why the depression and struggle?
For me, like so many others, we want so desperately to follow the Lord faithfully, and yet He very rarely writes it in the sky: “Ouiz, I want you to be Catholic… [thunder rolling]”… so we go where we honestly believe we are being led, and yet we see others in different denominations, just as passionate and desiring to be faithful, and just as convinced they are called to be Methodist (or whatever), and the doubts start creeping in.
And for those of us black/white types, it gets even more confusing (if I’m right, doesn’t that mean that he’s wrong? And if he’s wrong, why is God seemingly blessing his spiritual walk so much more than mine?)
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I found Richard Foster’s “Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christian Faith” helpful in thinking about denominations. His way of talking about these issues made the search not matter so much for me.
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I think the search exists for some of us because we believe in absolute truth. And you would tend to think that our Lord would want one, unified church instead of tons of fragments. Then you look around at the crappy church you’re in and all the other terrible choices out there and you despair. I want a unified, pure, holy church that is beautiful, glorious and heavy – not trite and foolish. The various idolatries in the branches hurt, and produce despair. Probably how a faithful Israelite felt looking at Israel and Judah, calf-worship in Dan and Bethel, and the Temple profaned.
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Michael,
We can agree to disagree, and in a friendly way. Personally, I prefer “definite atonement” over “limited atonement,” as I believe that on the cross, Jesus actually, truly *atoned* for the sins of those for whom He died (those who believe). Their sins are covered, and thus, they *will* be in Heaven. Christ even bought the gift of faith for them, which they will ultimately exercise (no salvation without active belief). We will agree to disagree on the third point of the TULIP though. 🙂
What irks me about Martha’s comment (and many comments from non-Calvinists) is that they basically accuse the “God of Calvinism” of injustice, without, seemingly, taking the time to try to even understand Calvinism. I would say the same for seemingly knee-jerk criticisms of any theology.
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Christopher:
I simply can’t get anywhere near the “limited” atonement of Jesus idea as articulated by Calvinists. I particularly get bugged by the defense that everyone limits the atonement, as if the difference between a person’s refusal and God’s intentional design isn’t huge!
That’s my amen. Again, Luther over Calvin on that one.
ms
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IMonk,
I’m puzzled by your “amen” to Martha. In your time as a Calvinist, is her caricature of the theology really what you embraced and believed?
Martha,
Your comment may have been prophetic :-), but as a Reformed Christian, I have to say that there are some terrible distortions of Calvinism in your comment. Reject the theology if you want (which you have), but please at least represent it fairly.
Within Calvinism, Christ is more than enough for those who *want* Him. No one who really wants Christ will ever be rejected by God. Within Calvinism, if you truly want the Christ of the Bible, on His terms, then you *have* been predestined. Period. For those who *don’t* want Him, He will never be much of anything (other than perhaps a “good teacher”– except for those pesky parts about His divinity, resurrection, etc.).
You might say, “Yes, but within Calvinism, the people who don’t *want* Christ are not *chosen* by God, so it’s His fault.” However, does any of us *deserve* salvation? Can we ever rightly accuse God of injustice?
The best that I can ultimately say is, read Paul’s argument in Romans 9. Election and predestination are *always* used in the Bible to bring God glory for His mercy and to cause humble gratitude within the heart of the Christian *for* that undeserved mercy. Election and predestination are *never* used in the Bible as a basis for anyone (Christian or not) to accuse God of being stingy or unmerciful.
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Patrick — Elite intelligentsia — you know, the smarty pants Catholics. The ones who read the Catechism and know what the Magisterium is.
It might be interesting to do a study based on Leno’s “Jaywalking” technique — only asking your average Catholics about the details of those documents. The only thing is no one would think it was funny except informed Protestants.
I think they’re funny. (I think = In my opinion, im
;=)
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Martha: amen
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In Milan Kundura’s “The Incredible Lightness of Being”, Kundura writes that each of us develops a theme in their life, and that at a certain point this “theme” becomes fixed. As I read the book some years back, I realized my theme was “HEAVEN”. Not the biblical heaven, but heaven as some utopian point where perfection is realized and all conflict is resolved. My unrest and disappointments, I then realized, were due to this continual seeking after something that does not exist in this life. But nonetheless, I have never been freed from all the primal drives related to my theme. Though I am able to see that my “theme” is not related to an earthly reality, it is still a powerful force I’m seldom freed from.
The compulsive and addictive aspect of this drive at times seems to be of God, and at others to be more an aspect of mental illness. When I look at the depressive nature of so many of the old testament prophets, the fine line between spiritual sensitivity and mental illness looks no less blurry.
And why you ask, is this compulsion related to depression? Surely it is due to the deep need we have that our lives would be meaningful. The modern world wreaks havoc on meaning. The more honest one is in their search for truth and meaning, the more difficult it becomes to find. There is an inverse relation between seeking and finding.
In the early years of my spiritual search, when I was only 20, I entered a time where I was unable to sleep because my mind was racing through all the possibilities, dismantling them, and starting over again, and over and over…. I began to wish I had been born retarded so that I wouldn’t have to think; that I would see the world something like a dog. This is not far from where I have settled thirty plus years later. I know very little now, though I say many things as if I know much more than I really do. In the end, is there a higher place to go than the ignorance of childlike trust in the one who gave us birth, clothes, and feeds us?
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“The concept of a partial Christ seems to me to be sadly lacking in logical and Biblical support.”
Funnily enough, Michael, that’s exactly my problem with Calvinism. That’s what it seems to be saying (to me); “Here is Christ – for some. Maybe not for you, though, and God intended it that way.”
I now await the hordes of Calvinists explaining to me exactly why I’m completely wrong in my apprehension (and to be fair, this is the same problem with Jansenism in my church) 😉
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The more time I spend reading the Bible, the more I’m becoming convinced of just how big the “already” of the “already/not yet” nature of the Kingdom is/is supposed to be (goodness knows we could all do a better job of bringing it about). Yes, of course Jesus came to save us from our sins so we could go to heaven. But without wading too deep into liberation theology, He also came to make our world better Right Now. Can you imagine if the woman with the hemorrhage or the man with the dying daughter had been told, “Hmm, yeah, that sucks for you. But don’t worry, Heaven’s going to rock.”?
So, here’s what I’m thinking based on my own experiences with depression, the church, the Holy Spirit, and the fact that I am in seminary and spend vast amounts of time overthinking the Bible and theology, probably to my own detriment. 🙂 So take it with a grain of salt.
The two times in my life that I can identify as having likely had (undiagnosed) clinical depression were 1) the summer after my freshman year of college when 2 close friends died within a week of each other, followed immediately by my return to school and September 11, interwoven with “I had cancer, and Brittany died from cancer, and so I should be a doctor and cure kids with cancer but I’m flunking organic chem” and 2) most of the 2005-2006 electoral cycle where I was working for a fabulous candidate but my immediate boss and most of the rest of the staff were terrible people to work for. I cried every day on my way into the office because I just didn’t want to go to work, but working in politics is the art of never quitting, no matter how bad it gets, and so I never could come up with an acceptable way out. Also, I had no friends because I had moved to a new town to take this job, and immediately started working 70 hours a week.
Looking back on these two experiences, I can say that I desperately wanted – needed – something to change, even though I probably couldn’t have verbalized that to anyone. I was tired of being tired, and crying all the time, and being so emotionally unstable that I would scream at my roommates over stupid things. I was tired of people I loved dying, and of failing at school – the only thing I felt like I’d ever been good at. I was tired of hating my job, and of working 70+ hours a week, and going to church but not ever connecting in one because the only time in my schedule for church was one hour on Sunday morning, and making mortgage payments on a house I was never in, and not having any friends.
I firmly believe – now, now that I am not currently “in my head” about all these things – that clinging firmly to Jesus and to His Church, assuming the local manifestation of it is actually doing what it is supposed to be doing – loving people and bearing one another’s burdens – can change things in the current, temporal world. At minimum, it can certainly change our experience of them. Had I been connected with a strong group of Christian friends or a great church the way I am now, it wouldn’t have stopped my friends from dying or changed the fact that I had an insane job, but it would have changed my experience of both of those, and made it more bearable.
So…if you’re depressed and what you need most in life is for something to change so that you’re not depressed anymore, and you go to church hoping to hear a word of well, hope, and all you hear is “It’ll be great in heaven”, you either become suicidal, or you somehow manage to cling to that promise and figure that you’re going to live the rest of your days in darkness but can maybe manage to hold out for heaven.
But if you go to a church that says, “It’ll be great in heaven, but you might not be going there because…you don’t have enough faith/you were baptized wrong/God didn’t pick you at the beginning of time/your sins are too bad/whatever” and “going to heaven someday” is the only thing that’s keeping you remotely functional from day-to-day, of course you would get even more depressed.
As for why you could become obsessed over it – if you’re desperately looking for someone to a) love you b) make it better c) give you a reason to live, well, I’d rather have someone keep looking like crazy than give up.
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I wrote this before reading the other comments so you’d know what my gut reaction was. Nice to see a lot of others think the same way; guess I’m not that far off base.
1) The search matters so much because there is some question of the availability of Jesus. It always comes down to this belief: “If I misunderstand Jesus, I am not living up to my Christian potential.”
Not necessarily apostate and going to hell—although listening to some folks talk, they are perfectly willing to go that far in warning people against any other worldviews: Either you are in danger of going astray, or are endangering others. But sometimes it doesn’t even go that far. Sometimes it’s the worry that the abundant life that Jesus promised (or your favorite preacher’s interpretation of what that abundant life is supposed to look like) is passing you by because of sin, heresy, misunderstanding, misapplication, hanging with the wrong crowd, or lack of faith.
The problem is that this is what so many preachers—darn near all of them—preach: Repent and Jesus will renew your life. And while this is true for unbelievers, they simply don’t stop preaching it to the believers. The sermons to the believers are variations on the same repent-and-Jesus-will-renew theme. To some believers, because they keep hearing this, they feel deep within themselves that they have to repent and believe all over again. While they may already know they’re saved, part of them aren’t sure they know this enough.
I think the reason the Catholics who have responded are so jazzed about the Eucharist is that the solution to their problems is the Eucharist—they literally get Jesus every week. The rest of us are still held in suspense as to how to get Him, or get Him more. Catholics know that if they want Him more, they can just go to another Mass.
2) It’s related to depression because the mind has to reconcile two disparate beliefs: “I am saved” but “My life doesn’t reflect this salvation.” You can’t reconcile them, so you despair. It is so very depressing to believe that you could be so much better… if you could just learn the secret.
That’s assuming you could be, or that there is any such secret.
3) The search is so compulsive/addictive because ultimately we’re worried salvation does tie into it.
If I can posit a solution, it would be sola fide—I must absolutely have faith that God has saved me, despite my actions in the past or in the future, despite my wrong beliefs then and any wrong beliefs I have now (though hopefully the Holy Spirit will correct me), despite what my life looks like (though hopefully I will have peace with it), despite any lack of spiritual fruit I may have (though hopefully the fruit will grow the more I follow Jesus), and despite whatever church I attend (though hopefully they will humbly pursue Jesus too). If I were Catholic, I suppose the Eucharist would represent all that.
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Surfnetter, ????
“Elite intelligensia”?
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The thing is — no clergy will come out publicly to say that — especially on a Protestant blog. I’m telling you that — in practice — this is done all the time. I’ve asked several practicing Catholics who consider themselves knowledgeable — and not at all of the cafeteria type — about that particular issue and they are all under the impression — falsely, I guess — that that was one of the things that has been taken care of.
I think I see what the problem is — first of all, your wife’s chosen parish is definitely something I might want to sample but I’m sure I wouldn’t be comfortable there. I’d like to experience what all my childhood friends did in the pre-Vatican II days — but what I miss most is all the mischief they most assuredly got into when doing their Catholic obligations. They were the worst and the best. When I was with the Catholic kids, we had more fun and got in and miraculously out of trouble consistently.
Secondly, in your position, you might be hearing from the elite intelligentsia. They give you the “letter of the law.” They have to — they would get into trouble if they did otherwise. Do you think Pope Benedict would be able to just say — “I’m not wearing that stupid fish hat — it makes me look fat… I’m wearing my street clothes from now on!” …?
You don’t see what really goes on. I love this place. It’s like being given an open invitation to play in an indoor water park on Capital Hill, (spiritually speaking, that is) in my humble opinion …:*)
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Surfnetter, Michael is absolutely right! And I’ll issue the standard warning again:
One must be extremely careful to regard the opinions of individual members of any particular communion to be indicative of the entire communion, and certainly not representative, necessarily, of the communion’s public doctrine and teaching.
I just read through all the comments here and, as usual, found the conversation fascinating, interesting and illuminating.
The search for the “perfect church” is fruitless and pointless. There is no “perfection” this side of heaven.
In my own personal life, I convinced that it is historic, confessing traditional Lutheranism that “gets the Gospel” most consistently, but it would be a sad day for me if I ever allowed myself to think that I’m in a “perfect church.” If I reached that point, I hope people would consider checking me into a treatment center, for surely I would be suffering from some pretty serious delusions!
God bless, all!
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So far, I’m not sure we’ve succeeded in disambiguating the phrase One True Church and it’s theological payload from our personal angst / preferences / observations regarding church life.
I for one am not convinced that any amount of “spiritual” depression is, when you get right down to it, “of the Spirit”, or anything other than an abstraction of some other personal unhappiness that we choose to try to observe through a kind of Christian theological prism.
If we try to “live in” the symbology of Christianity we often find ourselves hopping from one theology to the next, looking for a refuge from our life’s angst that I don’t think really exists and which I absolutely don’t think Jesus lived and died to provide for us.
While I do believe we can ultimately let our hope rest in the promises God made to men in the Bible, I think our churches often fail to teach us how to nourish ourselves on the dogmatics that trickle down from those promises. As a result, we’re starving in a room full of vending machines, and our quest for the right theological button-combination is sort of doomed from the start – we can watch other people getting Vault and Combos all day long but as we watch them we don’t know what to look for so as to replicate it.
Another curious thing I’ve noticed is how easily “spiritual depression” becomes this sort of personal quest to solve some hidden riddle of Christianity that will suddenly Change The World or make faith seem livable – and how, in the fit of it, we never notice how arrogant or ridiculous our questions are because we construct them with theological terms and pray about them. As if God is waiting patiently for you, the Hero, to discover the Right Answer and further His work or help soothe His children with something tactile. Lots of people who convert seem to experience this kind of relief from one set of questions (thanks to hyper-Calvinism or Guadalupe..) and try to take the fire down the mountain with them, burning people in the process. I don’t think that’s a spiritual process at all – just ego, angst and an intellectual palliative that wears off quickly enough.
end ramble.
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Surfnetter:
You are the biggest example of a cafeteria Catholic I’ve ever had on this blog, and I imagine you know that. You apparently have acquired Catholic friends and authorities who minimize this for you, but someone in conservative Catholic circles is not seeing the RCC’s teaching authority as you do. Your statements of rejection of the magisterium are Protestant to the core. You are Catholic for personal reasons and the eucharist. You take what you want and leave the rest using your own standards. You are the Cafeteria, and you know it. Just own up to it and we’ll have no problems.
You have to understand that your presentation of Catholicism is causing a lot of stress in my journey to accept my wife’s decision to enter the RCC. ….(MOD: The statement I made here was inaccurate.) She won’t read a VII document. She’s horrified at your posts about taking communion with Protestants because in RCIA the clergy are telling her- in answer to the specific question- that it’s a sin. But if you are just a typical cafeteria Catholic, then your views don’t present a challenge.
Would some clergy PLEASE tell Surfnetter that I’m right? 🙂
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I’m reading Emmett Fox’s “The Sermon on the Mount” and just read his simplified absolutely foolproof test (he claims) as to whether a teaching or practice is true, taken from Jesus’s assurance that “by their fruits you shall know them.” The test is “Does it work?”
IM — you can call me a cafeteria Catholic if you like, but I use the 12-Step group suggestion “to take what you like and leave the rest” in my worship as in all my affairs. It’s not a judgment that it’s evil, bad, useless, condemnable. If it doesn’t work for me — it doesn’t free my soul, help me to see more clearly, to understand and accept others, face the failings and hurts of the past — I leave it where I found it. Maybe it’s just me, maybe I’m not ready for it, maybe I’m not understanding it correctly. Or it’s just plain wrong. But I don’t have to make that decision. I haven’t been given that responsibility (thank God).
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we cannot live in the hallway (mere Christianity.) We must choose a room.
In my, albeit short, experience in this, I have to admit I’m still a “kid in the hall”. Since I don’t know if I’m depressed or not, so I can’t necessarily answer to that, but in the end, I still doubt the necessity of choosing a room–the hallway keeps leading me outside…
1) Why does this search matter so much?
In my experience, because we were taught so. The nagging shadow on our backs is if we don’t “get it right”, we’re done. The overwhelming mood is that we MUST get it right, or at minimum choose the least wrong.
Is there some question of the availability of Jesus?
In my mind, yes. Can I trust him in my failures? Can I trust him in the failures of those I know and love? In all stripes of theology and practice, there is a situation where if you fail enough, you’re a goner, again. Since failure is inevitable, the end of the logic is “I’m lost, probably for good”. Depressing. Is there a theology where I can trust God?
2) Why is this related to depression?
See, above. If every theology I investigate ends with me failing and being punished in reward for my effort, then that’s not very hope-inspiring.
3) Why, for some people, is this search so compulsive and addictive?
Not speaking for anyone else, but such a final, fatalist, answer is not particularly satisfactory, and the last glimmer of hope in me says there IS an answer, so I’m motivated–compelled–to keep looking for it.
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I think it is a shame that Jewish people aren’t in on this discussion. The people whose genealogical forbears wrote and preserved the integrity of most of Holy Scripture and “invented” the concept of sin, punishment, mercy and redemption have, in my experience, a completely different view of Truth. I have heard this many times — most recently from a young Israeli who is taking his rabbinical studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary in Manhattan. It seems that most scholarly devout Jews would fall into a major funk if all the issues had to be settled. They love to argue their opinions on dogma. It is an “essential” element of their religious heritage and culture.
“Two Jews, three opinions.” (just my pov, im ;-p)
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Comments are now moderated.
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I guess from the pov of some Catholic apologists, the depression and torment is worth it, as long as the answer to it all is the RCC.
I’m happy to say I don’t have any sympathy with that point of view. If the search for the perfect church is driving you crazy, then give it up.
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Alot of comments have already been made, but I’ll take a shot.
1) Why does this search matter so much? Is there some question of the availability of Jesus?
Because we are told endlessly by many that you have to be in our church and hold our views in order to have Jesus and eternal life. We have made right doctrine the purveyor of spiritual life and not Jesus. We are told we must believe in X, Y, or Z version of justification instead of simply believing on Jesus Christ to be saved.
In essence, I think all of our schisms have made Christianity far too complicated and unnecessarily so. I’m a bit nervous to say so, but is it possible that we have put just a bit too much emphasis upon doctrine?
2) Why is this related to depression?
After all, eternity hangs in the balance! Alot is at stake! And according to many if I do not buy into their “brand” of Christianity I don’t have it at all.
(Please do not misunderstand. I think there is such a thing as truth and such a thing as error. But whether or not I believe in supra or infralapsarianism is not really all that important – is it?)
3) Why, for some people, is this search so compulsive and addictive?
Again, if my eternal life and relationship to God are predicated on such things, this will drive me to “get it right.” According to the mental health professionals obsession over “religous ideas” is one of the major problems in OCD.
But really, can you blame people? If the TR’s, for example, are telling people that you have to hold their view of justification over against the New Perspective types to really believe the gospel, then knowing which is true becomes very important. Thus, the addictive nature of the search.
This is my two cents for whatever its worth.
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The only way we can know “which, if any are truly true”, or whether “it is all subjective” is by continued study and prayer. “Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you.” We have to cling to that verse in faith in the character of our Father, who is a rewarder of those who seek Him. In due time we will reap the harvest if we do not grow weary. If we give up the pursuit of truth because finding it seems to be an overwhelming, daunting task, we’ll most likely remain in that state of confusion. The fact of disagreement all around us is not evidence that there *is* no truth about this question, or that we [humans] can’t know it. (My ethics students sometimes try to use the fact of continued disagreement about abortion as evidence that there is no truth about the matter.) Disagreement about a question means at least that finding the truth about that question is not necessarily easy. Some people spend their whole lives looking for it, not because God hides it from them, but because they can’t *see* what is right in front of them, like one’s grandmother trying to find the image in a 3D stereogram. What is needed to resolve the question is not necessarily *more information* (not more systematic theologies), but a different way of seeing, a different paradigm. Even Lewis’s house example is a paradigm (a Protestant paradigm). Why does this search matter so much? Because unity matters, because avoiding schism matters, because truth matters, because we recognize that Christians being divided is not what Christ wants. Is there some question of the availability of Jesus? From a Catholic point of view, the answer is a qualified yes. From an evangelical point of view, the answer is no. So this question depends on the “which, if any are truly true” question. Why is this related to depression? My opinion is that it is disconcerting to face the limits and/or inadequacies of our own conceptual framework, because this framework provides us with a kind of intellectual security and sense of self-identity and meaning, especially for the part of our life devoted to and carried out under that framework. When this framework is called into question, it is deeply unsettling, because one’s own identity and worth is called into question. And there is guilt too, especially as we reflect on all those who sat under us while we taught with such confidence and certainty a framework we now see as incomplete or flawed. Why, for some people, is this search so compulsive and addictive? Because they have a deep hunger for the truth. As Aristotle says at the beginning of his Metaphysics: “all men, by nature, desire to know”. And that desire is most poignant regarding the most sublime and divine truths, including those about Christ and His gospel and His Church.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
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Christina: Are you Roman Catholic?
What does “All” of Jesus mean? Specifically, where does imperfect communion with a Roman pontiff inhibit all that Jesus promises to those who come to him in faith? Where exactly is a Protestant not receiving Jesus himself?
The concept of a partial Christ seems to me to be sadly lacking in logical and Biblical support.
peace
ms
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1a) Why does this search [for the one true church] matter so much?
We all long for and search for Truth.
There is a hole in our heart that only God can fill and it’s only when we allow him to completely fill it that we’ll be completely happy. Since God is the source of all truth and is Truth itself, we desire all truth. A falsehood is not of God.
Since none of the churches teach the same thing about everything, some (if not all) must be teaching falsehoods. A falsehood is not of God and tears at our hearts.
2) Why is this related to depression?
When we try to fill that hole with other things we are only wounded. Like a person who turns toward horoscopes to “learn the truth about the future”; they turn away from real Truth in search of “truth” and are broken.
In this category are people who church-hop because they are looking for the one that affirms them in there sins. That’s still trying to fill that whole with other things. They aren’t looking to see if a church is teaching Truth, but if a church “makes them happy”, “is friendly,” “has a good kids’ program,” etc.
As our hearts are turned away from the truth we become hurt, angry, frustrated. Eventually we become depressed and realize there is a problem, we begin trying to find Truth. The quote above specifically stated that he was looking for the Truth.
1b) Is there some question of the availability of Jesus?
No. When we turn back to Jesus, it’s not a matter of thinking he’s not “available” at one church, or not “able” to work through another. It’s knowing that God is the source of all Truth and wanting to fill your heart as completely as possible (in this life) with that Truth. It’s not so much, “where can I find Jesus?”, but “where can I find ALL of Jesus. We are looking for a Church that will teach the Truth and not try to shove other falsehoods in our hearts that only tear it apart.
3) Why, for some people, is this search so compulsive and addictive?
It’s like a man falling in love and desiring to know the woman more. He doesn’t want to waste his time in a grocery story learning about cheese. While she may visit that place, it’s not where he can get to know her the best.
Instead, he wants to find where she “hangs out” and join her there. He’ll seek to be near her all the time and to learn her habits. He’ll desire to know her friends and family and spend time with them to get to know how she ticks.
Is this a compulsive addiction because he can’t settle for the grocery store?
Most would agree that church is where we learn about God. For those who are desperate for God, they’ll be desperate to find the church where they can truly know him and not be led astray. They seek Truth in teachings. Christ, knowing this nature within us, promised us just that.
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i’ll write about that up top later.
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You are right, the non-essentials are my hang-up. But the problem is when the non-essentials are supported by Scripture. If Scripture is clear in what it teaches, then how can we have so many interpretations, and if it is not clear, then how can we be sure in what we know.
Concerning local congregations, I am not sure what you mean by saying “what is more important is where I am going to be” and that the “local congregation trumps the denomination at a level closer to the essentials”
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I don’t think it is the constant duelling between denominations. I think that it is the constant duelling between the Jesus in the Gospel, the “bright and shiny people” in church, as you say it in your posts on depression, and the reality of Christian life. I have struggled with depression in the past because my life doesn’t match the experiences that some of the church people, and even friends, have had. I don’t see miracles. God doesn’t talk to me and tell me to do this or that.
And many churches that I have gone to teach the Bible as an example of what you can do or God can do through you. Not focusing on the prosperity gospel of money, but a focus on the purpose driven life to the point of mysticism. Abraham is not just a great man of faith – he is an example of how God can talk to you and lead you too. All this mystical focus on God and the urge to have every little mundane thing in every day have some grand spiritual purpose. It was/is exhausting, and leads to depression because that’s not the way real life plays out. It has taken a long time to break out of that mindset and to embrace the crying words of Jeremiah and the Psalmist as being far more “normal”.
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iMonk,
Thanks for this thread. A lot of interesting comments and life experiences shared. Some seem to be closer to understanding my situation than others, but all feedback is useful.
When I used the terms “spiritual depression” or “depression” in quotes it was because I wanted to distinguish my feelings from diagnosed clinical depression, which seems to be what some here have experienced.
Perhaps a more accurate term for what I struggle with is “cognitive dissonance.”
“Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The “ideas” or “cognitions” in question may include attitudes and beliefs, and also the awareness of one’s behavior. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, or by justifying or rationalizing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
For example, just as I think all religions cannot be reconciled as true, since they are inherently contradictory, so too I think about the various systematic theologies within Christianity.
I realize, of course, that I am still bound by my modern, rather than post-modern, approach to epistemology.
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No, they can’t all be right. Exactly….but it doesn’t matter at the essential level. It matters at the non-essential level. More important than which is right is where am I going to be? Local congregation trumps denomination at the level closer to the essentials.
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For myself, I can only say that I just want to worship and serve God as I can understand Him from scripture. I have yet to find any church that would be exactly how I perceive that to be. While my core Christian faith has been the same my entire Christian life, I have changed my views, sometimes more than once and even several times ended back where I started! As I tell my wife, if God wanted to answer all our questions and leave no mystery, scripture would be a lot longer. I find it sad that we still bicker over our worship styles, what true devotion to God looks like, which translation of the bible is the best (or why yours is the worst), how to live out our faith, etc. While I have been in the same denomination my whole life (even before I was a Chritian), and I feel very much at home in that family of faith, I also acknowledge that I don’t have all the answers, nor will I in this life (and it won’t much matter in eternity). Many loud and sincere people, with a lot more knowledge and wisdom than I will ever have, even disagree with each other. Even though I still search the scriptures daily, and seek Him more and more, I am now able to be comfortable with differences of opinion and with mystery itself. I want to love God with all my being and love my neighbor as myself.
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You could go into the legal profession — get the big bucks either way 🙂
(look how happy we are)
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As soon as I read this person’s struggles, I recognized my own struggles of the past several weeks. For me, the biggest problem is what is true and who is the authority. I believe that the Bible is true and that the Bible is the ultimate authority, but we have to interpret that. How do we know what interpretation is right? Each denomination makes claims that their denomination has interpreted Scripture rightly, yet there is a lot of disagreement. They can’t all be right.
I don’t think it is a matter of the availability of Jesus, but I think that adds more confusion for me. I believe that through any of the denominations one can find Jesus. So in that sense, they are all right, but at the same time, they can’t all be right when it comes to other things.
I think the depression question would vary from person to person but one reason is the confusion that results. I don’t know who to trust, what is true. I feel more distant from God because I am constantly questioning everything that I am taking in instead of completely seeking him, but I don’t want to be seeking a lie.
It is an addictive struggle because I want to know God, Jesus, and the Bible better, but I am not sure how to interpret things truthfully, and I do not accept that anyone’s interpretation goes. So, I have to keep seeking, trying to make sense of things.
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I have the same problem, and I get paid to not admit it. 🙂
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I thought I was wrong once, but I realized I was mistaken … 🙂
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>…It is just my opinion — I mean, I could be wrong..
🙂
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One thing from your great, sensitive and insightful series — and I believe it is related to this topic:
It is generally accepted that since we now know who Jesus is when we encounter Him in human form in our lives, i.e., “the least of my brothers,” (from the sixth installment) we can now just decide to go and help them out, and thereby guarantee entry to the Kingdom.
But that passage from Matthew 25 is not the typical parable — vis a vis “There once was a king …” It was told as a prophecy. I think Jesus was telling us how it is going to happen. It is just my opinion — I mean, I could be wrong — but I think that the transformation the Lord has promised is so profound that those who truly have accepted it do His will without thinking. It’s not an artificial, “I’d better go out and get some good stuff done to the least of His brothers today — and then I’ll go fishing.” My own bouts with religious depression involve my thinking that my imprinted attitudes from being insulated as a child from exposure to any outgoing empathetic atmosphere of spirituality by my depressed, self-absorbed and self-centered atheist alcoholic parents have precluded me from ever being able to minister to anyone, especially the lowest of the low, this despite being repeatedly told by spiritual religious and others what a “good person” I am.
I believe that God enters the willing heart, transforms it and acts through it without the comprehensive knowledge of whose heart it is. This, I think, is the left hand (brain) not knowing what the right hand (brain) is doing. And in the end, God gives the credit to the person.
And those who are blessed enough to find themselves at His right hand in the end, will yet be surprised at what righeous acts He credits them with.
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Here is the six part IM series: The Christian and Mental Illness.
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I believe that the first question, why is the search for the right Church so important, is based on two basic needs — the need to be close to God and the need to be accepted and loved by other people. These, I think, are related to the two fears we are born with — the fear of falling and the fear of being alone. And this may be why it is related to depression and addiction, since both are about not being able to get basic human needs met.
Every denomination and every church or parish holds itself out (some more vociferously than others) as “the” place to meet those needs. Before choosing the RCC I was on this search and found it to be quite frustrating and depressing. My now ex-wife and I were followers of a popular call-in radio ministry. The leader was particularly gifted with insight and inspiration. But he got into a financial scandal, lost the ministry and eventually went off the deep end and blew his head off with a shotgun. We spent several years in the Long Island Church of the famous Howard Stern co-hort, Jessica Hahn (she used to come to the congregation as a young teenager with her guitar), who eventually brought down Jim Baker and the PTL ministry. I moved my family from Long Island to a rural Southern peninsula and we found ourselves isolated and suffering from culture shock. We started to attend a Methodist church, and were very warmly received by the small but close group. I played my guitar and sang some of my songs to them, and they loved it. Our four young children were taken under the wing of the Sunday School teacher. But when I would run into these people in the supermarket or the Post Office, they acted as if they had never seen me before.
In large part I get the first need — closeness to God — met by my faith in His presence in the Eucharist. If you can’t relate to that then the Roman Catholic Church, per se, is not the place to try and get the second one – human love and acceptance — met. I’ve attended the same parish for nearly twenty years and still don’t know the vast majority of the people I see in Church every week. I get those needs met the same way I make a living fishing– it’s catch as catch can in this world.
In my opinion :-), you will never get either one of those needs met by walking in the “right” church door. It is all about the attitude of your heart.
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My answer to the first question: I think that this search matters so much to many people, because it seems, logically, that a God who has revealed Himself to us in the Scriptures would also be “represented”, at least to some degree, by some visible church(es) which holds to a theology that is faithful to those Scriptures (obviously, I speak as a Protestant here).
For some people, it may be a question of epistemology on three levels: 1. How do we know anything? 2. How do we know the true God? 3. Where is this true God “represented,” again, in this world, by some visible church(es)? It is easy to see how, in a fallen world, such questions can go in an obsessive-compulsive direction… which leads to my answer to the second question.
If one believes that there is truth to be found, and specifically found in the God of one religion, yet one encounters great difficulty in deciding which of the visible churches seems to teach what is most faithful *to* that God, one might well become frustrated and/or depressed.
In addition, if one is raised in a theological belief, or comes to hold a theological belief, but that belief is greatly unbalanced in some way (such as, focusing unduly on election and predestination– and I write as a Calvinist– or honing in on “rules” as the measure of the Christian life), that imbalance can very well lead to depression, because it is an *imbalance* of what is actually *balanced* in God’s word.
As for the third question, it may be because some people have a very difficult time living with tension in their theology, so the search is always on to find the “right” church with the “perfectly Biblical” theology which will resolve that tension. While I am a Reformed Baptist Christian and will probably be Reformed for the rest of my life, I have come to accept that “Calvinism” does have tensions which are extremely hard (if not impossible) to resolve, in the face of various Biblical passages.
For me, it has ultimately become a question of, which theology seems to make the most *Biblical* sense, with the least tensions (or at least with the tensions which seem to be most faithful to the Biblical text)? I have settled on Calvinism. I have only been able to do so by choosing to live with the tensions in Calvinism. There are also great tensions in other theologies, such as Arminianism, but the ones in Calvinism seem, to me, to be the most Biblically faithful tensions (faithful to the text). For people who cannot live with tensions in their theology though, they may have a very difficult time “settling” anywhere, in terms of a specific church and theology.
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As someone who has left similar comments on this blog, here’s my perspective:
1) If it is predestination vs. double predestination, then no, these searches are like learning science. An answer will only describe the status quo.
However, if the best chance at getting closer to Jesus is to participate in specific sacraments and have a specific theology, then yes, it really matters.
2) It’s depressing because it keeps a person from being able to practice their faith fully. It makes a person feel like an intellectual and not a Christian. It makes it so I can win a debate with a Jehovah’s Witness, but have worse church attendance than he does. It makes our faith appear less rational because various groups are “absolutely certain†that the Holy Spirit revealed the “true†faith to them. It makes me feel farther from God by making God into a series of arguments instead of Jesus. Just to name a few.
3) My addiction is partly because I think God wants me keep searching. If these things really matter, the answers should be ascertainable. We can debate whether people who never hear the name “Jesus” can be saved, but I doubt salvation is denied to a Christian honestly searching. But what is an honest search? It’s midnight here and I’m still flipping between various denominational God blogs. At what point can I throw up my hands, be comfortable in my salvation, and just be with Jesus for a while?
Also, the search is addictive because Christianity is the only “supernatural” thing that’s real. Learning more about Christianity is discovering the way things really work behind the scenes. Plus, were all going to die, so it’s easy to get obsessed with the way death works (a different way to view salvation).
Lastly, the internet has really fed my addiction. I found this site when I was pondering becoming Catholic and wanted honest arguments against it. With the web, I can read the Early Church Fathers, compare them to Luther, and discover the post evangelical position at the same time in three different pop up windows. Ya, I have no life ïŠ
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Since I haven’t answered your own questions yet, Michael, here are a few thoughts on those 3 points:
1. The answer might differ quite a bit from person to person. And I’m not sure that enough clues are provided in this particular case to be able to connect the dots. It may matter to many because perfectionism is such a widespread phenomenon and the closely related picture of God not being satisfied with less than perfection. A longing for a sense of control, acceptance and security may play a role as well – and the apparent lack of understanding that there is no such thing as the perfect church or denomination on this side of eternity.
2. The connection to depression in the case of the perfectionist and the one who can only find validation in one’s own performance, is the increasing awareness of the personal inability to live up to that standard. As long as there is no realization that we’re setting ourselves up for failure from the start, the burden of disappointment and shame only increases over time. Physiological and psychological effects will then mutually affect each other and contribute to the increasing downward spiral.
3. The element of compulsion and addiction may have something to do with the fact that an ideal is being chased that has an element of truth in it – but although we can never catch up to it in this kind of pursuit, we somehow find it easier telling ourselves that failure is not on option rather than examining and questioning the very foundations of our assumptions and beliefs.
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This is good. Having slipped into this depression recently, then my father passing away a week later, he being a fundemental preacher, deepened it. He formed the basis of my thinking religiously, teaching me it’s rituals at an early age, then teaching me to find their origial meanings. Both parents taught me to question everything said by anyting resembling a human, and started me on a life quest to uncover truth. Not a truth explained by doctrine, though doctrine was important, but not to be confused with truth. I’ve traveled in this quest a very circuitus route, all religions, thought, philosiphy, and practices east and west to only wind up where I started. Believing I had at last found “truth” threw my self whole heatedly into ministry/leadership only to have members of my family see fit to remove my from those positions.
So I took some time in the desolation of the high desert, and went back to some of the contacts from childhood with the natives. Again I found truth. It is not a tribe thing, doctrine thing, a church thing, or a leadership thing, it is a spirit thing. We have to rely on the Spirit of Truth, it leads, it gives the meaning, it inspires, it comforts, it ministers, it reveals the Truth we never see because of being endlessly seatching for it. It reminds us to “be still and know that I am God.”
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Sorry I have not read all responses, but here is my take.
“Why does it matter?”
I don’t think the one true Church matters so much to me as being accepted or trying to be “correct” so that God will love me or view me as acceptable to be saved; for me the issue breaks down this way. It seems that Jesus was being literal, not figurative when he said the gates of hell would not prevail against the Church He leaves behind.
Many of the different Christian sects have Church dogma that is mutually exclusive and contradictory to one another, to me that indicates a house against itself, which will fall or be prevailed against. I see evidence of that in the area where I live, this is not what Jesus said, so for me that points to a real problem. Namely, the current situation lends itself to confirming the argument that “whatever you believe is valid as long as you truly believe” there is not definitive truth or in this situation Church.
Without the authoritative Church, who canonized Scripture, who correctly interprets Scripture, who maintains the hedge around the truly orthodox beliefs, who can determine heresy that destroy? To me there is really nothing genuine. BTW, all of these reasons apply to why I get depressed.
“Why is this related to depression?”
For me seeing good people spend time proselytizing one another, and at times hating one another in the name of conflicting Churches is nothing but depressing. On a larger note if we follow the logic behind many Churches and one metaphorical or invisible Church to the end of the road, it leads having to acknowledge all these conflicting and exclusive truths can’t be valid. Thinking that there is no valid truth or Church, again depresses me mightily.
“Why for some is this so important?”
I can only answer for me, and it is important because I have invested probably over half my life in the belief that somewhere this Church is so, as Jesus said. If that is not so, perhaps my belief has been in vain. Perhaps any old faith system would do just as well. I may a simplistic literalist, but I believe one real and genuine Church must exist, and the continuing fragmentation highlights the need for that to be so to me.
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Good questions.
1) The search matters so much to some people because they think that their salvation may depend upon it. Other people don’t worry about it so much either because they A) don’t care about their salvation or B) just aren’t worried about it, for whatever reason.
2) The stress of obsessively worrying about the search can cause depression in susceptible people, just like any other kind of stress. The susceptibility may be genetic, or the result of multiple stressors happening at once, or both. Stress affects the brain in ways that can trigger depression.
3) The people you’re referring to may be requiring a level of certainty about the correctness of their choice of denomination or religion that just isn’t obtainable in this world. It sounds like a kind of spiritual hypochondria to me; medical hypochondriacs can have every clinical test in the world and still be unhappy because they still can’t be CERTAIN that they’re not sick. The person you quoted said “How can I know which [denominations], if any, are truly true?” One can’t, in this world, know for sure, and until that issue is faced and resolved, it’s going to cause a lot of stress and anxiety to whoever is struggling with it.
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1. Wanting to know what’s right. Not having to be right, but to know what is right. From this analytical mind of mine I know something is right, but what is it?
2. This is related to depression in that one comes to the realization that there is just no way to know what’s right. You can read and read (going on 13 years now, wow), and it’s all very interesting and I’ve learned a lot, but really, what of what I’ve read is right?
3. OCD
I resonate with the comment about reading church history. It has helped the most. In fact, due to this very issue, earlier today I planned on getting a hold of Pelikan’s 5 volume set in the next week or so.
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Well, this is my perspective. They are the answers for my own situation which perhaps will help with the commenter in question (or others). And then, it may not.
1) Why does this search matter so much? Is there some question of the availability of Jesus?
In common with one or two commenters above, I see this as a manifestation of trying to find acceptance through correct belief – acceptance on one level from “God’s gatekeepers” the theological nazis, and, (because we accept their conditions of acceptance as God’s conditions for acceptance), from God as well. How can this not be terribly important??? Jesus’ gospel is really only available to the theologically correct.
My deliverance from this mindset came from the realisation that God’s love (and, in fact, all true love) does not depend on us, but on the lover. We can be theologically totally off-beam and yet loved and saved by God. Theology, then, became important, but not ultimately important. What freedom!!!
2) Why is this related to depression?
Isn’t depression the result of works-righteousness? At least, it is if we feel we can’t measure up. If the original commenter fits my answer to question one, there’s no way he’s measuring up to the gatekeepers’ and God’s standard because he can’t decided which theology is correct, and is likely far too afraid to make a decision because a wrong one will mean hell (or at least a very low level in the heavenly kingdom). I’d be suprised if that didn’t lead to depression.
3) Why, for some people, is this search so compulsive and addictive?
Again, in my experience, it’s compulsive and addictive because it is the search for self-worth/acceptance. Not only that, it is the unrecognised search for self-worth/acceptance. (In my case, I would say I knew I was saved, but I didn’t actually believe God liked me. Being liked by God depended on correct theology.) Because we all hunger for acceptance to bolster self-worth, we are compelled to continue the search, and any sense that we are progressing encourages us to carry on.
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I just want to say that I sympathize with this poster. I am just now slowly recovering from a major depression that lasted over two years and effected my spiritual life, my performance at work, and my marriage. I don’t know how much was spiritual, how much was chemical, and how much was environmental (I had recently moved 11 hours away from my family for a job that didn’t turn out to be what I had expected. Much of my depression was spiritual, and yes, my search became obsessive– to the point where I was diagnosed with OCD.
I was raised in a rather Wesleyan/ Arminian church. I was not abused in this church, and I have many good memories. However, my view of the Gospel at the time was simply “stop sinning.” Of course, try as I might, I found this impossible, and in college, I drifted into four years of partying. After hitting a low point in my last year of college, I returned to church through a campus ministry that was probably what some might call “Evang-jellyfish.” As the church was reactive and attempting to be relevant, anti-legalism was taught almost to a fault, along with a semi “once saved, always saved” doctrine. Thus, for many years, I never really grew and had little motivation to do so. I’m sure much was my own fault too, as I put grad school before Christ in many situations.
Well, several years later, I was sitting up one night, surfing the Net. I had just purchased my first house, and my wife lost her job a week later. I surfed across a site of a “Holiness” preacher who basically said that you were not saved if you sinned at all, and you could lose your salvation every time you sinned. I think it was probably the combination of things going on in my life, but something in me snapped. I got a feeling in my stomach like a cold, sick lump, and it stayed with me with only periodical reprieves for almost two years. I doubted my salvation and obsessively surfed the Internet learning about every denomination and theological system I possibly could. Most had good points, and almost all claimed to be right. I did my grad work in English Lit, and had had to read a lot of Critical Theory, so I also knew how much cultural factors go into influences a person’s “lense.”
I had been sad in high school, college, etc., but nothing so absolutely crippling as this. One thing I can say it that I was never suicidal because Hell scared me so much. Some nights, I literally stared into my fireplace, wondering what Hell would be like. I saw Christianity as a big game of Russian Roullette with even worse consequences– you have to choose, but choose wrongly, and it’s the Lake of Fire. I figured that not choosing and being agnostic would also lead to the Lake of Fire. At this point, I found many Reformed types particularly unhelpful because many seemed to operate with the following logic: “My doctrine is correct. The Holy Spirit will lead the truly regenerate into correct doctrine. Your doctrine is different than mine. Therefore, you are reprobate.” I kept worrying that maybe the reason I could not come to a doctrinal conclusion was due to my reprobation. Ironically, at the same time, I was also terrified by the Roman Catholic “Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus” and had spent time on several websites run by Feeneyites.
Honestly, one of the things I have found most helpful is reading church history. Seeing all the various conflicts in church history, both East and West, and how various doctrines have evolved and changed over time sort of took the wind out of the sails of the doctrinally uber-correct.
I have also started taking a prescription anti-depressant, and I have to say that this had made a huge difference. It’s hard to look at anything with any level of clarity when you can’t sleep and thoughts of Hell will not stop repeating in your mind. Anti-depressants aren’t the ultimate answer, but I do believe that they can help to provide a little clarity to aid one in their search for answers. I really wish I had tried this option sooner, but was worried because of all the stuff I had read from “Biblical” Counseling and Nouthetic types. People also tell me that I am becoming less grouchy and irritable. Being on edge all the time made it very easy to snap at others.
God has also put some very wonderful, loving, supportive people in my life. Theologically, I am probably leaning towards some form of “continuing” Anglicanism, and I am continuing to study the early church. Thins are finally looking up. I think God is more loving, more vast, and more beyond our ways and our understanding than we can possibly imagine. God’s sovereignty doesn’t just mean that he’s a tough guy. I don’t know why I’ve written so much, but I would just like to tell this poster that they’re not alone.
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Just went to your blog, willow — you won’t have to worry about that.
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Let me remind everyone that we are responding to a quote cited above. Let’s not let the thread wander into our personal endorsements. thanks.
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Is it all right to rejoice in our differences? It could be good to follow our own lights as lead by the Lord. I am glad everyone does not believe exactly as I do. In fact the thoughts of Surfnetter sitting in a pew in front of me week after week is positively unsettling. [viva le moderation!]
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I’ll give a brief, negative perspective.
I was in a “one true church,” that is a group of Christians that really believed we were restoring the New Testament church as it was in Acts and the Epistles. We believed God’s purpose completely depended upon us to have the proper church life, and that all other Christians were in “Babylon.” (Not just the Roman Catholics; all of divided Christianity was Babylon.)
And it was a terribly oppressive, depressing, and stifling place. I believe many of my unhealthy mental perspectives were magnified there.
For what it’s worth, I no longer believe there is a “one true church,” except the church (or assembly, congregation, whatever) that the Lord plants you in. And surely His desire for us includes relief from all kinds of mental darkness. So I think it is better to be open minded and allow the Lord (through prayer, Bible study, and fellowship) to bring you to the right group of people, whoever they may be, then to think there is one true church out there. Or to put it another way, the one true church is simply the Body of Christ, which has many manifestations on earth. He knows where we belong, and that will differ from person to person. But I do believe, and have experienced, that being faithful to Him alleviates depression, because His yoke is easy and His burden is light. This does not depend on one particular group of Christians, or one particular set of doctrines. There is no “one size fits all” approach possible in this age.
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Like Martha I’m in the RCC for the Eucharist — Mary and the Saints as well. But also because I find I can think — and speak — most freely there (here).
What I truly believe about the True Church I have put in a book the thesis of which is probably some sort of classical heresy. If anyone’s interested it’s linked on my blog and practically the whole thing is on Googlebooks so you won’t have to buy it if you don’t want to. And priests and monsignors have read it and nobody’s suggested excommunication yet.
I think God is doing something in and with the world including those who are considered Christians and those who aren’t by some Christians and even those who don’t consider themselves to be Christians. I think that it is all summed up in the very last Chapter of the Bible. And, as has been mentioned several times in this post, it is not ecumenical, ecclesiastical or denominational. It is tribal. He is making the whole world into His Israel, right under our noses, without our advice, knowledge or consent. It’s not a Church in the typical sense — it’s a big family in the process of congregating. Someone’s gonna say it sounds like Jehovah Witness or LDS. But it’s not those — it’s (c)atholic, but not (C)atholic and not any other denomination — not even Jewish — but Hebrew.
And I can believe all that and still be a Roman Catholic. I love it.
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I would say that a fundamental, first things commitment to Christ and his body (of which every member is an essential part) makes the search for a proper local home in that body if not easy at least easier.
For those who are looking for an absolute ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in this quest, however … I guess I would just say, “God be with you.”
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I am pleasantly surprised by the quality of these comments. You have a rather mature reading audience, iMonk.
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Some context on the O’Connor quote:
“I was once, five or six years ago, taken by some friends to have dinner with Mary McCarthy and her husband, Mr. Broadwater. (She just wrote that book, “A Charmed Life.”) She departed the Church at the age of 15 and is a Big Intellectual. We went at eight and at one, I hadn’t opened my mouth once, there being nothing for me in such company to say. . . . Having me there was like having a dog present who had been trained to say a few words but overcome with inadequacy had forgotten them.
Well, toward morning the conversation turned on the Eucharist, which I, being the Catholic, was obviously supposed to defend. Mrs. Broadwater said when she was a child and received the host, she thought of it as the Holy Ghost, He being the most portable person of the Trinity; now she thought of it as a symbol and implied that it was a pretty good one. I then said, in a very shaky voice, Well, if it’s a symbol, to hell with it.
That was all the defense I was capable of but I realize now that this is all I will ever be able to say about it, outside of a story, except that it is the center of existence for me; all the rest of life is expendable.”
As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, “if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.”
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oops, that should have read ‘we seek the best expression of truth available’.
I don’t want people thinking I’ve croseed over to the ‘dark side’ and embraced a worldview that doesn’t recognise the existence of objective truth.
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This is an answer to your questions iMonk, rather than a response to the other person.
A bit of armchair/backyard psychology, but here goes:
It could be a form of tribalism, in a positive way.
1) We need to be in community in order to understand ourselves, the universe we live in, and the creator of that universe. Otherwise there is a real danger we could wander off into some self-delusion and find ourselves being harmed by the reality we can’t see.
But to belong we need to subscribe to the tenants of the group. So the search is for the group that has the tenants we can best agree to.
I don’t think it is a question of the availability of Jesus, although it is often presented that way. How can you know where and if you belong if you don’t identify those who don’t belong? Nothing better than an ‘enemy’ to promote cohesion in a group.
2) It is not good for man to be alone. If you can find no group to fully belong to, then everyone else is ‘other’. Which also makes you ‘other’ to everyone else. You are then alone, a depressing state to be in. You are emotionally homeless and without a home, you become depressed, homesick, for a home you never knew in some cases, but homesick nonetheless.
3) The purpose of life, I believe, is to know and be known, both in relationship with God AND with others. Everything said above speaks to the answer for this question.
In a nutshell, we need to belong, we seek the best truth available (the one closest to reality) so we seek a tribe that gives us that, if possible. If we can’t find one, then who are we? And how can we begin to understand anyone or anything else if we can’t know ourselves?
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It doesn’t bother me that much that there are so many different flavours in the Christian Faith. Faith. Its all about faith and believing the best we can. And if my brother believes different than me for the moment, that’s ok. We’re all trying to believe the best we can. Sometimes our persuasions change. I don’t think that its sin at all. I’m thinking that God might be glad we are trying to figure it out. If we stop, we would stop believing. It isn’t depression so much as it is a weakening of our faith. We get weary of looking through a glass dimly and of wondering what the clear view is. Honestly, the Bible states some things rather clearly, but then with other things, I think, “God, Why don’t you expand a bit more on that subject so we don’t have to do so much guessing?” I guess then, we wouldn’t need so much faith, and faith has its place on this side of eternity.
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1. Certainly some denominations have better doctrine or are more thoroughly thought out. Its important to serious Christians that their church and spiritual path conforms as closely as possible to the Scriptures. Bad doctrine and a wrong view of the Christian life have a huge and very often negative effect on people, and we would like to avoid that as much as possible. A false view of Jesus does in a very real way make Him “less available” from the believer’s point of view.
2.Because its a hard, daunting, monumental, and lonely task to sift through all the competing doctrines and claims. Also, because we sense that what should be our greatest joy (Jesus)is the source of our depression or dissatisfaction, so it kick starts this whole search to find the life promised to us in the Gospel.
3. Many of us have what a friend of mine termed as a “God Obsession” and we are driven.
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1) Why does this search matter so much? Is there some question of the availability of Jesus?
I think it’s more of a question about scripture; if it is the inerrant literal Word of God, how can it be interpreted so many ways by so many intelligent, holy people? If you’re looking for spiritual truth — which does matter very much — Christianity is a tough place to search in.
2) Why is this related to depression?
There are three components to depression: emotional, physical and spiritual. Meds and therapy can help with the first two, but only God can work the third. But if you’re in a denomination where you aren’t “finding God” then you’re not getting help.
3) Why, for some people, is this search so compulsive and addictive?
Church hoppers.
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Michael, I certainly didn’t mean to suggest better an atheist than a Protestant 🙂
I meant that if I wasn’t a Catholic, I wouldn’t be a Christian at all and I’d have no belief in a god, gods or spirits. It wouldn’t be a case of rejecting the West for the East, or Wicca, or that crowd that begin with “S” and end with “cientology”. If I lost my religion, I’d lose all faith. Move over Richard Dawkins, I’m getting on the bus! 😉
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For the past two weeks of so, I have been questioning weather or not I can believe in God any more. I won’t get into it all here, but it has had to do with feeling that everything I thought I knew about God was wrong. Theology didn’t have the answers for me and my (at the moment) crappy life.
The hardest part about this is that if I want answers, i have no where to go.
Sometimes I really wonder if ‘just Jesus’ is enough. I mean, everyone is telling me that I need to believe x in order to be really right or join the real body of believers to truly have life. And I look at there life (at least what small part I can see) and they are happy, or filled with faith, or loving in ways that I wish I was. I see examples of the Christian life and experience in these people and wonder if their theology is right after all. But then I see another example in a ‘competing’ denomination, and my mind swirls again.
Growing up in a myriad of denominational streams, I have always had a hard time finding my balance amid a sea of voices and opinions. Good, God fearing people all telling me seemingly different ‘truths’ about God, the Bible, Jesus, spiritual power, life, the length of my hair, my theology, drinking, coming to the communion table, etc. etc, etc. No matter how used to this I have become, it is always a source of confusion… which leads to depression.
I think the reason depression and the search for ‘the true church’ are so interrelated is because what we are really looking for is hope. It’s what the gospel offers, what we need, and when we feel that we can’t find it despair is the only valid response.
At the core, we are looking for a hope we can understand and find comfort in. We are looking for a place where we are accepted and won’t be left out. We are all dying to be part of the sanctified, holy people of God… and some of us are filled with the fear that at the end of it all we got it wrong and God really won’t welcome our shaky, barely holding on faith into his Shalom.
We fear God won’t love us unless we believe the right things rightly because too many people have filled us with the fear of being wrong and going to hell because of it.
To many people have told us in one way or another that hope really isn’t for everyone. Only those who believe correct theology, who get onto the ‘right side’, only those who are worthy enough will get the salvation Jesus offers. So, our need for hope drives us to listen to each and every take on theology, wrestling with question after unanswerable question, all the wile praying that we can somehow get it right.
Sometimes, people in this cycle find relief. This grace comes to them in the form of a denomination they feel is their ‘home’, or somewhere they find the answers to the questions, the hope they have been longing for. I am happy for them, and quite jealous. But, I have to remember (and here my theological leanings shine through) they are finding God’s favor and grace manifested to them in the denomination or theology that meets their needs. In other words, Jesus is making him self known to them in this way. It doesn’t mean that I don’t have Jesus, or that the denomination across the street is not really part of the true church invisible.
But that’s hard to remember because I can’t see Jesus, sit beside Him on Sundays, hear what he has to say and what it means and have a room full of people say ‘amen’.
I don’t know if I will ever find myself part of a denomination again. But I believe that somewhere, somehow Jesus will show up in my living life, and I will see his grace know his love.
Maybe my addiction to theology is really an addiction to pride, trying to prove to God that I am worthy enough. Maybe I do believe a lie, the lie of pride that binds and kills love. Maybe I need to let go. maybe I can, maybe I can’t. But I can hope that this will all change, that the denominational confusion and fences will be made right along with everything else when Jesus comes to set all right once more.
I don’t have an answer to these questions. I wrestle with them myself, and will probably die with them in my heart. I will go up and down in my life, some days believing and others gripped by spiritual depression of various degrees. But the fact that I can’t solve this answer my self tells me that I still need Jesus to make me right with God. If my theology is driving my further from the truth of that need, then to hell with it. Jesus is the only one who can cure this long dark night of the soul. He may not do it before his return, but It will change.
The belief that something will change and my admission that I am helpless to change it… that is hope. We either chose to hope, or give up and let the night swallow us.
ps
Michael,Sorry for the length of the comment. If you would rather I put it on my blog and link back, just let me know.
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To a certain extent, I empathize with the commenter because looking back with hindsight, a large chunk of my (armchair) theological education came at a point in my life not long ago during a depressive period. I was looking for love but when that someone didn’t respond to two and a half years of woo-ing (and subsequent 1 and a half years of minor depression), I ended up back in the arms of the One whose love is infinite.
And consequently, while being raised Methodist, I found myself being more ecumenical and examining Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Anglicanism, Presbyterianism, Baptist-ism, etc, etc. Now I’m faced with a situation in which I am comfortable being an “Evangelical Anglo-Catholic” (those aren’t two mutually exclusive words in my book) who is now feeling uncomfortable in an evangelical Methodist church congregation.
There’s a hint of angst in me now about the time when I will have to make choice to leave my current congregation (where I’ve been for the last 16 years; i.e. two-thirds of my life) for the bounds of the Anglican Church (where there is sufficient latitude in theological diversity).
Now my search doesn’t cause me depression, but instead it causes me great sadness at the divisions in the visible Body of Christ. While we may (and I stress the word may) be one in the mystical Body of Christ as believers, I suspect that God might be both weeping and laughing at all of us down here on this earth “doing battle” for the visible Body.
Now, the search for me keeps my mind active and at least then I am able to put things right whenever others in my current church congregation misrepresent other Christians in discussions and when “teaching” (sometimes such teaching is simply biased opinion with limited basis in fact). Ultimately, it all comes back to “fides quaerens intellectum”-faith seeking understanding-for me. That’s what my spiritual journey & search is all about.
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While I believe that Eastern Orthodoxy is indeed the True Church, I still think it is more god-pleasing to be the best Evangelical, Lutheran, Roman Catholic, etc., that you can be rather than being a nominal member of the “correct” church. And by “best” I mean inner commitment to Christ, not outward display.
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Martha:
Thankfully, Atheism over Protestantism isn’t the RCC’s own view of Protestantism 🙂
And Flannery’s position makes a great RC quote, but it shouldn’t be the view of Christians as we all consider that Christ is with us through the word, the sacraments, one another, etc. We disagree on where and how, but not on who. Doesn’t baptism gain us anything in the area of unity?
peace
ms
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I believe Lurch is correct. You need to find a Church where you can be YOU–warts, sins and all and your fellow sinners will accept you lovingly.
I fear the Theology game trap is twofold–we cannot accept the simple but powerful truth of the Gospel and try to base our faith on man’s wisdom. This often comes about from a good beginning–trying to get deeper in God’s word. But we can often over intellectualize our faith. Having said that, a good Church will be able to accept believers with different theologies. For instance I’m an Arminian and one of the most Godly and wonderful men in my Church is a Calvinist! But we love each other.
Trying do go deeper in faith through theology is good, but remember it always comes back to preaching Christ crucified and His love for us. When your Church reflects THAT, you’re home.
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This is personally a difficult question for me, because I’m born and reared Roman Catholic, and have never considered any other denomination.
If I stopped being Catholic, I’d be nothing. I wouldn’t go Orthodox, I certainly wouldn’t be any of the Protestant denominations, I wouldn’t be Buddhist, I wouldn’t be Hindu, I’d be an atheist.
The interesting part then is why? Why have I never seriously considered looking outside my box? I’ve thought about Protestantism in a very glancing fashion, but there’s nothing there that pulls to me. Certainly not Calvinism, but even the more liturgical churches don’t do it for me.
I think it’s the Eucharist. Knock that prop away from me, and the whole damn lot goes tumbling down. And if that goes, then the rest of them go with it. Like Flannery O’Connor said, if it’s only a symbol, then to hell with it.
And though I do have small dashes of depression, I’ve never blamed God or had any difficulty with struggles with faith. I think I would definitely be a better Christian if I *had* struggled with faith – that kind of wrestling with the angel makes one aware of what one believes and why, and causes a deeper committment. My kind of sailing along is too much the ‘pew potato’, sitting there Sundays and holy days soaking it up, but a lot of it going in one ear and out the other and not so hot on the application.
It’s very instructive to me to hear other’s accounts of where they are and how they got there, so God bless you all.
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Now we see through a mirror dimly… We are seeking to know and grow in the One True God… We are seeking to find fellowship with His Body, that which He died for… the Church. We are seeking to be obedient to His command that we not forsake the assembly… We are trying to be faithful to His Word which gives us so much instruction about the local church… yet at the end of the day we still see through a mirror dimly. I have come to the conclusion that it is the search and what we do in the search that determines much of it. What was our hearts desire in this decision, that decision concerning church membership? Did you join that church for pride or love? Was it for doctrinal reasons and desire to wed love and truth or was it motivated by hatred, hypocrisy, etc… The SBC isnt the best and I dont know if there is a best… Im trying to know Him and grow in Him and trying to put into action what it means for redeemed sinners to love one another. Perhaps the depression comes from the frustration at what sin has done to fracture the Church. It is the realization and admission of the imperfect nature we live in. Perhaps different people need different levels of church structure to accomodate their anxieties concerning salvation…
Blessings,
Bill
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Oh brother Monk, does the Truth need to be exclusive? We sit and argue about which end of the egg to break at breakfast, to the point we forget the chicken that laid it.
1. This matters so much to some people, not all, because there is a human desire to be right, to be correct. Maybe it stems from the Garden, when Adam ate from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, we still seek to put everything into one of the two categories forgetting we are not the Perfect Judge and refusing to consider any shade of gray in our effort to reduce the world to a black and white chess board.
Everybody wants to be right when compared against something or someone. We shy from comparing ourselves with Jesus as we ought. perhaps because it is too painful. The
2.It is so depressing because it is sinful! Gal 5 :20 has a sin list Imonk wrote of not long ago, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, and factions. We hate the first six but live for the last three. No Christian “wins” an argument about
factions. How does a father feel about a bad fight between his adopted sons? Does He rejoice when one is bloodied? The Joy of the Lord can’t be in it, see how many who live to dispute this turn bitter and become judgmental.
3. In an effort to please God we all need and want to study and have a defensible doctrine. The quest for doctrine should not overcome the quest for God, yet it is a trap so easy to fall into. All sin seems to be addictive, There must be something inherently rewarding about saying, I am of Apollos,and I am of Paul. It has been going on a long time.
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Could it be that we are trying to find true satisfaction in man-made things (yes, theology is man-made), and not in the One who is True?
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There was a wonderful talk by Barry Schwartz at TED a few years back, called The Paradox of Choice.
He basically lays out that we are happier when we have fewer choices. When there is one style of jeans to “choose” from, they aren’t perfect, but we deal with it and we are happy with our purchase. When there are 400 kinds of jeans to choose from, there is the stress of finding a pair and then every single tiny flaw makes our minds scream “I’ll bet there was a better choice! I blew it!”, and we are unhappy with our choice even though the jeans are better than the first pair.
I think this is entirely relevant to the commenter.
1) The search matters so much because the people in the various camps spend so much time arguing for their camp and talking about how the others are wrong. We just love to talk and talk about how we are right and the rest of the world is totally wrong. Now multiply this by a dozen major players and the situation gets very stressful for someone who needs to try to make a choice. Too much information, all of it biased.
2) It’s related to depression because the chooser feels the need to make a choice, but simply can’t. The inner conflict and stress is enough to drive one mad.
3) The search is compulsive because some of us *cough* need to be sure we’re right. What if we’re wrong? This one looks good today, but what if someone says something that makes another one make more sense tomorrow? I’d better wait and read more.
I realize the pride involved there. It’s purely a selfish thing, where I need to be sure I’m right rather than making a choice and giving my all and trusting God to cover the gaps. I’m taking my own salvation into my own hands, and I’m sure that if I choose the wrong one I’m in trouble. It shows a massively flawed view of God, but hey, I’m a massively flawed guy.
The other reason it’s so addictive is that it’s wonderful to sit and read blogs and books and try to reason out the answer, and not actually have to DO anything. I look so darned holy with a huge blog list and pull quotes for every situation.
Sigh.
Let the commenter know that if he ever finds an answer, he should let me know. I’m waiting too.
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Maybe a change in perspective might help gain some urgently needed distance. Let’s try and see what all the quarreling and the denominational differences might look like from God’s point of view. To quote Jonathan Brink in his post from January 8, entitled ‘Is Theology A Playground?’: “I sometimes wonder if God stands at the edge of the playground and watches us, laughing the way a father does when he sees his children playing silly games. It’s not a condescending laugh. It’s a recognition that the games do not define them. He does. It’s the recognition that his children will someday, hopefully discover the truth, but for now he is content to let them play, because that’s what children do.”
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Its a complex issue but my take is basically that the search for a spiritual home is important to us as its a place where we can create relationships and in real sense a family. We need to find somewhere were we can feel free to be ourselves in every way and depending on the denomination, and the individual church, this various as much as the person seeking.
For myself I never thought I would find myself at home in the church I am in, even though its in the same denomination, as the larger churches (for me this 100+) tend to be different in numerous ways than the small churches (5+, yes that small) I grew up in. However when you find somewhere you can feel at home it doesn’t really matter which denomination it is as they will accept you. I don’t agree 100% with my denomination but I do agree more than I disagree and this is probably key to finding a fit.
As far as “true denomination” I think this is a falsehood as we are all unique individuals and as such our diversity is reflected in denominations. However the bitterness between some denominations is not of Christ and causes terrible harm inside and outside the churches.
I think the search can get us down because we desire to part of something, a grouping, a tribe as it were, and without we feel lost and alone and this leads to depression. Of course the feeling of being accepted and the excitement of the new can become quiet addictive and create a culture of spiritual tourism.
Anyway, I hope this makes sense, or maybe even is of some help… but its midnight and so it may be a bit disjointed 🙂
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All I want to say is this: it is better to commit yourself wholeheartedly to an imperfect church (or denomination) than to search endlessly for a perfect one. Get out of the hallway and into a room!
… and it is a fact that some churches and denominations suit some people much better than they do others. While I recognise that ritual has a place, I could never sit comfortably in a ritualistic church; but I know people who do, and who would find my church shallow. I don’t find that such a problem as I used to.
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