Reddit reviews The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith

You may be interested in The Heart of Christianity by Marcus Borg. The questions that you're wrestling with are very similar to the ones he wrestles with in that book, and I personally found it quite affirming to read through.

Upvote for the pun, intended or otherwise! Just because we're talking about religion doesn't mean we should be without a sense of humor, IMHO.

You're right though, it's hard to describe something you don't believe in. To be perfectly honest, I ask because I find a remarkable amount of similarity in the God I see so many people rail against here in r/atheism. So much so that I wonder whether these people truly don't believe in any god, or whether they just don't accept the God that so many wrongheaded Christians push upon them. A shockingly large number of atheists have little trouble answering my question, because they do have a clear idea of what "God" is. It's just that they hate this idea.

I have gone through atheist periods, mostly because I can't believe all of the things I hear many Christians say about God; all of the counter factual bullshit I hear from the religious right, etc.. One day, I came across a different explanation of what God is that really connected with me and how I already felt. Knowing that I wasn't the only one that thought this way about the "moreness" I sensed in the universe gave me the confidence to take back the word. Should anyone be interested in that explanation, I suggest reading [The Heart of Christianity] (http://www.amazon.com/Heart-Christianity-Rediscovering-Life-Faith/dp/0060730684/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319227851&sr=8-1) by Marcus Borg. I'm not trying to convert people, but I know that it resolved a lot of the issues I have with the religion bequeathed to me by my parents and society. If anyone else has similar issues and would like one guy's brilliant take on resolving them, there it is.

Thanks for sharing your perspective. It seems to me—and I may be way off the mark—that you still believe in God and the Christian values of the the Mormon faith, but not in the institution of the Mormon church.

Question: have you investigated other Christian churches outside of the Mormon tradition? I know that for many on this sub, losing their belief in Mormonism has been accompanied by a loss of belief in Christianity or religion in general, but many others find a home in a new faith community. I am currently one of those people.

One thing that I learned as a product of my questioning my faith was that I didn't really understand non-Mormon Christianity very well at all. That is, what I thought I understood about Christianity was really more of a caricature of Christianity I had been given through my Mormon upbringing, and not really an accurate representation. As I started to research religion more broadly, I discovered that Christianity is actually far more diverse than I had supposed. Through my upbringing and bias-colored experiences, I had come to think of all of Christianity as a sort of Bible-belt, evangelical, born-again, fundamentalism, that in many ways is actually not that dissimilar to Mormonism in practice, despite significant differences in theology. However, I discovered that—primarily in the "mainline" Christian denominations—there is also a rich tradition of Christianity that remarkably different from what I had experienced or presupposed.

Anyway, the short version: it seems like you might still identify as non-evangelical Christian, but just not Mormon. That might be me projecting, but if not, you might consider looking into some of the mainline Christian faiths and seeing if you like it. And maybe you wont, but at least you'll know. If you are interested, I highly recommend reading Marcus Borg's The Heart of Christianity, which is a light and conversational read on 'progressive Christianity', or Karen Armstrong's The Case for God, which is a much more detailed treatise on religion throughout history but ultimately covers some of the same ideas.

Hi Bubbleeh.

I'm really in the same boat as tensegritydan theologically, and there is no need to "keep it to yourself." The Anglican Church was formed in the conditions of bringing people together for common worship. Catholic or Protestant, they worshiped together. Today we have supernatural theists and panentheists worshiping together. It's really not an issue because our focus is on "orthopraxy," which is right action in the world. Far from "keeping it to myself," my priest and I have had many in depth talks, and he's ready to recommend me as a postulate for Holy Orders.

Some Christian groups believe that all others are "misguided" at best, and "damned to Hell" at worst. This is nothing new, and you shouldn't let it bother you. Even if you join them, most of the world will still disagree with you.

For someone as yourself just beginning to explore this territory, I would recommend The Heart of Christianity by Dr. Marcus Borg. But I know buying books costs money (unfortunately) so if you can't get your hands on it right away then you can try this video as a very brief introduction into this strain of Christian thought.

"Like the earlier paradigm [of Christianity], the emerging paradigm sees the Bible as sacred scripture, but not because it is a divine product. It is sacred in its status and function, but not in its origin. The point is not to believe in the Bible and the Christian tradition, but to live within them as a metaphor and sacrament of the sacred, as a means whereby the Spirit continues to speak to us today.

"The emerging paradigm sees the Christian life as a life of relationship and transformation. Being Christian is not about meeting requirements for a future reward in an afterlife, and not very much about believing. Rather, the Christian life is about a relationship with God that transforms life in the present. To be Christian does not mean believing in Christianity, but a relationship with God lived within the Christian tradition as a metaphor and sacrament of the sacred.

"The preview one more feature of the emerging paradigm: it affirms religious pluralism. In this paradigm Christianity is one of the world's great enduring religions, the response to the experience of God in our particular cultural stream."

—from The Heart of Christianity by Marcus Borg, DPhil from Oxford University, Biblical scholar, and Jesus Seminar Fellow