So much has been happening in my life since last summer. Like I’ve said previously, I have way too many hobbies. I always consider writing a post about some of these hobbies (I have drafted posts about the state of the real-estate market in Chicago, the Chicago start up community, poker strategy, and salad dressing). I never post any of these entries because I want to make sure that the grammar is perfect, the right words are being used to turn complex concepts into laymen’s terms.
But this entry is different. This post is going to be somewhat of a journal entry. I will be typing everything as I think of it. There will be run on sentences. There will be poor sentence structure. There will be ranting. There will be venting. There will be rambling. This is something that I have battled for the last five years. Even though this post is titled God, this post isn’t really about God. It is about my struggle with religion.
Now I’m not one of those people that go, “organized religion is bullshit. if you believe what you believe in and be a good person, then that’s good in God’s eyes.” I strongly believe that church and community are both very important for growth/accountability/etc in one’s life.
My family are very proud Catholics. My parents immigrated here from Vietnam and they believe in the Catholic church. Not only would my family go to church on Sundays, we would go on all other Sabbath days (think national holidays but in regards to the church). I went to Sunday school, I did a short stint with the youth group, and went to a Vietnamese church where I found other people I could identify with. We volunteered through the church, we cooked meals in the kitchen, my parents were integral to the accounting and back-office duties of the church. We regularly had priests over at parties. We would participate in a lot of vietnamese-catholic traditions, we would pray as a family for an hour of rehearsed prayers then silent prayer.
When I started my first year of college, I was the only person on my dorm floor that still went to church every weekend (granted, I normally went back home to my parents). But I started to meet a lot of new people, a lot of christians in particular that weren’t necessarily catholic. I started to become friends with Muslims and Jews. Sure, plenty of my friends from high school would say they were catholics or say they were muslims but they weren’t exactly practicing. They would go to christmas mass or not eat pork. But that was basically it. Once I got to college, I actually met practicing christians/muslims/jews/hinduism. I was intrigued that everyone thought that what they believed in was infallible due to being born into it. Obviously, everyone gave their own reasons as to why they believed in what they did but the truth of the matter was they were born into it. Then I started to meet people that converted to being muslim or converted to a different christian denomination. This led me to start questioning what exactly I believed in.
People would quote the bible. People would quote the Quran. I started researching this stuff. I remember visiting my first “non-denominational” christian church. It was… different. People worshiping by dancing. People reading bibles off of their phones. A pastor with tattoos. My best friend was a Muslim, I would talk to him about what he believed in. He would talk to me about djinns, going to mosque, and how he largely felt the same way that I did.
I read books. I read a lot of books. I read CS Lewis, Francis Chan, some universalist guy I don’t remember the name of anymore. I watched sermons online because I was too embarrassed to go to a “christian” church because I didn’t understand when to stand/sit. What to say/do. How to sing. While their interpretation of the bible was mostly the same as what I believe/practiced all my life, there were a few things that were different. Mainly bible literalism, young earth creationism, works vs faith (personally, i feel that all sides of the coin believe in the same thing, people just argue for the sake of arguing).
I put this off for a while. I got too involved in college. I stopped thinking about my decision as to what religion I personally affiliated with. In the end, I knew that i believed in God. I surrounded myself with people that believed in God. I practiced what the bible/church that I grew up in taught me.
Then I started dating a girl whose dad was a pastor at a non-denominational (protestant) church. I went with her to the christian group that she was a part of. It was great meeting others that loved Jesus just as much as I did. It was nice meeting people that seemed so grounded in their beliefs; it was even nicer meeting people that went through similar struggles to mine. I was all for it.
I started to talk to some of these people and then talk to my girlfriend at the time about my battle with religion (never actually saying everything that I’m saying right now). We would talk doctrine. We would talk about our interpretations of different parts of the bible. We would talk about our duties as christians. It seemed like all these people, even though they were “non-denominational,” believed in the same things. If I disagreed with something, it would turn into the other person convincing me why this is the only correct answer. Why it cannot be any other answer. Then if I would still question it, I would be met with “I’ll pray for you.”
These people were great but I could never actually open up to them. Due to my beliefs. And also due to their being so religious. I’ve never really been around people my age that so strongly believed in what they believed in. I couldn’t tell stories of my past and I couldn’t completely open up about things I was doing at the time. I didn’t want them to harshly judge me or my girlfriend. Obviously, I was doing things that I knew were wrong. But with my normal friends, I would easily talk about it. With these guys, I almost had to keep up a facade.
I remember one of my first lunches w/my girlfriend’s family, her dad asked me if I wanted to pray before the meal. I froze. I couldn’t do what I normally did with my family, I didn’t know what these people exactly believed in. I didn’t know if I was going to fuck it up somehow. I wanted to make a good impression but I didn’t want to say something wrong. I also didn’t want to lie to them and repeat what I’ve heard others say before meals in these kinds of settings. I told him no. He looked disappointed.
Once things started to get more serious with this girl, I started thinking marriage. My parents would absolutely not support me in anyway (and a good chance of not attending my wedding) if it were not a catholic wedding. Criteria for a catholic wedding are as follows:
- has to be in a catholic church
- promise that you will raise your kids catholic (it’s okay if you marry a non-catholic, you just have to promise that your kids will be raised catholic)
There are other stuff, but these two are the important ones for the purpose of this post. Obviously a lot of people get married and forget about these kinds of contracts. But I’m not one of those people. Obviously I’m a little bit of a pussy because I’m letting my parents opinions affect my wedding. Maybe that was because I didn’t exactly know what I wanted.
After being exposed to my girlfriend and her christian friends, I learned that I really liked these people. A lot of the stuff that I learned from these guys and going to their group was totally relevant. A lot of these things aligned so closely with what i believed (in ways that both agreed/disagreed w/catholic teachings). But I was also insanely bitter. I would have to be careful about talking about what I believed in exactly because I didn’t feel like getting chewed out. I would hear stories of catholic bashing. etc etc. I didn’t consider myself a catholic at the time, but my parents were and i found a lot of what I heard offensive. There were just so many things that I heard that were straight up wrong like how catholics prayed to the dead, faith/works.
If it means anything, I don’t really get bitter about any of this anymore. A lot of times, I hear about people’s interpretations of the bible and think to myself “there’s just so much that can’t be right.” Well, if that’s the case, then it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that a lot of the things that I believed in can’t be right. On a macro level, we were all on the same page, though. We love Jesus.
I’m going to take a small moment to talk about what I believe in right now on February 8th, 2015. I believe in God. I believe that catholics can go to heaven. I believe that protestants (mainline, reformed, evangelical, etc), orthodox, anglican, etc can all go to heaven. I’d like to think that quasi-christians (mormons, jehovahs witness) can be saved but I really don’t know. I don’t know what I think about predestination (calvinism) nor do I think it really matters. I’m iffy on bible literalism. I don’t believe in a young earth. I don’t care if Mary was a virgin or not. I don’t mind that catholics believe in the infallibility of the pope; I don’t believe in it, though. All of these things don’t really matter to me. I believe in the historical definition of christians, “followers of christ.” I don’t agree with the whole “you have to have had a born again experience and follow these X amount of protestant doctrines.” I don’t know what that makes me. But I do think I need to start going to church again. And I do think that I am a christian. Sorry if this offends anyone.
Fast forward to yesterday.
I am no longer with this girlfriend, but I have stayed in touch with her christian friends. For one reason or another, we kept in touch and the guys that I’ve met in this group are all great people. I love them all. I don’t see them too much mostly because I think i’m spread too thinly on the friend side of life and there’s too many people I try to stay in touch with. I don’t keep up a facade with these guys anymore. I like them enough to be honest with them. They seem to still like me even though I’m not exactly the best person. But, when I’m around their christian friends, I’m a little more conscious of what I say, just in case.
We went out for one of their birthdays. We rented a party bus with 40 people total. Most of the people on the bus were practicing christians that went to various non-denominational churches in chicago. And after the night was over, it got me thinking.
I’ve been to small groups with non-denominational churches, with reformed bapstist churches. I’ve been to bible studies at my church as well as the university’s catholic church. How the fuck do I not know what I believe in? Is it because I just believe everything I hear from all the sides? Is it because I’m just skeptical? Am I scared to commit?
One day I’m going to get married. If I get married in a catholic church, what will these guys think of me? If I invite them to the reception and a prayer that is said that might be a traditional catholic prayer, will these guys silently judge me? Will they think that I’m not saved yet? Will they try to evangelize me?
What if I end up opting for a non-catholic wedding. Will my parents come to my wedding? Will my extended family be silently judging me? Side story: about half of my extended family is just as intense as my nuclear family. They even follow the catholic doctrines involving divorce (sending letters to higher ups in the community over in Rome). Will my family consider me a lost cause that’s doomed to hell?
In the end, whatever I end up choosing and following will obviously be of my own volition. It sucks that I’m so easily influenced by all these different things. It’s shitty that I looked into it so much that I am conflicted. Sometimes I wish I could just blindly follow one religion without ever questioning it.
Summary:
I believe that many catholics are christians, many are not. Many protestants are christian and many are not. I disagree with teachings of many churches but the core theology is still christian. I am too lazy to capitalize christians/catholics/other words, sorry.
There were probably things that I said about more than one religion here that were not 100% true. Like I said, this is more of a journal entry than anything so I didn’t really fact check.
A few things that really stuck with me in my journey:
- Grace/Faith vs Works parallels your pulse. Your pulse doesn’t keep you alive. Your heart keeps you alive while simultaneously causing your pulse. But with no pulse, it is a good sign that your heart isn’t beating.
- Works don’t save you, your faith does. But due to that faith, it causes the works as a side effect of salvation. And similar to your pulse, if there is no works, it is a good sign that your faith is failing.
- Anyone that professes that Jesus is their lord is a follower and therefore a Christian.
- Our time is better spent on things that aren’t petty legalistic issues within the christian brotherhood. Instead, we could work together instead of burning bridges to spread the message of God.
- God loves you.
I’m not entirely sure what the point of this was. But I thought about it a lot since last night. I’ll make a post eventually if my journey makes any significant progress. If it doesn’t, I promise you all that one day when I’m married and have children, I will teach my children to love God. I will teach that what I believe, what their mother believes, and I will let them choose what they believe. And no matter what they believe, I will respect their decision. I trust that if I instill good values in them and show them the glory that is God’s love, they will make a well-informed decision.
Now to end this long-ass post, shout outs to my core group of friends from college. Many of us moved out of Chicago after graduating so we only get to see each other once or so a month now. But I’m happy we still text, tweet, and talk to each other somewhat regularly. I love all of you for being you. We are the most diverse group of friends that I have ever been a part of. Everyone that I introduce to you guys always point out how we have people representing so many demographics. Girls and guys that are yellow, black, white, and brown. Christians, atheists, jews, muslims, hindus, and people following their own path. It’s great to have a group of friends that are so similar yet so different. My two old roommates were a cultural jew and a muslim and i have learned so much from you two in so many ways.
There’s a lot more that goes into this story and a lot of this is very surface level. But it covers the important stuff. IF you made it this far, thanks.