Religion: handle with extreme care

These days I do a lot of my thinking while running in the morning. Admittedly, most of those thoughts are “I will die any second” or “Was that the sound of my knee breaking?” But sometimes between the moments of bodily ruin, real thoughts sneak in.

And so this morning, a few blocks from my house, I began to wonder about exactly how to make sense of my journey with evangelicalism, and specifically the first chapter of it—from my high school “conversion” to my zealous college and grad school years.

Often we ex-vangelicals say things like I was brainwashed. I sometimes use words like these, but in my case it doesn’t quite fit, as I was sincerely taught sincere beliefs by sincere people, and for the most part I sincerely believed them. Brainwashing usually implies a sinister intent or significant coercion. Another popular phrase is It was all I knew growing up. This is true for many folks, but my household wasn’t really evangelical at all. It was something I discovered in Young Life, then a Vineyard church, then Campus Crusade.

What came to me this morning, as I searched for a better metaphor or narrative, was this:

I was a kid. A kid who was not ready for religion. When my friends and I discovered evangelicalism, the only real suffering some of us had known was teenage angst. In the Bible we discovered both a treasure trove and an arsenal. When our angst needed consolation, we found it in our faith. When our angst thought it needed weapons, we found those too.

In that sense the appropriate metaphors for my early evangelicalism might be a stick of dynamite, or a box with plutonium inside, or an airplane. Something that can conceivably serve a good purpose but in the hands of someone untrained, unprepared, and full of teenage hormones can probably only wreak destruction.

Thus concludes a personal reflection with no takeaway or greater purpose. Just kidding; while I do not offer you The Three Ts of Post-Evangelicalism or Which Disney Princess is your Deconstruction? (though I would take that quiz), I will tie one little bow on this blog post:

Religion should be handled with care.

It is a powerful force. It has shone rays of hope into pits of despair. It has brought civilizations to the brink of destruction. If we plan to speak a religious word, or perform a religious practice, we should do so very, very thoughtfully. We should make sure we are within reach of humility and curiosity.

I still think religion, faith, spirituality, the Bible, and community are valuable and worth our time. With great care.