A New Kind of Christianity - Brian McLaren [4]
As time went on, we managed to create that kind of safe space in our little congregation, and many spiritual seekers came to us from the nonchurch majority. Since we lived near several universities and a number of scientific research facilities including NASA, many of these seekers were highly educated. And since we also lived in an economically diverse part of the Washington, D.C., suburbs, we had a lot of needy people too. Over time, we developed a reputation as a church that “accepted addicts” and welcomed broken people. I’d frequently hear people before or after services say things to each other like, “I recognize you. We were in detox together. Remember?”
I used to say that our congregation was one of the few where you could sit with a Ph.D. on one side of you and a GED on the other. One thing that spiritual seekers—whether they’re Ph.D.s or GEDs—have in common is an aversion to religious pretense (they use a more colorful word for it). So I had the pleasure of working with people who spoke straight and weren’t afraid to tell me what they really thought.
Sometimes what they had to say was encouraging, even if the way they said it was unconventional, like the time a long-haired and tattooed recovering heroin addict said to me after church one Sunday, “S*!&, man, that was a d^%# good talk you gave today. I usually think preachers are full of s*!&, you know, ’cause they’re so *%&%# and I can never understand a single #@*$ word they say. But my friend from Narcotics Anonymous invited me to come, and h3$#, man, you kind of got through to me. I was getting like choked up or something in there. D^%#!” Two lifelong churchgoers overheard our conversation. They just stood there, wide-eyed and appalled. I knew they wanted me to rebuke the fellow for his language, but I just smiled and thanked him and told him I hoped he’d be back next week, eager for any encouragement I could get!
Sometimes, the honest feedback from our spiritual seekers was not this positive. People would visit the church for a few weeks or months, listen intently, and then come to see me with their questions. Typically, they’d say something like: “I’ve been listening to your sermons for six months now, and I really like a lot of what you’re saying. But some of your dogma is really sticking in my throat. I just can’t swallow it all.” So they’d ask me some questions, and I would give them my best answers, but often, after they left, I felt hollow. If they “bought” my answers, I was strangely disappointed. If they pushed back and told me my answers still made no sense to them, I thought, “Good for you, because some of them don’t really make that much sense to me either.”
So week after week, satisfied or not, spiritual seekers left my office with the best answers I had to offer, and I was left with their best questions. And soon their questions became my own. Gradually, this reservoir of questions and unsatisfying answers overflowed and I experienced a kind of spiritual crisis that started me on a quest: a quest for honesty, for authenticity, and for a faith that made more sense to me and to others.2 For several years, it seemed that with every passing month, my theology was unraveling a little more. I was afraid there soon wouldn’t be anything left at all—which is unsettling in any case, but especially when you make your living as a pastor. I remember taking long walks alone during this time, praying, thinking, wondering what would happen to me if better answers never came. I couldn’t think of anyone with whom I could share my deep agony. It was a scary and tough time.
My disillusionment