Erin Plunkett’s essay “Temporal Houses, Eternal Mysteries: Leaving the Faith, Seeking Faith” is a wonderful biographical extension of something Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Simone Weil (and others, like Christian Wiman, who has often quoted both of these) were getting at when they spoke of, in Weil’s description, a second kind, or a second aspect, of atheism. Here’s Bonhoeffer, writing to his friend Eberhard Bethge, April 30th, 1944: I often wonder why my “Christian instinct” frequently draws me more toward nonreligious people than toward the religious, and I am sure it’s not with missionary intent... tinyroofnail.micro.blog

@tinyroofnail really like this post… i am an agnostic who has spiritual longings but i rarely find a home in traditional religion… the quote i posted by bell hooks that God is love is as close as i get to a concept of God…

@JohnBrady Isn't that the line between belief and nonbelief? Whether one can imagine something beyond our present predicament as being truly human; whether the predicament isn't (only) what it means to be human? (Maybe not belief and nonbelief... faith and atheism? Hope and atheism?)

@JohnBrady I do think you’re right, that is important. Though especially the mythic nature of the garden story still allows, or even points to, our (at least chronologically) first experience as one of exile, since we are all born and die (again, mythically) “post-fall.” The garden may still speak to our (kairologically? 🤓) first and primary state, but as @dwalbert described, this is the state of things that it takes faith to see. And even then…

@mbkriegh I get that. Nice timing! For me, there are other things about life and being — meaning, depth, joy, challenge, awe, surprise, purpose, mystery — that aren’t adequately summarized or felt or experienced in the word “love.” And these things tend to lose their hold on reality, so to speak, the further from God they get. In other words, I’ve never quite been able to get on board with The Beatles. 🙂

@tinyroofnail the pop psychology of “All You Need Is Love” is a bit much for me too… i require an appreciation of the spiritual and, in particular, a recognition of the sacred… for me this is an approach to the world one can choose and there are any number of ways to access these things if one is willing to develop a devotional practice… Buddhism is the religion i can probably most embrace for that purpose… bell hooks, by the way, has much more in mind in her exploration of what love is and what it can and should do than the Beatles…

@tinyroofnail There is some truth to this in my own experience. I can't recall how much of this I've ever posted, but basically I went from raving fundy through conservative Lutheranism through mainline Protestantism to finding myself one day with an idea of God that was no more than mental furniture--which I discarded. I went through a period of atheism (Sam Harris was my guy). There's a lot more to the story but I do believe that period of atheism was a purging of a whole lot of bad ideas about God. I'm still not a Christian but, like your story of the Muslim girl, I find myself enjoying the company of thoughtful Christians who share my belief that materialism ain't enough.

@jabel I have a nagging feeling you've had contact with Orthodoxy in the past. But even if that's true, having now purged a lot of bad ideas about God, you might benefit from visiting All Saints in Bloomington. "Orthodoxy's God" is very un-fundamentalist without being a squish.

@ReaderJohn I have had contact with Orthodoxy. I've read a few books by Orthodox writers and theologians and I attended All Saints once. When I was a Lutheran and heavily involved in the Lutheran blogosphere, I was even part of a group of folks who fancied themselves "Luthodox" (which I'm pretty sure never really existed outside of a few LCMS Lutheran bloggers circa 2005). Probably a bit silly, in retrospect, but it was a sincere effort to connect to something more ancient.

And thank you for the invitation.

@jabel I’ve enjoyed following along and catching bits of your previous journey on here

@mbkriegh Confession: I was eating my own words a little last night. Found myself reading an excerpt from James Baldwin.

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word ‘love’ here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.”

@tinyroofnail source? I'd like to read more.

@JohnBrady It’s from his 1963 book, The Fire Next Time. Hard to contextualize or summarize, but love as he’s defining it would mean for the white man to “to become a part of that suffering and dancing country that he now watches wistfully from the heights of his lonely power.” You can read that particular essay/letter in The New Yorker here. I also found a pdf here if that’s helpful.

@JohnBrady I was watching this Paris interview with Baldwin a couple weeks ago and meant to post something about it. Don’t remember what now

@tinyroofnail thanks, and thanks. Funny, a friend and I were just talking about Baldwin after enjoying American Fiction, and I'd resolved to read him.