Max Cornett- Phenom. of Prayer: Changing Faith

“There is no guarantee that we will be correct in belief, or that we will let a pull towards correctness have its way. Likewise, there is no guarantee that our dispositions will be correctly aligned or that we will let the pull towards love have its way (pg.56).” 

Religion has the power to guide everything about someone’s life. It has the power to mold definitions of “good” and “bad”, “right” and “wrong”, and even “worthy” and “invalid”. Religion is a guiding force that alters the course of someone’s life and changes the way they conceptualize the world around them. But what if the voice they hear guiding their actions isn’t God? How are we to discern God’s voice from our own socialized perceptions and beliefs about what God wants? How are we able to remove ourselves from the beliefs that are indoctrinated and instilled in us from a young age and truly know God? Is God the same for everyone, or is God simply an accumulation of interpreted beliefs and hierarchies? 

Religion has always made me uncomfortable. Thinking about God makes me anxious. Growing up in an environment where I was simultaneously figuring out I was queer and being told that being queer was a sin equal to murder, I was in a pit that surrounded me in fear. I became angry and abandoned all forms of faith and any belief in higher power. I could not believe that there would be any sort of God that would create all His children, only to smite them for things they desperately wished were different. There was no possible way that God was actually there, and if He was, I wanted no part of this. Getting older, growing into myself, and learning more about faith, I’ve come to believe that God is whatever you make Him. I believe that Divinity is a gift, I believe that we each are called to serve a greater purpose, and I believe that we each have to be open to our faith being harmful.

 The biggest issue I have always had with traditional ways of Believing is the concrete nature of it. I do not believe in concrete, hold-fasts that are unchangeable and constant. Faith has to be open to criticism and open to changing natures. God has taken so many forms, shown us how to change, how to adjust, how to show mercy and grace. Why would our religion be any different?

 

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