Entry 38 – Uncovering ‘Recovering’

I received a recent message thru Facebook asking me to clarify what exactly I meant by ‘Recovering’, and to define exactly what I am recovering from.  At first, when I got the message, honestly, I thought I would just send this person the link to my first entry on this site.  I decided to reread my first entry from September of 2009, and I realized that I hadn’t addressed much in terms of my naming this whole venture, ‘The Recovering Christian’.

In many respects this term, ‘The Recovering Christian’, is a nod to Alcoholics Anonymous whereby people who attend the meetings are recovering or attempting to recover from a life of addiction to alcohol.  In my case, I am recovering from being led to believe certain things about the world that I now consider to be not based on good evidence.

So, to be clear, I am no longer a Christian.  I am an athiest.  But, I am, and probably always will be, recovering from being a Christian as, if you look at my previous entry #37, I  still have anger issues regarding what I was taught about the world and my place in it.  I conciously can reason that my parents were just doing the best that they knew how to do, but in the end, I am human, and sometimes I have a hard time not blaming them.

So that is the ‘recovering’ part for me.  I often times long for the fellowship, comradery, and community that I had as a Christian.  But I am slowly but surely finding the same sorts of friendships amongst secular social circles.

For the person that sent me the Facebook message, ‘Thank You’.  Your question helped solidify some of the things I am still battling with as a ‘Recovering Christian’.  I hope this post was somewhat clear, and that it might help others who are struggling to come to grips with their ‘ungripping’, so to speak, of the Christian faith.

Again, if you are someone in need of talking about the highs and lows of losing one’s faith in faith, feel free to drop me a line via the.recovering.christian@gmail.com.  I’m much more apt to read a message via email than I am thru Facebook or Twitter, although I do get around to checking these accounts periodically.  Would love to hear from you.

Thanks for stopping by,

TRC