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Author, Evangelical theologian, and recently deceased Christian reformer Rachel Held Evans poignantly stated,
"A lot of people think the hardest part about religious doubt is feeling isolated from God. It's not. At least in my experience, the hardest part about doubt is feeling isolated from your community."
In this episode Valerie and Nathan share their thoughts and personal experiences about how faith expansion can be both a deeply sacred experience of personal enlightenment but also profoundly isolating, lonely, and relationally painful as we try to relate to our former circles of family and friends. Why is this so hard? Val and Nathan offer some ideas:
Our Former Inner Circle LDS tribe (both friends and family):
- Sometimes build their relational lives around the church, which makes relating to those different from themselves challenging; especially in relationships where both parties were accustomed to relating to one another only through church-related common beliefs
- Sometimes seem to struggle being genuinely interested, curious, and open to the experiences of their friends and loved ones now differing from themselves and relate to us from a place of "concern, heal, reconvert, or fix"
- Are conditioned by teachings at church that those of us in faith expansion are "falling away" or "led by Satan" in our experiences, thereby making it challenging to want to explain, justify, self defend (as we have heard this rhetoric ourselves all of our lives)
- Judge those of us no longer fully aligned with them. This judgment might be cloaked in 'concern', but its essence (possibly unconscious but still felt by us) is "without the church you are lost. As a faithful church member, my testimony insulates me in certainly, thereby also preventing me from curiosity, openness, and a true desire to learn from you."
These divides create an added layer of grief on top of the grieve of faith and trust crisis. These divides prevent us from drawing upon our core family and friends when we’re need them most.
This episode was is offered with the hope to help you feel seen, understood, and not alone as we struggle relationally in our faith expansion.
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