IN SEARCH OF COMMUNITY David Herbert The experience of attending my first meting of the Cambridge SoF group, coupled with one of the letters in a recent issue of Sea of Faith in which the correspondent described herself as a "lone humanist", prompted me to commit some of my own thoughts to paper. Though not actually labelling myself a humanist, I suppose I fall into that camp largely by default, due to a feeling of being cut adrift from any received spiritual tradition. To me, membership of a church or other religious group requires the sharing of a common language, a history of symbols and rituals which offer meaningful insight into human conflicts and which also offer some hope of their resolution. At the moment I feel something of a discontinuity with the Christian tradition to which I formerly belonged (and which, at one time, I found meaningful).
It's like the faith I once had is now a pile of broken fragments and I'm faced with the rather uncertain task of making sense of them. I feel there's nothing compelling me to reassemble these fragments in anything resembling the same way, and therein lies a difficulty. Personally I find the task of forging new meanings a daunting one, and look enviously at those who are helped by the framework of existing religious tradition.
I have to say that the Christian story has been largely spoilt for me by a short period ten years ago during my first year at university. I became involved, for reasons having more to do with personal turmoil than anything else, with an evangelical group. Their concerns (and hence mine) were mainly about converting others to the "one true faith" on the one hand and purity of doctrine on the other. I had to suppress my own doubts and questionings in the effort to appear without conflict, in order to better witness to others.
This state of affairs couldn't and didn't last long. My doubts about the whole thing surfaced too strongly and I eventually felt I had to leave the group. People I had hitherto been friendly with either pursued me to try to win me back or avoided me in embarrassment. It was a very painful time, which has left its scars. Because I rejected the interpretation of the Christian faith which I had, at first, enthusiastically embraced, I felt I had no place in the church.
After leaving I wandered through the literature of many other traditions. Slowly I discovered alternatives, and have come to believe firmly that there are other equally viable views of the world. The exclusive nature of the "black and white" Christianity to which I once belonged has very much faded into the background, along with the supernatural underpinning - so much so that much of the Bible seems odd to me now; its language just doesn't speak to me any more. The same goes for Christian practice. I feel very awkward at the thought of singing hymns and taking part in prayers in a "church" context. I feel that I'm almost starting again.
This has brought me to a conflict. Though feeling distanced from the conventional symbolic forms of Christianity, and seeing them as one set among many viable truths, I nevertheless still feel drawn to some sort of community of people who reflect seriously on spiritual issues. For me, the religious quest cannot be undertaken in isolation. It needs input, challenging and testing (and hence modifying) in life and community. Otherwise it becomes an unhealthy inward-looking intellectual trip with no real relevance to everyday existence.
I feel drawn, therefore, to something like the church, but not exactly. Maybe it approximates to the "humanist Christian church" of the correspondent I referred to at the start. But I doubt such a thing exists. I wonder what would be distinctive about the practice of such a body. It would clearly allow for a wide range of views, so it is difficult to see how it could have any cohesiveness without the common language factor. Allowing a wide diversity of beliefs seems to imply a looser structure.
The trouble is, there comes a point when the sense of community evaporates and we all become "lone humanists".
Is SoF as a "network" going to help? I wonder. I find a tacit assumption of the Christian framework in much of the discussion in the magazine (and, although I am hardly in a position to judge after only one meeting, perhaps in local groups too?). That provides a reassuring continuity of structure for those people pursuing a spiritual journey within the Christian tradition but leaves the likes of me feeling rather awkward, trying to communicate in a language in which I am not fluent.
I hope that, by trying to express my difficulties, I will strike a chord with some readers. I am certainly keen to hear what people think.
David Herbert is a software engineer in Cambridge.