{"id":32,"date":"2007-02-09T21:57:57","date_gmt":"2007-02-09T21:57:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emergentchurch.info\/?p=42"},"modified":"2009-06-11T15:36:25","modified_gmt":"2009-06-11T15:36:25","slug":"better-to-walk-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/2007\/02\/09\/better-to-walk-away\/","title":{"rendered":"Better to walk away?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is more of a personal post than anything I have written yet, but I value this community as a forum and wanted to post my thoughts.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/emergentchurch.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/02\/79783535walking_away_2.jpg\" title=\"79783535walking_away_2.jpg\" alt=\"79783535walking_away_2.jpg\" align=\"left\" \/>So I met with a mentor of mine the other day to discuss a variety of issues. As we were discussing my understanding of faith and the struggles I have worked through, I made the comment that during the one of the lowest times of my spiritual life, I came to a point where I either had to walk away from the faith, or come up with a new understanding of it. It was painful experience and for me, the theology of the emerging church and post-modernity offered the new lens that I needed. Rather than &#8220;finding faith&#8221; I found my beliefs shifted so that I could &#8220;keep my faith.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Her response was, &#8220;Sometimes it is better to walk away.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I understand her perspective &#8211; those leading the church should be firmly rooted and it is better to have a false teacher leave the church than to have one lead people away.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>The problem comes when that person is you.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>That is why I value these friendships so much. Emergent-BG has offered me a place to work through my own doubts and issues (and believe me there are many) without condemnation. At the same time, I hope it has served as an environment where others can explore faith paths even if they don&#8217;t prescribe to one.<\/p>\n<p>All that is to say, thank you all for being a community where we each can work journey spiritually together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is more of a personal post than anything I have written yet, but I value this community as a forum and wanted to post my thoughts. So I met with a mentor of mine the other day to discuss a variety of issues. As we were discussing my understanding of faith and the struggles [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,21],"tags":[50,760],"class_list":["post-32","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","category-thoughts","tag-doubt","tag-faith"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107,"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions\/107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}