Will Religion Help Me?
Dear Isabel,
I feel like I’m uncultured and not enlightened. I want to be morally right and not be a bad or evil person. I want to be the kindest I can be. I feel like there is some form of deity. I don’t know what they’d be like, but I don’t think they would care what us humans do. I think they’d focus on other places, not Earth. I don’t know if there’s other deities, but I’d like to think there are. I think religion could bring me enlightenment and enhance my morality. Some of my beliefs wouldn’t fit with some religions, but I’d still want to find a community I can feel safe and comfortable with. Would religion help with my life?
Searching for Something
Dear Searching,
You do have a lot of concerns that religious communities try to address. And true to your signature, you seem to be a searching, inquiring person. A religious community could definitely be a help to you, and it could benefit from your participation also. So the short answer is, yes, religion can help with your life! The longer answer will require some research by you into whether a particular community is a good match. I encourage you to start with the website and, if it looks promising, follow up by visiting a service. If that looks promising, set up an appointment with a clergyperson or lay leader.
The concerns you’ve named make a list of questions you can consider as you “interview” each community—and you absolutely should think of each as a bar they need to reach.
"Uncultured" – you are being pretty hard on yourself here. Everyone has a culture, and cultural knowledge. If you are feeling ignorant about religious texts and history, please don’t worry about that. Everyone is there to learn.
"Enlightenment" – I think you are not using this in the Buddhist sense alone, but in the sense of acquiring more wisdom and insight. This is where religious communities come into their own. Few other institutions in our world concern themselves with helping people to become wise. And not all religions do—so if they look blankly at you when you mention enlightenment, you know they’re not a good fit.
"Morality" – this is obviously a core concern for you—how great. Of course, most if not all religions care about morality, but there are so many moral values, and different religions lift up different ones. Justice, duty, compassion, sexual purity, obedience, love of one’s neighbor . . . So make sure you look for religions that value what you hope to develop in yourself—kindness is the quality you specifically mention, and you probably have a couple of others in mind as well. Go ahead and ask them specifically what their chief moral concerns are.
"Belief in a deity who isn’t concerned about humans" – this narrows down your options quite a lot, if you want the religion to share this belief. Places that tend to welcome agnostics, deists (which are similar to what you’re describing), atheists, doubters, and polytheists are Pagan, Quaker, Unitarian Universalist, Humanistic Judaism, Buddhist, and Ethical Culture communities, and in congregations describing themselves as “theologically liberal.” You might be fine in a more traditionally theist religion, as long as they’re openminded and don’t put pressure on you to adopt the doctrine.
And last but definitely not least, you "want to feel safe and comfortable." Physical and emotional safety are non-negotiable. Comfort is more complex, depending what you mean. Being challenged to practice your principles is a sometimes uncomfortable, but valuable part of spiritual living. But your religion should never mock you for who you are or express contempt towards you. If you get that vibe from any place you visit, shake its dust off your shoes and go elsewhere.
Best of luck in finding a place that matches your inquiring mind and caring heart.
Wishing you well,
Isabel
Next week: Two spouses, two religions, going to different faith communities each weekend. How are we going to make this work?
Friends! Thank you for following me over to Ghost. I'm still sorting out the format here, but I'm glad to be severing ties with Substack, which doesn't enforce its terms of service, and using a platform that does. There's nothing you need to do--you'll get the emails every week as usual.
Speaking of which, I apologize for the long lull between posts. I took one week off for travel, and then the night I returned home, I got sick and it has taken a little while to recover. Now I'm back in the swing of things, I'll see you next Tuesday.
