Filed under: spirituality
Hello, Guest Blogger GhostGirl here. I’m the “former-Christian” of the previous post, but I prefer Recovering Christian. It’s much more hopeful, and indicates that something can be salvaged. I’ve known Steph since day one of high school. My father doesn’t realize it’s her fault I stopped going to church.
A while back I read about A.J. Jacobs and his Year of Living Biblically. The same guy wrote, “I Think You’re Fat,” in which he explores the concept of Radical Honesty.
Radical Honesty involves telling the truth. The plain, unvarnished truth, no matter how hurtful. The idea is that if you peel off all those layers, you have a more honest relationship with people. So here’s a truth: I think the guy who came up with this idea is a bit of an insensitive crackpot, but he does have a point.
For Jacobs, it was both liberating and frightening, but like anything else you can take to excess, he found the need to temper it with empathy. I could tell a person I manage that she drives me stark raving mad and if she sends me one more “thank you!!!!” email I will take her multiple exclamation points and… Or I can just delete the emails and tell her in her review that I admire her enthusiasm, which is true, and then coach her in her communication skills.
A better plan (and one in keeping with recent posts) is Radical Authenticity. Because isn’t that what he’s really trying to get at? You can fake your way through a situation, but you shouldn’t fake your way through a relationship. Radical Honesty sounds like regressing back to four years old, before you have learned about hurting other people’s feelings. Radical Authenticity would be moving past the selfish need to spew out every thought and into a way of relating that is thoughtful and based on necessary truths, not unnecessary unloading.
Besides, telling a woman at work that you have been staring at her boobs and want to sleep with her is not radically honest, it’s radically stupid and can get you fired.
-GhostGirl
I kinda hate “Recovering Christian” because to me it sounds like Christianity is some sort of disease.
But I loved the rest of your post.
CC
Comment by Chalicechick 10.16.07 @ 7:20 amEchoing what CC said about Recovering Christian. I know the term ‘recovering’ mostly from AA and
other 12 step programs
Are there Christians in your UU congregation?
Comment by Red Sphynx 10.16.07 @ 9:25 amSuppose your relationship to Christianity is similar to that of a recovering alcoholic’s relationship to alcohol.
What does that make the UU Christians in your church?
I’m going to step in here for a sec.
Red Sphynx, there are indeed many Christians in Unitarian Universalism (I see you have some on your blog roll).
At the moment, there are three people who are contributing posts to this blog, which may be confusing for all of us. GhostGirl, who wrote this post, is not a UU to the best of my knowledge, though I am (Stephanie aka Ms. Theologian owner of said blog) and Anne P (also a contributor) also grew up UU and Quaker.
I am a big believer in self-labeling, so if that’s what GhostGirl calls herself that’s fine with me as blog owner, but it’s not a commentary about Christian UUs—just her own personal experience with a particular type of Christianity, which was not particularly Unitarian or Universalist. Perhaps GhostGirl will write more to this point later.
Comment by Ms. Theologian 10.16.07 @ 9:50 amThanks for the clarification; I realized that GhostGirl wasn’t you; I didn’t realize she isn’t a UU. I navigated here via UUpdates; I thought it was a UU context.
Comment by Red Sphynx 10.16.07 @ 11:50 am> There are indeed many Christians in Unitarian Universalism
Quite. But I was wondering about Christians in her congregation. Many small UU fellowships have no Christians. But I see my assumption was mistaken — she has no such congregation.
That’s OK Red Sphynx. We know it’s a little confusing right now. We’re working on making it clearer who is who while we’re in Guest Host mode. Color coding, perhaps…
Comment by Anne P 10.16.07 @ 11:57 amFirst off, I want to say that you can blame Tori Amos for the term Recovering Christian. :-)And while it does indeed sound like I mean recovering from a disease, that was not the intent at all. So in the interests of being “authentic,” here’s an explanation:
I grew up in a very conservative Christian church. While it was not the kind of church most people would label as fundamentalist, it was certainly non-inclusive, rigid, and paranoid. There were a lot of very bad things happening that led us to eventually leave that church, but the damage was done.
Remember that to recover can mean “get or find back; recover the use of” and in fact that is the first definition of the word. And that is why I specifically chose that word. To me it indicates that I am recovering my faith. I am learning not to blame God for human actions (God and I still have some issues, but Jesus and I are pretty tight.) “Former” would indicate I have no ties to Christianity and that simply is not true. But, I cannot bring myself to identify myself as Christian because that was a world of hurt for me.
I hope that clarifies things and helps you understand my choice in label. I have rejected many others and for me this is the one that fits.
Comment by GhostGirl 10.16.07 @ 2:11 pmLeave a comment
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