Confessions of a post-Christian

Newsweek recently ran a cover story about the decline of a Christian nation. I was horrified to think that we were a theocracy in the first place. (Although i didn't look up my 5th grade social studies textbook to confirm what we all should know... we are a republic not a theocracy.)

I found Judith Warner's response to the Newsweek article particularly insightful. The quote that I'm considering says, " “The great end in religious instruction is not to stamp our minds irresistibly upon the young, but to stir up their own … Not to form an outward regularity, but to touch inward springs,” William Ellery Channing, the Unitarian theologian, once said."

"What identity will my children have to rebel against, in the course of growing up? Is there a way to make their experience be a moving-toward, instead of away?"

For years in and with my own family, I have sought that "moving-toward" attitude. When each child came home interested in spiritual things of any kind, my response was continually, "go try it, practice it. Faith is practiced." And over time, that is what has happened to our family... we have become a group of individuals that practice faith in a meaningful way as individuals. And consequentially, our practices have blessed the others' practices.

I hope for our country, and for that matter, all living things, to touch our inward springs. I hope that instead of creating a society without religion, we are creating a society filled with people comfortable sharing their spirit, conversant about faith, and ever-inquisitive about that which we cannot understand.