Hello

I am a highly spiritual person. The early part of my life was spent in Evangelicalism. I was deeply invested in my faith and I searched continuously to understand the depths of the religion I had been given. I read quite a bit and I focused especially on the works of authors like C.S. Lewis. Through my phase in evangelicalism, I moved through the worlds of young-earth creationism, end times eschatology, old-earth creationism, Pentecostals, Southern Baptists and non-denominational megachurches. As I dug deeper I asked questions and importantly, I wanted to understand views from both sides. I wanted to hear the views of other Christians at that time and that lead me to studying Catholic theology. As I began to see from that point of view I found many things that made sense within Christianity better from the point of view of the Catholic Church. I converted to Catholicism in 2007 and spent a lot of time reading the great theologians of that tradition. I was especially invested in Thomistic thinking and I began to work on a program of Theology at a catholic institution.

 

As I continued in Catholicism, I started to lose trust in it. Losing trust was the beginning of my journey of deconstruction. My story of deconstruction is long and complex. I have written about it in my book Way of Fear, Way of Love which will be out shortly. Some of the key takeaways there were that I found that I could believe in Christianity as a  meaningful story but I couldn’t be honest about the literalism that she defines for herself. I studied the inquisition and the Cathar crusades and I couldn’t honestly call the Church Holy in a meaningful way anymore. I saw the actions that were unveiled by further and further investigation into pedophile priests and lost my trust further. I was and am convinced that the best claiment for being the Church that Jesus founded was the Catholic or Orthodox church. As that broke down, I dug deeper into the history of Christianity and the apologetics that I had learned. As I listened more to scholars on the subject I found that most of what I had been taught was either overblown, misleading or outright incorrect. I learned about the historical Jesus and the archeology of the Bible. I found that nothing held up. In the past I had deconstructed young-earth creationism and this felt similar. Young-earth creationism is very easy to deconstruct as soon as one does an honest search. But deconstructing the whole of a faith was much more difficult. There is so much involved in how we hold to a faith with ties to sociology, psychology, philosophy, social lives, family and societal pressure. Deconstructing was the most difficult psychological event that I ever had to go through. The biggest challenge was the idea of Hell. Hell is not simply a philosophical idea, it is a cudgel to coerce. Especially in the case of young children, teaching about Hell puts a massive psychological deterent from even asking the questions that might make you think incorrectly and end up in eternal torment. This doctrine is incredibly toxic and teaching it to children really is a form of child abuse.

 

I finally came to a point where I couldn’t hold to Christianity in the way that it described itself. Though I still honor much in it and I credit it with some very positive contributions to my life, I had to reject it as too toxic. I found myself beginning to rebuild my worldview  from the ground up. I started listening to atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, pagans, new age thinkers and anything else that I could find. I began a new journey and I decided that I would explore as many worldviews as I possibly could from the inside. I started with Atheism and agnosticism. I found that these were honest conclusions and I found a new respect for the thinkers who embraced this as an honest conclusion. I wanted especially to let go of all of the judgements that I had formed about those outside of the Christian fold. From agnosticism I started to explore paganism. I wanted to find the kinds of religious traditions that existed as the earliest forms of belief. I wanted to understand the Shamans and the witches. I wanted to let go of the judgements and feel what it was like on the end of those that the Church persecuted. As I explored this path I found myself drawn to Druidry. Druidry offered me the opportunity to see the world from a pagan point of view and to connect to celtic culture that I was already invested in. Druidry has been a great gift and has helped me see through a very different lens.

 

My spiritual path is a continuing project and I intend to continue exploring. I have loved druidry and I will always consider myself a druid. I am currently exploring more of the East and finding a lot of depth and meaning. I am continuing my goal to explore as many of the world’s faith systems from the inside as much as I can.