Essential* Christianity, Part 1: Introduction

What's the idea behind these posts, and who am I to do it?

(Note: From the very beginning I’ve reserved the right to revise every page in this effort as I go. What you’re reading is the most recent iteration of an evolving project. A table of contents for the project can be found here.)

Q: What is this project?

A: In my late thirties and early forties I started to experience some intuitive murmurs that I ought to give Christianity a closer look. I had been raised lightly Catholic, but I did not feel compelled to the faith when I was a child. I became been pretty intensely engaged with my spirituality in my early twenties, but in the decades of spiritual seeking that ensued I had tended given Christianity a wider berth.

As I followed those intuitive murmurs — which, again, really appeared on my radar roughy age forty, I’d say — I was led to what I would consider a major conversion experience around age 44 or 45. I have considered myself a Christian, and have been utterly captivated by Christianity since then. Looking back, I can now see a number of pronounced invitations that occurred throughout my life, including strange, serendipitous encounters and even a couple of books that arrived on my doorstep from Amazon one time, with invoices indicating I had ordered them, although I had not ordered them.

As I have explored Christianity, what I’ve discovered is complex and difficult in its various human iterations, but underneath I feel there’s a central mechanism that is incredibly beautiful and worth serious attention. I find it tricky to distinguish the signal from the noise, though, and as I make more efforts to connect with the tradition, the difficulties have mounted.

Also, I find that when I talk about my enthusiasm for Christianity, it often elicits welcoming responses, but it can all sorts of negative responses, too, and these are not always mild. This seems to me to be due to the fact that Christianity is often misunderstood, in no small part because some of the loudest devotees take the Bible too literally, or they mix the message with much more unregenerate ideas, and then applying those beliefs in all kinds of unfortunate ways.

So this series is written in an attempt to pull the signal from the noise — as it is appearing to me — and to articulate what that underlying, beautiful central mechanism of the faith, which I find so deeply captivating, might be.

I’d also say, adamantly, that nothing is being put forth as an answer here. I think Christianity is fundamentally an inquiry, and so everything described here is best read as an invitation to certain lines of inquiry.

Q: Who am I to talk about essential* Christianity?

A: Just some schmoe, if you ask me. I am very interested in Christianity, and I think there’s something powerful and real in it, and I am trying to give some shape to what that is. Like everything I write, it is as much an exercise in me thinking aloud as anything else. The asterisk that appears at the end of the word “essential*” throughout indicates that all this is just what I think. I have done some amount of spiritual study, for sure. I gave away all my stuff and lived with some crazy yogis for a couple of years in my twenties. Though I have passed through various seasons, I think I could say that I have done a certain consistent amount of spiritual reading, reflection, and meditation since then, and spirituality is very central to my life. Recently, I have been taking classes in seminary.

But I’m not claiming any skill or credentials — at all. To be sure, no institution has awarded me any. What you think of what I’m saying is the greatest credential attached to this work, as far as I’m concerned. That’s it.

I am trying to say some things that seem to me to be enduring, and I am trying make every statement here as intellectually honest and ideologically truthful as possible. I hope by doing so that I might clarify my own journey, and maybe to lay some groundwork that will allow connection with other people who are making the journey, too.

I’m putting it all on Substack because I think some people might find it worth reading. I hope you do, to the extent that you read any of it. :)