Christianity

What I can do, what I’m trying to do, is put into words how hard it is to be without religion. To feel your way through this world without moral guidance. To exist without any sense that you belong to something bigger. To have nothing to atone for; nobody to feel indebted to. And to show that yes, we might not be shackled to old-fashioned morality ... See more

I’m not sure you can instruct someone to become religious, even if you believe it’s the way out. I think it’s something that happens to you, when you’re open to it.

But without any legitimate external authority to shape the self, whether cultural or familial, there can’t be any real stability for the individual. There can be no real constraints on the desires of the self, since that would have to come from an authority beyond it; nor can there even be any awareness—let alone shame—that what the self desires mi... See more

My guess is that what we need most in this chaotic world is moral direction. What we need most in a rapidly changing world is rootedness.

The theologian Paul Tillich declared that faith is “the state of being ultimately concerned.” He argued that because each person has something of ultimate concern that defines their life and identity, all people are religious—even the atheist. Every person has something in their life that functions as their god. For some, this god-function is occup

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Put another way, a major reason everyone is so exhausted is because we have been taught to always strive for better, even if we have only the vaguest notion of what that “better” would look like, and even if it means viewing everything in our world as raw material that could potentially be utilized toward that end. But obedience to something outsid... See more

I grew up believing what all modern people are taught: that freedom meant lack of constraint. Orthodoxy taught me that this freedom was no freedom at all, but enslavement to the passions: a neat description of the first thirty years of my life. True freedom, it turns out, is to give up your will and follow God’s. To deny yourself. To let it come. I... See more