Followup to: Crisis of Faith
I thought this comment from "Jo" deserved a bump to the front page:
My first instinct was to suggest to you what I did myself: create a large distance between yourself and the 'fold', in my case by moving to a different city and making different friend. Once the dust has settled, once the mind is at peace again: try and re-evaluate your faith, pick out the valuable pieces, and perhaps get in contact with old friends.
Of course, this happened to me when I was 20, and moving to a different city might have been a good suggestion even if I hadn't had a faith crisis. Your situation, obviously, is very different.
I would agree with those that advise you to take it easy, but with the caveat that there should be no strong 'rebellious' sentiment. If you're ever in a position where you are disgusted, fed up, irritated or angered by 'the fold', then breaking off more harshly might be the best thing, however painful.
If, however, you can skip this unpleasant step (and I so wish I could have!), there isn't much of a need to needlessly hurt people around you that you care about. Eventually those closest to you will have to know, I guess, so it might be good to let those select few in on the process. To share your doubts and thoughts, but without any finality (even if you have pretty much made up your mind). Ease them in on your doubts, respect and understand their instinctive urge to 'correct' you, but slowly be more firm. Those that truly love you should be able to understand and accept your decisions. Those that don't, well, it might be painful to deal with them in a way that doesn't hurt yourself or them.
On the one hand, a big danger is to put too much emphasis on 'your' truth, and have others suffer over it. On the other hand, it can also be dangerous to be someone other than yourself, and conceal your true thoughts in the name of love, and suffer yourself. I don't know what kind of person you are, but try and figure out which tendency you have, and compensate for it.
Of course, take my advice with a grain of salt. I don't know if it needs to be said, but I'm not very wise, and I don't know much about your predicament. So consider all this just as 'somewhat hastily written thoughts' from a random blog reader... but I hope it helps in some way!
"So here I am having been raised in the Christian faith and trying not to freak out over the past few weeks because I've finally begun to wonder whether I believe things just because I was raised with them. Our family is surrounded by genuinely wonderful people who have poured their talents into us since we were teenagers, and our social structure and business rests on the tenets of what we believe. I've been trying to work out how I can 'clear the decks' and then rebuild with whatever is worth keeping, yet it's so foundational that it will affect my marriage (to a pretty special man) and my daughters who, of course, have also been raised to walk the Christian path.
Is there anyone who's been in this position - really, really invested in a faith and then walked away?"