In this week’s episode, Joe and I – helped by some great feedback – talk about what we gain from belonging to a church, and also what we gain by not belonging. The topic was inspired by a talk I heard a friend of mine give. She was born and raised in Nepal, but moved back to Scotland, and so never felt that she really belonged in either place. But now she has come to see that not-belonging gives her a unique and valuable perspective.
Of course, we all want to belong. And we need to belong somewhere. But maybe we don’t need it as much as we think. Or maybe it can be a bit of a trap. C.S. Lewis wrote about our desire to be part of the ‘inner circle’. We think that everything will be sorted once we gain acceptance and we will really be at home. But there are always more circles inside. Maybe the truth is the none of use ever truly feel at home.
Not on this earth, anyway. It seems to me that this feeling of belonging/not belonging is baked into Christianity. Christianity is partly about living with uncertain states. It proclaims the Kingdom of God as both ‘now’ and ‘not yet’. We are saved and being saved. We are ‘in the world and not of it’ as the old saying goes. And we echo that cry of the distraught father in the gospels: “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).
Christianity is, perhaps, a much more liminal, quantum state than we are often led to think. And maybe the path of the faithful doubter, or the unbelonging belonger, is a stronger, more helpful place than we realise.