Letting Go of God

One of the most religious experiences I had during the holiday season was watching the film, “Letting Go of God” on Showtime (watch a 17 minute video clip). The film is a one woman show by Julia Sweeney in which she describes her long pilgrimage from being happily raised in a strong Catholic family to her becoming an atheist. Her sharing was always thoughtful, moving, and even funny. When she told her mother she could no longer believe in the existence of God, her mother asked, “Are you telling me that you are no longer going to church?” At another point her mother told her that it was okay for her to believe whatever she wanted, but asked if she had to tell everyone about it?

The most striking moment in the film was when she addressed God near the show’s end: “It’s because I take you so seriously that I can’t bring myself to believe in you. It’s a sign of respect.”

Ironically, the one thing that comes through in her monologue is how seriously she takes God. I know a lot of people who “believe” in God who don’t take Him nearly as seriously. They believe in the existence of God but never give any serious though to what that belief means or should mean in their lives.

Lord Alfred Tennyson wrote: “There lives more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds.”

Ms. Sweeney also has a healthy sense of mystery. She confesses that she still wonders at the awesome question of why there is something and not nothing. This awe in the face of mystery is not far from God. This sense of mystery is something that far too often we Christians jettison. We give the impression we have everything figured out, that we don’t see “through a glass darkly” (I Corinthians 13:12)

Maybe sometime we can look at this film together, so that we can be better able to share our own pilgrimages and give a reason for the hope that is in us. (I Peter 3:15)

2009 C. David Hess