I am Roger's compadre (co-mod) over in the Christian forum. And absolutely thrilled this forum is here, as I've always enjoyed religious discussion but have struggled a bit with effectively doing that in any one of the "houses" offered here at AW. I've been reading in here for the first time today, and am totally fascinated by your introductions.
I'm a 'born-again' Christian, like Roger, and a Christ-follower--somedays better at it than others. I cherish a daily, abiding relationship of love with Him and His Word, and the older I get, the more He's given me the grace to shed much of the dross of my evolving belief system (my need to be right or to have all the answers, my need for false security founded upon human opinion, my faulty trust in spiritual leaders to ground my faith), so that I can finally claim
"In Christ Alone" as my personal spiritual manifesto.
I believe that Divinity and humanity met in perfect unity 2000 years ago in the person of Jesus Christ, and I believe His claims to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life. I believed in those first two (Way and Truth) from an early age, and have come to believe in that last one (Life) in a powerful way in the last ten years. Now I also believe in the separation of church and state, which puts me at odds sometimes with my fellow believers. Because of that, I'm not always on board with religious-right political groups which I might consider as being agenda-driven, and am frankly disheartened by a lot of what passes for "Christianity" today. But that is probably because I'm still learning to extend grace to perpetual sinners like me.
Some background/life experiences that have shaped my faith today:
-raised in a "fundamental evangelical conservative" Plymouth Brethren Assembly-attending environment (but that complicated and vague label was so hard to explain as a kid, I soon resorted to answering 'Baptist' when anyone asked, though that's not quite accurate)
-attended secular, progressive, (and drug-riddled) public schools in New Jersey with smart kids who usually came from Jewish families, but then went on to Wheaton College (Billy Graham country)
-spent summer of 1974 on board a Christian commune houseboat on the main canal in Amsterdam (I cooked for 40 people) which was highly charismatic, and during the following year came to terms with the idea that I hold a theology of 'mystery'--and am content to believe simultaneously in predestination and freewill despite my limited understanding of both, so can neither claim to be a 5-point Calvinist or an Arminian
-taught in a Christian school for 8 years; left teaching to get a grad degree in Special/Gifted Ed because I was more into studying how people think and in teaching kids how to think, than I was in teaching them what to think
-a series of personal and family crises culminated in a personal Y2K crisis in fall 1999 (clinical depression) that was a major turning point in my life spiritually (that "Life" thing I mentioned above). In that desert I finally got around to reading all of the Bible I based my faith on, and in the process discovered the Person of Christ unmistakably intervening in my life and soul..."God came down," again and again and again and it has yet to stop. I wanted and needed the faith of the martyrs, or I didn't want it at all...and God graciously began to oblige. Four years later, I began writing devotional poetry, quite out of the blue, which is still my primary publication emphasis today.
-Also during that crisis time I was supernaturally led to the writings of a broad variety of Christian mystics (Augustine, St. Teresa of Avila, Julian of Norwich, Fenelon, Richard Rolle, Bernard of Clairvaux, etc.) who, with my Bible reading, have very much transformed my faith into a living thing, not simply a belief system. (In my Protestant upbringing, the wisdom of these spiritual forbears was sadly neglected.) I continued attending the Bible church on Sundays with husband and kids, but also started attending an Episcopal church on Saturdays, because I appreciated the 'bridge' it offered between Catholicism and Protestantism. And after about 2 years I finally 'got it'--the connection between the Old Testament and the New, Law and Grace, Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestantism. It was this blended input of the early Christians and the Reformation ones that has led me to be discouraged by much of what passes for Christianity today, and I'm trying to learn to channel that frustration into productive writing that addresses some of these concerns--but with grace instead of idealistic negativity
And all that's probably way long enough.