The Elephant in the Room

I'm sure that those of you who've been following this blog for a while will have noticed a big change in tone around here over the last couple of years -- and I don't just mean that there's green where there used to be navy blue. My writings used to be dominated by posts about Christianity. Taking a peek at the October 2005 page, for example, you'll see that most of my posts in that month were about faith and related issues. But even given my more sporadic 2009-style blogging habits, direct talk about Christianity is an increasingly rare topic in this corner of the web. So what gives?

In one sense, the explanation is simple. I used to blog about Christianity a lot because I used to think about issues surrounding Christianity on a daily basis. But now those issues are very rarely on my mind, so I have few thoughts to blog on.

But obviously that's not the full story. The bare truth -- (I can't think of a delicate way to put it) -- is this: insofar as 'being a Christian' entails having any beliefs, thoughts, feelings, etc, directed towards God, Jesus, Church, etc, I am no longer a Christian. And it seems pretty clear to me that being a Christian does entail those things. So I no longer consider myself a Christian.

I came to this realisation about six months ago in conversation with an ex-Christian friend. The process was a gradual one that I wasn't fully aware of as it went on. My diagnosis is this: Christianity simply petered out in my life to the point where it was no longer important to me. A key factor for me is that I've felt very little emotion about the process. I couldn't honestly say that I miss being a Christian, and nor do I feel sad about the 'transformation'.

I should point out that I don't consider this to be the result of intellectual factors -- i.e. Christianity hasn't been philosophised out of me. There wasn't a 'deconversion event', I didn't suddenly become convinced by atheistic arguments, etc. I am not an atheist. I'm not even sure if I'm an agnostic. In fact, I couldn't tell you anything that I positively believe about God.

I haven't yet talked about this to anyone outside of Leeds. I've been worried about reactions of disappointment -- especially from those who invested a lot of time and effort in my faith when I was in my late teens. But I thought it was about time I talked about it here, to explain the changes that you've no doubt noticed anyway. I realise that some of you read/linked to this blog because of its Christian focus, so I guess that the appeal will be significantly lessened now.

I'm sure there's much more to say, but that will do for now.

Blogiversary

This blog has been running for almost exactly five years! Sounds like a good excuse for a cake and some candles. May 2004 seems like so long ago -- I was finishing up my gap year at the Salvation Army in Nottingham. Very little in my life is the same now as it was then (about which more in a shortly forthcoming post).

You can't have failed to notice that this blog has gradually become an 'occasional blog', as opposed to the four-or-five-posts-a-week-type blog that it used to be. Partly this is because I'm much busier these days than I was during my undergraduate career. Partly it's because many of the topics I used to blog on regularly are not things that are frequently on my mind anymore. For example, while during my BA I read piles and piles of books, I simply don't have much time anymore casual reading. This is something that saddens me, and I'm trying to get back into the habit. And, of course, the main topic that I used to blog on hardly appears here at all anymore. I'm about to write a post addressing that.