Hello friends, I’m in my mid 20’s and this is my first time exploring religion.
I was raised in a somewhat non-religious family.
I started wanting to explore my personal beliefs more a few years ago and became agnostic.
Within this last year I have started exploring Christianity a lot more.
I even started regularly attending church 10 months ago.
I love the church, I love the community, and I love the teachings of Jesus and wish to live like him.
The only thing holding me back from fully converting, getting baptized and taking communion is actually the bible itself.
I have such a hard time “believing” in it.
Especially as a very scientific person.
I can’t get past a lot of the stories in the OT like the talking burning bush, or Noah’s arc, or all of the mysteries and miracles.
I believe strongly in evolution, I believe dinosaurs existed, and the miracles just feel fictitious as I thumb through my bible.
This cognitive dissonance is my biggest hurdle because it makes me question if what I believe in and love about the NT is even real.
I know, the whole point is to just have faith in it; but I am REALLY questioning myself.
I don’t know if I can ever believe in it, but I have loved the journey I have been on in the past year. It’s like the closer I get to wanting to be baptized, the more I struggle in belief.
I want to be Christian, but at times I feel like my brain just can’t do it, almost as if it wasn’t built to be religious.
Is this normal for late in life Christians?
Should I just stick it out and contintue to do what I’m doing and hope God eventually guides me into having a stronger faith?
With how much I struggle with this inner battle, I feel like getting baptized or taking communion would be heretical at this point.
So full disclosure I am ex-christian so take my input with a pinch of salt.
That said, I think many of your concerns would make exploration of progressive forms of Christianity something worth exploring. Your pull to community and the teachings of Jesus (whether or not he taught them or not) would be able to remain central without a need to see the Bible as a history book to be taken literally. Progressives, much like the Jews (broadly speaking), do not see the text as explicitly “true” as in factually true but rather true as in true of nature and value. In the same way that Romeo and Juliette never had to have actually existed in real life for their story to impact us and shape us.
A good place to start might be someone like Brian McLaren who was central to the movement throughout the 90s and 2000s. He has a lot of great books exploring how to bring what is good and helpful within Christianity into a world of science, inclusivity and globalisation.