God-incidences

Wikipedia defines a coincidence as “the noteworthy alignment of two or more events or circumstances without obvious causal connection”. Sometimes, when faced with a coincidence, we may see a causal connection that is not actually there. Yesterday, I spent four hours cleaning my car- inside and out. Just as I was finishing and putting the floormats back inside the car, it began to rain. I could get the impression that washing my car caused it to rain (especially if it happened often, or I never listened to weather reports). I could further claim that scheduling picnics also causes it to rain, being in a hurry causes the photocopier to jam, and stepping into the shower causes the phone to ring. Instead, I see these things as events that coincide in time but are unrelated by any causal connection (one did not cause the other, nor were both caused by the same thing).

There is a tendency, in some Christian circles to look at coincidences and call them God-incidences, claiming that God is the cause of the coinciding events. When I was younger, I used to say that, “Sometimes, a coincidence is a miracle with the volume turned down.” Whenever I found myself doubting that God was calling me to ordained ministry, I’d flip open my bible and a verse would catch my eye that would reassure me (though it sometimes took more than one attempt), or someone would ask me for my help or advice and I’d feel more confident that I could be a pastor, or I’d hear some amazing story and be reassured that God could do extraordinary things through ordinary people who committed themselves to Him.

For the past year or so, I’ve been detecting a different sort of pattern. When I open my Bible, my eye is caught by contradictions, unkept promises, verses about God’s cruelty and things like that. I look in the world around me, and I keep being faced with instances of intrinsically meaningless suffering and destruction. After visiting the de-conversion blog for a while, I got the chance to offer support and advice to atheists, agnostics and theists who seemed to really need a pastor. And just last week, I got a call from a friend of mine. One of the few friends who met me before I felt called to be a pastor, and even she had only met me one year earlier. I have been worrying about moving back to my old home town and meeting my old friends who knew me as a devout Christian. Would we be able to resume our friendships? Well, this friend had heard through the grapevine of my struggles and eventual decision to leave my ministry and she was calling because her husband had also gone through his own change of position and left Christianity (he now identifies himself as a spiritual or secular humanist) and she is currently unsure of where she stands when it comes to faith and doubt, but they’d like me to celebrate some sort of secular naming/welcoming ceremony for their son who was just born last month. They’re not entirely sure where they are in faith, or what they want for this rite of passage ceremony, which makes me perfectly appropriate in my own uncertainties and skills in putting together and celebrating ceremonies.

If I still believed in God and God-incidences, I don’t know how I’d see all this other than God calling me toward atheism. That does nothing good for my fragile, little brain.

It is good to know, though, that I’ll still have some friends. And I’m really looking forward to writing and performing this ceremony.