Chad, I’ve been following your work on substack for a while, and have felt some synergy between the creative ways you are pursuing spiritual community and my own work. I’m not sure if this is a break in etiquette, but I wonder if you may be interested in my Unchurched Manifesto, because it is a pursuit of Christian belonging that doesn’t hinge on belief. My opening lines are “at the border of Christian belonging, between belief and unbelief, I want to build a playground.” My hope is that bodies crossing from belief to unbelief encounter a playground instead of a border. I’m trying to conjure a seamless space between secular Christianity (“bodies will always be from the place where they are from, and fragments of that place remain after a border crossing—here is a place to play with those fragments…) and sacred atheism, to figuratively open the border erected by mandated belief, to invite us to pursue deep belonging across varying beliefs. Anyway the creative ways you are pursuing belonging with your Mennonite community really resonated and I wonder if my piece might enrich your journey?
And I feel you on that need for communal connection and support. I think it’s so necessary for us to be creative and generous in building solidarity over the coming years. I left church 3.5 years ago and lately have felt a visceral ache to be in a room with people who want the world I also want; but the religious trauma is too near for church to be accessible. Last week I finally onboarded with a local mutual aid group, and just being in that room brought such relief to my body. My whole system is functioning better, more grounded and joyful since. We really need each other, so I love what you are doing.
Thank you for your writing here and for lending your voice to scientific animism. I’ve been carrying last month’s prayers of thanksgiving through my days.
Here’s the link to my piece, in case you are interested:
I'm very lucky that there are churches near me that fit where I'm currently at. If I didn't have that, I think I'd have left church a long time ago too. (I actually shared my first Scientific Animism post with my pastors! One of them met me for coffee to talk about it, and I've referenced our conversation in some of my posts! She delivered a beautiful eulogy at the tree funeral I organized, and she subscribes to this Substack!)
I also here you on the trauma being too recent to stand being in church. Glad you found a mutual aid group to join! I'd love to hear more about what that looks like in practice. Like, what are your meetings like?
When I met Antonia Malchik in person this past spring, she recommended your Substack to me. She spotted some overlap in our themes.
It warms my heart to know that you've been carrying the animist gratitude prayers with you. Thanks for reminding me to read your post! (No break in etiquette detected!)
I remember your tree eulogy piece! I loved that. And that’s so sweet that Antonia saw a connection between our writing. I found yours through a mention in one of her pieces.
I hope to write more on mutual aid as I spend more time with the organisation. Right now they have monthly all teams meetings, monthly socials, and a weekly homeless distribution. The team is going trough a lot of growth post election, and has a decentralized structure, so there’s a lot of potential to build community in any direction that meets a need. If you haven’t read Dean Spade’s book Mutual Aid, I highly recommend it. I’m reading it now and it’s giving me so much hope. It’s sort of a practical handbook on how to build communities of solidarity that are non-hierarchical, consensus-based, and steadfastly anticapitalist (he offers clear guidelines to prevent co-optation. I hope to write on it more, because I feel like church communities could really benefit from the principles he lays out.
"In the words of Le Guin: “To learn which questions are unanswerable, and not to answer them: this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness.” Love this. As someone who still likes to wrestle with what's unanswerable, I appreciate the reminder!
Hi Chad, thank you for writing this. Perhaps you know Andrew's work at Bog Down and Aster. He and I discuss these themes often, and I'm glad to know you're out there listening for the animism in the Gospels.
My brain is melting a little. Great post. Especially “Pray like no one is listening.” That works on so many levels.
Yeah I sorta wanna become a street artist and post it around town. Not sure what art to pair with it, if I wanted to do a stencil or wheatpaste!
Chad, I’ve been following your work on substack for a while, and have felt some synergy between the creative ways you are pursuing spiritual community and my own work. I’m not sure if this is a break in etiquette, but I wonder if you may be interested in my Unchurched Manifesto, because it is a pursuit of Christian belonging that doesn’t hinge on belief. My opening lines are “at the border of Christian belonging, between belief and unbelief, I want to build a playground.” My hope is that bodies crossing from belief to unbelief encounter a playground instead of a border. I’m trying to conjure a seamless space between secular Christianity (“bodies will always be from the place where they are from, and fragments of that place remain after a border crossing—here is a place to play with those fragments…) and sacred atheism, to figuratively open the border erected by mandated belief, to invite us to pursue deep belonging across varying beliefs. Anyway the creative ways you are pursuing belonging with your Mennonite community really resonated and I wonder if my piece might enrich your journey?
And I feel you on that need for communal connection and support. I think it’s so necessary for us to be creative and generous in building solidarity over the coming years. I left church 3.5 years ago and lately have felt a visceral ache to be in a room with people who want the world I also want; but the religious trauma is too near for church to be accessible. Last week I finally onboarded with a local mutual aid group, and just being in that room brought such relief to my body. My whole system is functioning better, more grounded and joyful since. We really need each other, so I love what you are doing.
Thank you for your writing here and for lending your voice to scientific animism. I’ve been carrying last month’s prayers of thanksgiving through my days.
Here’s the link to my piece, in case you are interested:
https://open.substack.com/pub/shgalvas/p/unchurched-manifesto?r=1qx52j&utm_medium=ios
I'm very lucky that there are churches near me that fit where I'm currently at. If I didn't have that, I think I'd have left church a long time ago too. (I actually shared my first Scientific Animism post with my pastors! One of them met me for coffee to talk about it, and I've referenced our conversation in some of my posts! She delivered a beautiful eulogy at the tree funeral I organized, and she subscribes to this Substack!)
I also here you on the trauma being too recent to stand being in church. Glad you found a mutual aid group to join! I'd love to hear more about what that looks like in practice. Like, what are your meetings like?
When I met Antonia Malchik in person this past spring, she recommended your Substack to me. She spotted some overlap in our themes.
It warms my heart to know that you've been carrying the animist gratitude prayers with you. Thanks for reminding me to read your post! (No break in etiquette detected!)
I remember your tree eulogy piece! I loved that. And that’s so sweet that Antonia saw a connection between our writing. I found yours through a mention in one of her pieces.
I hope to write more on mutual aid as I spend more time with the organisation. Right now they have monthly all teams meetings, monthly socials, and a weekly homeless distribution. The team is going trough a lot of growth post election, and has a decentralized structure, so there’s a lot of potential to build community in any direction that meets a need. If you haven’t read Dean Spade’s book Mutual Aid, I highly recommend it. I’m reading it now and it’s giving me so much hope. It’s sort of a practical handbook on how to build communities of solidarity that are non-hierarchical, consensus-based, and steadfastly anticapitalist (he offers clear guidelines to prevent co-optation. I hope to write on it more, because I feel like church communities could really benefit from the principles he lays out.
That sounds good!
"In the words of Le Guin: “To learn which questions are unanswerable, and not to answer them: this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness.” Love this. As someone who still likes to wrestle with what's unanswerable, I appreciate the reminder!
Hi Chad, thank you for writing this. Perhaps you know Andrew's work at Bog Down and Aster. He and I discuss these themes often, and I'm glad to know you're out there listening for the animism in the Gospels.
Wasn’t yet familiar with Andrew’s work! Thanks for the rec. Looks good.
Beautiful. Thanks