Losing My Religion' by William Lobdell - Los Angeles Times
Several news sources picked up this story yesterday, promoting Mr. Lobdell's new book about his faith journey and how it related to his profession. It always pains me to hear or read of something as tragic as a person losing faith. As a reporter for the LA Times, covering religion in the LA area and abroad, this reporter was disenchanted by what he saw and it lead him away from his one time enthusiastic belief in God. While the numerous articles did not go into much detail about the events that he witnessed that led him to his current position, one can easily imagine that they were not in the least bit flattering to Christianity or to religion in general.
While it always disappoints me to hear or read of such things, I can not do so without thinking about the religious climate that Jesus himself was born into. Much of his recorded ministry in the gospels is confrontational; confrontation with the religious elites of his day. In fact, historically, Jesus was killed by these Jewish elites because of his ongoing and incessant criticism of their misdeeds and self-righteous conduct. Reference was made in the above article about how Mr. Lobdell was disgusted by seeing Bishops and such getting out of limosuines and having their rings kissed while thier constituency suffered tremendous injustices, often perpetrated by the very people these Bishops were known to protect. Similarly, the gospel story tells of leaders who wanted the best seats, brought undue attention to their giving, and loaded their subjects down with religious burdens that they themselves were unwilling to bear.
I look forward to reading Lobdell's book, but I do hope that he will one day rediscover faith. Fortunately, for me, I learned a long time ago that my faith, if it was to survive, could not rest in others and its validity had to exist solely upon what it meant for me and what it did within me as a person. People will fail; the visible respresentations of all the world's major religions are not always perfect examples of the principles they are supposed to represent. Personal faith, however, looks beyond this and is able to gain value even where there is failure and compromise. My prayers are with Mr Lobdell and the many thousands of disillusioned people who legitimately can relate to him.
