Midlife Changes

 

As I mentioned yesterday, Bruce Gerencser’s blog has been one of my regular reads for nearly a decade. For one thing, I enjoy his writing style, which I cannot emulate. For another, I admire his learnedness and sheer integrity. He was part of Evangelical churches almost from birth through the next fifty years 

and was a pastor for twenty-five of them. Like many clergy and lay members of such churches, he was a conservative Republican though, he says, that slowly changed. So did the way he defined and preached his Christianity.

The latter had much to do with his study of the Bible—about 20,000 hours’ worth, by his own reckoning. Finally, he left Christianity and faith altogether. As you can imagine, he has received many dismissive and even threatening letters and e-mails from self-professed Christians. Some say he was studying the wrong way. Others  say that it was a “midlife crisis” and he should get over it. Still others accuse him of becoming an atheist and humanist for personal glory or  monetary reasons.

From what I know of him, through reading his blog and corresponding with him, none of those charges make any sense. First of all, what is the “right” way to read or study the Bible, or to worship? As for fame and glory: Although the United States is nominally a secular country, religion, and Christianity in particular, is central to many of our institutions and people’s lives. So I don’t think becoming an atheist improved anyone’s social or economic standing. 

So, was he having a “midlife crisis?” Perhaps. If he was, so were many other people who changed their opinions or way of life based on what they’ve learned.  An example is how Gloria Steinem viewed transgender people. Like other second-wave feminists during the 1970s and 1980s, she was critical of us and said some of us chose gender reassignment surgery because of rigid gender roles imposed by patriarchy. Later, however, she publicly changed her stance, recognizing that transgenders and feminists share many of the same goals, including bodily autonomy and dismantling the very gender norms she previously believed to be the reason why we underwent surgery and other changes. 

People who changed their opinions are often accused of being weak “flip-floppers” or, worse, opportunists. If anything, I respect them for having the courage to continue learning and evolving, even doing so may result in a great personal cost. (I think also of how his pilgrimage to Mecca changed the way Malcolm X saw his faith, causing him to leave the Nation of Islam. Some say it led to his assassination.) They are nothing like those who abandon principles or, worse, betray those who loved and  trusted them only for personal gain. That is the opposite of integrity.

In brief, I have the utmost respect for people who are willing to learn and, if need be, change their behavior, beliefs or ways of life in the middle of their lives. There are many such people whose names I will never know. But I am glad that others, like Malcolm, Gloria—and Bruce—have given us, in one form or another, accounts of their journeys.

Perhaps they did, after all, have a “midlife crisis.” But sometimes a “crisis” is exactly what we need to become better, or at least more authentic, versions of ourselves.