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Helene 3 months, 1 week ago.
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This is too long to be read by anyone but I just wanted to get it down in writing so that I know it’s on here and I can refer to it. Again, it’s hard to formulate thoughts and experiences in another language so a lot of it are generalizations and approximations.
My story
I grew up in a small village in the north of Sweden. My parents were in their 40s when they had me, I was a “mistake.” My two brothers are 15 and 17 years older than me. My family weren’t believers, neither was anyone in our extended family or circle of friends. But my mother would often read a children’s prayer with me before bedtime and I think she has some form of belief. So did her mother towards the end of her life. My parents grew up in a time where the Swedish Lutheran church was very authoritarian. Priests and layman were viewed as “better” than others and certainly thought of themselves that way. And everyone was expected to obey and behave nicely towards them. Because of that my parents and their siblings still to this day view the representatives of the church with suspicion and disdain. Especially my dad. He refuses to set a foot in church.
My only real exposure to religion was also through the Swedish Lutheran church even though times had changed considerably, Sweden had truly become a secular nation. When I was 6 or 7 my mother would have me attend some gathering for children at the Lutheran church and every year we would have the school graduation in church. I was baptized and confirmed in the Lutheran church but I didn’t believe in God.
Quite the opposite actually. But there were never any believers around to discuss with so I never really considered the arguments for why I didn’t believe, I just took it for granted that there’s no God. Sometimes I would ask my mom about God and when she would say he exists I would think she was silly for believing in him. There were a couple of Pentecostals in our class growing up but they were considered so uncool that no one ever spoke to them. Believing in God was pretty much the lamest thing possible at my school. If you went to church you would get bullied.
It was not until I started high school that I for the first time started to consider God’s existence. My class contained one Jehovah’s witness, a couple of Pentecostals and the son of a Lutheran priest. One day during the first year all of them gathered the class together to ask us to stop swearing or at least cut down on the swearing. They argued that it was a poor use of language and it also hurt their personal beliefs to be surrounded by cursing on a daily basis. That was the first time I realized that there are people out there for whom faith is both personal and important. One of the Pentecostals was a second cousin of mine, Jacob, and we got along great and I would always ask him about his belief.
He had grown up in a Pentecostal family and my desire was to talk him out of believing in God. I didn’t have any real arguments, only that it made no sense believing in God, his existence wasn’t necessary. To me it seemed that the world and life went on whether you believed in God or not. And the Bible was obviously made up, I hadn’t read a word of it but the stories we heard growing up were obviously not true. These debates continued for the whole of high school, three years, during which Jacob would introduce me to friends of his from the Pentecostal church and invite me to these youth outreach gatherings. I never managed to convince him he was wrong. But this opened up a whole new world for me. To me Christians were those old people who went to church to sing old hymns and listen to a boring sermon. When I got introduced to the Pentecostals I realized that Christianity was so much bigger, I could never have imagined that Christians had their own music artists and authors and merchandise and what not. I had never considered that Christians would gather for conferences and that lots and lots of young people would attend.
I would still hang out with my non-christian friends but it turned out that these believers who I previously had thought of as complete nerds were quite nice and fun to be with. I got the feeling that they were not really interested in “acting cool” or whatever, they just seemed so comfortable with themselves and with others. This was a revelation to me, I discovered a setting where I didn’t have to worry about trying to fit in or impress others. I could relax with these people at least in some regards – When they would pray together I usually felt very uncomfortable but would try to respect them and be quiet or take a walk.
After high school Jacob and a friend of his had gotten hold of an apartment in the nearest city where they would see if they could find some work. There was one room left and they asked me if I wanted to join them. I hadn’t really any plans for what I should do after high school and by this time I had gotten to know Jacob and many of his Pentecostal friends so well that I agreed to move in with them. It was a great year, all of us quickly found work and we all got along great. There was less discussions about God but I do remember one evening when the three of us were sitting in the living room discussing life and we got around to the topic of angels. And when they described their view on angels I was really moved by the idea that everyone might have a guardian angel, someone that looks after you. Somehow that notion became very real and was easier to digest than the idea of God or Jesus watching over you. I was left very moved but not much more. I think my roommates probably thought they would get to pray the sinner’s prayer with me.
After about 9 months or so I had gotten so tired of my job working at a supermarket and I was just looking to get away from it. Another friend of mine, non-christian, had moved to the south of Sweden to study so I began looking for what educations that university had to offer. I had been somewhat interested in politics so I settled for Political Science without really thinking about a career, I just wanted to get away.
The first year at university I was back in a class with no believers and I wasn’t looking for Christians either, I was loving the student life with all it had to offer. I really enjoyed the courses but mostly I enjoyed the parties and my new friends. I still had no thought of a career, this time was an irresponsible escape from family and old friends. I was reinventing myself. Towards the end of the second semester I had started to develop a small but worrying dependence on alcohol. It got to a point where I would mix White Russian in a termos and bring it to class. Certainly not every day but it was beginning to be a trend. Thankfully this addictive behaviour came to a full stop at one of the final parties of the year. It was at a friend’s place and I had had too much to drink and at one point I blacked out in his toilet. When I came to I was covered in vomit and had been dragged outside where people were trying to make contact with me asking me what I wanted to do. “Call the police” I asked, feeling so embarrassed and ashamed. They ended up calling a cab.
I made sure to avoid any party and social gathering during the rest of the semester – I just felt so ashamed. For the holidays I went back up north and stayed with my family. I didn’t get back in touch with my Pentecostal friends. Not until the very end of the holiday. Jacob asked me if I want to join him at a weekend youth event with his church. It was the last weekend before I would head south again so I agreed, thinking it would be good opportunity to meet up with all of them. They did the typical stuff of seminars, sports, prayer meetings etc. Nothing much happened during the Friday, when they gathered for prayer and started shouting in tongues I would head out for a walk. But on Saturday morning I attended a seminar where the pastor was speaking about how we tend to put up walls around our hearts to protect it from various things. And for some reason I realized that I had been doing that with Christianity, I had refused to give this idea a chance to affect me. I decided that was unfair so in the evening when everybody gathered for prayer I said to God (who I didn’t believe in) that if he exists he would have a chance to prove it to me at the prayer meeting, if he didn’t show up I wouldn’t never give Christianity a second chance.
So at the meeting we were all sitting in a circle and they sang a few songs, prayed in tongues etc. Then they told us that if anyone wants to receive prayer they could just move towards the middle of the circle. And so I did, I gave God this opportunity. As they started to lay hands on me I immediately started crying my eyes out. It was a flood of tears. I had never and have never since experienced this explosions of emotions – I just couldn’t stop crying. It went on for perhaps ten minutes and someone recited the sinner’s prayer which I repeated and when the tears finally stopped I was completely exhausted.
I woke up early the next morning and I was filled with dread. “What happened? What did I agree to? What have I promised these people? How will I explain this to my family and friends?” I decided to go out for a walk to clear my head. It was a beautiful, chilly morning and I had all these thoughts in my head when suddenly I was reminded of a Bob Dylan song; “I believe in you.”
The lyrics goes:
And that which you’ve given me today
Is worth more than I could pay
And no matter what they say
I believe in youWith Dylan ringing in my head and the beautiful nature surrounding me I decided I had done the right thing. And I decided that my sudden change of heart wasn’t due to brain-washing – nobody had forced me to believe in him. Neither had I tried to convince myself of his existence, in fact I didn’t want this to be true at all! I had not planned for this and I hated the idea of explaining all of this to my parents and friends. But somehow God’s existence had become just as obvious as his non-existence had seemed to me before. Since it wasn’t other people or I myself that had forced me to believe this I accepted that it must have been God that had accepted my challenge and proved his existence to me.
I agonized about telling my parents and brothers, it felt so dorky. A couple of days before I was due to go back to university I plucked up the courage to tell them that I had become a Christian. They didn’t say much, only that they were surprised and that they didn’t know much about the Pentecostal church. We are close as a family but we never talk about someone’s thoughts or emotions. It’s not that it’s tabu, it’s just uncomfortable for us to go there, maybe it seems to private.
Anyway I travelled back south and thought it best to do two things as soon as possible: look up a church and tell my two closest friends what had happened. I had decided to pursue this new faith but couldn’t trust myself to stick to it, especially when going back to my old drinking buddies. So I asked to meet up with two of my class mates to explain everything. I was so nervous about telling them, again I felt like a huge nerd for saying I had become a Christian. We met up at a pub and that was the last time in years that I would have another drink. Again there was mostly silence and bewilderment as I explained the situation. I instinctively knew that our relationship would change dramatically since I’ve always felt a need to separate my social worlds, I’m like George Costanza from Seinfeld: “Everybody knows you gotta keep your worlds apart!”
At the beginning of the semester the Pentecostal church arranged a series of hangouts for new students to get to know the church. I wasn’t a new student but I thought it would be a good chance to get to know some Christians. I had never thought of going to the Lutheran church or any other for that matter. I just thought that since I’d been “saved” in the Pentecostal church I better stick to it. At the first hangout I met this guy, Petrus, who was a new student and who had just finished 2 years at a bible school run by a very infamous charismatic church called “Word of Life”. When it started up in the 80’s it was quickly labeled as a cult in the Swedish press and that’s way most Swedes think of it. It’s leader was quickly labeled a prosperity teacher and cult leader and became somewhat of a celebrity due to the media coverage and because one of Sweden’s most popular artists joined the church in the early 90’s.
Anyway because of all this I was naturally very suspicious towards Petrus but he seemed nice and asked about my background and it turned out he lived quite close to me and he asked if we couldn’t get together for some coffee sometime. Long story short, he became one of my best friends and he was my first “mentor.” He later told me that when we first met and when he heard I had only been a christian for a couple of weeks he knew he was supposed to introduce me to Christianity. And so he did, in the only way he knew how – we would get together for some coffee or dinner and he would play me these sermons from “Word of Life” youth conferences. He had a favorite preacher and I also quickly began appreciating him mostly because of his humor. I realized everything I had heard about “Word of Life” was wrong, this couldn’t be a cult – firstly, there were so many people at their meetings that it would be impossible to brainwash everyone of them. I had never seen a church that big or that many people gather to listen to a sermon. Again, it was like a whole new world.
I was hooked. I started downloading sermons and worship songs from “Word of Life,” listening to it while I washed dishes or vacuumed. I wanted to get into this new found faith, this whole new world or culture as quickly as possible. Petrus had grown up in a family of believers, had gone to church all his life and bible school on top of that. He knew so much more than I and I was so desperate to get into it. The teaching of “Word of Life” seemed so much more exciting to me than anything I had heared from the Pentecostals. The “Word of Life” guys really believed in what they preached. They spoke of the reality of signs and wonders. Healing and prosperity is open to everyone, all it takes is the faith to grasp it. I thought this was fantastic. For one thing it proved I hadn’t been crazy when I was “saved” – no this really turned out to be true! The people slain in the spirit and the preachers testifying of healings during mission trips proved it! From now on all I wanted to do was to learn more about this, of how I could get this to work in my own life.
This was brain washing indeed but I didn’t see it. I remember quite early on getting up to testify at a youth meeting at the Pentecostal church. It ended with me proclaiming that all of us should head up to the hospital, stand at the entrance and pray for the sick people entering. If we only had faith it would work and thousands would be converted! The response was mediocre to say the least. I couldn’t understand how they thought that it was a bad idea. Cowards! Ye of little faith!
So in a matter of months I had completely consumed huge amounts of charismatic/faith movement/prosperity gospel teaching. I had also decided that after university I would attend the “Word of Life” bible school for two years and also their seminary for an additional 5 years. I wanted this so badly. I was “saved” in august and in october I got baptized into the Pentecostal church. It felt important to me and a confirmation of my new life.
This new life wrecked my studies. I hadn’t planned my education very well in the first place but now it had to compete with my much greater interest in Christianity and what God would want me to study. Everything I did now became centered around my faith. For instance, for the political courses I started focusing on Israel and for the voluntary courses I choose Anthropology which I regarded as the subject that resembled Missions practice the most. Student outreach also became a big interest of mine and that led to Apologetics which became the next really big interest. I devoured literature and debates from the best Apologist I could find; William Lane Craig. Suddenly it was more important to me to know the nine rules of logic and the cosmological, teleological and axiological arguments for the existence of God than knowing about my field of study. If God really exists then knowing everything about him must be more important than my education I argued. I believed I had a calling to the missions field.
At this point I had basically no contact with my friends from the first year. One of the reasons were that a few of them had quit university or transfered to another or we were reading different courses. But the main reason was that I thought it was necessary for me to sever those contacts in order not to fall back into my old ways. Besides I was trying to get to know all these people from church. In a matter of months I had basically switched from having mostly non-christian friends to mostly christian friends. I decided it was a way to show God my radical faith. Another way to display this “radical faith” came to one day when I felt the Holy Spirit convicting me of sin. I loved music and film and my collection had grown rather large over the years. I decided to pack it all up in plastic bags and throw it in the dumpster. My collection had become an idol. At first I thought I would give it away but then I decided that no one benefits from these works of Satan so I just threw away all of it. I felt really good about it. I felt I was becoming more spiritual.
I would say within the first six months to a year of being a Christian I had constructed my beliefs in a way that was pleasing to me. It was all terribly black and white but it felt good, I felt convinced that Christianity was true. When I finished university I applied to go to “Word of Life” bible school. I didn’t tell my parents until it was absolutely necessary since I knew that they would freak out when hearing I was going to study with this “cult.” They came to accept it even though they were very worried. My mom feared that they would brain wash me and send me to live in the US and that they wouldn’t be able to contact me again.
The two years in bible school were the greatest time in my life I thought. The days were filled with the teaching I had come to appreciate. I met so many people with the same interests as me. We truly explored our faith, gathering together to practice prayer and the gifts of the Spirit. There were many exaggerations, like getting drunk in the Spirit, but we felt led to these extremes because we were still learning – we were in school to learn these things. There were so many interesting subjects missions, demonology, the end times etc. etc.
The second year of bible school was the climax of my time in the pentecostal/charismatic movement. It was also the starting point of my deconstruction in the sense that I a very small way began to question some of the beliefs I had come to accept and explore other denominations. I don’t remember what began it all but I do remember I felt a bit disappointed with myself that I hadn’t managed to defeat the big sin in my life: masturbation. I had been a Christian for over 5 years, I had learned so much, heard so many sermons, attended so many conferences but still couldn’t master this sin. I began to despair and I began to be annoyed that nobody was talking about particular sins. I was so ashamed myself that I probably wouldn’t admit to masturbation had anyone asked about it but I felt that at least our leaders should be role models and talk about their own sin.
The leaders at Word of Life never talked about their own sin, only when mentioning the times they had conquered it. The leaders never talked about weakness, only the strength that comes from faith in Lord Jesus. This was a church for the strong, not the weak and I was getting tired of it. I was introduced by a friend of mine to some books by John Piper and I found what I was looking for. Piper would talk about himself as a sinner and compared to the teachers and pastors at Word of Life the new reformed movement was like a breath of fresh air. The notion that we are sinners saved by grace isn’t at all talked about at Word of Life. They would acknowledge that it’s technically true but be very adamant that we shouldn’t go around confessing things like that with our mouths since our words are formative, what you speak is what will happen so if you speak of yourself as a sinner you will become a sinner.
Since I wasn’t able to live a life free of sin, the reformed message felt like a better, more truthful description of my situation. I’m saved by grace but I’m also a sinner. They go together. So people like Piper and Mark Driscoll started to have a big influence on me the last six months at bible school and since it was the first time I had question my Christian beliefs I consider it the starting point of a long process of deconstruction.
The second year in bible school included a one month missions trip. I was made leader of my team and we were sent to India, visiting churches in Delhi, Agra and Varanasi. It was a remarkable experience. This led to me being asked if I wanted to continue working for “Word of Life” after bible school. I would be stationed with their permanent team in Calcutta. So in the fall after finishing bible school I went down there. It was a dream assignment for me. I had for a long time dreamt of working on the missions field and meeting and working with the people of “Word of Life.” I had a very high view of them, I had listened to their teaching for such a long time and they had influenced me deeply. They were almost celebrities, similar to sports stars.
Anyway, I got my own apartment at the gated community where all of the team members stayed. “Word of Life” in Calcutta did three things; they ran a bible school, a printing house and aid work to send children from poor families to school. I worked at the printing house designing posters, books, CDs and whatnot and was also assigned to be the host of the guest teachers. Since the first guest teacher was due from Sweden in a couple of days I got a crash course in the layout of Calcutta, driving a right hand drive car and maneouvering in Indian traffic.
India is like no other country and living there was an amazing experience and it also marked my next step in my deconstruction. My investigations into reformed theology deepened and a lot of it began making sense to me, TULIP was slowly becoming a source of comfort. Simultaenously the “honeymoon” with “Word of Life” soon ended. In the team was a couple in my age who had grown up in “Word of Life” and had attended their schools, all the way from pre-school to high school. We got along well and had great discussions on the virtues and problems of “Word of Life.” For instance they opened my eyes when they mentioned that it was probably only them left from their class who still went to church. My rose-tinted view of this church started to crumble as I learned that so many young people had gone through very traumatic experiences because of their upbringing in “Word of Life.”
Being behind the scenes by working for the church really was an eye-opener. For instance we would get orders from the Swedish office to go out and film some street kids so they could use the footage in their offering speech. Such cynicism. Being responsible for the guests I also noted how some of them would expect the very best treatment – staying at the best hotels, eating at the best restaurants etc. It was quite bizarre to be told by my superior that whilst some of these pastors expect the best, we don’t really have the budget for it – so keep them happy but reign in their expences in a way that they don’t notice it. Basically it was all a big show built on lies. I also noticed the pressure our two leaders were under to perform – getting applicants for the bible school, selling more CDs and books by the main pastor etc. etc. I quickly realized that this was not a church but a corporation. This pressure to perform was also noticable in the way the leaders would treat the rest of us who worked at the office or volunteered. There would be frequent outbursts and a sort of fearful atmosphere in the office. It was explained to me that this fear was necessary in order to keep the Indians in check, if we went with a more Swedish, egalitarian, laid-back approach the Indians wouldn’t know who’s in charge, what to do and it would all turn into a circus.
Seeing all this I really started to question my involvement with the church. My tourist visa expired in six months and about a month before it was time to go home and renew it I made up my mind that I wouldn’t return. I didn’t tell anyone at this point though. Shortly after that a new teacher from Sweden arrived.
This was Robin and since he wasn’t fuzzy and had worked with this team before (he had been the principal of the Delhi bible school for four years) it was decided that he could stay with me in my apartment. We got along well, it turned out he was from the same city as my university and he had grown up in the Pentecostal church I belonged to but he had gone to “Word of Life” to study theology at their seminary and subsequently worked for them. Now he was going to move to a small farm together with his family and concentrate on his passion: painting icons.
Hearing that blew my mind. I had been so against any liturgical expressions and was allergic to anything that looked like Catholicism. But at this point so many illusions about what church was supposed to be had been shattered already so I guess I was open to listening to him. And I supposed it helped that he was very passionate and enthusiastic about his interest in icons and the early church. He stayed for a week and we went through all my misconceptions and preconceived notions I had about this form of spirituality. When he left he suggested I should go even further back than the reformed and really look into the writings of the early church. And so I did, I found a couple of books in the Christian bookstore in Calcutta about Eastern Orthodox theology and started reading up on it. It was fascinating, so many pieces of the puzzle came together. For instance, reading about apophatic theology – how God is best described by what he is not etc. etc. was revolutionary.
When I got back home to Sweden I contacted a monastic community just south of my university town where they accepted volunteers to come stay, the leader of which is a Pentecostal pastor but with great knowledge and interest in the early church. I knew about this place because of it’s connection to my church, I had been a staunch critic of it, but Robin had gotten me interested in it again (Read about it here: http://www.firstthings.com/article/2014/06/not-so-secular-sweden). I saw it as a chance to on the one hand deal with my disillusionment of “Word of Life” and on the other hand delve even deeper into a liturgical and monastic lifestyle, getting to know the early church even better. It’s a life that revolves a lot around silence, work, prayer and the eucharist or mass. I stayed there for 18 months and it was perhaps the most important thing I’ve ever done. Mainly because it gave me a spirituality that wasn’t depended upon my thoughts about God and salvation but on my actions. It was about moving away from a very personal, individual experience of God to a more communal. Just one example, the important thing about the creed at every mass wasn’t to believe every word of it but rather to simply read out the words together. If I didn’t believe in any of it, it was OK because the Church as a whole believed it. This approach took care of a lot of pressure of spiritual perfection that I’d picked up in “Word of Life.”
There are so much to be said about this experience but to summarize it was a very positive thing, we had therapists to talk to every week and lots and lots of time and silence to listen to ourselves, getting to know ourselves. During my time there I had also gotten to practice zen meditation, which became a life-saver. I felt my mind was in such disorder, thousands of thoughts running through it every second – meditation helped to bring silence and awareness to my inner life. When I came out of there I also started to notice problems and negative effects from my stay there – I started to feel detached from society, like I wasn’t part of it. Most likely this was due to the monastic nature of that place, we were supposed to be cut off from the rest of the world so that we could focus on our stay and practice monasticism.
A few months after I had left the community, my Pentecostal church arranged a meeting where the pastor would address some concerns members had regarding the community. The reason for this was that we had gotten a new pastor and he turned out to be much more positive towards the community than many had wanted and now these were concerned that the relationship between the Pentecostals and the community would deepen. Pentecostals are generally suspicious against anything that isn’t Pentecostal and this was a ecumenical community mixing and teaching Lutheran/Catholic/Eastern Orthodox practices. So in many ways their concerns were valid, they simply weren’t used to this type of spirituality and naturally had questions. I wasn’t surprised by the rethoric of many of the speakers but what became problematic for me was the pastor’s stance. He had a very positive view on the community overall but then he started to go through the church’s stance on some of the practices of the community such as the use of incence, icons, saints, meditation etc. What became apparent was that my view on these matters was much more open than the church’s. I had lived these practices and become very attached to them, I cherished them, especially meditation.
This was a very confusing time for me, I had to decide whether or not I would be able to continue as a member of this church. Was it still possible to integrate my newfound practices and beliefs into the Pentecostal framework? I knew several others who had been able to embrace liturgical practices and still remain Pentecostals. What was more important, my membership or my newfound ideas? We’re now in October of 2013 and I read a retweet of this cartoon on Twitter. It was from a site called nakedpastor. I don’t remember the cartoon but there was a link to the TLS website. I went on there and saw the meet a member podcasts. I downloaded the ones that were available and started listening. These stories were amazing. All very different experiences but they meant that I wasn’t alone – others were struggling with church as well, others had changed beliefs as well. I decided to sign up for this even though I wasn’t sure if I would fit in since I still was very much a believer but very confused.
TLS became a catalyst of the deconstruction. In the time since joining TLS so much has happened – I decided to leave the Pentecostal church and return to my Lutheran roots and on a number of areas I’ve seen my opinions and beliefs shift radically to the point where today I probably have more in common with sceptics than believers. The time since October has been very difficult, I’ve been depressed, despondent. Today I don’t go to church, I don’t pray or have much to do with the Christian community. Frankly I don’t know where I am and that’s okay for the moment, I’m wary of stating any specific beliefs other than a few fundamental ones based in my own experiences. TLS is helping me understand what happened to me these last 10 years of my life and what is happening to me now. For that I am simply very grateful.
Oh wow what a great read. Certainly helps me “get you” better. Profound experience. And rich.
This makes me feel more than ever that I need to write my z-theory book to help people like you and me and so many others make sense of their spiritual and theological/philosophical journeys.
Thanks Andreas!
Yeah, really looking forward to the z-theory book.
Andreas – not only have I read this but I have now read it twice and highlighted some of what for me, were some of the most significant points. I have had the privilege of sharing some of the ‘wilderness experiences’ of people who have been drawn away from churches that they may have attended for many years. I have also heard stories of people who became Christians without ever attending church, and then suffering for years as they tried to conform to the teachings of the church that they had felt obliged to attend.
Your story reminds me of some of my own experiences, most of which I have now been able to share on my blog (but that’s a very long story – partly because of the number of years it covers but also because I have had the time over the last 24 years when I have not had a full time job).
I’m in a strange position – recognising many of the problems of evangelicalism from outside the goldfish bowl because I was forced in 1995 to consider why I did not want to remain in a Christian cult that was being accepted by the Evangelical churches in America.
The Welcome and the first blog post will give you an idea of where I have come from.
Thanks for sharing Andreas, I read it all ! It has encouraged me to write my story down, something I’ve been reluctant to do. What stood out to me is that you put the work in (well, apart from your political studies !) – whereas I probably reason/argue more from ‘the gut’, instinct if you like, and I think have a tendency to be a bit of a butterfly, skimming over things.
It was this paragraph: “Student outreach also became a big interest of mine and that led to Apologetics which became the next really big interest. I devoured literature and debates from the best Apologist I could find; William Lane Craig. Suddenly it was more important to me to know the nine rules of logic and the cosmological, teleological and axiological arguments for the existence of God than knowing about my field of study”.
Can I ask – do you still do your meditation?
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