Guilt Trip

Some days ago, I thought I would write about guilt, responding to a comment that made me realise what a key component it is in brethren life, and just how much it can hang on afterwards.

Since then, life has been busy in a number of ways. Obviously I have had to catch up with assorted chores that didn't get done while I was away. I have also been writing about last weekend while it's fresh in my mind. Above all, though, I have been savouring real life. And real life is an obstacle course without a map, or any kind of instructions. I have been navigating by feel.

That, rather than adherence to a given doctrine, has always been my guide. My concept of - for want of a better word - sin, has generally revolved around damage to others, although I wouldn't be so foolish as to restrict it to that. I am deeply uncomfortable with acts that hurt people. And that uncomfortableness, watched for, acts as my guide to moral behaviour. I dare say many people would say the same, however they identify it, and that's the basis of what Christians know as the conscience. So, for me, long experience has told me that there are many things I have been told are wrong which don't give me that signal, and I find I am unable to take such teachings seriously. Consequently I am untroubled by guilt when I ignore those teachings, except in so far as the actual crossing of the boundary hurts somebody who feels differently.

My observation suggests that there are many ex-brethren who have found that difficult. I'm not sure why.

Brethren morality is very firmly rooted in authority. Right and wrong are too important to be left to individual judgement, and are decided somewhere on high and handed down. As a result, the first among sins is disobedience - not necessarily the most evil of sins, but the one that gets the most attention. So brethren grow up with a sense that not doing as they're told is inherently wrong, and there are so many things they are told that there must always be something they are falling short in. And therefore there is a constant low-level feeling of guilt at all times, ready to ripen into a more severe emotion whenever some rule is definitively flouted. To quote a saying from a film last night: "Beat your wife every morning. If you don't know why, she does." That, apart from the violence, fits with the brethren's mindset.

The tendency, when removed from the obligation to pay attention to this multitude of rules, is to go one of two opposite directions: either throw out everything one has ever been taught, or keep it lurking in the background. The first is dangerous, and the second damaging, yet the middle course is a very difficult balancing act. Obviously some brethren teachings have a sound moral basis, and are useful and important as a guide to life. Many don't, and aren't. It's one thing to decide in one's head which is which, and another to really feel it, so as to be comfortable with the difference, and that is complicated by long indoctrination that one ought always to feel a bit guilty about something, because one cannot be already perfect.

I suppose, in my case, that is the virtue of having come to leaving by a long and gradual route. I suspect that the suddenness of the change made life very difficult for many. But as for me, I can honestly say that the only thing which brings guilty feelings in me is knowing that my family are hurt by the fact that I feel differently. And really, I wouldn't want to harden my heart to that one because it would mean losing my understanding of them.