Transformation of Beliefs
KAITLIN KLINE
We live in such an image-based culture, right? Americans have a kind of weird fascination with before and after photos. I mean, I get it. I would also love to undergo a massive positive change in 60 minutes with commercial breaks. But that’s never real life. Any major transformation I personally have gone through has been accompanied by immense struggle. This past year is no exception.
I have always been a product of my environment. I was raised a super conservative evangelical and I believed that the essence of Christianity was having a good argument because if you aren’t constantly debating people about the Bible, do you really even love Jesus??? My fragile little heart was strained by the effort to reconcile God who judged punitively with a Jesus who loved unconditionally. So I just tried to believe harder and hoped that one day it would all make sense.
Fast forward to 2016, when I was one of the many Christians who began an existential crisis after seeing the church go in a direction I never believed it would. By this point, I was a young adult more firm in my ownership of my faith. But the more I looked around, and the more I learned about different denominations that were worshiping God in different and beautiful ways, the less I could stop those long-buried questions from rising to the surface.
Why did I believe those things? What about the harm being caused by other people who believed the same things I did? Why wasn’t the rest of the church worried about this? If we truly loved our neighbors as ourselves, then why did I hear other evangelicals speak so harshly of other people groups—surely God loved them, too?
It all became too much to ignore in 2020. There were so many devastating things going on and sometimes I felt like one of the few people in my life who cared. I knew that if I was going to hold on to Jesus, the way I understood and approached my faith would have to look very different. This realization, along with the crippling isolation I experienced from moving to a new state during a global pandemic, thrust me into the wilderness.
Anyone who has ventured into the wilderness will tell you it is no picnic. There is a lot of aimless wandering and asking questions without answers. It is daunting to realize that, even if you do find a way out of this desert, you do not know who you will be on the other side.
This is not a change I ever expected to make. I’ve been so afraid of finding out that I was wrong that I never considered stepping outside of my fundamentalist box and seeing what was outside. Of course, the beauty of opening up our boxes is realizing that God was always too vast, too mysterious, too unfathomable to fit inside of them.
All of my beliefs have profoundly shifted, to the point where my past self would be shocked if she spoke to me. But this shift is a result of my heart being opened up, of longing to see more of God‘s people liberated and thriving, God’s Kingdom come on Earth. I am no longer satisfied by the teaching that God’s highest purpose is to keep a few people comfortable at the expense of others’ suffering. Jesus would never have stood for such an idea.
Perhaps it is easier to cling to the same beliefs from birth until death – it would certainly be more comfortable. But while Jesus walks a life of healing, justice, reconciliation, and peace, comfort never seems to be one of his priorities. And woe to me if I ever return to thinking that the whole point of Jesus’ incarnation and resurrection was my own comfort. I can think of no greater example of missing the point.
Kaitlin Kline is a 28-year-old teacher from Missoula, Montana. She currently lives in Dunlap, Illinois with her husband of 6 years, Jared, and their two cats. She can often be found drinking coffee, reading, listening to music, and wishing she was in Middle Earth.