Where Did the Suks Come From?

         For generations Suk parents have been telling their children that they are descended from Roma (popularly, “gypsy,” though the word is now often thought of as prejudicial). In the end, genetic testing through sites such as Ancestry.ca and 23andMe, as well as my own failed, but deep, searches of genealogical documents for a “Roma” ancestor show that this claim is mistaken. And yet, there is a fascinating story, or three, that can account for this old story.

         For starters, this story was told by Roelf Suk (1896-1971) both to his children, and his nephew, William Suk (1932-1986). Roelf must have heard it from his father, Willem Suk (1864-1911). His wife, Jantje (1870-1933) lived, for some time, after her husband’s death, in Muntendam, which will become relevant to remember later on. In any case, that brings the story back to at least 1900 or so—three generations for me, and about 125 years ago.

         But my research uncovered a second clue as to how old the Roma story is. This same story about Roma ancestry is told in other branches of the Suk family that have had no contact with each other for much longer. Sem Kok, a Dutch genealogical researcher with Suk ancestors, wrote a history of the Suk family based on his studies. His last Suk ancestor was Roelf Tammes Suk (1791-1847). Roelf Tammes was Willem Suk’s grandfather, and so my three-times great grandfather. Thus this story was passed down, and independently preserved, in two separate Suk family lines, since about 1830 or 1840—and perhaps even earlier. That makes the Roma story almost 200 years old!

         A side note here. Willem Suk’s name in the Suk genealogy came from Roelf Tammes’ wife, Aaltje Willems Bosch, whose father was a Willem, too. So, this is where the name William entered into our branch of Suks. 

         So, the Suk’s Roma story is very old. How do we account for it? There are three, very possibly related, explanations. And though they do not suggest that the Suks were descended from Roma, these three explanations do explain why the Suks had Roma-like stories to tell. So, in turn, the three explanations, with the most important coming last.

A.    Suks lived near “Het Egypteneinde.” 

Het Egypteneinde is a former hamlet of about 35 very poor family homes between Muntendam and Veendam. Old and unverified folklore had it that the hamlet was named Het Egypteneinde because Roma used to stop and camp there. Roma were (mistakenly) thought to have originated in Egypt, hence the name. A Lukas Suk actually ran a coffee shop nearby in the nineteenth century. And as we shall soon see, Suks lived in Muntendam, too. Sem Kok says that the Roma story might have come about because either the Suks, or those who knew them, figured they must be descended from the Roma who passed through that area.

B.    The Suks were Muntendammers. 

For at least a few years, Willem Suk’s widow, Jantje Smit-Suk, lived in Muntendam, a tough neighbourhood. Why she moved there from Veendam isn’t clear, though Suks descended from the first Suk to move into the Veendam area had lived there on and off for two hundred years by the time Jantje moved. Muntendam, according to Sem Kok, was a town of rowdies who partied, fought, and stole from the rich. A 1904 article in Het Noorden (a paper still published today) notes that it had the reputation as “the most notorious place in the Netherlands.” It went on to say that Muntendam was renowned for the rough Scheepsjagers (men who pulled ships through the canals) culture, for its many unmarried couples cohabiting, gambling, begging in the streets, raids on rich people in the surrounding areas, and so on. It adds, importantly, that Muntendammers had darker skin than most Dutch people and believed they were descended from Roma. The main Hervormde Kerk even put a “Mission Building” in the village to reform it. It is possible that the Suks from several branches picked up the notion that they were Roma from this popular (but mistaken, based on genetic evidence) notion of a Muntendammer Roma heritage.

C.     The Suks were Hollandgaengers (Holland-goers). 

From about 1620—in the midst of the Thirty Years War, though some sources say from about 1650) poor northern German farm workers began making an annual pilgrimage to the Netherlands to find work as hay mowers, peat diggers, fruit pickers, and general laborers. Many would plant their crops on leased land in Germany, trek to the Netherlands, and return in time to harvest their own crops. This itinerant movement lasted until at least the mid-19^th century (and until the 1920s by other accounts). The illustration, to the left, is of a Hollandgaenger, along with a poem that celebrates his sharp scythe and quick work.

Contemporary accounts suggest that these itinerant workers, like many others in human history, were badly treated while on their dangerous treks and did not often find open arms when they landed in the Netherlands. Naturally, some of these itinerant workers—probably those without land to return to—stayed in the Netherlands. This would have been especially so when the Veendam area opened up for peat digging. In fact, one of the earliest Suks on record, Roelf Jans Suck (about 1676-1738) married Aaltjen Lucas (b. about 1680) and their marriage license says she is from “Munsterland,” where many Hollandgaengers came from. Other early records suggest more connections between the Suks and Hollandgaengers. And this is where it gets interesting. In the North German village of Lingen Schepsdorf (or Schepsdorf Lingen—both names are in use) a bronze placard posted at the village well commemorates the annual  “Durchzuege” of the “Hollandgaenger.”

As it turns out, the name “Suk” may well be derived from the word “Durchzuege.” The first part of this word,Durch, means “through.” And the second part, zuege (same root as the English word tug), means “train, procession, migration.” So, this word, used to describe the movement of Hollandgaengers means “the passage through,” or “migration,” of these German workers. Zeuge is also (often) spelled (of old) as Zug or Zuge, and is pronounced (transliterating it into typical English spelling), “tsuk,” or Suck, or Sock, or Suk—all with a crisp “k.” A Hollandgaengerwho stayed in the Veendam area might well be called a migrant, as in Roelf Jans “the migrant” (Roelf Jans the Suck). Remember, the Dutch and Germans in Groningen and Munsterland spoke the same version of old German.

There are other explanations suggested for the provenance of the name Suk. Sem Kok, in his booklet, says that one other possibility is “suiker,” the Dutch word for sugar, though he discounts it. He notes that the University of Groningen suggests the name might be derived for the Old German word for pig, zeug, as in “pig farmer.” But I like my suggestion best.

So, Which Story Is the Right One?

My best guess is that first two stories worked to support the much older Hollandgaenger story. The Hollandgaenger migration continued through much of the nineteenth century, so the fact that there were Hollandgaengerswas a living reality. The Suks also married Hollandgaengers (at least once), and were likely Hollandgaengers themselves (they were “Zeugs” after all). I think the notion that they were descended from migrants was passed on from generation to generation, but also evolved on account of other stories in their world—stories that supported a “Roma” notion. Suks long lived in the “Roma” village of Muntendam, and lived close to the Roma landmark, Het Egypteneinde. 

In the end, the Hollandgaenger story is ancient, romantic, and fascinating. It wouldn’t be so surprising if the Suks unconsciously melded it into the Roma stories that circulated in their environment to create their own imaginative version. 

Faith After the Diagnosis, Before the Worst

 

As I set out to write this blog, I thought, at first, that I could compare my loss of faith to losing my wife, Irene.

She died on May 8, 2024, not six months after she was diagnosed with glioblastoma—terminal brain cancer. In the end, she chose to receive medical assistance in dying. On the chosen day our kids, grandkids, and siblings—sixteen of us—gathered on our lakeside patio. It was an unseasonably warm, sunny day. We should have been kayaking.

Each of us took a few minutes to tell Irene why, and how much, we loved her. We listened to “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” and “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” the latter because Irene was that bridge for us. Irene turned to me and said, simply, “I’m so curious about what’s next.” Finally, the drugs were administered. And so, she died in my arms.

On our last vacation before Irene's
diagnosis we visited Geneva,
birthplace of our tradition.

More than two years later, I still find myself surprised by tears. Sometimes in bed, when I reach over to touch her, but she isn’t there. Or when her portrait shows up on my screensaver. I weep when, putting down the phone, there is no one to talk to about our kids. We were such a team. I feel like a caboose that has been severed from its engine and is careening the wrong way down the tracks into an abyss.

And I suppose there are comparisons to be made between my loss of Irene and my loss of faith, though I have not actually wept for that. The loss of faith actually feels more like what I felt in the months that led up to Irene’s death.

On one level, after her diagnosis, life just continued on. Mundane matters still needed to be looked after: watering the garden, getting groceries, feeding visitors, paying bills, and servicing the car. But then, on top of that, there was all sorts of unfamiliar, very hard stuff, too: brain surgery, chemo and radiation, hospital stays, waking up multiple times during the night to help Irene get comfortable, and ultimately, watching her slowly decline, both physically and cognitively.

But there was something else, too. It was probably invisible to most people, sort of like the distant approach of wildfire smoke from over the horizon. After Irene’s diagnosis I was depressed. I walked under a cloud, trying to comfort those I loved, to be hospitable to everyone who cared; trying hard to be the lover Irene needed when neither of us could see the way, clearly. It was exhausting and disorienting. I worried about the future, about life without Irene, and then felt guilty about that. It wasn’t me who was dying, after all. Irene was busy fixing old relationships, closing her business, laughing with old friends—all while being intensely kind and supportive for me. I was profoundly despondent and anxious and trying hard not to show it.

My loss of faith makes me feel similarly despondent and anxious. Living without faith, I feel like a toddler looking up from where I’m walking, in a mall, and realizing I can’t see my mother. 

Here I need to be clear about something. Though I sometimes speak of my loss of faith as a loss of God, it isn’t as if I ever felt or believed I had a personal relationship with God, like I might have a personal relationship with someone I know. I’ve never heard God whisper in my ear. I’ve never had a phone call from God or shared a glass of wine with God or Jesus. I never felt like God was a friend, like say Nick or Nandy are friends.

No, my faith was communal and intellectual. I adopted it because I was lovingly nurtured into it by my parents. I warmed to it because it was the faith of a community that really was a whole village raising me. I loved the part of my faith that was figuring out how things like the Trinity or atonement or the ordo salutis worked. I loved that it gave me a vision for what life meant, and it was full of people excited to work with me, usually in Christian organizations, to make that vision come to life. I loved faith because it made sense of the world—of both its beauty and its failings—for me.

And then, after years of inner wrestling, faith wasn’t helping me make sense of the world anymore. I lost the thread. I’ve written, in my blog, about some of the stumbling blocks to traditional faith that I’ve run into. More is coming in a book I’m writing. But the bottom line is that when I quit struggling with faith, when I simply accepted that I could no longer credit it, it was depressing. As with life after Irene’s diagnosis, I carried on with all sorts of mundane and meaningful—even lovely—parts of my life. But when it came to the meaning of it all, I was under a cloud.

I know that a lot of people who don’t believe in God don’t suffer much on that account. Many atheists have worked out thoughtful worldviews that inspire and guide them through life. And many people just never think about God or faith. Perhaps they have unknowingly bought into the subliminal gospel of acquisition, or some part of the experience economy, or maybe even in nothing much at all. They just go along and get along. They’re not wired for God, and it doesn’t bother them.

Even other ministers who have left God behind and describe what that is like in autobiographies seem quite content. William Lobdell is typical: “I like my life on this unexplored shore. It’s new, exciting and full of possibilities. I wouldn’t have predicted it as a Christian, but I now feel wonderfully free—not to go on a binge of debauchery like the Prodigal Son, but to stop wrestling with the mysteries of Christianity. I can stop dreaming up excuses for the shortcomings of my faith.” (William Lobdell, Losing My Religion. New York: HarperCollins, 2009, 279).

And sure, there is a part of me that gets this. My last congregation blessed my uncertainty about God, and invited me to explore it from the pulpit and in the classes I taught. That was life-giving and freeing for me.

Still, perhaps because faith for me was always so intellectual, I struggle, existentially, in my bones, with how, in the absence of God, life can have any ultimate meaning at all. For agnostics there is no providence—no “almighty and ever present power of God, by which God upholds, as with his hand, heaven and earth and all creatures, and so rules them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and lean years, food and drink, health and sickness, prosperity and poverty, all things, in fact, come to us not by chance, but by his fatherly hand.” 

I have no deity to watch over me or anyone I love. Everything is contingent, as in Bryan Walsh’s book, End Times: A Brief Guide to the End of the World. He describes the many ways human civilization might collapse. He lists things like another asteroid, perhaps as large as the one that killed all the dinosaurs. Or a volcanic eruption, like that of Toba, 75,000 years ago, that almost led to the extinction of Homo sapiens. Or maybe nuclear war, or climate change running amok, or a pandemic, or AI—all endings that seem plausible given recent events.

What meaning there is, we have to make on our own, without divine intervention. Looking to the future, I have no comfort in life and in death. I sometimes feel like a wounded soldier dragging himself home after surviving a lost battle.

God has disappeared. And yet, I am haunted.

My Career Under a Cloud

 

       My father, Rev. William Suk, died forty years ago. He was only 54. I’ve kept a few of his sermons as keepsakes. I read them over this week. English wasn’t his native language, and he was always a bit insecure about that. On the whole, though, the sermons are cogent and well-written. He worked hard to make them so. People appreciated his preaching.

 

        What struck me, though, was that I didn’t find anything in those sermons that interested me. They were all based on the Heidelberg Catechism—a mid-sixteenth century statement of the Calvinist faith. As a result, his sermons were doctrinaire and abstract—at least to my taste. I guess he wrote them in a different time for a different audience. In the end, I read through them as much for the bits of my dad’s self-disclosure as I did for any religious content or insight. On the whole, his sermons just didn’t speak to me.

 

       Which is interesting, because there is another, much larger group of sermons that rarely speak to me. These are the six hundred sermons I wrote and preached as an Evangelical minister in the Christian Reformed Church. What is more, the same goes for three hundred or so editorials and articles that I wrote over the ten years I was editor of my denominational magazine, The Banner. 

Me Doing My Thing

       Like my father, I spent a lot of time on each sermon or article. I always booked twenty hours for research, pacing the office, false starts, rewrites, practicing. I always tried (to mixed effect) to write in a way that would leave the audience wondering how I’d land the plane, in the end. Along the way many were published in journals or won awards in various forums. 

 

       Still, most of it—the vast majority of it—doesn’t speak to me anymore. I now think that the vast majority of what I wrote is either misinformed or just plain wrong. I pounded the pulpit for stuff I don’t believe in anymore. And so it was with much of the rest of my career—endless committee meetings, administration, catechism teaching, hand wringing over budgets and liturgies, and even much of the congregational visiting. All of this was in service of an institution whose core raison d’etre I no longer share, whose core story I admire, but no longer believe to be God’s word.

 

       So, now I look at all my sermons and think . . . what a waste. The vast majority of my professional life lies under a cloud of regret. I think about this a lot, and it saddens me. I might have been a paleontologist or archeologist—though as much as those careers appeal to me now, I suppose I’d more likely have become a mid-level white collar worker, given my naivete and immaturity as a twenty-some year old.

 

       Mind you, there are a few caveats, a few things that I think about as I try to justify my life as a preacher and editor.

 

• As I look at those sermons now, I see that I put a lot of energy into preaching love—of neighbors, social justice; love of immigrants, the marginalized, love of neighbors near and far; love of partners and children and art and more. And perhaps some of that preaching had an impact. If people love more, I don’t suppose their motivation for loving matters much. Love is love. 

 

• On many occasions parishioners felt my presence to be a support to them when they were sick, or troubled, or depressed, or mixed up, or whatever. To the degree that I lightened the load for some fellow travelers, I’m glad. 

 

• As an evangelical minister, I did other things—imperfectly. I preached a certain kind of morality—one that was more accepting and less rigid than was common among evangelicals. I worked, over time, for the full inclusion of gay people and women into the church’s life. I tried to encourage churches to be healthy communities where members could find friendship, support when needed, and kindness all about. I wrote often about the need to make churches safe places for children and women.

 

• My last caveat is the best. I spent my last nine years as a minister in a congregation that was okay with my being agnostic. I was overwhelmed by the freedom that gave me to explore new sources of meaning and new motivations to love neighbor. You will find the kernels of some of those sermons elsewhere in my blog.

 

       Still, I wish I had done something else with my life. True, I enjoyed myself, mostly. Along the way (less as I aged) I felt fulfilled. I climbed the ecclesiastical ladder with some success. My congregations were mostly happy places where I and my family were liked and appreciated. 

 

These days, though, looking back, much of my career seems like a long, wasted effort in the interest of a poor cause.  So how do I ultimately make peace with all that—leaving aside the caveats, above? 

 

Well, sometimes I think about my great grandfather Willem and his son, my grandfather Jan. Willem made a living selling groceries out of a dog cart. When that dried up, he went to work in a local cement factory. He died in his early forties of silicosis of the lungs. He didn’t have a choice. He did what he could to support his family—at least, until he couldn’t, anymore.

Dog Cart Grocery

As a result of his father’s death, my grandfather, Jan Suk, had to get a job with a farmer before finishing grade six. Of course he had to. There was no welfare in those days. His fatherless family was poverty stricken and survival was far from guaranteed. Years later, after immigrating to Canada, in the mid-fifties, his first job was loading beer trucks. Soon after and for the rest of his life he worked as a hospital janitor. 

 

Frederick Buechner famously defined “calling,” that is, what you should do, career-wise, as the intersection of two things: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep need meet.” Well, that’s a very modern and privileged notion, one that became an option for many people only because of the years of amazing economic growth and resulting prosperity that defined the fifties and sixties. 

 

The truth is, for most of human history, until not long ago, when it came to one’s life work, there was little “deep gladness,” and far too much “deep need.” Until recently, the vast majority of people had no choice. They didn’t have careers, they had work—often physically punishing, at poverty wages, and with little opportunity to move up ladders. I have learned to think of my career through that lens. Whatever I may think about the value of my sermons, I have had it infinitely better than all my grands going as far back as I can document.

 

I did not live a life defined by poverty, intellectual want, and difficult labor. Unlike my ancestors, I had privileged choices with respect to what I would do with my life, and even if I made mistakes, I really gave it a whirl. I also found a perfect partner. Our family was mostly (and still is) very happy. These days, I’m working hard to recognize and appreciate all the good things in my life that my ancestors could hardly have imagined.

 

I get that this might not sound like much to people who live life according to the rubrics, visions, and teachings of their churches. There is no great overarching vision here for the meaning of life, and no myth to support a hope for heaven or the kingdom come. I just do not believe in those things anymore. All my many years of theological study, my mastery of “Reformed, Christian” perspectives on sex or politics or the environment, all my life promoting Christianity, and especially my sermons—it is mostly dust to me.

 

And, to be honest, I am sad about that. Very sad. Looking back on sermons that no longer speak to me isn’t much fun. When I write about this stuff, or go on my daily walks, or remember how it used to be—I get depressed.

 

But as a child of privilege, at least I was free to change my mind. My ancestors never could, and they made the best of that in spite of tragedy and drudgery and poverty. Now, I am trying to make the best of it too. And it shouldn’t be too hard, given that my life was full of more opportunity, choice and ease than my ancestors could ever have imagined.

 

The freedom and opportunity to change one’s mind. It’s something we can actually do, these days. It’s a great gift, if we could only stop to examine it for what it is. And embrace it.

 

Great Reads From 2025

I’ve read fewer books this year compared to most. And many of them were about ancient Jewish religious evolution—not generally the sort of topic most people are interested in. But never fear, there were some other fascinating books in my reading this past year. Here’s ten of them! The first three, by the way, are all old classics well worth the effort of finding in a used bookstore or ordering online. 

A Wizard of Earthsea. (Ursula LeGuin): This is science-fiction classic first published over fifty years ago. A young wizard, over time, learns all about wisdom and his own personal demons. The emphasis is on how much he had to learn. Along the way, besides describing the world of Earthsea, Le Guin explores racism, ambition, and (I’d say, though it wasn’t a thing when she wrote it) systemic evil. The story moves at a fast pace, is written with great clarity—and best of all, invites the reader to fall in love with its hero, Ged. 

Doctor Glas. (Hjalmar Soderberg): I picked this one up in Sweden, visiting a cousin who pointed out that, “yes, there is great Swedish literature.” And well, this is a fine book. In it, a rather jaded doctor is moved by the tragic marriage of a female patient. And ultimately, he solves this lady’s problems—in the most unexpected manner. It’s a study of life’s meaning, medical ethics, and abusive relationships. The church doesn’t come in for any accolades here, either. I’d especially recommend it for doctors and people interested in denominational politics. 

A Lost Lady. (Willa Cather): Here’s another oldie but goodie. The lady in question is a study in contrasts. I couldn’t help but think of The Great Gatsby as I read it. Marian attracts many suiters, but some-how I don’t think that she finds what she is looking for in any of them. Its setting is the West just after the transcontinental railroad was finished. She’s surrounded by wealthy old men who have made their money cashing in on America’s manifest destiny. Tightly written, stylistically amazing, and a case study in why you should never presume that the answers of the day are necessarily the answers that will make the world, or you, a better person. 

James. (Percival Everett): Everyone seems to agree that this is one of the best books of 2025. I wouldn’t disagree. What if Huck Finn’s story had been told by Jim? It would be both the same and completely different. Twain was an early advocate for Black equality. And yet, his ideas are dated by his era and social milieu. James, however, gets what it means to be Black from the inside—and perseveres. 

Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany. (Norman Ohler): This is a book about the war on drugs—that is, how the Nazis fought WWII on drugs. Not a new book, but for me it was a new window into both Nazi Germany and Hitler. The Nazi’s massive use of drugs to bolster both the troops and the Fuehrer isn’t exactly old news. However, Ohler tells a riveting story that adds both color (not nice ones) and a deeper understanding of the depth of Nazi folly. A page turner. 

The Story of Evolution in 25 Discoveries. (Donald Prothero): I’ve been fascinated by evolution ever since I served as a student member on the Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship in 1984-85. Our topic was Creation and Cosmogony. We set out to understand how current scholarship would deepen our understanding of Biblical texts. Our focus was on cosmic evolution, but one of my assignments was to read and review several new commentaries on Genesis 1-11 and Psalm 104. That meant thinking hard about my presuppositions about Adam and Eve. I finished the year with a life-long habit of staying current on all kinds of evolution. This book, told in an entertaining voice, was a real pleasure to read. Perfect for anyone who wants a sense of why, if evolution is a theory, it’s a theory only to the degree gravity is a theory too. 

Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global. (Laura Spinney): Here’s a history of the Indo-European language from ancient (proto) times to the present. Spinney is a good writer, and when you’re done, you will have a deeper understanding of how (for example) we came to speak English, and where it and many other languages came from. Her research is up to date on the many factors that influence language change through time and space, the archaeological evidence, and the genetic evidence. It does get a bit dense sometimes, but the characters, civilizations, and turning-points you encounter along the way are fascinating. 

An African History of Africa: From the Dawn of Humanity to Independence. (Zeinab Badawi): In spite of knowing better, a lot of us still think of Africa as a dark continent lost in problems of its own making. The truth is quite different. Badawi explores the rise and fall of Africa’s great civilizations, the horrific toll of Western violence through colonialism, empire building, racism, sexism, the clash of religions, and of course, the slave trade. Badawi is optimistic about Africa’s future, though cautious. My only wish is that she might have spent more time on Bantu expansion. But her book is a tonic for those of us schooled in the old missionary stories about bringing the gospel to (so-called) savages. A welcome historical paradigm change. 

Who Really Wrote the Bible: The Story of the Scribes. (William M. Schniedewind): So, one of my current projects is to understand the evolution of Judah’s and Israel’s religion, and particularly the evolution of their ideas about God (or, more usually, the gods). Schniedewind, like most current scholars, believes that Deuteronomy (or at least an early version) came together near the end of the Judean monarchy, and that the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures followed. The stories, myths, and ancient written records that comprise those scriptures were curated for hundreds of years by scribes—in Samaria, the countryside, and in Jerusalem itself. This book explores who they were, what they did, and how different historical events such as the destruction of the temple, exile, and return from exile all impacted the process. I would have wished for more background on the ur-myths, stories, and how they were first brought into the scribal process. Still, it’s a book packed full of information—even if the writing is a bit dull sometimes. 

Inyoni and the Pale Man (John Suk): Okay, so this is a book I’ve written myself. It’s a historical novel set during the Boer (Anglo, African) War in Southern Africa. Pieter Ryken is a young Dutch teacher who wants to be a good man, but isn’t sure that it is possible. The novel moves from rural Netherlands to the brothels of Cape Town to Boer farmsteads in Transvaal, to the Siege of Mafeking. Along the way readers are invited to reflect on sexual violence, racism, orthodox religion, and how one deals—or doesn’t—with moral temptation. Okay, it’s the best book in this list. A real page turner! You can order it from my publisher, Archway Publishers, a subsidiary of Simon and Schuster; or, you can get it from Amazon.ca (or .com) or Indigo. Would love it if you left a review on Goodreads or any of the platforms mentioned.

My Agnosticism: Longing and Thirst

 

         In 2012 I interviewed for the position of minister at Lawrence Park Community Church (LPCC). Along the way one of the search committee members asked me if I believed in God. Belief in God had become a talking point at LPCC since the previous minister had been a post-theist. That is, he thought that at a minimum God’s time in the church was up, and that this was a good thing. He leaned to thinking there was no God at all.

         I answered the committee that I wasn’t really sure.

         LPCC hired me. I served that congregation for nine years—the richest years of my career. It was a big-tent church. We were made up of people who liked the community but maybe not orthodoxy tests, people who did and didn’t believe in God, and people who just were not sure. We tried to think of theology as a playground rather than a battlefield. We tried, together, to figure out what a good life was, how we might live such a life, and how we might spread our privilege around by doing good works and seeking justice. All of us were impressed by the example of Jesus.

         And I was their minister. When pressed—and sometimes when not—I admitted to my congregants that I did not know whether or not there was a God. I was agnostic.

         What did that mean? Well, ironically, the person who best summed the matter up for me was someone trying to explain his (mostly) Christian and (partly) Jewish faith—the New York Times columnist David Brooks. He described what William James called moments of “an ineffable joy and exultation,” numinous experiences in the mountains, and on subway trains, that ultimately convinced him that there was a God. (See “The Shock of Faith: It’s Nothing Like I Thought It Would Be.” Dec. 22, 2024). 

         I have not had such experiences, something that I have written about in my book, Not Sure: A Pastor’s Journey from Faith to Doubt, and in articles published in Christian Century and other journals. I do not doubt that Brooks was deeply moved by such experiences to change his ideas about faith. But I can’t personally identify with them myself, in spite of having sought them for years at silent retreats, through searching of scripture, in worship, and by practicing spiritual disciplines such as prayer and fasting. 

         So, over all, I do not identify with Brooks’ personal story. However, along the way, Brooks makes one claim that resonated with me. “The most surprising thing I’ve learned since then is that ‘faith’ is the wrong word for faith as I experience it. The word ‘faith’ implies possession of something, whereas I experience faith as a yearning for something beautiful that I can sense but not fully grasp. For me faith is more about longing and thirsting than knowing and possessing.”

         And that is exactly what agnosticism is for me—that longing and thirsting to understand what I cannot fully grasp—love, or beauty, or the meaning of life. But whereas Brooks a turns to religion as the explanation for what he cannot grasp, I have learned that what is just beyond the rim our understanding is mostly what scientists are working on, with quite a bit of success.  There is no God of the gaps, no God of the numinous, for me. 

         From here on, however, as much as I respect Brooks, I think he gets faith, spirituality and religion mostly wrong. He quotes Rabbi David Wolpe, who denigrates spirituality and celebrates religion: “Spirituality is an emotion. Religion is an obligation. Spirituality soothes. Religion mobilizes. Spirituality is satisfied with itself. Religion is dissatisfied with the world.” 

         Such broad generalizations not grounded in evidence. Spirituality is an emotion? So what? Are emotions somehow less valuable or beneficial than religious obligations? Do emotions require less work to understand and integrate into your life? And is spirituality just an emotion? Is it not far more complex, emotions being just one facet? And as for religion being obligation, yes, we’ve all heard of Calvinistic or Fundamentalistic legalism, of women’s so-called obligation to obey their husbands, or gays’ obligation to never love. Remember Julian Barnes’ warning. “Religion tends to authoritarianism as capitalism tends to monopoly.” Sure, religion is obligation, but the obligations are often horribly misplaced. 

         To continue, does spirituality merely soothe while religion mobilizes? Do not both religion and spirituality both sometimes soothe, or sometimes not? To suggest soothing is bad, or that it belongs primarily to spirituality but not religion, or that spirituality can’t mobilize while religion can—well, all of these ideas are just silly and not borne out by experience. And as long as we’re talking mobilization and religion, let’s not forget the Evangelicals and MAGA and Christian nationalism, or the Southern Baptists and Presbyterians and slavery, or the role religion has played in harassing gay people, women, or promoting the worst kinds of colonial empire building. And all these are just for starters. Mobilization can be good or bad.

         And why would anyone say that spirituality is merely a matter of self-satisfaction? Again, this is a claim without any justification, and self-evidently false if you think about it. Whether Ghandi or Einstein, Seimone Weil or my one-time neighbour, Sarah . . . there are plenty of spiritual people who are not satisfied with the status quo, who seek justice, who engage in (sometimes at great personal cost) uncomfortable and self-sacrificial acts. And yes, religious people are often dissatisfied with the world, which might explain the crusades, or 100-year religious wars in Europe, or the inquisition, or the persecution of Jews (who have always been scapegoats for all sorts of worldly dissatisfactions). 

         So, what of Brooks’ former agnosticism? I will not claim that it is the best option or only option. But for me, personally, agnosticism baptizes my longing to know more, to seek out strange new truths and let go of unconvincing myths. In most religious people’s eyes, agnosticism might make for a poor spirituality and religion both. But it is what I’ve got.

I suppose, at this point, I could write a tome about how matters such as the evolution of the God Yawheh from an ancient tribal God to the one and only God of the universe, in Judaism left me doubting that this is the one and only God. (For more on this, see the Aug 18 and Oct 15, 2022 posts in this blog.) Or, I could explain why the problem of evil leaves me doubting that possibility of a good God. And there is even a little part of me that argues I should go back and reread some of Nick Wolterstorff’s or Alvin Plantinga’s books. I admired them a great deal, so shouldn’t I give them another chance? And then there is my personal agnosticism abyss—the many joys and comforts I have foregone now that I have left behind not only God, but the church I grew up in, its community, and my place in it. Changing one’s mind isn’t always easy or cozy.

As a half-way measure, by way of avoiding agnosticism, I’ve even tried on different kinds of Christian religion, ones that would give me room to embrace God while not being tied down to some narrow dogmatic confession about who this God is or what the actual truth about this God is. I went from mainline theologians like Douglas John Hall or Walter Pannenberg to more radical theologians such as Richard Kearny, John Caputo, or Catherine Keller. However, I found much in their works to be so complex, so full of “just so” arguments when it came to unique descriptions of God, as to be both unappealing and unconvincing.

In the end, I was reminded of something Malcom Muggeridge once said. "One of the peculiar sins of the twentieth century which we've developed to a very high level is the sin of credulity. It has been said that when human beings stop believing in God, they believe in nothing. The truth is much worse; they believe in anything." Perhaps so, at least sometimes. But in light of a fantastic variety of Christian sects and radical theologians, it is worth asking why Muggeridge didn’t think Christians are the credulous who will believe anything. Now, my old religion seems to me to be much like a very impressive cell phone without reception. It was always in airplane mode, if you will. The infrastructure, coding, icons, and algorithms and are all there, but there is no signal to enliven it all.

Ultimately, agnosticism is a refusal to be credulous. It is an attempt to keep an open and searching mind. Agnosticism is not doubt, which, after all, belongs to faith. Agnostics simply admit a truth they may not much like, namely that they, even after much effort, do not know. I am agnostic.

          This is not decision by indecision. It is, rather, the difficult decision to admit to one’s own limitations. My agnosticism creates a longing and thirst to explore life’s mysteries rather than a belief that I can know and can possess ultimate truth.