FINDING MY RELIGION: Wendy Moore creates her own spirituality

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 7/24/6 | David Ian Miller

[SmithL]

If you can't find a religion that moves you, why not invent one?

America has a long history of do-it-yourself spirituality going back at least far as Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Transcendentalists. And that desire to "roll your own religion" shows no sign of fading away. A September 2005 Newsweek poll found eight in 10 Americans do not believe any one faith is the sole path to salvation. So it's no surprise that some are weaving together strands from a variety of faiths to create their own personal religions.

Wendi Moore-Buysee, a 36-year-old motivational speaker and life coach, is one of the many people who have created their own faiths. Moore took bits from Eastern and Western religions and combined them with a dash of metaphysics and a dose of paganism. She's not looking for converts. Instead, she works with people to help them connect with their own personal god or goddess. Moore lives in Minneapolis, and I spoke with her by phone last week.

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Tell me a little bit about the religious tradition you were raised in.

I grew up in a small town in the middle of Illinois. I was baptized Methodist, but I was raised in a First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Church was kind of an off-and-on sort of thing. We went for a while and we stopped going, and then we started going again. But my family has become very religious in the past 15 or 20 years.

What do you mean by "very religious"?

My mom in particular has gone from being a Presbyterian to a Baptist, and she's gotten more and more conservative in her Christianity. She lives in the Chicago area and volunteers regularly

[SmithL]

Another feel-good project for people that don't believe in anything.

[butternut_squash_bisque]

"...a 36-year-old motivational speaker and life coach..."

That description speaks volumes, doesn't it? Get a job, Wendy, you loooooooooooooooooooser!

[OneWingedShark]

I'm reminded of a saying I once heard from an elder at church: "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything."

[nina0113]

She HAS a job - those people make hundreds of dollars an hour "consulting". Being a professional BS artist is hard work.

[CholeraJoe]

I've never heard of her. Did I miss the memo?

[prous]

Of course, the problem is that there are people out there willing to pay for that kind of swill. That's the craziest part.

[nina0113]

I've been to several motivational seminars, paid for by the HR department of large corporations. I'm so glad my current employer doesn't believe in them.

[Sloth]

"There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness." Proverbs 30:12

[neocon]

If you can't find a religion that moves you, why not invent one?

For the same reason that if you don't happen to like the fact that 2+2=4, you really ought not to try to invent a "new" mathematics.

Theology, like any other legitimate human intellectual endeavor, is a search for truth. Inventing your own religion entails a tacit assumption that it's all just a matter of opinion.

In many ways, in recent times, we've moved past the usual commonplace irrationality into the realm of the delusional. It's as if people really believed that if they flapped their arms, they really could fly. I counter this nonsense by inviting such people to do the equivalent of giving such ideas a try off the Empire State Building. So far, oddly enough, there have been no takers.

[Lilllabettt]

This is a great spirituality.

Forget about the Christian obligation of loving neighbor as yourself. Where murder, genocide, rape, robbery, etc. are concerned, Wendy says:

I don't believe in right or wrong. It just is. If it feels like something that I should do, then I'll do it.

How does her spirituality address problems of senseless crime? War? So much for that silly the-sufferings-of-one-are-the-sufferings-of-all Body of Christ stuff. Wendy says:

I don't see how any of that is affecting me personally. I go on with my life.

Relativism is, despite all its claims of humanitarian tolerance, a basically selfish, depraved project.

[TFFKAMM]

My favorite is G.K. Chesterton's deathless quip: "When people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing -- they believe in anything."

[OneWingedShark]

Chesterton has some great quotes that I've read. In fact he's next on my Authors To Read list... after I go through the pile of books that I'm working on now, that is.

[TFFKAMM]

Here are some starter suggestions:

THE COMPLETE STORIES OF FATHER BROWN - the origin of both the "amateur detective" in literature, and all Christian-informed mystery-suspense writing.

ORTHODOXY - the finest defense of historic Christian doctrine and practice I've ever read.

THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY - here, he anticipated both the nihilistic, destroy-everything-now terrorism of our age, and the paranoiac surrealism of PoMo literature.

THE NAPOLEON OF NOTTING HILL - *The 'Hood as Nation*. Localism and the British love of home and hearth taken to their logical ends.

There's much, much more, but you can't go wrong with these.

[bboop]

For a start, would you go to see a 36 year old who claims to have it all figured out?

[butternut_squash_bisque]

LOL!

[Mr. Jeeves]

I just read an article on the Internet by a man -- a very conservative Christian -- who said: "Don't do yoga, because that makes you meditate and that makes you take responsibility for your own life. It makes you start thinking for yourself." That's what intuition does, and that's why very conservative Christians are afraid of it.

I would have thought this an exaggerated, Christian-bashing caricature if there weren't a current FR thread with responses that sound exactly like it.