Outgrowing the Past

by Bradford Tuckfield (February 2016)

I recently read an interview with a musician I admire who described a time in his youth when he had been a devout Christian. He is no longer religious at all, or as he described it, he “grew out of religious ideas.” Upon hearing this, I thought of the other things that people often describe growing out of – old clothes, for example, for which one becomes physically too large during childhood, or youthful bad manners, for which one’s nature becomes too civil during early adulthood. Is religiosity or belief in God something that becomes too “small” for us, like the clothes we wore as children? Is it a feature of immaturity or ignorance that we should progress past?  more>>>