What Does it Mean to Lose My Religion

Losing My Religion. What does it mean? It is hard to describe because many assume it means becoming an Athiest. You would have to live under a rock not to know who Lauren Daigle is.

She is a multi-platinum recording artist who transcended all genres when her smash Contemporary Christian hit, You Say, hit the airwaves. Her song crossed over well because the words could mean different things based on who listened to them.

The song is about faith. It states that You Say, meaning God, that I am good enough. It is very powerful because of the affirmation she received from You, whom she was singing to.

In the Secular world, it is a powerful ballad stating that someone she knew believed in her, giving her the power to be the best.  And both versions can be right.

What Does it Mean to Lose My Religion?

Many people may not know that Daigle wrote a song titled Losing My Religion, not to be confused with the REM song of the same name. Though both songs say the same words, they mean very different things.

The REM song talks about unrequited love. The Daigle song talks about shedding the preconceived image of God she learned as a child. Which is where I take the name of my column from. I lost my religion over time, and I am still not free of the shackles it has bound me with.

Breaking Free of Religion

Religion, for me, became a burden when I realized that things I was taught growing up didn’t sit right with my soul. I had been raised to believe homosexuality was a choice and a sin. Anyone who practiced it was going to hell.  Then I found out a dear friend of mine was gay. I knew he was a wonderful human being, and I could not subscribe to the notion that he was going to hell simply for existing.

As time went by, I found out that many more people I knew and loved, including family members, were gay, and I realized that none of these people would choose to be ostracized and hated for being their true selves.  Also, like my friend, I knew my feelings for these others didn’t change just because I found out they were gay. This was the turning point for me in losing my religion.

Politics, which I speak often about here, is another stepping stone away from religion.

Strange Bedfellows

I lost my fear of people because religion taught me that being gay is a sin; I also lost my conservative values. This means I quit trying to make other people fit into my boxes. Peter Enns describes how most religious people use religion to make other people change.

That is exactly what I was attempting to do. This is also what the song by Lauren Daigle is talking about.  She mentions that she is no longer performing out of fear. Religion and love are strange bedfellows. She knows that Religion does not equal love.

Later, she says she needs something different from the religion she grew up with. The difference is God—not the God of her youth but the God she found. She’s willing to trade her religion and watch it burn to meet the real God she found. That God is Love, not religion.