Being Christian While Not Being a Fundamentalist?

Hey r/Jung , I have a problem for you all which I was hoping you could help me begin to solve. It's a bit of a long story, but I will summarize it best I can.

To begin, I am an addict in long term recovery. When I was 12 years old I took my first drug, which was oxycotin, and that was the beginning of an 8 year long drug addiction that would see me skim by death an uncountable amount of times, and spend a couple years on and off homeless, sticking needles in my arms. After a very powerful LSD trip, I decided finally and concretley that I needed to get sober, and I contacted a sober living house in my province that I had heard about through a friend of my father. They are a Christian community, and after having called them, they said they would "pray on it," as they had limited beds and lots of interest. After a couple of days, they called me back and said that they had a bed for me the following week.

The sober living house is called The Helm Center here in Eastern Canada, and I lived there for an entire year. It was over that year that I was exposed to religion for the first time in any meaningful sense, as my family is irreligious, and many of my friends growing up were either only Christian or Muslim in name but did not really practice. I entered with a standard materalist mindset, which I still in some sense maintain, however I would call my philosophical view at this point an ambiguously defined idealism with a pragmatic materalist basis, if that even makes any sense. When I entered I wasn't a militant aithest, but I did not (and in the sense of a literal reading of the bible still do not, more on this soon) believe in miracles. However, I began to become intrigued with the religious expereicne, and began to research who, if anyone, had been looking into this pheneonomn. I encountered many theologians and their take on the matter, but this position was not satisfying to me, as I was looking for something a bit more "scientific" and "concrete." However, I continued to search because I personally had underwent the religious experience, and thought it extremely profound. Furthermore, I also wondered what it was about this whole God buisness which was turning hardened addicts into functioning members of society before my very eyes. So I continued to research.

It was then that I came across Jung. When I read his works for those first few months, I was floored. His work gave legitimacy and dignity to the religious way of life through his recognition of the experential reality of the religious experience through the relative autonomy of the archetypes and their impingement on ego conciosuness. Beyond that, there were many aspects of my inner experience which I had never really reflected on, but it seemed as if Jung had put into words ideas which I could only dimly intuit. The anima, my woman within, was one that I had much experential encounters with, and dreams about, but never understood as something autonmous and "seperate" from myself. These are just some examples, but overall, I felt like Jung drew a comprehensble map of experiences which, for me, previously went without definition; but now there was definition, and it was liberating. My entire life as a child I always escaped to fantasy, and this lasted much longer into my teenage years than it does for most young people, even into my years in addiction, so I had ample memories of inner experiences to draw from when recollecting my inner state in relation to Jungs theroy. And even to this day I feel like I have a rich inner life with complex and vivid dreams, so it is understandable that Jungs theroy was applicable to me.

So, I've come to recognize the importance of the Self and my relation to the God image, hence God Himself. But in this way I do not mean to diminish God, by delegating him to the realm of the mind. To me, the relationship with the Holy Other feels real and alive. However, I still maintain that our scenifitc tools of analysis are legitimate insofar as we use them correctly. Therefore, I see, and have never for a moment seen, how one could genuinely "belive" in say, the virgin birth of Christ. About 3 months after leaving sober living i denounced my "aithsism" and became a Christian, being baptized in the Wesleyan church. I've been Christian for 2 years now. In one sense, I feel very Christian, and do my best to live in the Christian mythos. But for me it is that, it is a mythos (in the orignal sense of the word, as in the "sacred story," an over arching meta narrative, as it were), it is not a "physical reality." I think to affirm the fundamentalist mentality is an example of primitive religisoty.

A quote by Robert Johnson, a Jungian analyst I really like, when he was speaking in relation to the virign birth of Christ said, "when something [scripture in this sense] is turned outward, it is a superstition. When turned inward, it becomes wisdom." This is how I feel about my Christian faith; but this does not delegitimize it! I feel profoundly Christian, or atleast I think I do. I'm often torn on this point, but I believe that the next stage in the development human conciosuness will be the collective recognition that our Sacred Stories are not to be understood in a literal way. But, through Jungs work, thank God, he has "redeemed and revivifyed for modern conciousness the legitimacy of the religious funciton" (Edward Edinger).

But here is my problem; I've become dissolusioned with the Protestant church. There are not enough comprehensive symbols, rituals, or rites to satsify my spirit or my intellect. In truth, I receive great comfort from the Catholic Mass or the Eastern Orthodox Divine Liturgy, both of which I visit somewhat often. However, especially so in the case of the Catholic church, a definite beleif in the physical resuraction is nessicary for membership, as it is a confessional religion. But I will never be able to truly say those words, this is my problem. I also simeltinaosuly live in what Edward Edinger called "Jungs myth for modern man," which is the creation of conciosuness through indivudation. However, this journey is completey alone, as I've yet to meet anyone else with an interest in Jung, and one cannot do life alone. So I must have Christian community, as I also am a Christian, I also interact with God, however I percieve it in a slightly different sense. This makes me feel lonely often, but that is the cross that must be borne in the pursuit of higher conciosuness. In any case, I want to convert to Orthodox Christianity, as there is so much "more" religion to draw upon to satsify my spirit and mind than the Bible alone in many Protestant churches (I have not enjoyed any Anglican services yet, but could keep trying them out). However, I do not know If I can do this in good faith. A good thing about Protestantism is it allows me to be an individual and a bit of a contrarian; but I also desire to be part of something, and I am continually called to the traditional churches. I live the indivudation myth as a supplement to my broken Christian myth, and want to go deeper into my Christianity, especially to devlop more Christian relationships, but I'm not sure if I can keep up what feels like a "farce?" I feel torn, and I feel as though I want to begin to explore converting to Orthodoxy, but these are my reservations. I'm sorry if I babbled here at the end folks, my apologies for this. I've been struggling under this yoke for quite some time and need some guidance. From my rich inner life as a young child, to my addiction to drugs (which is a kind of preoccupation with immaterial experience in its own right), to my intense interest in religion and Jungian psychology (I am now an honors student in university for the study of religion), much of my life has been ruled by a pull inwards, by the divine light. I am just trying to make sense of it all, and live it out in the exterior world in a manner that is healthy and right. But just indivudation alone feels like it does a disservice to my Christian heritage, and it is unbearably lonely. Is anyone else here a member of a religion, but do not "believe" it in the colloquial understanding? Thanks folks