This might ramble a bit, but I hope you can find something useful in this.
I grew up Christian, had a falling out with the local Baptist church (which I shouldn't have been attending in the first place, given that I wasn't a BAptist) and became Wiccan. I spent 10 years in Wicca before having a falling out with just about everybody
and now here I am, religion-free, attending an Episcopal church with my daughter.
For me the decision to leave Wicca had two main components: 1. my own theology was both drifting away from Wicca and solidifying into something I was becoming less and less willing to compromise in order to participate in Wiccan-style worship and 2. because i felt very strongly about my children being raised within a religion, i needed a community in which to raise them. i needed a community that would support them, love them, challenge them, and provide guidance and strength. There is no real Wiccan community to speak of--Wiccans are a strange bunch, and tend to shy away from groups and the notion of real community. That was something I desperately needed, and because it was so sorely lacking in Wicca altogether, and coupled with number 1, I decided to skip out.
I felt stranded in a sense, because not having a neat and tidy lable to apply to myself was distressing and lonely. I wanted to be able to give a pithy response to the ubiquitious, "What religion are you?" question. But although I have very specific ideas about God, a system of spiritual ethics that is fully developed, implemented and constantly challenged, and a faith that is all-encompassing and ever-growing, I have no actual religion. That was hard for me, being the religious scholar that I am and having always considered myself religious. But what I discovered in my religious meanderings is that spending time with the wrong community can do one's relationship with God a lot of damage. It is far better to spend time alone with God and appreciate God's wonder than to spend time with others with a dilapidated, awkard, limited God.
I also realized that it was more important for me to give my time to a
faith community that I agreed with, rather than a community that shared a similar
belief system with me. The distinction there was crucial: faith is much deeper, more personal, more mythical, more powerful than mere belief. Faith is what directs our lives--it is the foundation for how we choose to live. It is, essential, the very things upon which we rest our heart. It consists of our ultimate values, our most treasured hopes for ourselves and the world, the very priciniples upon which we base our actions, our lives, our hopes, and our dreams. And that, for me, was much more important than theology--which is saying a lot for me!
So I had to find a group that would help me grow in faith. I wanted a group that treasured the same things I treasured: charity, right behavior, spiritual loving and connection, brotherhood and solidarity, and most importantly, a deep and true love for God in the many ways God shows himself to people.
I found that community in the Episcopal church, which is why I am raising my kids in that church. Our theology does not match. I am no Christian. But my faith matches the ultimate goals of the church--not salvation, but a brotherhood in God. I wanted that. And I wanted my kids to have that.
Anyway, community accomplished, we still need to feed our brains, right? To that end, I can recommend a few books to you that you might find helpful:
Dynamics of Faith , Paul Tillich
The Idea of the Holy , Rudolph Otto
Stages of Faith , James Fowler
Dance of the Dissident Daughter, Sue Monk Kidd
God In Search of Man, Abraham Joshua Heschel (this book is more Jewishly oriented but still accessible for non-Jews.)
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