Religious echoes

There is no "believer" left in me any longer. I am quite content to take the universe as it presents itself to be, so large as to infinite for all practical purposes (even if it isn't), so old on the one hand with so much history left to unfold on the other as to be ageless (particularly in relation to our short lived selves) and unfolding without any particular purpose in mind. This is a stage more than big enough for us to find the room to create what we will of our lives and our understanding of our place.

Though I dismiss all religion as the first feeble attempts of a still childish species just now emerging into a shaky intelligence to explain what they don't know, I have to admit to a soft spot for Christianity. That is not so odd really. I was raised a Christian, spent many years as a fundamentalists, married a fundamentalist (who has moved from fundamentalism herself, but is still a very spiritual person, and who loves me to this day) and raised my Daughters as Christians. Two of them remain in the Christian fold, and are raising 6 of my 7 grand kids in that tradition.

But the spirituality that I recall once pursuing is not the Christianity of 21st Century Americanism. That Christianity is an abomination of greed, hate, intolerance and just plain ignorance. How it got to be such a potent force in what was once an enlightened society is one of the mysteries of history. The only good news is that many of the generation soon to take the reigns seem to be rejecting this religion of their forebears. In America much of what is left of that religious tradition is shrinking into an elitist corner of the T-Party / Republican right and, though a political force for much ill at the moment, may already be seeing its day fading away. Conservative Catholicism is also a tradition of little value and it is no surprise that many T-party / Republican types are converting to Catholicism. (Though, to their credit, a few Catholic leaders are finding T-party ideology a bad fit.) Conservatism seeks to cling to, and return to, the past. It worships those who wield power over others, loves the idea of dictating how people should live, and exhibits an almost pathological self-righteousness in its claim of knowing what is "right" for everyone. Catholicism and the social conservatism of the T-party / Republicans are nearly identical expressions of this kind of social engineering.

No. The Christianity I remember with a bit of wistfulness was that of my early teens, before getting swept up in the fundamentalism that swallows all religion eventually. That Christianity followed the teachings of a rather plain Jesus, a carpenter who worked with his hands, hung out with the riff-raff of society without judging them, but whose words for the rich, the elite, and the arrogant couldn't be more harsh. He pretty much condemned all the rich and all of the powerful, seeing little hope for their redemption. He wasn't too enthusiastic of religious self-righteousness either, saving some of his harshest criticisms for the religious leaders of his time. That Jesus looked into the quality of a person's heart, balanced that against the circumstances of a person's life, was quick to forgive, put no faith in riches, and cherished love above all else. Of American Christianity as expressed by the T-party Republicans, he would have only one opinion for them and those who support their goals, "get away from me you doers of evil" Neither the Vatican, nor modern American Protestantism would let him through the doors.

Indeed, if it was possible that that Jesus was the god some claim, virtually every American Christian would find their soul at risk. They would be left wondering, "Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?" His answer? "The day you voted with the T-party / Republicans in America."

Of course that Jesus was no more a god, and in fact no more real, then the oppressive Jesus of the Pope or the homophobic Jesus of the T-party. Those who claim Jesus loves and rewards the rich while properly punishing the poor for their lack of initiative are doing what all of human kind has done through all of history, making up a god to fit their own needs. How is their claim any less legitimate then any other god claim? The Creationist's god who put fossils in the ground to test the faithful? Same thing. All of the gods created throughout all of history have the exact same claim on being the "real deal". They all ignore the cosmos as it actually shows itself to be. They all revisit history for their own advantage. They are all based on the myopic vision of a barely intelligent species. Its just that some of them are much more useful to those in power. Others play to our tribalism's and prejudices and so we build mosques and temples to our hate and intolerance. (Which would be why the Jesus of my early years is now long dead and mostly forgotten.)

This suggests a sad thing about us human beings at the moment. Our gods are the killer gods of the prophet Mohammad, the self-righteous gods of the Pope, the monied gods of the Protestants. Ours are the gods of riches and power and war. We flock to these gods, put money in their collection plates, shrug at their murders and rapes and child molestations as being the work of "a few bad apples". We are the gods we worship, and it shows in our world. Still, there is hope that the some in the next generation will invent different gods to follow, discover a different spirituality that has nothing to do with man centered versions of the cosmos, maybe invent a "Jesus" who lifts people up in wholeness and compassion, rather than holding them up as examples of evil. Maybe they will find a god who values truth over faith, knowledge over belief, love over hate.

No matter what happens this is a society that goes away. It is incompatible with humanity, with progress, with any hope for a future. It can't survive its current gods, and would be incompatible with the new ones.