absolute truth claims August 15, 2009
Posted by relsdork in God, christian, religion.Tags: absolute truth, christianity, elective monotheism, evangelism, faith, God, missionary work, religion
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Humankind has endlessly been struggling to understand God, so I think it quite offensive and arrogant to shove one’s personal religion in the face of someone who is quite happy with their own. Really, if a Muslim came up to you and read you some stuff from the Quran and told you that you were stupid for being a Christian and that your morals were bankrupt and would land you in hell unless you were willing to claim Mohammad as the paramount prophet, how responsive would you be?
It’s ridiculously naive to think that any of us, especially those of us who are not fluent in the original languages of the Bible, can truly understand its message, especially now that we are some 3500 years after much of it was written and completely absent of the Bible’s original context. Of course we have endeavored to find the historical context of these writings, but so little is available to us. Even for those scholars who can read Koine Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic, it’s incredibly difficult to discern what kinds of intricacies and poetic structure was used in scripture, what kinds of allegory, puns, metaphors, etc. that simply don’t translate into English or the year 2008.
One of my goals as a Christian is to faithfully embrace the mystery that is God. While I seek to understand scripture as fully as I can (I am majoring in Comparative Religious Studies, learning Ancient Greek, and intend to enter seminary), I will never be able to define God or God’s will in any kind of certainty… I can only have faith. Therefore, I should be respectful of whatever faith claims other people have, so long as they are not damaging anyone, imposing themselves on others, or interfering with my faith practice.
evangelicals are as overrated as their god May 4, 2009
Posted by relsdork in God, bible, christian, church, environment, gay rights, politics, religion, scripture.Tags: evangelism, insitutionalism, religion
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Every once in a while (okay, probably more like “often”), I feel the need to rant about religion. People are often surprised by this, as one of the things which people often learn about me at the beginning of our relationship is that I am religious. I go to church every Sunday, lead a youth group, and engage in a plethora of inter- and intrareligious activities.
AND YET
I pretty much hate a lot (most?) of what religion does in our world today. Yes, religion helps those at the bottom rungs of society and sends aid (and missionaries!) to those poor wretches who were so unlucky to be born outside of the promised land (America, not Palestine), but it also furthers ignorance and a variety of ridiculous paradigms that can a) lead people to act against their better judgment, b)lead people to justify their otherwise unjustifiable bigotry, and/or c) suspend critical inquiry and follow the “leadership” of those who hold power and influence in their respective tradition. Religion has been, is, and will be for whatever unforeseeable span of time in the future, dangerous.
Much of the religious world manages to defend sexism, homophobia, classism, racism, nationalism, arbitrary hierarchies, blatant and thoughtless consumption of natural resources and our natural world (“development” at best, “Who cares? Judgment Day is just around the corner” at worst), and conspicuous consumption as “the will of God.” If this were not horrible and ridiculous enough on its own, they then proceed to tell the rest of us heathens that we should be doing the same.
If religious mindsets are often not dangerous enough in their ignorance, they are made exponentially more dangerous by the perceived call of adherents to proselytize. Jesus loves you, but not enough to drag your sinful butt out of a pit of hellfire if you don’t tithe 10% and stop having gay sex.
Yes, I know that non-Abrahamic traditions (and one of those Abrahamic) tend not to care so much about the ultimate destinies of those not currently adhering to their own traditions (and often hate it when we start delving into them as flowery-happy alternatives to our own). Just because they don’t wish to push their cosmologies on us (thank the Lord?) doesn’t mean they’re not spewing their own forms of ignorance and convincing their children to adopt such paradigms before they’re able to find a decent grasp on the world.
It must be because I’m an American that I believe in things like progress, but I truly believe that any form of religion that is convincing people to forego common sense or justify injustice is one that needs to reexamine its relevance and Truth.
One should be asking themselves if the MONEY their organization is taking in is going to the things it talks about on pulpits. One should be asking if the topics their organizations claim to care about are being put into action on all fronts, not just the ones it deems appropriate. (Are you just protesting abortion or are you looking out for all issues that are about life?)
If the paramount form of religious observation is simply to believe x,y, and z, what is your religion accomplishing? Is your God so fickle that the only thing s/he cares about is your professed love? So what? A husband that beats the crap out of his wife can swear he loves her a million times over, but if that love isn’t demonstrated and acted upon, what is it accomplishing besides a beaten-up wife? Is religion’s only purpose to make people believe things? If that’s the case, one’s religious faith is about as useful as a hand stamp to get into a club. Its only merit is the purpose for which it was created. That’s not a merit! Because I have a blade for my blender, it will blend things, but without that blender, it’s not really doing much.
So I guess what this is boiling down to is if religion’s main function is to convince people to believe certain unsubstantiated things in order that they can be “saved,” then it’s probably a load of crap. Faith can be a beautiful thing, but if its only function is to get you into heaven, I’d have to ask why else it’s useful. Why would an institution possibly want me to believe what it’s asking me to believe?
SO.
What is religion doing for me? What am I doing for religion?
If all religion is doing for me is keeping me out of Hell (which, btw, is not in the Bible, so be extra careful about Christians that are telling you that because WHERE THE HECK are they getting their information?), and not doing much for me in the here and now (other than performing the functions of a circle of friends/family (occasionally bailing you out of a mess, acting as a dating service, throwing parties, etc.)), then what is its purpose, if (God forbid) they happen to be lying or ill-informed or interpreting a weird dream as revelation (when it wasn’t) or interpreting their schizophrenia as voices of the divine? If, for whatever reason, your religion is wrong, what is it getting you to do that you might not otherwise do?
If it’s simply feeding poor people, whatever, who cares? But if your religion is asking you to give it a bunch of money for stained glass windows and other gaudy displays of wealth, it’s effectively asking you to buy it the Mercedes that its day job wouldn’t afford it. If your religion is asking you to hate people or prevent them from obtaining rights, maybe you should wipe the fog off of your glasses and examine things a little more deeply. If your religion is saying that certain people shouldn’t have educations or that certain well-established forms of scholarship and research are lies, maybe you should ask them why they would want to do that. If your religion is promoting what the educated of the world would call ignorance, maybe you should ask why they want you to be that stupid.
Or maybe you should just feel comfortable in your faith that you’re going to heaven and I’m not.
Christianity Needs Salvation April 22, 2009
Posted by relsdork in God, bible, christian, church, religion, struggle.Tags: biblical scholarship, christianity, evangelism, religious studies, ritual, sin
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This is going somewhere. Stick with it.
Hebrew is normally written without vowels. They’re not necessary, for the most part. Someone who reads Hebrew knows where the vowels belong. Vowels are included for those learning Hebrew.
In the Jewish scripture, vowels are included for “YHWH.” This is all fine and dandy for the English reader, but if you’re a Jew, you understand that the vowels are placed in positions that don’t make sense… positions that show the word is unspeakable. Naming something gives one power over it. Read Genesis. Or this old blog entry.
We cannot have power over God. This doesn’t mean that we can’t contradict God’s will, but it means we cannot ultimately overcome it.
We each have our own contexts. We each have our own needs. God transcends all of them.
God is mystical. God is subject to certain laws, but God is eternal. God might not be able to grab a microphone and speak to us, but God operates through those who can understand God’s will.
If God is beyond our naming, how can we define ourselves as followers? We call ourselves Christians. It was a name imposed on early Christ followers by Romans. It was name-calling that stuck and was reclaimed by those who wore it.
I feel like “Christian” is name-calling again for me. I don’t want to be what people think of when they think of “Christian,” but I want to be what I am. I want to reclaim the title. I think that requires giving the title back its context. It requires educating people who claim the title so they know what it means.
We throw around our Christian vocabulary and think we’re communicating. We have changed the meanings of our own words. We sometimes understand them differently and mis-communicate because of it.
As much as I hate to identify with the Evangelical movement, I cannot help it in this moment. The idea: “Hate the sin, not the sinner.” I’m going to show you what I mean about words.
Sin is an alien word for me, not because of its meaning, but because of the meaning we gave it.
Literally, “sin” means to miss the mark. There’s nothing wrong with that idea. Of course all of us try to be our best, but we fail. Because we are in the image of God and because we have eaten from the Tree of Knowledge, we understand that failure. We know it when we make mistakes and when we act against our better nature.
The connotations of the word sin have made it alienating. If we understood sin as wandering off the path, whether by daydream or curiosity or a simple childish rebellion, it would not hold its power of guilt. If sin could be understood as it was meant, as an honest mistake or a failure to live up to our potential, it couldn’t haunt us the way it does.
If sin could truly be understood as missing the mark, we would all understand that all of us fail. We all miss the mark because perfection is an absurd idea brought on by thinking Law is there as more than an example to strive for, but as a set of exclusivist rules by which we can create an esoteric cult. If Law was all that mattered, God would have given us Leviticus and been done with it. We have good news and it is not that God is an exclusivist. It is not that God wants you to believe x, y, and z.
Jesus didn’t just sit and believe things. Beliefs can’t do anything on their own. Really, when we look at the history of religious belief, what can we say for ourselves? Beliefs don’t seem to help advance science or save countries from war. More often than not, religious beliefs have bred hostility.
And yet…
God’s very nature says, “You cannot define it.” We cannot name God. Any power derived from naming is ultimately arbitrary.
The title Christian, in the grand scheme of things, is arbitrary. It’s the reason I can claim it. I can claim it because I know that calling myself Christian doesn’t make me more like other Christians or less like Muslims. A name is not a source of identity any more than it’s a source of power.
What is a source of power?
I was born into an American family with parents raised Roman Catholic and Mormon, yet who decided that their children had the strength to find God on their own.
I have found God. I have found God in my place of worship.
I imagine that I can also find God a mosque and a field. God seems to find people wherever they are.
Before I could claim an academic understanding of religion, my understanding of God was very different. It is because of my education that I understand God to be inclusive, to be pervasive, to be limited, despite whatever desire we may have for God to preside over the trivialities of our lives. I also know, however, that God is unlimited in the way that God is active in every Human mind.
If we can nourish God’s mustard seed in our minds with education and context, I know that our contexts can meet and bow to each other and worship together knowing that the ritual, the naming, the scripture (the search) cannot alter God and cannot matter more than the now, because now is all that God is ever working with.
As much as I despise the Evangelical phrase “hate the sinner, not the sin,” I have to embrace it and extend it into my context. “Hate Evangelism, not the Evangelical.”
I have to know that education trumps ignorance. Religious Studies has made me love God and love reality in ways I couldn’t have without it. Religious Studies creates unity and heals ignorance.
And it needs to be in our churches.
Arrogance of absolute truth claims October 22, 2008
Posted by relsdork in God, bible, christian, church, religion, scripture, struggle.Tags: christian, comparative religious studies, evangelism, God, religion
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Mankind has endlessly been struggling to understand God, so I think it quite offensive and arrogant to shove one’s personal religion in the face of someone who is quite happy with their own. Really, if a Muslim came up to you and read you some stuff from the Quran and told you that you were stupid for being a Christian and that your morals were bankrupt and would land you in hell unless you were willing to claim Mohammad as the paramount prophet, how responsive would you be?
Also, I think it’s ridiculously naive to think that any of us, especially those of us who are not fluent in the original languages of the Bible, can truly understand its message, especially now that we are some 3500 years after much of it was written and completely absent of the Bible’s original context. Of course we have endeavored to find the historical context of these writings, but so little is available to us. Even for those scholars who can read Koine Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic, it’s incredibly difficult to discern what kinds of intricacies and poetic structure was used in scripture, what kinds of allegory, puns, metaphors, etc. that simply don’t translate into English or the year 2008.
One of my goals as a Christian is to faithfully embrace the mystery that is God. While I seek to understand scripture as fully as I can (I am majoring in Comparative Religious Studies, learning Ancient Greek, and intend to enter seminary), I will never be able to define God or God’s will in any kind of certainty… I can only have faith. Therefore, I should be respectful of whatever faith claims other people have, so long as they are not damaging anyone, imposing themselves on others, or interfering with my faith practice.
popular christianity August 15, 2008
Posted by relsdork in God, bible, christian, religion, struggle.Tags: american religion, christian, christianity, evangelical, evangelism, God, jesus, mainstream christianity, popular christianity, religion
3 comments
I think that part of people’s problem with God is that they’re expecting God to be what someone told them God would be. God turns you into a bird, so you can fly far, far away. God picks you up, kisses your owie, and gives you a band-aid with Batman on it. I think this is the way that most Christians try to represent God: “God fixes all your crap.” You pray, God responds… it all balances out. If God doesn’t send you the playstation that you asked for for Christmas, well, you get one in heaven and that’s why.
This is why I loathe modern Christian writers (for the most part)– because they freaking sell God to us, like it says somewhere that God is going to save us all from bullies in school and make everything sunshine and cupcakes. Then come the apologetics (because none of us are rolling in sunshine and cupcakes): “You see,” says the Christian Marketing Department, “the bullies burn in a pit of fire and you get an eternity of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in heaven. It all works out.”
I think that the majority of Christian Churches are enormously damaging in a lot of respects. I think that faith is a beautiful thing, but I don’t think that God should be expected to deal with anyone’s problems (nor do I think that God is responsible for anyone’s problems). The Bible is full of largely contradicting visions of God. Read Genesis and Joshua and John and Acts and Ecclesiastes and you’ll have a million different ideas and wonder why that stuff’s all in the same book. Mankind has endlessly been struggling to understand God, so for some Christians to be arrogant enough to sell God as if they can predict that he will save Joe Everyman’s family from poverty by magically assigning him a new job after his baptism is the most blasphemous BS to ever fly out of anyone’s mouth.
It hurts so much inside of me to see people turned away from God because someone in their past told them something, because their church gave them the idea that Christianity means dogma and an end of rationalism, because they were told that they couldn’t have sexual feelings, because they were told that science is wrong… because they were told/inferred whatever.
Maybe that’s easy for me to say, because I wasn’t raised within a religious household and I have a much more liberal view of God than most Christians do, but I would consider myself a pretty educated person when it comes to religion– and just in general. My religion is not just some kind of leftover thing that I couldn’t shake myself of after sitting through science courses and listening to the rants of my atheist professors (nor is it the result of rants of very faithful ones).
It’s hard for me to pinpoint what I believe in, largely because my beliefs are pretty hard to pinpoint. I’m unwilling to make a lot of claims about Truth for a lot of reasons. I refuse to be that person that tells others what to believe simply because I believe it. I don’t believe in a lot of the claims that most Christians dogmatically shout from pulpits and hand out in flyers on the street. I don’t wish to rigidly define my own beliefs to that they haven’t room for growth (aren’t we all still learning?).
…But I believe that there was this guy named Jesus, that he was Anointed and preached and embodied God like no other being. I believe that the Bible tells a story of a history of people, desperately reaching for God and trying to understand God… and I believe that sometimes they misunderstood. I believe that the Bible speaks of a history of people following a certain God, but that certain texts are less historically valid and more corrupted than others. I understand textual criticism and how to apply it to my sacred texts.
I believe that Jesus’ ministry holds more merit than any other vision of God given in the Bible. I believe that Paul’s epistles are inspired and beautiful. I give the New Testament much more merit than the Old; I think it is more mature in the progress of understanding God.
I don’t understand God. I have faith that there is one.
I don’t know if there is an afterlife. I don’t particularly care.
I do know that there is a world around me. There are a lot of people suffering, a lot of people wealthy, and a lot of people apathetically living their lives.
I have had experiences that lead me to believe that God is loving, forgiving, and has purpose. Unfortunately, I can’t really tell people about these experiences. They made God real for me, but they’ll do little outside of my own heart.
I don’t believe in the fatherly portrayal of God, where God fixes my problems and sends birdies to wake me up on the mornings of my exams.
I believe that God had some play in the creation of this world, but I don’t know to what extent that is or if God is still “active.”
I believe that the most gracious way to live my life is by praising God in word, song, study, and work. I believe in praying to God, not for God (as if God somehow needs my praise or God’ll melt), not for me (because I don’t think God needs to give me anything, nor does God owe me anything), but for the sake of my relationship with God… because praying keeps me living honestly with God, keeps me spiritually oriented, and keeps me mindful of the moral decisions I make. I believe in writing about God, because it’s how I best share my experience. I believe in singing to God, because it’s one of the ways I can best express love and joy. I believe in studying God, because to say I know enough about God is not only arrogant, but disrespectful to myself. I never want to stop learning how to best understand God… I never want to stop learning.
And work.
If there is nothing anyone can take on faith, the most “sure” claim is that this world exists. And if there is a God and if God did create it/create us/create anything, then this is it. Beyond it… whatever, maybe… but this is here and I think I can know that much. If there is anything I should be working for, it should be this world because I know it’s here and that if God created it, God must have liked the idea of it being around. I think I should be working for humanity and the betterment of it. I think I should be helping people where I can, whether that means being there for others when they are hurting or whether it means giving money to women trying to make lives for themselves in Africa. I believe that that means trying to respect this earth and enjoy nature, whether that means not littering, driving a more gas-efficient car, or giving money to causes which try to save nature.
I’m no saint. I know that. I know that there are a million things I could be doing more with my time, my life and my money. I know that. But I think it’s important to at least be conscious of these things, to at least give a crap about the world beyond my own family and social circle.
There are a number of things in my life that I wish had not happened.
I am not a starving child in a country with no water. I have a computer, which says a lot more than most of us spoiled white people think it does. I am one of the richest people in the world, even if it doesn’t feel that way. For that, I should be grateful.
Really, I’m just following tangents because I’ve been in that type of mood lately. But shit. I’m sick of people generalizing Christianity. Of course we have to, but I’m about to give up on the “Christian” label and start telling people I’m a… I don’t know.
I don’t want to be grouped with people that think of God like they think of Santa. I don’t want to be grouped with people that blindly follow tradition. I don’t want to be grouped with people who spit Bible verses as if they were written yesterday specifically about their physics teacher. I don’t want to be grouped with people who have never read the Bible, but think it’s “the word of God.” I don’t want to be grouped with a lot of people.
I want, when I say “Christian,” for people to think of the teachings of Jesus… how he healed the sick and welcomed those who society spit at… how he forgave the unforgivable and ate with those that most would not even look at. I’m tired of “Christian,” meaning pamphlets with hellfire and gay-bashing. I’m tired of it meaning Bush-supporter and anti-evolutionist.
Just in general, I’m tired of it. I don’t even know what else to say. Bleh.
There went Joliene on another Jesus rant.
Dear Evangelicals July 17, 2008
Posted by relsdork in christian, religion.Tags: evangelicals, evangelism, pluralism, world evangelical alliance
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Dear Evangelicals,
I recognize the compassionate intention behind your evangelizing attitude and regret those times which I have so bluntly criticized your methods in classes, blogs, and discussion.
At the same time, I wish to be transparent in affirming that I believe in the benefits of a pluralistic society and the rights of human beings to develop and adhere to their own religious belief systems without interference from proselytizing Christians.
I believe that the best way to protect pluralism and the integrity of human choice is to develop our own belief systems and promote them in ways that allow for growth without creating conflict with others.
I want to make it clear that, as a religious person, I do not wish to offend my evangelical friends by these statements, but I am compelled by my compassion for all humanity to stand by these beliefs.
word.
