It's Religiontastic!

[toosuto]

It's something that's bothered me for some time in that I could recognize the hole that was there but just wasn't sure what fit in it. Some background:

I was raised Catholic without a lot of the hang-ups that I see even with post Vatican II Catholicism. I think this can be attributed to the fact that my mother was the born Catholic while my father converted (about the time he married my mother I would assume.) When I was still in elementary school (grades 5-6) my mother got her M. Div from Gonzaga and went on to the pastoral associate for a couple of different Catholic parishes in town. Her longest stint (she retired last summer) was at our own parish: St. Ann's, a church kind of cut loose from normal rules of dogma etc. since it had been run by the Franciscans who pulled all their priests in the early 90s. St. Ann's never got a full time priest and instead relied on my mother and part time volunteers (teachers at GU or priests on sabbatical there) to cover all the sacraments. Needless to say it was a progressive and very liberal church. St. Ann's was one of the first parishes in the nation to host refugees from El Salvador in the mid 80s, in the late 90s the Vatican sent a letter to our local bishop because some jackass (who attended the cathedral) came to St. Ann's and saw that we were breaking canon law (because there was no full time priest laity took over the preaching duties--primarily my mother--currently the church has approximately 14 people that can, and do, deliver homilies) by have the laity give the homily. He went over the bishop's head and wrote directly to the Vatican. The sent a letter to the bishop saying that this had better stop or else.

Suffice to say I was brought up to think for myself and question anything anyone tried to tell me was True. When I was in high school I was part of a citywide youth group (geared for teens who wanted to do more out of a church youth group than to play Jesus themed ice breakers.) I was placed in a small group with the two most inflexible and conservative group leaders. Within a month they stopped volunteering since we gave them nothing but trouble since they simple could not quote bible verses at us and have us swoon at their apparent piety and logic. We were critical thinkers who demand real answers not pat bible sound clips. Looking back I think that we were assigned to that couple purposefully because we were a) the least likely to go along with anything they said, minimizing their ultra-conservative impact on young minds and b) were the most likely make them not want to volunteer (eliminating the threat all together.) Since m mother was very active in the interfaith community I had many friends who were Protestant and then, from my catholic school upbringing, even more friends who were protestant. This is where I think I became disenchanted with christianity. I spent my entire high school (at a Jesuit prep school no less) with friends who attempted to convert me to christianity. (Pure comedy gold!) They were from an evangelical fundamentalist church close to my house (for years when they'd knock on our door and ask if we had been saved I would calmly reply "Yes Satan had indeed saved us from the wretched belief in a weak savior but thanks for stopping by but we really must finish sacrificing the goat." I was in jr. high what do you expect, plus they always looked so truly frightened of me!)

I went to their youth program once and was horrified. They would spend an hour or so singing at top volume and then once they were all good and euphoric from oxygen deprivation they would 'testify' which generally was pabulum about how they were saved from the fiery fires of hell and thank Jesus they were no longer sinners! Needless to say they were very nice in the "oh, the poor sinner is going straight to hell, we should at least be polite to him" sort of way. Critical discussing their faith was a big no-no as was even entertaining the thought of the bible as a historical document, at the same time as I was evaluating their church, faith and dogma I was really coming into conflict with all the hypocrisy of my own. I was very involved and at one point applied to a part of the youth council that coordinated the local catholic youth congress. I was rejected because I was honest about my opinions and where I differed from the church's official stance (pretty much everything to do with sex and partially on reproductive rights) while other teens I knew went in and blatantly lied in their interviews and then were selected and held up as model catholic youth. It ultimately came down to this (especially in the early 90s) I was far out of line with every christian churches teaching regarding almost everything (or so it seemed at the time.) All these churches supposedly were based on the sacrifice of a man who had one message that he never veered from: "Be kind to one another, help each other out, I mean it: don't be dick" but that somehow in 2000 years we'd ended up with these bloated organizations that were more concerned with his divinity and laws from the old covenant that was supposedly null and void with acceptance of the new testament than with encouraging people to actually do what he said. And to a certain extant I still feel that way.

The thing that I am most uncomfortable with in christianity (at a base level, dogmatic views on women, queers etc. not withstanding) now is the concept of grace, that we as fallible human beings simply cannot possess it by ourselves. I cannot believe that any god would find us unacceptable simply because we don't worship his son or engage in ritual cannibalism or whatever. I must believe that god (whatever, whoever he/she/it is) would find us acceptable as we are. I think feel that it is pretty clear that god does not meddle with the universe. I believe in miracles and mysticism but I believe these fit within the mechanics of the universe as it came into being. Why should an omnipotent being pay attention to the dogmatic squabbles of a statistically infinitesimal section of creation?

I think I'm pushing these issues for myself because I now have someone that I am responsible for. I am going to have to explain the question why to some degree to her because we all need the answer to that question. That's the reason we have religion we need answers to questions that cannot be found in science, or logic or sometimes even common sense. I need a filter to see my place in creation and to be able to find my purpose. As a parent I need some sort of larger framework to point to and say, "This is how things hang together, the things I am telling you gain their authority from some sort of common consensus (that you should by all means question) that has been reached.” I guess I am looking into these because I realize what a large part religion, christianity and my interaction with those entities worked together to form who I am and I want to be able to a) give Rona the same, or better, tools to work with them as I had, b) the benefit of that interaction c) possibly the same OCD complex I have with lists.

Damn, when I write about religion I write a lot.

Comments

A comment on Grace

[(Anonymous)]

I think the part that gets lost when reducing the discussion on grace to "you must be given grace by God" is that grace is something that doesn't happen in a vacuum; you must be open to it. It's kind of like falling in love - you have to be open to the possibility of having your heart torn out, thrown on the ground, and stomped on. You can't have the hope of love without the chance of pain; the whole thing with grace is that you just can't have it by yourself. It's an interaction thing, whether you believe it is with God or with other people (like Mother Teresa and those she helped - grace in the interaction.)

I think I like Jeff's analogy the best, though - the one he posted over at Karen's blog.

"You see, the Godbuschurch is going where it is going and how it is going. Some folks like to walk. They will get there too on their own method, but a lot of people are not capable of finding their own way. The bus is good for them. They should get on the bus. Get weekly passes in fact. Without the bus, they would be lost and hurt and sin - a lot. Other folks can walk just fine but like the bus. It's a good bus. I feel a lot of my Christian friends are that way. If the Church were to die in a spasm of human fallibility and cease to function, these good folks would simply get off and start walking. Solid moral people who simply choose the bus."

But then maybe I just like the word Godbuschurch. :)

-Berni

Re: A comment on Grace

[toosuto.livejournal.com]

I think that is partially my view although maybe I take it a little further: I don't understand the role of grace except to possibly allow people to feel better about being fallible. For instance for the Lutherans we are all saved by God's grace. I am sure that it is more complex if you dig into it but basically what they tell the newbs is this: we cannot ever expect to go to heaven (at this point I read: have any sort of worth) without the grace extended to us by god. There is no good act that can redeem you, period. I worry over this attachment of worth (only the worthy can enter heaven all others are cast into the firey pit or purgatory--where you are eternally chased by bees, BEES!) All of a sudden this unreachable entity (the lutheran god which they will tell you is the same as the jewish god or the catholic god or the methodist god) is in charge of making sure we have a happy after life and all of sudden what reason is there for making the here and now better. Also what of any god that seems to have no relation to the judeo-christian god? Can those you interact with the greater universe through Ganesh or animist spirits recieve the same grace, i suspect that the church answer is no. So becomes the compasionate christians duty (?) to convert others to their religion in order to recieve god's grace (otherwise the poor people will not get into heaven) and the christian message of good works (Do unto others) becomes subverted into 'well since i believe this and if i believed otherwise I'd want to be converted and saved' becomes some sort of defacto method of operation. Or something. I am sure that god however he/she/it operates attaches no caveats of religion to his acceptance of my tiny insignificant self. As a matter of fact I am pretty sure that god put else all here together so we could take care of each other, not so we could smite/convert/absorb those that may experience god differently. I guess I am ultimately suspicious and unhappy with any experience that has an otherworldly goal (heaven) that can so easily eclipse the problems of the here and now (it matters not if we ruint he world here in our quest for heaven becasue in heaven it will be better.) I do agree that most of the people I know would probably survive the collapse of their chruch structure I think the structure could use to be remodeled or even bulldozed and rebuilt from a much earlier groundplan/foundation.

Re: A comment on Grace

[dr-tectonic.livejournal.com]

Here's my take on the subject of grace:

Grace basically means that God has said "yo, I like you." That is to say, God finds you acceptable, regardless of the fact that you can't possibly hope to be cool enough on your own for God (who is, like, GOD) to think you're really cool.

And it's not like you have any choice in the matter. What religion you follow (or don't) is totally irrelevant, as is anything you do or fail to do. Whether you like it or not, you have been given grace, so take it, bitch!

So yeah, anybody who claims to be able to say under what conditions God is going to bestow grace is probably overstepping their bounds just a leeeetle bit. Even if they are boss of their own religion.

"Grace" is God-speak for "yeah, yeah, you're all imperfect and flawed and human; get over your bad self and get on with living a good life, wouldja?"

At least, that's what I think.

Re: A comment on Grace

[toosuto.livejournal.com]

I agree whole heartedly. According to that definition grace is something we all possess in and of ourselves (it does not come from any outside action or entity) and it also (i think anyway) puts the responsiblity for our lives and those around us back in our own hands. Which is good, we are ultimtely responsible for ourselves and the world we live in. I'd really like to find a system where in what we are agreeing on is the norm so Rona can be indoctrinated with that rather than having to qualify, well what's going on now is as close as we can get to X which no religion seems to want to admit as being true because they lose a certain amount of power over their adherents but hey whatcha gonna do cuz they'reonly human institutions anyway?

Re: A comment on Grace

[bryree.livejournal.com]

A couple bits of grist for the mill:
1) What if grace isn't forced on us? I agree with a great deal of what dr_tectonic says above (but if we didn't have different takes on things, we'd have no discussion. hee.), but what if... say we're rowing upstream away from Niagara falls. What we don't know is that we have reached the point that no amount of rowing will keep us from drifting backward over the falls...and we have no barrel. At first we don't even notice our backward trajectory, but someone in a hele comes along and offers to take us to shore, we refuse. This hele guy keeps offering as it becomes more obvious that we can't even row to shore before being swept over (toward the BEES!), but we keep refusing - it just doesn't seem right that this should require outside help, after all, we are champion rowers. We have been offered grace, whether we liked it or not, but we refused it. Recognizing that all analogies are flawed, there's mine.
2)RE: toosuto's comment below - If we are talking about a larger reality, and talking around a theological framework: what is the point of grace from God if we have it completely in and of ourselves? (I'm not including in this question the grace that we mutually extend to one another every day) If we just have it, without it being extended from outside ourselves, it doesn't seem to me that it would be grace - it would just be ...what we are - we would good enough and not need "grace" at all. It almost seems as if you see a need for grace but don't want to need it. If my observation is even sort of accurate here's another chaplain-y question - if you were to work from a theological pov (which you seem to have been doing) what is it in you that chafes against the idea of necessary grace offered from outside ourselves by God? I know what it chafes for me, and some days I still don't like the idea that I need it, even though I have come to believe that I do. (Um, need it...)
and finally
3) I don't think that either grace or the idea of heaven removes our responsibility for each other and the world one iota. In fact, it should empower and enable such things (see dr_tectonic's definition of grace above.) Who am I to withhold grace from others when the grace I was offered was wholly undeserved? Granted, there are plenty of people working really hard to demonstrate that they believe the opposite, but just because lots of people wreck cars doesn't mean cars can't be used safely and effectively. More on this later, when I'm not having to start work.

Re: A comment on Grace

[toosuto.livejournal.com]

1) That's thing, what the hell kind of god put's you into a river just above niagra falls but ddoesn't give you the ability to survive? I think we are all supposed to move downstream, y'know the nature of running water and all that. Otherwise it's like we were set up to fail.

2) Exactly (i think) I don't think that we need grace handed to us from an outside source, I think that we are by our very nature beings of grace. But years of television and other influences can destroy, obscure or otherwise make it difficult for us to behave in ways the belies our grace. I think that in one sense it is extended to us, it is the way we were intended to be. I think that when one rejects the responsibilites we have as cognizant, thinking beings (i.e. a responsibility to take care of each other and the world we live in) that is rejecting our true nature as beings and be association that grace.

3) That is exactly what I believe but it is all to easy (and I think common) to expect the 'kingdom of god' to the afterlife, all this rich men going through needles and crap, I think it has become a sort of smokescreen (and a double standard) "it's ok if I/you are suffering/poor/disenfranchised because when we are dead god will make it all better once i/you die" but on the other side "i deserve to be rich and priviledged because I have recieved god's grace, his blessing, etc. and thus deserve all that I have while you deserve god's disfavor and the economic/oppression you are at the recieving end of, but its ok because god will make it all better when we die" I believe that if there was any truth to the whole kingdom of god thing in christianity NOW is the kingdom of god, if we all did these things and behaved according to our inner grace (ignoreing any institutional edicts/dogma/etc the kingdom of god would be present and we would all reap the benefits.

4) I am HUGE communist. like that was a big surprise.

Re: A comment on Grace

[toosuto.livejournal.com]

To qualify I don't think every christian falls into the trap I've outlined in (3) but I think it is happens very easily and all too commonly in any institution that is a) convinced they have the only Answer b) does not critical evaluate their texts, institution and own hearts.