Blog Against Theocracy 2009: Tangled up in faith

In keeping with a Blast Off! tradition, I am pleased to share once again on Easter Sunday an essay that I wrote here four years ago, but that I feel retains all of its meaning and significance to me personally as well as to a nation still struggling with challenges at the intersection of faith and American government.

This piece first appeared on Blast Off! on Easter Sunday 2005, and I presented it again last year as part of Blog Against Theocracy 2008. Last year, I said in my introduction that "I no longer identify myself as a Christian." One year later, having experienced a great deal of change in my life, I am not so certain I would be quite so dismissive of that label anymore.

Much of my current attitude comes from being in a committed relationship now with a Catholic woman to whom faith, specifically Christian faith, is extraordinarily important. While "Miss July," as she affectionately is known here in Blast Off!-land, has been quite understanding and tolerant of my reluctance to become an active churchgoer again, her devotion to her own faith has over the past several months given me a new perspective, and indeed a new respect, for the value of faith and religion in our lives.

I'm still a vehement opponent of any overt intrusion of religious faith, Christian or otherwise, into government activity, as I believe I've fairly consistently demonstrated of late. But this does not mean in turn that I am an opponent of Christianity or Catholicism or, indeed, any religious faith or practice. I simply believe that religious faith -- or the lack thereof -- is an intensely personal choice and it ought to remain that way, essentially out of the purview of politics or government or the community at large.

Some of the aspects of my life described below are, of course, no longer true: for example, I have two children now, but I'm divorced. In addition, as I said last year, you may even spot some naïveté, as I did, reading my words and thoughts from 2005. But please keep in mind that the essay was written at the beginning of the second term of the Bush crime syndicate; I will not edit it to reflect the change in the White House or anything else, preferring instead to allow it to retain whatever literary integrity it may have from its origin.

Anyway, I invite you to take a moment on this Easter Sunday and, as part of my effort to Blog Against Theocracy, ponder the essay, "Tangled Up in Faith."

---

I didn't go to church today.

That alone is not surprising. I haven't been to church regularly since 2001. I was very active in my church in another Florida town, before moving to Michigan, and my family and I struggled for quite some time to find a church experience that rivaled what we had before. Thus far, we have been unsuccessful.

We were involved in our old church - Methodist, if you're wondering - in many ways. I served on a pastoral committee and sang lead for the contemporary services on Sundays. They welcomed this liberal Democrat with open arms, despite the fact that many of them, including my pastor (who was probably my best friend in the church), gently teased me for my Gore/Lieberman bumper sticker and my decidedly out-of-place politics. Still, it felt like home.

In the three and a half years since we left that town, moved to Michigan, and returned to Florida, I have done a lot of soul searching, and I am beginning to conclude that, for me, right now, organized religion is not a place I want to be. Watching the Schiavo debacle unfold, not to mention the moralistic pandering of the Religious Right that has preceded it as long as BushCo has been in power, has led me to question the very foundations of my faith and whether or not I want to be associated with the types of people who will greet you warmly with one hand and stab you in the back with the other. The United Methodist Church's refusal to ordain gay pastors, and its tacit rejection of gay members, pushed me away further.

I am a Christian. I have not necessarily lived up to that standard very well lately, but I still consider myself such. Yet that term now is loaded with so much baggage and has been demonized by the Left in much the same way that the Right has cast aspersions on the term "liberal," that I wonder whether or not it applies to me at all anymore.

It seems that in the America of 2005, to be a Christian, you have to adhere to the following:

• Blind, unwavering allegiance to the current President and condemnation of any so-called immoral or amoral behavior, especially that of the President's immediate predecessor, unless the person involved is a Republican, in which case you must rationalize and forgive.
• Hatred of all non-Christian people, whether here or abroad.
• The insistence that you know the only correct way to behave and to believe, and those who do not so behave or believe are to be ostracized.
• Obedience to Christian values is not just permitted by the Constitution, it is demanded.
• Failure to espouse America above all else (other than Jesus) constitutes treason.
• Activist judges are bad ... unless they are your activist judges.

I think what has turned me off more than anything is the hypocrisy. I have read the Bible and studied it, and the Bible I read admonished me to love my neighbor, to turn the other cheek, and to do unto others as I would have them do unto me. I learned that all people have worth in the eyes of God, and indeed, that we all worship God (if we do) in many different ways, all of which are valid. I thought it taught that selfishness, spite, and intolerance were un-Christian values. I was under the impression that forgiveness of and love for others were the greatest, most divinely inspired emotions we could have.

I began to delve deeper into the history of Christianity. The number of wars (including our current quagmire) fought at least in part, nominally, for the sake of Christianity is staggering and, frankly, appalling. Beyond that, the insistence by our "Christian" leaders that their way is the only way seems to fly in the face of what I understood Christianity to be. Theirs is not the kind of faith that is attractive to me.

I am a 39-year-old husband and father of one with another on the way. Even as a Christian, I am profoundly disturbed and embarrassed to be presenting my children with citizenship in a theocracy posing as a democracy. We may have majority rule, but sometimes, in my opinion, the majority is wrong.

I didn't go to church today. And I don't know when - or if - I will go back.