Choosing a religion

A Methodist minister from Pennsylvania has been suspended pending being defrocked for presiding over a gay marriage. This article is not about gay marriage, or gay rights, in any way. This article is about playing by the rules.

The Methodist church does not excommunicate gay members, but it does not allow them to be members of the clergy, and it does not allow its clergy to preside over gay marriages. A minister in Pennsylvania decided to preside over his son’s marriage to another man in Massachusetts, where gay marriages are legal. Members of the minister’s congregation became aware of the issue and complained to the church council, who held a hearing and found the minister guilty of not following church doctrine. The minister was suspended for thirty days, during which time he will be allowed to reflect and repent, meaning promise to never preside over another gay marriage. The minister has stated he has no intention of repenting, because three of his four children are gay.

There are many denominations of Christians, and some will preside over gay marriages. Some will ordain gay ministers. But not the Methodists.

I can understand this minister’s desire to follow his beliefs. I can understand why the church will remove him from their clergy.

This country was founded on the principle of religious freedom. This means we each have the right to practice whatever religion we choose. It does not mean that we have the right to force a religion to follow us. I could understand if this minister was in a country with only one religion, and wanted to rebel, but at any time he could have said “Well, if you don’t believe what I believe, I’ll go somewhere else“.

I once dated a woman who was Catholic. She followed the rules she wanted to follow, and ignored the rules she wanted to ignore, all the time telling me that she was a good Catholic. When I suggested she convert to a religion that believed in the same things that she did, she said “You can’t just pick and choose what you believe in!”, and yet that was what she was doing. The relationship lasted two years five months and twenty six days. I know, because she told me after we broke up. Odd how people can focus on some details and not others.

In America, you are free to pursue whatever beliefs you wish. The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster could not exist in any other country. Within Christianity, people with different interpretations of the words of Christ form different churches. There are several scriptures which support this practice, one being Matthew 18:19.There are core beliefs that once discarded cause churches to be referred to as “sects” or “cults” rather than denominations. Most people don’t believe that the Westboro Baptist Church is a Christian organization, some people don’t feel Catholics are Christians. God will make the final determination, in the meantime, we are free to join a different church.

I can’t speak for God, but it would seem that belonging to any church and following its beliefs is better than belonging to any church and not following its beliefs. I don’t understand what is happening in the mind of a person who is trying to get others to join a church in which they themselves do not follow the beliefs.

Still on the mount

Never wanting to leave a story unfinished, I’ve decided to continue with the “Sermon on the Mount”. I really want to get this out there because these are the fundamental teachings of Christianity, and most Christians don’t understand or even know them.

In the sixth chapter of Matthew, Jesus continues the lesson. He says “Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven“. Do you hear that televangelists? Prayer is between the individual and God, it isn’t a performance piece.

He continues to reinforce the lesson, saying that attracting the attention of men will not attract the attention of God. The seventh verse, “But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking“, says you should be mindful of your words, reciting words is not a prayer. It is simply chanting.

This is where people become confused. Verses nine through fifteen are commonly referred to as “The Lord’s Prayer”, or by those used to reciting words without meaning, the first two words of the prayer, “Our Father”. The important part is the first verse, “⁹ After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name“. After this manner. He does not say “Use these words”, he has just said “Use not vain repetitions”. Understanding means understanding every word, not just “getting the gist of it”.

Then again in verses sixteen through eighteen he reinforces the lesson of not making your prayers for public recognition. It would occur to me that this must be a very important lesson, for him to repeat it three times in succession. He gives an analogy in verses nineteen through twenty one, “¹⁹ Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:²⁰ But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:²¹ For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” You can see this as still pounding in the lesson. Most likely because he was attempting to reach people who had practiced the opposite all of their lives.

Now he builds into the next lesson. “²² The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.²³ But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” To bring this into my own “language”, I would reference “Rockman” from “The Point”. You see what you want to see. If you see darkness in people, that is all you will see, and if the darkness is inside you, everything will be dark.

And then, the focal point of this section. “²⁴ No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” Do not misunderstand. This has been the theme from the start of the chapter. He says you cannot serve both. You have to make one or the other your priority. In doing so, the following verses come naturally.

If you have decided to serve God, your life on Earth is secondary. God knows what you need and will provide it. Verses twenty five through thirty three explain the difference between what you need and what you may want. Finishing with “³⁴ Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Do not worry about tomorrow, there is enough to deal with today.

You may not be here tomorrow anyway.

Religions

This is a BIG subject, which I will be addressing over a couple of weeks, with the direct support of Lena Winfrey Seder and perhaps you. Yes, I’m asking for your opinions and insights, you can leave a comment here (if you request I will not publish your comment or your name).

The subject I want to address is religion in general, and the similarities in teachings and structures, as well as the differences.

I do not believe that we all worship the same God. By that, I mean that our reasons for seeking God may be the same, but what we choose to believe defines God can be exceptionally different. What we believe God wants from us, and how we should praise God, are often diametrically opposed to other people who profess a belief in God. Almost everyone agrees that “God is Love”, but love means different things to different people, and is expressed in different ways.

I will start by saying that I was raised Christian, subset Baptist, subset Southern Baptist. I had the great fortune to have a minister who was an intellectual scholar of the Bible, and who inspired the members of his church to thoroughly understand scripture. Not by telling us his interpretation, but by laying out several interpretations, comparing them and expressing his own views and biases, and encouraging us to interpret for ourselves. Thank you Dr. Colton. As a result of Dr. Colton’s teachings, I investigated several other religions in my youth, various branches of Christianity, Eastern religions, and pagan practices. In the end I found that I eschew organized religion, which typically follows a charismatic local individual. I follow the teachings of Christ in an “organic” manner, and to provide a label for those that wish to categorize me, I refer to myself as a Zen Baptist.

This chart reflects the relative sizes of world religions. I was rather surprised by many factors, I suspect that Communism in China has skewed the numbers for Taoism and “Chinese cultural religions”, but these numbers are representative of several sources.

Relative memberships of world religions

You can see that “Christian” is the largest group, and within that group are some exceptionally diverse denominations.

Denominations within category “Christians”

There are many people, including myself, who don’t consider Catholics to be “Christians”. “What?” you ask, “How could the Catholic Church, founded by Christ and led by the apostle Peter not be Christian?”. There are several reasons, I will point out just a few here. Christ said in Peter’s presence, “Call no man Father“, then the Catholic church decided to call it’s priests “father”. Christ taught that the individual’s relationship with God is one on one, yet the Catholic church requires confession to a priest, who has the power to absolve your sins. Christ denied any importance to his mother, yet the Catholic church reveres her as a saint. This does not sound like the doctrine of Christ.

This of course is my opinion, and will no doubt piss off many of my friends and relatives. My point is this, just because something is called “Christian”, doesn’t mean that it fits some universal definition of “Christian”. The members of the Westboro Baptist Church consider themselves Christians, but I’m pretty sure a website titled “GodHatesFags” is an indicator that they know little about Christ. Mormons have written their own version (not translation but different ideas) of the Bible, as have the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Following this line of discussion, just because an individual describes themselves as belonging to a certain denomination does not mean they fit the definition of a member of that church. This goes beyond little things. I met a girl at a dance, and we dated for several weeks before I met her father. He was the minister of a church that saw dancing as a sin. She had not told me this, so when he asked how we met…well that was the end of our relationship. Not to pick on Catholics, but they tend to stand out as the religion least likely to be adhered to. They have very strong doctrine about birth control, and many if not most Catholics ignore it while considering themselves “good Catholics”. I’ve known people who have totally removed themselves from the church and still consider themselves to be Catholic.

I am using Christianity in this article as an example, because at the root of all of this, Christians are just humans with a particular set of beliefs. There is nothing genetically or psychologically different from any other sample of humanity as a group. So when I hear people say “Christians are this” or “Religion is responsible for that” I feel the need to correct them. People do things, there are good people and bad people, and those people may belong to a religion, or they may not. Since thirty three percent of the world is Christian, it would seem natural to expect Christians to be responsible for about a third of the bad things out there. No religion is a monolith.

Religion in general, and any religion specifically, is not responsible for the actions of people who wave the flag of a religion. It has been my experience that those who justify their actions with religion are likely to have little to no understanding of the religion they’re talking about.

With Lena’s assistance I intend to look at the second largest religion, Islam, next week, and I would greatly appreciate the input of anyone who understands their own religion and can contrast the public impression of their religion for future articles.

Understanding our similarities helps us appreciate each other, understanding our differences helps us appreciate ourselves.

Chapter two of this series, “Islam” can be seen here.