Met a friend for coffee the other day, and, as usual, the conversation turned to religion. He asked me which church I had visited most recently. He then veered into one of his set pieces, as to how he hated the Catholic church, at least in part because of the sexual abuse which has come to light over the past decade and a half, and, even worse, the hierarchy's attempts to hide this abuse. Which, of course, is understandable...and even moreso for those were were victims of abuse. My friend has never alluded to that, but I often wonder if part of his fierce hatred for the church is due to that. I have not and will not ever ask him, of course.
He also made reference to Bill Maher saying that Christianity was "an embarrassing Bronze Age myth." 1 My friend must have really liked that line, as he repeated it several times in the course of our four hour conversation.
And I've been thinking about it and other bits of our conversation ever since.
First off, in an attempt to push our talk into some new directions, as I truly like my friend but have been frustrated in that he often goes to his "set pieces" and we end up having a Groundhog Day, I said something along the lines of, "You seem to be interested in my visits to different churches, though, aren't you?" (Keeping in mind that every time we have met for the past six months he has asked me which church I most recently visited, and I have literally not brought up this subject myself.) He responded, "No, not really." At which point, of course, I resolved that I would cease to talk about any churches I visited with him, whether he asked about it or not. He also added injury to insult when he said that when he did ask me about the churches, I always commented on the décor of the church, but not about what was said in the homilies. It seemed pretty clear that he was saying that my reactions to these churches was superficial. I tried to explain that I was simply commenting on my preferences for a place to worship, and that places which were ornate and incensed and filled with organ music and choirs allowed me access to a spiritual dimension which I often struggled with.
As for the "embarrassing Bronze Age myth"...well. I guess technically you could ascribe the Judeo-Christian System to The Bronze Age . Although I am pretty sure that you can find people who identify as Jews and Christians to this day, so I think that labelling it in the way has more to do with wanting to turn the insult knife than with historical accuracy. But "embarrassing." Hmmm. If by that Maher / my friend mean that there are stories in the Bible...especially in the Old Testament...that seem silly, stupid, and mean, then I'd have to agree with that. But that's not how I see the Bible. I see it as a record of the struggles of human beings to define how a creator God was involved in their experiences of life. So of course when people were first attempting to grapple with this, their concept of God was not fully developed. It made sense to them that God was vindictive and petty...and pretty fucking insecure. There are times when I think, I wish that Christianity would just divorce itself from the Old Testament, because while there are some problematic moments in the New Testament, there are nowhere near as many...nor are the problems so egregious...as in the Old Testament. On the other hand, some of those stories are pretty good, you know? Not in terms of religious messages...not for me, anyway...but just on the level of, "Now that was a story."
So I have to say that from my perspective...which is not, I am at least a little bit sorry to say, a perspective you could label as True Believer...more like Interested Tourist...I'd say that the label An Embarrassing Bronze Age Myth is just indicative of a mind that is unwilling to grapple with the reality of the subject. Perhaps the product of a mind that has been disappointed or even damaged by Christianity or Judaism or whatever other religion we're talking about.
And that's where I was going to quit and leave this blog entry in the unpublished pile (along with the other 2,711 Draft items), but I was Facebook chatting with a friend and she said something that made me want to get back to this whole religion thing...especially this Catholicism thing.
Said friend responded to my comment that my two youngest kids were committed to going to a Catholic church by saying, "Good for them! It’s hard to be pro Catholic right now!"
Now, I know that she meant no harm at all by saying this. She is not that kind of person. But even so...it's the same germ that Coffee Friend had built his hatred of the church around. And I'm not really talking about the sexual abuse by priests or the cover-up of that abuse. I'm talking about the larger picture: rejecting a religion because of the bad behavior of its adherents. Understandable, for sure. Been there, done that, bought souvenirs, for sure. But not logically permissible.
Rather than take it on philosophically, though, I'm just going to go the Jacqueline route.
Jacqueline loves the Catholic church. She uses prayer candles when we pray together at night. Every night we say God Blesses, then do Hail Mary, The Lord's Prayer, and The Prayer to St. Lucy. We have read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation together. We've also read many "kid Bibles" of various sorts and levels of difficulty. And when we get to the story of Jesus's crucifixion, she cries when I read the story.
Jacqueline doesn't know anything about the priest sex abuse scandal or the cover up by the hierarchy. If I tried to explain it to her, she wouldn't get it. And you can certainly say that that is indicative of her low I.Q....if you're a fucked up, cruel person...and if you don't believe me when I say that her I.Q. is higher than mine, and mine is not too shabby...but I don't think that has anything to do with it. I think that Jacqueline sees the real church. Not the fucked up shit that human beings make of it. The real church.
If life is not about pursuing ideals...which may well be unattainable...then I don't know what life is for. But correct me if I'm wrong...don't you have to be able to see the ideal in order to pursue it?
Just sayin', sir.
As for me, I'll be going to church with Jacqueline this Sunday. And one of my prayers will be, "Let me be more like my daughter, God."
1 Keep in mind that (1) this is second-hand, (2) I don't like Bill Maher, and thus am not checking up to make sure my details are correct...though I did check the spelling of his name, for which I would like a little extra credit.
No comments:
Post a Comment