Why I am Not a Christian (with apologies to Bertrand Russell)

Let's be charitable and say that Jesus was indeed a real person and that he really did say the things the gospels report him to have said. Or at least, let's say that the gist of what he said is more or less accurately reflected in these texts.

He said many things that have resounded through the ages as praiseworthy and have become part of the normative ethics of western culture. 

Let's then take all that he said as seriously as he intended it to be in his short ministry--his aim was to put us into a correct relationship with the will of the almighty creator of space, time, and dimension.

So: who's up for selling all your worldly possessions and giving the proceeds to the poor? (Matthew 19)

(Silence)

He's not saying give your second hand clothes and toasters to the Salvos, or throw a bum a coin, or donate to your favourite charity. He's requiring a radical redistribution of goods, putting the last first, as he says. So: all that private wealth and property you acquired? Let's be having it then...(Matthew 4, Mark 1, Luke 5)

(They do not move)

Okay, then: who's up for walking off your job right this minute, leaving all your tools and unfinished work behind, and following Him?

(Silence)

Oh, and leave your families too. Familial relations don't matter. The world is coming to and end, and soon, so ditch the lot and get yourself right with the almighty. Let's go! (Luke 14)

(They do not move)

What's wrong with you? Don't you know there is no way to the Father but through me? (John 14)

(A lone, nervous voice): "You mean all those billions of Buddhists and Hindus are wrong?"

Yes, that's the only thing that can mean.

(Silence)

***

Are these injunctions about becoming His follower (i.e. a Christ-ian) to be taken seriously or not? Can these even be considered moral? 

Even if we are liberal-minded, and sympathize with radically privileging the poor and dispossessed, we certainly haven't voted that way. Ever. Anywhere.

But yes, he did lots of comforting, put snobs and hypocrites in their place, and opposed the brutal Roman empire. Cool. But if we cherry-pick that sort of thing only, then we want the message to be what we want it to be, and not something else. 

The real question with cherry-picking is: why do I want it to mean only this? What is the longing I am expressing? And what meaning am I avoiding, and why?

Whatever our longings, they are not and have never aligned with the tough, exclusive injunctions cited above. If we really thought the world was ending soon, there would indeed be the breakdown of all social order, and maybe we too would cut and run from our piles of stuff, our work, our families to seek our own personal salvation.

And if we did that, we'd be moral cowards.

This is why I'm not a Christian, not because Christianity is difficult, but because much of it is simply wicked, perverse, and manipulative.

In his famous essay of the same name, Bertrand Russell says: 

"A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past, or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men. It needs a fearless outlook and a free intelligence. It needs hope for the future, not looking back all the time towards a past that is dead, which we trust will be far surpassed by the future that our intelligence can create."

Odd Job Man

Whether in Church or in Chapel, whether Minister or Chaplain, there is no disguising the fact--this is an odd job.

How odd? I've poured my heart and soul into people for whom I now don't exist. I've publicly honored those who've later talked smack about me. And then, there's people I barely know who speak of me in honorific, reverential tones! 

Wherefore odd? For some I do too much, for others far too little. The same preaching that inspires and consoles someone, angers another to furious rage, and another to casual indifference. The same material that was boring to one was massively impactful to another. You get praised for being caring and gracious, and also condemned for being aloof and detached.

Whither odd? Grudgingly paid a professional wage, and yet expected to project humble poverty. Have some nice things and you're materialistic. If you don't have nice things, you must be some kind of self-defeated schlub. People expect your personal time, money, and resources, but set healthy boundaries to care for your mental health and your families, and you're selfish.

Whence odd? Everything you say and do can be used against you by anyone disgruntled, annoyed, petty, or even just plain bored. Every mistake proves you're unqualified, but victories are taken in stride because they're expected, and hey--that's what you're paid for. Your personal life, hobbies, interests, friendships, relationships, and family are continually monitored for moral lapses. After all, you're paid to model virtue!

Why so odd? Amateurs are fully confident they could do a better job and kibbutz from the sidelines. Everyone has an opinion about religion, no matter how little they've thought about it, let alone studied it. I'd never assume I knew better than, say, my dentist, how to do his job.

It's ODD... and yet there's so much fulfillment in precious moments to which nothing in the rest of my life can compare. It's challenging, heartbreaking, and can be discouraging, but it's also fulfilling, inspiring, and awesomely life-changing.  It can be brutal, but it can also be beautiful. 

Over half of clergy battle depression and 85% of seminary graduates to enter ministry will leave ministry within the first 5 years. Who'd stick with this?

So here's my hypothesis: the only reason I wanted to do this odd job, and keep doing this odd job, is that it must a perfect fit--I must be odd too. 

I don't have to do this., I GET to do it. My pathology is also my profession.

Easter: not suitable for children (violence, torture, horror, partial nudity, adult content)

This past Easter Saturday was our friend Jim's 70th birthday party, and a helluva party it was.

70s themed costumes for all, disco ball, coloured lights, dancing to funky disco music--and food and drink of course.

To top it all off, Jim and several friends did 3 choreographed numbers with changes of drag and fetish costumes. A ball gown, an Abba get-up, and assless leather chaps for the inevitable Village People number. It was like a mini Mardi Gras: there was lots of love in the room, and everyone had a fab time.

Contrary to the current taste for protecting children from drag queens, I would rather my kids go to something like this every week than rehearse annually the grim passiontide story of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Think about it. A man is stripped to his loins--beaten, whipped until his flesh is flayed, forced to carry a heavy object to public ridicule. All of which causes him to faint again and again. A woman takes pity and uses her veil to wipe his face, only to have it come away with his tortured visage printed in blood, sweat, and do doubt tears, on the cloth. Extreme close-up on the horrid image.

Then, if that's not enough to put you off your chocolate eggs, this guy is nailed to a piece of wood by his extremities--hands and feet. (Well, we're told, hands are technically impossible, because the weight of his body would have torn the nails out between his fingers joints. His wrists, then. So much better.)

His torturers are not done yet. They gleefully force a spiked ringlet of thorns into onto his head in mockery of a crown, and stab him in the side with a spear because they're getting bored now. Blood and water flow from the gash. Water? Is he not fully dehydrated by now? This is Palestine, after all. 

Of course, after lingering in excruciating pain for a while, he dies, his alluringly fit yet savaged body hanging like meat from a hook. His friends put what's left of him in a rock tomb.

And then after a few days baking in the Middle East, he becomes, one assumes, a zombie, rising from his grave to walk the earth again. Unrotted, somehow.

If there is a more gruesome movie on Netflix without the recommended use of the parental lock, I'd like to know.

As a young Catholic kid going to 'Stations of the Cross' every year, this 14-part mini series is on permanent repeat, and at Good Friday and Easter Sunday services the story is exhumed annually. And we were reminded all this unimaginable suffering was endured for us because we're born bad. He suffered and died thus for our sins. (Substitutional atonement--don't get me started...)

Hope, it was supposed to give us. Hope. Rot.

My hope is that this grisly story--hardly more ennobling than Mayan human sacrifice--is consigned to the curiosity cabinet of humanity's dark bestial past, a morality tale of how very sick our imaginations were only a couple millennia ago. 

Give me the cheap redemption of the Village People and disco balls and music and drag acts and dancing and fabulous fashion. 

Keep the death cult, thanks. I'm eating: the canapes are delicious.