A Belated Letter To My Mom

My mom asked me to send her a note concerning why I don't go to Church. I used to.

So. Here's the letter I sent...

Here it is. Sorry it took so long. A lot of Big Thoughts and Pondering have gone into this since you first asked me to jot down "why don't I go to Church"...

I think the issue started when I was going to Church. I was younger and had a mind like a sponge. So I started reading up on this Church thing and Jesus and the rest. What I found kind of left me with a fuller appreciation of Jesus and the rest but also with a big old nasty feeling about Christianity in all of its many, many forms.

I found that the more I read about the Man and His times, the more I started respecting the man in the Man. Strip away the supernatural trappings, and you've got a guy who combined Far Eastern philosophy and contemporary thought (for him). Those were days of Trade and Commerce, so its not suprising that anyone in the Middle East would have come into contact with the East's world-view. And its not suprising that anyone then with some religious training (remember, he was often called "Rabbi" by some of his followers) would take the time to look at other religions and philosophies and beliefs. What is suprising is that he would take these different outlooks, be they Greek or Roman or Egyptian or Chinese or Indian and find the common moral ground between them all. He took the best of the Torah and everything else thrown his way and came away with a pretty simple and unique world view.

Here's the son of a carpenter. Here's the cousin of John. One foot in the world of day to day struggle. One foot in religion.

And what does he teach? What does he leave us with? This is from Mattew 25:

"For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

Anyway.

And so as a much younger person, I started looking at Jesus without the supernatural, without the miracles, without the resurrection. Strip away the show-stoppers and the fireworks and you still have a pretty damn decent guy. Hell, for me a much more honest and human picture. And I went back and forth in the four gospels and couldn't find one instance of "Worship Me" anywhere. Lots of "follow my example". Lots of "this is a better way to live". Not a lot of "Worship Me". That comes later.

So. I read more and more and more. And then I started looking at the history of Christianity. Oh, boy.

The early Church had a power struggle. It was between those who knew Jesus and saw his teachings as a new form of Judaism. And Paul who saw a new religion to spread. Short story - Paul won. Emphasize the miracles and the resurrection and the supernatural stuff, don't really spend any time on the Message.

From my own experience, most of Christianity is obsessed with the Son of God aspect of Jesus' life and not with the Son of Man aspect. Where are the stories of this complex historic figure in any Church anywhere? He taught forgiveness during a time of occupation. He taught peace and then went into the Temple in Jerusalem and started wrecking the place. He taught that every person is responsible for their own actions, towards themselves and towards everyone around them.

Christianity, the Church, whatever we call it, has a pretty dismal record of actually practicing what it preaches. For Two Thousand years, we have seen Christian countries invade and plunder and kill and rape and slash and burn. The Crusades. The Inquisition. The Holocust. And now...

It just seems to me, from where I sit and watch, the Church, in all of its forms, has never, ever been about Jesus.

That's a big part of why I walked away from Church. Its the current atmosphere of hate and prejudice that keeps me away. And not worrying about my immortal soul.

Go back to Matthew 25. Now look at the Church as it portrays itself to the world. Christianity has become a two issue religion, abortion and homosexuality. Okay, at Christmas its a three issue religion. (By the by, Christmas as we know it is a pretty recent idea. It has not been a tradition for a very long time at all. However, the idea of a celebration at midwinter is almost as old as civilization. So Bill O'Reily can shut the hell up. And Happy Holidays comes from Happy Holy Days. Shut up Fox News.) (Sorry.)

One more thing... Where, oh where is the mass Christian outrage against the Rev. Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church? This is a man and his flock who the secular world see as a representative of Christianity. The Rev. Phelps is the most hate-filled piece of something I scrape off of my shoe with a stick I have ever, ever, ever seen. Look him up on Google. He's a charmer. And so is his Church.

Anyway. Why did I walk away from Church and never look back? Because the Church in all of its forms comes off as one-dimensional and home to some seriously Bad people. Because the Church has rarely ever been keen to recoginze that "whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."

And so I sent it.

Any thoughts?