Why I Can No Longer Participate in Organized Christianity

I have totally discontinued any involvement with organized Christianity. I can no longer affirm any Christian religious doctrines. But that is not the main reason I no longer participate.

I cannot participate in any church that has been swept along with the blasphemous Trump idolatry. These churches—and there are a lot of them—actively contribute to the downfall of America and the collapse of any hope for freedom in the world. I don’t worship Biden, either, but nobody does. There are millions—not many millions—who believe that truth consists of whatever Donald Trump says.

When I left the church of which I was most recently a member, I did not stomp out. I merely realized that my participation was a personal and social waste of time. In this church as a whole, and this congregation in particular, there were many social progressives. But there were just enough right-wing extremists that they could sabotage any efforts of the church to accomplish anything meaningful. In particular, I remember one older man (this was back in the Iraq war days when, to conservative Christians, the core of Christianity was to believe and to do whatever George W. Bush said) yelled at our assistant pastor because the assembly of leaders had voted to disapprove of the Iraq war. She had merely reported the vote and had not expressed an opinion. Her vote was secret. This was the same man who, in a church parking lot with limited space, took up eight spaces to park his truck and fishing boat. His total selfishness was not typical of the church, but he was able to sabotage the work and sentiments of the others.

Thus, it appeared to me, Christian churches were of two kinds: first, the ones that blasphemously championed the Godlikeness of Bush and then Trump; second, the ones that got sabotaged by the blasphemers.

This does not mean that I will never “darken the door” of a church again. I imagine that, if my démenagement en France goes according to schedule, my wife and I might very well participate in a local Catholic church along with many members of our extended French family. But it will be because of our membership in that family, not because I believe any Catholic, or other, doctrine. Just as spirituality has a personal function, so organized religion has a social function.

Nor does it mean that I do not revere Jesus. But my personal religious views are personal.

Transition from Fundamentalism to Agnosticism, part eleven. What is love?

As I continued writing in my journal in April 2005, I left behind the swings from agony to ecstasy and back. Instead, I wondered, what is love? Part of it, whether the love of friends or sexual love, is vulnerability, dangling over the terror of loss. This is something that God cannot feel, and has to experience it vicariously through us. At least, that was what I thought in 2005.

I wrote on 18 April 2005: “Love is sharing pain yet seeing beauty—neither a major or a minor [musical] mode but dorian, with a sad heart but an upward gaze.

This was my new outline of God, which as I read it now just puzzles me, but I will pass it on in case it makes some sense to you. “’The God Who Let Go.’ First, regarding God: The Father, infinite, creator, now present only as natural law [acting]; The Son, embodied briefly on Earth, now present only in his words [speaking]; the Spirit, pervading the universe, the only manner in which God has been continually present [feeling]. In order to experience love, God must now vicariously share in our experiences.”

Transition from Fundamentalism to Agnosticism, part ten.

Here is what I wrote in my journal on 8 April 2005 about what Stephen Jay Gould called The Great Asymmetry:

 

“It might seem perverse to meditate upon something written by agnostic Stephen Jay Gould, but it is important to our understanding of the problem of evil. Gould called it The Great Asymmetry. Goodness and order are built up slowly, whether in an embryo, through evolution, a city, a science, or a culture of learned decencies. Evil and chaos can occur in an instant—splat, an asteroid, a riot, acts of pure evil by terrorists (their very name tells us they want to destroy, not create). The fact that most of every day in most of the world is good and orderly means that good people must, mathematically, vastly outnumber evil people. Gould did not say whether this might exceed what one would expect from evolutionary altruism. This would mean it is the reality, not just the availability, of Spirit.

“But this does not, by itself, solve the problem. There may well be an overwhelming majority of good people, but we good people are those who choose to do good without apparent heavenly help. An intricate creation of goodness collapses from a human act of evil or a natural disaster that God does not, at least, prevent… What The Great Asymmetry does mean, as I interpret it, is that many billions of people, even some who follow evil men, have opened their minds to at least a little of the Spirit. I again reflect that the cosmos is godless but permeated by love, which is where God is, not causing anything directly but making love available.”

This might be the closest thing we ever have to proof that there is a Spirit of love. It isn’t much, but I will put it out there for your consideration. I concluded, by 12 April 2005, that I should live as if God is love, whether it is true or not. This is vague but powerful. It also means that I will not live or die by any specific doctrine.

“So, what should a materialist do? Conscience, as well as altruism, evolved; we are happiest when we feed both. Even atheists are happiest when they are altruistic beyond mere calculation of possible benefits they might receive. Sex and food are appetites but so is simple niceness…knowing we are living right in the world.”