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.

Bold Comments about Organized Religion

I do not often post strong comments on Facebook, since my friends are from all over the gamut on religion and politics. But I decided I had to say these things:

Many large religious organizations use their power and influence for political ends, and to guilt-trip money out of their followers. These organizations are not satisfied if a person says, “I will love God and love humans collectively and individually and love the earth that I share with them.” Instead they say, “No! That’s not enough! God also wants you to give us your money and believe every doctrine we proclaim!” The result is organized religion, which throughout history has been a scourge upon humankind.

When Isaiah wrote words that he attributed to God (chapter 1 verse 14), “Your…feasts and your appointed festivals I hate with all my being; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them,” Isaiah was referring to organized religion, not to individual religious people who loved their neighbors.

When Jon Stewart and associates wrote (in the 2010 book “Earth: The Book”) that it is difficult to kill a person, but easy to kill an infidel; and that “religion helped overcome man’s catastrophic tendency toward neighborliness,” he was talking about organized religion, not individual religious people who loved their neighbors.

I am repulsed by the big religious organizations that want to make Jesus merely an appendage of the Republican Party (or the Democratic Party; but you don’t hear much from them) and want nothing to do with organized religion. Pat Robertson’s gospel was, when I heard his show a few years ago, “Send money send money send money bomb Iran send money.” My religion is a private relationship with God. It is, as I said above, I will love God and love humans collectively and individually and love the earth that I share with them.