I was just reading some report of an interview with a person representing The Family Research Council, a well-beloved group among certain conservative elements of our society. The man was talking about (no surprise here) homosexuality and how it's against God and how it's immoral and wicked and a certain road to hell. My first reaction was to stop and check that my brain would not explode. This is about the 10 gazillionth time I've heard all this cant. What bothers me about it is that those who hold such views appear to me to be hiding behind the skirts of religion in a somewhat anemic, if strident, attempt to hide their ignorance and their fear of those who are not like them. To me such a use of religion goes against everything that religion is supposed to stand for. I am a Christian and happy to be so. I believe that religion is not something to be manipulated in order for me to prove some point or another. Religion is but one way for people to connect with the divine; but it is definitely note a code of rules to be slavishly and unquestionably obeyed so as to avoid a trip to hell. Jesus of Nazareth, whom Christians claim to follow, was not about rules. Even the most cursory reading of the gospel narratives show that. His teachings and his example dramatically demonstrate this. Yet, some Christians seem not to have gotten the message here and go off on tangents having to do with Moses of the Old Testament and Paul of the New, neither of whom can claim primacy over Jesus. Sure, Moses and Paul did come out with many things people would consider inspired by the Deity; but they were also products of their own times and places as some of their ideas clearly show. The Bible is not, as some might hold, one book that was dictated directly by God into someone's ear. It is a collection of works spanning many centuries. Each book of the Bible tells us something about who the author was and what he though about things. Now what the author thought and wrote down might not be the actual word from on high, but rather his own musings and observations. We must look at the holy writings of any religious tradition for what they are. We must use out rational mind and critical thinking in order to sort out the things which are of benefit to us and to the world while putting aside things that really don't help. To evangelicals and to others who follow the Christian path I say: read your Bible. Really read it. Use your brains when doing so. Your faith will not suffer by using your brains and the sense of human reason you have. Indeed your own faith might be strengthened. Faith is a strange thing. It is a conundrum. Each person's faith is unique and personal to that person, whether it is faith in a deity or faith in one's inner convictions or faith in the inner light .... there are as many ways of faith as there are people on the earth and no one way is ipso facto the one and only true way for everyone. It's up to us Christians to understand this and to act upon it in our daily lives.
End of today's rant
2/6/2015
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