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God, yes; organized religion, no
Q:What should pastors do if they no longer hold the defining beliefs of their denomination? Do clergy have a moral obligation not to challenge the sincere faith of their parishioners? If this requires them to dissemble from the pulpit, doesn't this create systematic hypocrisy at the center of religion? What would you want your pastor to do with his or her personal doubts or loss of faith?
Mahatma Gandhi was said to be studying Christianity and was impressed with Jesus. He was studying law in South Africa, and was on his way toward becoming a Christian. He decided to go to a Christian church to worship.
A white elder met him at the door and asked him what he was doing; Gandhi said he wanted to enter the church to worship. The elder told him he'd do no such thing: "There is no place for you here, Kaffir. Go away or I will throw you down the stairs."
Gandhi left, and later said, when asked about Christianity, "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians." He admired Jesus but said that followers of Jesus were not like their Christ at all.
I say all of that to say that I believe in God, but I believe less and less in organized religion. Christianity is a disappointment, not because of God and not because of Jesus, but because of people.
As an African American, I believe with every fiber of my being in God. It has been God, surely, who sustained black people through the horrors of what we have been through in this country. It has been God to whom we have turned for supernatural strength to hold on and push on, despite great barriers put before us.
But Christianity, or more specifically, Christians, have been a disappointment. Following Jesus should mean people know what Jesus taught and seek to do it. That has not been the case. Christians, too many of them, are Christian in name only.
Christians have been taught by organized religion, and organized religion and its dogma and doctrine are as far away from the ideal and idea of God that I hold onto as the east is from west. Organized religion has pushed my idea and ideal of God to the side and replaced it with human desires and interests. Organized religion has denigrated my idea and ideal of God.
But therein lies a big problem: there is no ONE theology. Niebuhr says that theology is anthropology; he says that theology is "interested language," meaning the language about God is shaped by the interests of the people who are teaching God.
So, too often, God has been taught as an arm of people who oppress others and use God as justification. This God has been at the helm of oppression, sanctifying racism, sexism, heterosexism, militarism, and exclusion of others.
My God is not an exclusionist. My God is love. My God demands that we love and accept other people. To me it is not rocket science.
I am not surprised that there may be a lot of preachers/pastors who are non-believers, and the reason I am not surprised is because the state of the world bespeaks the phenomenon. We either have non-believers or fundamentalists. Non-believers leave God out of the picture; fundamentalists push a mean-spirited, racist, controlling God down our throats.
When I was at seminary I was surprised when, on my first Sunday there, instead of heading out to church, many of my classmates were heading to the tennis courts.
I could not understand it. Why come to seminary if you're not going to go to church?
I now believe that even as they began to study, they did not believe in God. Seminary was just a step toward getting to where they really wanted to be.
On the other hand, "believers" came to seminary with zeal and excitement, but sadly, many of them have used God to their purposes, to manipulate and control people to do their bidding. God is no more in their pulpits than in the pulpits of the non-believers.
I struggle with God, though I believe in God. God does not make sense to me, and really, can make no sense to anyone, Tillich and other theologians notwithstanding. We have an anthropomorphic way of relating to God, and an anthropomorphic way of understanding God, myself included.
So, when God does not do our bidding, which is often, we are at a loss. We wrestle with theodicy; we come up wanting.
Many of us in the pulpit wrestle with this God whom we do not understand, and try to figure out what we do not understand to our flocks.
And yet, at the end of the day, I still believe that people need God. I teach God as I can; how a person receives it (or not) is not up to me. My prayer is that whatever I teach deepens their belief in God, so that when the earth drops from under their feet, as the earth is wont to do from time to time, they will have something more than their fear, anger or confusion to latch onto.
I pray that whatever I teach about this mysterious God will sustain them, and that they will not fall into despair.
That's all I can do, and frankly, sometimes it feels like it is not even close to being enough.
But I believe in God. I accept the stories in the Bible as stories, but with inherent lessons that are valuable. I accept that I will not ever understand God. I believe in this God. I believe in Jesus, and I believe that both God and Jesus would hate how organized religion devalues them.
Like Gandhi, I love Jesus. It is the followers of Jesus, we Christians, with whom I struggle. We Christians who build the doctrinal and dogmatic walls of organized religion.
By
Susan K. Smith
|
March 18, 2010; 9:43 AM ET
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Posted by: garoth | March 25, 2010 2:37 PM
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There's a lot of people who denounce the spectre of "organized religion" these days. They like to say things like "I'm spiritual, but I'm not religious" (can any one explain this to me?).
Still, I often wonder what such people actually believe in; more often than not, their ideas about God and man are rather vague, as Ms. Smith's comment "My God is love" indicates. Sadly, here we have yet another poster who equates being religious to being a "fundamentalist." At least Ms. Jacoby is certain in her atheist faith...
Posted by: Robert_B1 | March 22, 2010 5:15 PM
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Oh wow. So dear old Gandhi was going to become a Christian huh? At first, I couldn't believe you actually put this on a public article. Gandhi, the beloved mahatma of practically every Hindu on the planet, had decided that Christianity was a better religion than Hinduism. I just want to see you say this to a Hindu audience and see the look on their faces!
Just imagine if someone were to write on a Hindu column that MLK had decided to become a Hindu. Lol!
Posted by: tvs_tvs | March 19, 2010 4:06 PM
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It’s interesting to hear the Gandhi quote in context. At least it makes more sense now. That has to be the most overused quote I have ever heard, mostly coming from people who probably don’t know its context or know much about the giver. In any case, I would be equally put off by such a bad experience going to a Church, but I would think Susan and Gandhi would be a little smarter than to pigeon hole all Christians because of this one Church. They should know that about a fifth of the world’s population claims to be Christian and they might find different experiences elsewhere. I assume Gandhi could have made a short trip to Calcutta to visit Mother Theresa and get a much different reception. Alas, people often get what they are looking for.
I’m very disappointment with Ms. Smith’s assertion that all organized religion is bad. For someone who claims to believe in God and Jesus, she seems completely unaware of their teachings. Jesus clearly loves his Church (aka. Christian’s organization). Are churches imperfect? Of course, but they actually offer hope that others can’t. The Bible spends much time rebuking Churches in the bad and encouraging them in the good. This is basically what all of Paul letter’s in the Bible do. Don’t look for perfection in a Church because you won’t find it. Look for Church who is looking to improve and become like Jesus.
The more I read, the more I believe that Ms. Smith’s beliefs are just her own concoction, and this is disappointing. She certainly borrows from Christianity and probably other religions but is just as likely to ignore and reject what doesn’t suit her. I would just like to know how going off on our own without others is supposed to help in our religion. Shouldn’t we look for God with others, since we can work together and keep each other accountable? This is clearly what Jesus taught.
If you believe in God and Jesus than find a Church that DOES preach them. We certainly live in a day where there are many churches that don’t but there are many that do. Searching for God away from any Church just isn’t a smart option. I have always gone to Bible believing churches that preach the truth and it does work. Of course, it seems she has thus rejected these Churches as well and therefore is left with only herself.
Posted by: kert1 | March 19, 2010 1:18 PM
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As an African American, I believe with every fiber of my being in God. It has been God, surely, who sustained black people through the horrors of what we have been through in this country.
How do you deal with the fact that it surely must have been your omnipotent god that even allowed these horrors to happen?
Slavery is seen throughout the OT, rules on how to be a slave and how treat your slaves. Slavery is an approved human practice in in your religion. How do you deal with that?
Do you know who R.J. Rushdoony is?
Here's a quote from his book, The Institutes of Biblical Law:
The white man has behind him centuries of Christian culture and the discipline and the selective breeding this faith requires… The Negro is a product of a radically different past, and his [genetic] heredity has been governed by radically different considerations.
In fact, you are a follower of the same gods as the people who believe as Rushdoony. They are incontrovertibly evil people. What kind of escapism are you using to believe in the same gods as these people?
Posted by: barferio | March 19, 2010 6:22 AM
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Thank you for your comments, Ms. Smith. It is certainly true that dogma does not equal faith, nor does the church always represent Jesus. Yet the "I - Thou" relationship is not sufficient for faith either. That's why Luther talked about us being both "saints and sinners," and about both the "visible" and "invisible" church. People will always disappoint. As you say, we anthropomorphise God, making God into the image of our our biases, bigotry, and phobias. Yet we have been called to live out our faith in the midst of community, and the community, in many ways, helps to define our faith.
As for these pastors who struggle - let them stay in the struggle and stay in ministry. Let their people pray for them, console them, help them, hear them. Perhaps, at the end, there will be healing for all.