Religion questions

Warning: even though I don't write about partisan issues here, I do write about cultural ones. Religion is as negative for some to discuss as politics-- the two no-nos of polite conversation. Well you cannot discuss religion in this country today without it getting political. So a smattering of politics will follow. I want to add-- I don't like writing about this anymore than some of you will like reading it. I am concerned about our country and sometimes you can't ignore what you see. You have to take a stand and speak your piece... as the cowboys say :).

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."     Mahatma Gandhi

I don't know if any of my readers can help me with a couple of questions but they have been bothering me regarding the religion calling itself Christianity today.

The first is hard for me to even write about because it's filled with contradictions but I'm going to give it a shot. When I pass some churches, I almost always read the little signs they have outside, you know the ones that come out a book of such quotes (yes, when I used to go to Christian bookstores, I saw the books). The message of the average such sign is (like the one I saw driving home from town the other day) that God/church can solve their problems and more importantly if the reader has problems, it's because God isn't ruling their lives and they are.

It's about me is presented as a problem when you consider the meaning of that message. Down with ME.

And yet, the big push by the religious right today, which has become a political movement, is that government (which in the United States is all of us together) is the problem. Their big quote is-- you can manage your money better than the government (don't ask how you build bridges with that view as this is not about logic).

In short what they are saying is-- It's about me is the solution. Way to go ME power!

I get it why a secularist might say such a thing. I get it for someone who is into an independence movement or those who believe in the Western mythology of individualism. I get it how someone who followed a very conservative view of life that some people are profligate and if they worked harder, it'd have gone better.   

But a Christian? Isn't it kind of a contradiction to the Christian who is taught by Christ that we are all ONE in God and we owe not just our religious brothers but all brothers (check out story of the Good Samaritan in New Testament) whatever help we can give because when we do it for the least of us, we do it for God.

Confusing the issue, for me, is one of the political arms of the religious right where I see things like this: FAMiLY means the family takes precedent over the individual. This movement is pressuring politicians to sign away their future autonomy in voting in order to receive the support of the FAMiLY movement to get elected.

FAMiLY clearly is taking ME out of the picture... It's all about them and what they consider important.

How does that fit into the government the religious right wants? Or perhaps don't want and really just prefer that the church gains power and every other group loses it?

After I had been thinking about writing this, I saw the following article in a right wing newspaper column about how Democrats are inciting fear of people like Perry and Bachmann but that their fear is foolishness. So let me get this right. It's okay for candidates to emphasize their religious values to get votes but not okay for someone else to emphasize what those religious values mean practically speaking to block votes.

Left paints this as religious war

 It doesn't take any left wing group mandating feeling that we are in a religious conflict. It just takes listening to Richard Perry or Michelle Bachmann for awhile-- as you try to avoid having your head explode. It takes understanding that the only 'thinking' conservative running for the Republican nomination is Jon Hunstman and he's not religious or radical enough to suit this right wing movement.

So what is it for this bunch? Me is the problem or Me is the answer?

Here's the second question. Why do so many Christians feel they are being abused as though they have forgotten where they live and what their freedoms are in this country, forgotten that they are the dominant religion? If you criticize what is passing for Christianity* today, the righteous scream persecution.

Let's look at that concern. No candidate for the presidency could possibly win if they didn't proclaim themselves to be a Christian-- this is true right or left wing. In the Republican party of today, they have to be a fundamentalist Christian to boot. There are churches in every town and they all are tax free. The donations to the church all count as a tax deduction. And with all of that, they feel put upon. Does it go with the territory?

* What someone says they are, doesn't mean it's what they are. Words are cheap and actions not so much. I believe there is a movement in this country calling itself Christian; but if you look at the teachings, the actions, and know the Gospels, you shake your head. Gandhi would like Christians who followed Christ's teachings; so it's not about true Christianity that he was speaking but something that's been with us a long time where it comes to that religion. Andrew Sullivan calls this movement christianists and I think for good reason.

Third question doesn't really relate to Christianity specifically. Would people value human life more if they were agnostics or atheists? I mean let's consider how many wars are encouraged by religious leaders and their teaching of a reward in heaven and life after death-- not just the Crusades, not just the religious right permeating our military with requirements to attend religious meetings, not just the current Islamic terrorist movement--but all of them.

Does war end up happening mostly because people believe there is an afterlife or they will come back again? What if they thought-- this is it for all of us? Dust to dust. One precious chance for life. Would anyone believing that way be so quick to throw away lives-- those of others or their own?

The photos are of my blooming rose of sharon, a plant I love, which is symbolically taken to mean Christ in the Bible. I have three of them and always love the late summer when they bloom. It can also be called a hibiscus.  I used it for the title in one of my manuscripts because of the way pioneer women would bring the cutting with them to Oregon and from a narrow little stick would come this beautiful flowering bush. In symbolism, it's rich.