Reconciliation: Day Four

It is Sunday. Perhaps that’s a good time to talk about religion. I probably shouldn’t, but it is such an overwhelming aspect of American life that any sort of reconciliation that doesn’t consider it would fail at the starting gate, so to speak.

I’ve feelings and thoughts all over the place about it. Raised in a protestant household—Missionary Baptist in fact—I call myself a “Cultural Christian.” To tell the truth, I never liked to go to church. The two weeks I spent in Vacation Bible School as a child still stand as the longest ten years of my life. I began to eschew organized religion when I realized that the so-called “social gospel” that resonated so strongly with me is gone and not likely to return. Then a preacher in a small church we attended began to refer to those who believed in science as sinners. We fled, like Jews leaving Egypt. I’m not being sacrilegious, for those friends who are believers. I’m just being honest, a step I feel is essential if we are to try and understand one another.

That having been said, I will admit to revering much of the music of religion, the masses of Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and others are sublime enough to make one spiritual, if not outright religious. On the popular front, I still play, hum, and try to sing the old church hymns. A good old good one, such as “Just As I Am,” has an unearthly power to move. Now … I can’t confess to caring much for the modern stuff, once described as “Jesus Is My Boyfriend,” music. But if you do, that is fine. I just happen to agree with the NPR guest who once said that comparing the old hymns with modern church music is like comparing a Shakespearian Sonnet to a Hallmark greeting card.

Enough of that.

I will also admit that, on most Sunday mornings, I sit with my mother-in-law and watch a televised Methodist service broadcast in our area. It’s the only segment of religious broadcast I watch on TV, other than the second or so it takes for me to change a channel. But, I find the one mentioned so full of grace, peace, love, and joy that I don’t think watching it would do harm to the most hardened atheist.

May we just agree that religion, in whatever form we take it—and there are so many—is so highly personal that a shared relationship is almost impossible? Could we not just leave it at that and allow one another to live her or his personal life accordingly? For me, that means keeping it to yourself and out of politics. Sorry, that’s just my opinion. You are entitled to your own.

What formed my opinion? I am one of the small percentage of living humans that has read the Holy Bible from start to finish, so I’m not illiterate in ecclesiastical matters. I’m one of the extremely few who have read it from start to finish more than once. I once read where Captain Joshua Slocum, author of, “Sailing Around the World Alone,” and the first person to do that, read the Bible numerous times, the exact number escapes me. I have neither that great man’s courage nor spare time. I can’t match his effort at studying the book, but I’ll keep trying.

When I do read it, I find sublime thought mixed with inconsistencies, cruelty, and the illogical. At the same time, I believe it lays bare the complexity of the human spirit, is the most enduring basis of western literature, and a must-read for an understanding of that genre. So, I will continue to read that esteem instrument although I sincerely believe it is both metaphorical and written by men for men. Yes girls. For men.

The point from which I must sincerely, and without malice, express my departure from so many dear friends, is the belief, as expressed in The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky "If God is dead, all is permitted," more often expressed as “without religion, there is no morality.”

I have known saints and sinners on both extremes the belief-nonbelief spectrum. There have been countless books written on the question, and I, personally, stand on the belief expressed by Albert Einstein: "A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hopes of reward after death."

But if religion truly causes you to be kind, caring, accepting, loving, and supportive of your fellow human beings, by all means follow it with joy and my blessing.

How in the world can we find reconciliation in beliefs so pervasive disagreements? My approach will be a striving for respect and non-judgement. In other words, “judge not.” I’ll borrow that one from the Galilean himself. I only ask my religious friends to do the same.

Meanwhile got to run. The service is coming on.

Just thinking …