Merry Christmas everyone. I’m back from my cruise to Mexico last week and now I’m at my parents’ place in Ventura for Christmas. I had the unpleasant obligation of attending church this morning where I was again reminded of one of the reasons for the loss of my faith.
Growing up in the church we are told myriad lies about gay people — that they are unhappy, depraved and godless. It’s common knowledge the most effective way to dispel these lies is to actually meet gay people who are content, happy, fulfilled and people of faith.
Despite being a rather moderate California Presbyterian church I attended, it still subscribes to a Christian-supremacist doctrine. Specifically the choir director, Christina Morris, stated the only people in the entire world who are fulfilled and at peace are those who know Jesus. (To clarify, my family no longer goes to the Baptist church I grew up in.)
In college I studied abroad for a quarter in India and a quarter in Thailand. These are countries where I was surrounded by over a billion people who do not know Jesus and I find it ugly and small-minded to claim none of them are fulfilled or at peace.
This post was partially inspired by the Rev. Mel White’s book which I’m currently reading, Religion Gone Bad: The Hidden Dangers of the Christian Right, which isn’t necessarily about Christian-supremacy but discusses its danger.
Dan, I’m sorry you had that experience today. It’s unfortunate when church becomes an ‘unpleasant obligation.’ Hearing Christian supremicist ‘we-are-only-ones-with-the-truth’ talk is unbearable once you’ve moved passed that. I’m glad to be a post-evangelical in the progressive United Church of Christ. It works with my current Christian Universalist perspective. But… sometimes I wonder if I wasn’t a pastor if I would hold to any traditional Christian faith at all. It’s hard for me to look at most of what passes as ‘Christian’ and find it compelling. Or maybe I should say it’s hard to see it as superior to the experience of those who do not identify as Christian.
I went to Catholic elementary and partial high school, as well as a Catholic University for post graduate work. Among the Dominican nuns, the Franciscan brothers and the Jesuits at college, I never heard a one of them criticize another religion. Now, I do realize that there are plenty of Catholics that do this sort of thing, but I was never personally exposed to it. I do remember in public high school, hearing from evangelical friends “Oh, you’re Catholic. I always thought you were a Christian.”
Anyway, I am just glad that in my little corner of the Catholic world, I never got any of that supremacist stuff, even when studying the religions of the world.
It’s good that the Catholic Church has officially taken a more conciliatory tone in recent times with regards to other religions. But history has shown that it hasn’t always been the case. And I don’t know that the Catholic Church will maintain that line universally, at least in the United States. I had a temp job for almost a year at one of the big-money local parishes here in Denver (The Coors’ are amongst the parishioners there) that promotes itself as “evangelical” and extolls the virtues of being “born again.” I remember one Sunday where the priest’s “message” lamented that Christians no longer “convert by the sword” and encouraged the congregation to be “warriors for Christ.” If it weren’t for the bells and smells, it might as well have been any other fundamentalist church.
The assistant minister at my PCUSA church endorses Focus’ Adventures in Odyssey during children’s’ time. Odyssey is Ok, but the fact that it’s a FotF produce kinda sours it.
And, knowing Odyssey is probably not the only FotF product he listens to. 🙁
I’ve been more-or-less Catholic my entire life and I’ve never been in a parish that preached any sort of supremacy doctrine. I don’t think I could stomach any church that did for more than one visit. That would seem to me to be the essence of the bad sort of Pride (especially since it seems to usually be “my flavor of Christianity” supremacy), but what do I know.
I find it difficult enough to continue to take seriously a church that considers me “intrinsically disordered” though, but I digress.
P.S. Dan, I like your haircut.
Dan,
Wow, a bit of a shock to see the post–I am home in Camarillo for Christmas! 🙂 I also attended services for the first time in a long time. (My name is Dan too. lol) I went to St Mary Magdalen in Camarillo, and, I am happy to report that, like some of the above posters, my Catholic upbringing and education (K-8, 9-12, college AND grad school) almost always was happily missing any religious supremacy. However, every time I wandered near another Christian denomination, I learned that they hated Catholics first, Satan second. Very sad.
Anyway, let’s enjoy the beautiful Ventura County winter (77 degrees today, I think), and a Merry Christmas to you.
I grew up being told that the Assembly of God chuch a few miles away was just a bunch of liberals who were compromising with sin. We weren’t AoG, we were Pentecostal Church of God and we believed in holiness.
Anyone who knows the AoG and the PCofG will get a chuckle. Doctrinally, they are indistinguishable and the “compromising” was mostly that the AoG women were allowed to wear pants and they could watch TV. Come to think of it, the Pentecostal Holiness folk probably thought we were liberal compromisers because our women could wear minimal make-up and quiet jewelry.
I don’t go to church very often but when I do, I choose a Russian Orthodox church where the service is mystical and incomprehensible.
There are no pews, everybody stands, and the service lasts for hours.
It’s like going to the gym.