I am an atheist. So have your religious snit and tizzy already.
At the age of twelve, I chose to be baptized and indoctrinated into the Lutheran religion because I lived in South Dakota where everyone appeared to be religious, a tad bit rabidly religious in some cases, and at some level I wanted cover from the frenzied religionists. One could never know when they might turn on one and burn her or him at the stake or something because she or he did not "believe."
I liked singing the hymns because I like to sing, although most Lutheran hymns are kind of boring. I put in my time sitting in a pew for Sunday services not listening to the sermon but wondering why church bells made Harold Shoemaker's hound dog howl. Did the bells hurt his ears? Or was he aware that it was Sunday and was he was lifting his howl in praise to the Lord?
Sunday school hymns were a little peppier, especially the Easter hymns. I used to be parodied by my little brat Sunday school classmates for my spirited rendition of "HUP from the grave He arose..."
I thoroughly enjoyed the history taught in the Lutheran catechism classes. I hated history in general because it was always about boring old white guys, mostly Anglo old boring white guys, and war, war, war and conflict and kings and patriarchal crap. No ethnic diversity. No women. Nothing to make history interesting.
But the catechism class was totally interesting because it focused on continental European history rather than boring old Brit history and I became aware of all sorts of religion revolutions. Luther, of course, but he was not half as interesting as those other guys, those rebellious gypsy Anabaptists.
I was half in love with Menno Simons, Fugitive Leader. Sigh. So romantic. So dedicated. And the followers of Jacob Hutter. I was utterly taken by the plight of these desperate people when one of them threw a cloak upon the ground, upon which everyone in the group threw all of their possessions to be shared with everyone in common, my innocent commie yearnings nurtured in me by my father's quiet conversations about religion and society. He was an atheistic pinko, ya know.
But at virtually the same time I had a mad crush on Mohammad Mosaddeq, the Iranian rebel who thumbed his nose at Winston Churchill and British Petroleum or the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC/AIOC) as it was then known. I despise that little weirdo Winston Churchill. I'll concede that he served Britain nobly during WWII but he had tons of personality flaws. His father, for crissake!
And, Mossadeq had a strange, depraved sense of humor. He gave press interviews ensconced on his shiny brass bedstead dressed in stripped flannel jammies. What is not to love in a man like that?
Our catechism teacher was an old Norwegian preacher who appeared to be single. He taught us religion in an abstracted way, telling us, tongue-in-cheek I think, that it was more acceptable for us to ally with Roman Catholics than with Missouri Synod Lutherans, we were part of the respectable ELC branch of Lutheranism, Evangelical Lutheran Church as it was then known. In retrospect I fantasize ... maybe he was a closet Atheist just going through the motions of religion, maybe he could have been gay... I will never know but I love the mystery of not knowing for sure.
Rebels. Rebellion. Resistance.
The crux of the matter reduced to words, the words that I hate: Submit, Submission, Subjugation, most of all:
Obedience
I understand that a basic tenet of Islam is: Submission.
Never. So stone me to death already.
And I noticed almost every workday as I commuted to work in Seattle a little sign on one of the spaces in the endless strip malls that lined the bus route:
Obedience
Apparently this is another bastard religion created in the fermenting frenzied religious mash of America, the CTOs:
Called to Obedience is a discipleship ministry that provides training and resources designed to encourage believers to develop a greater love for God and equip them to apply the gospel in their daily lives and relationships. The information provided here is designed as an introduction to our approach and to provide tools and resources for our registered disciplers.
Disciplers? I fantasized about the disciplers, (discipliners?) stout Dominixi clad in strips of leather and chains, brandishing whips on the nekkid hides of the disciples of the weirdness called "Obedience."
But, I am safe from the CTOs and others who demand subjugation, I am safe from the extremists of Islam, I am even safe from the demons that I learned about when I investigated Tibetan Buddhism because of my grounding in Lutheranism. I am utterly convinced that I can look all of those obedience demanders in the eye and flawlessly recite the Nicene creed learned after reciting it thousands of times sitting on the hard pew seating, which will reduce them to nothingness even though I don't believe the words. I am sure of this, utterly, the Nicene creed must have been purchased and hammered out with the blood of countless rebels and arguers about the nature of god and I swear by the power of all the blood that has been shed for that creed that the words have power, similar to anything created by Aleister Crowley.