Twisted by toxic religion
“If your understanding of the divine made you kinder, more empathetic, and impelled you to express sympathy in concrete acts of loving-kindness, this was good theology. But if your notion of God made you unkind, belligerent, cruel, of self-righteous, or if it led you to kill in God's name, it was bad theology. ”
― Karen Armstrong, The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness
Yes, I am ordained, a 40 year veteran of parish ministry, but tonight I am a pastor nursing a fierce pour of aged rum resting on a single large ice cube as I strive to curb my rage. Yes, yes, yes, I know that churches do a lot of good things from services to the homeless, building Habitat houses, to care for wounded families and individuals. I have helped to build clinics and schools in South and Central America, gutted flooded houses after hurricanes on the coast, and worked in addiction programs but none of that makes up for the fact that in very many cases religion is an arsonist that claims to be a fire fighter.
Let me go from the macro to the micro: We have lately been treated to the crocodile tears of Vice President Pence as he bewails the religious bigotry he and his wife have suffered as they strive to be religious bigots. They claim to be victims because they have been criticized for Karen Pence taking a job in a private religious school that discriminates against the LGBTQ community. After centuries of discrimination and even violence against gay people for being gay, the Pence family is demanding that their desire to go on teaching hatred and provoking violence against gay people is their religious choice. No! No it isn’t! Just because you call ignorant prejudice your religious belief does not in any way baptize such irresponsible hatred.
What could be more obvious than that any sincere spirituality teaches love, forgiveness, tolerance, and liberation? If you claim to be so religious that you must hate people for being different, block them from education, employment, housing or even physical safety then you clearly are not religious in any meaningful way. You are a hypocrite in every meaningful way and a festering boil on the ass of a democracy that is somehow forced to put up with your ignorant bias. The religious prejudice the Pence family promotes empowers those who want to oppress gay people and it victimizes young gay people, teaching them to loath themselves, pushing many to suicide and many more to pretend to be straight, marry in a heterosexual relationship that is so wrong for them that they resort to drug and alcohol addiction to cope, and their families often become scenes of domestic violence. If this is religion then every sane person on earth should reject it.
And the macro issue on every 24 hour “news” channel for days has been this insolent teen trying to intimidate a Native American who was chanting a peace prayer. The students involved in this incident are claiming that they are being falsely portrayed because the news is accurately showing them wearing their neo-fascist MAGA hats they wore to a so-called “pro-life” rally under the banner of the Catholic Church. Again, these same students have been seen in black face making fun of African Americans, they have chanted pro-rape taunts at women, AND tried to intimidate Native Americans while claiming to be good Catholic kids from a private high school where such wretched beliefs and prejudices are taught, nurtured, protected, and passed on from generation to generation . . . and now their parents are rich enough to hire a PR firm to try to dilute the obvious truth that these kids are the moral scum of the earth.
No, wait, it is somewhat unfair to saddle them with the guilt of their attitudes of white, male, wealthy, privilege. The real culprit here is the Roman Catholic Church that has for centuries perpetuated homophobia, ironically through a clergy that is comprised in its majority by closeted gay men, misogyny, though the majority of their members, most of their volunteer hours, and almost of all of their money, comes from women they have brainwashed into supporting their primary abuser . . . the church, itself! What self respecting, mentally healthy person, would tolerate today’s Catholic church or attend its public services defined my magical rituals that only the entirely deceived could sit through with a straight face? It is 2019, not 319. Please, people, wake up!
Was the whole cover up of priest sex crimes not enough to convince you to abandon this sick, sick, sick institution? What do they have to do to show you how totally insane they are? Are you waiting for them to serve red wine with fish? Please, apply some critical thinking here. Jesus did not die for your sins (what could be more absurd?). There is no heaven or hell (look around you, the only evidence are the imaginings of clearly delusional and entirely unreliable people). Angles and demons are just metaphors for people who do uncommonly good or uncommonly bad things. There are no spirits, ghosts, oh, and that whole gastric cleansing stuff . . . hogwash! The sacraments are, at best, symbolic gestures used for teaching. Magic is only real in Harry Potter movies (and, admittedly, they are great but they are not documentaries!). Have some self respect and never again darken the door of any church that recites 4th century creeds and pretends that God writes books — and yes, that goes for Muslims and Jews too!
But what has me into my second pour of Pirate juice is not these macro issues. We pastors live on the front lines of mental health. When the psychiatrist offers you a ten minute appointment in three months and the mental health center will let you in to see someone who has many more problems than you do sometime next month, ministers are called upon to work modern day miracles: preventing suicides, spending countless hours with addicts, and, if you are like me, opening your home to victims of domestic violence.
So, beyond all of the stories you read about the man who killed his wife and kids before killing himself, or the one about the woman who asphyxiated in her garage while writing her suicide note, or the kid who overdosed on heroin between third and fourth period, just be aware that you don’t see twice as many of those stories because pastors like me got involved and wrestled the gun out of the dad’s hands, talked the woman out of killing herself, and managed to help the kid find a reason to finish school and go to college.
Don’t get me wrong, I still hate religion because it does more harm than good but some of us are trying to make the world a better place. Sadly, however, before we can be of help, we have to jump over hurdles placed by those whom the untrained eye would see as our peers.
Let me be specific: An abused woman whom our local shelters refused to admit (for some bureaucratic excuse or another) I took into my own home until I could find a shelter in the next county who would take her. I helped her to recover her possessions, found her remunerative work, and talked with her daily about not having contact with the man who had beat her so bad that she was hospitalized and even there he sent messages, assuring her that he could kill her and hide the body where no one would ever find it.
But, and here is what will make you want a glass of rum all your own: she is an avid member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and her abuser is a member of the Church of Christ. If you don’t know anything about these cults that masquerade as churches just imagine that one is “nitro” and the other is “glycerine.” Her entirely uneducated, uninformed, and mind-control cult devotees convinced her that “he really loves you and he wants to be good to you.” And his Church of Christ peers insist, “If you will just be an obedient wife, he will be a Godly husband.” And so, after 29 days in a domestic violence shelter (funded by sincere people who want to help victims) she leaves to put on a white dress, a crown of baby’s breath, and she marries her abuser.
It could have been the Southern Baptist Church and the Assemblies of God, because they are both rife with the same abuse provoking misogyny, but in this case it was the Church of Christ and the indisputable cult of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Yes, yes, yes, I know. We liberal academics are not supposed to talk this way. We are supposed to be open minded, tolerant, accepting, and reconciling. You will never catch me quoting G. K. Chesterton in any other context but about this advice he was spot on: Be open minded but not so open that your brains fall out. There are ways of having a healthy spirituality but we absolutely MUST BE HONEST — MOST OF RELIGION IS TOXIC — IT PROMOTES PREJUDICE, MISOGYNY, MALE DOMINANCE, RACISM, AND VIOLENCE.
My point is this: Either find a way to live out a healthy spirituality or quit religion entirely. If you are addicted to going to church, find a credible progressive community of faith or a healthy (if that is not an oxymoron) Unitarian congregation. But stop supporting the religion that is causing all of the problems!
