On the meaning of being Christian

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Monday August 29, 2011 · 6:37 AM PDT

2011/08/29 · 06:37

As a child I remember going to the YMCA. My father told me that if I was asked what religion I was that I should say Christian. At that time my parents practiced the religion of the Sunday New York Times and the Sunday Washington Post, so what did I know of religion. Later in life I went to Unitarian Sunday school and I spent some weeks at a Unitarian Camp in Massachusetts. I remember Sunday school well, because one year we had to learn about different religions and attend the local churches/synagogues in the area at least once. I also remember being told that I was not a Unitarian until I chose to be one.

I have never believed in divinity or a divine God. Christianity being the prevailing religion did receive a whole lot of attention in Sunday school and at summer camp. But the focus was on the teachings of Christ, not the divinity. To me the bible has always been a collection of stories from which we can gather lessons, not really any different from Shakespeare's plays or Greek mythology. The teachings of JC and what I consider their logical progression are what guide me today.

I have friends of many different religions and faiths. I consider myself to be more of a follower of JC than most who call themselves Christian. Yet because I do not believe in divinity or God they do not consider me to be Christian. I am a lesser person, because I do not believe in "divine right." To me divinity is the mark of dictatorship. When someone says this is right because it is divine they are coercing their view on the rest of us. To me this is as un-Christian as possible. To believe in divinity is not to be Christian.

All religions have stories. Those stories all provide a sense of who we are. If we take the best from the stories and improve upon that then we are religious. If we take the worst of the stories and repeat the mistakes articulated in the stories then we are irreligious. Many who consider themselves religious are taking the worst from the stories and repeating the mistakes told. We never seem to learn.

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