Honestly, I thought that this day would be easier than it turned out. Nothing went wrong with the ceremony and Gabriella was so perfectly behaved sleeping on me through Mass and only complaining at the tail end of the baptism itself because the priest was taking just a little too long for her liking. No, instead I found myself deeply conflicted wrestling with feelings of anger, hurt, and fear.
I was raised in an absence of religion, instead my parents emphasized logic, reason, and skepticism. Growing up I was an outsider as I am not baptized and had never set foot in a church, excepting as a tourist, until I met my wife. To me matters of faith and religious belief were a curiosity as they are not something I have ever felt before nor really been exposed to as many of my friends were professed atheists or agnostics. In these recent years, though, my curiosity has curdled into an aversion as I hear the language of faith become intertwined with that of war, discrimination, hate, and violence, not to mention what feels like an all out assault on reason, logic, and intellectualism.
Sitting through the Mass, I had a hard time reconciling these feelings with the priests call to pray for enjoining my daughter to the church that here I stood on the threshold afraid of the capacity of their faith to do harm and what it might mean to my daughter. Can I protect her? Can I teach her to question deeply and throughly? Can I raise her to be skeptical enough to preserve her personal integrity? What will this mean to my marriage? Will we find ourselves reaching for each others throats playing out the tired stereotypes of atheist versus theist? The stress that day is still weighing on me today.
Management might know a little of my feelings. I have never been shy in expressing my dislike for organized religion, arguing that it is another political mechanism aimed at command and control of people, but I have not really expressed this fear that grips me tightly. We have only discussed this in the academic sense and never really tackled it as an emotional issue. Bluntly, I am afraid of religion and those people that call themselves religious but what makes it even harder to swallow is the irrationality of my fear.
On the surface, the fear might not seem so irrational what with the talk of this administration centering on a “divine right” to wage war, to incarcerate and torture individuals, DOMAs being passed nation wide that couch discrimination in passages from the bible, the ongoing attack on science from religious and political leaders among others. All but a handful of those issues affects me personally so why did I feel my stomach knot up and a cold shiver pass over me while I sat in church holding my daughter? I am not sure.
Maybe I want to shield my daughter from all of that, to provide her with the tools and skills necessary to survive in the toxicity of that environment. I fear for her. I fear the world we are making, or undoing, for her. I fear that I will not be a strong enough husband, father, and individual to help her through it but before I fall asleep, though, I find I am just afraid. Profoundly afraid.
“…I find I am just afraid. Profoundly afraid.”
You should be afraid. There is a lot at stake. It’s not any one issue that you mentioned. It is the concept of what love is. That very simply, innocent concept (and it really is simple and pure), has had so many perversions and conditions placed on it, that if you don’t honor or abide by one certain type of love, you are an abomination.
If you don’t practice religion, or if you have no faith, you can’t possibly believe in God. You are therefore an abomination.
If you love the wrong gender, you are an abomination.
If you believe that there is no right side to war and that this nation is not “under God”, you are an abomination.
If you are not willing to pray for the troops, you don’t support the troops.
What I’m trying to say is simply this; the love that Christians today are peddling comes with a hefty price tag. You either are willing to believe in that, or you will spend eternity in Hell. This is where the world is today. It really is black or white, right or wrong, salvation or damnation. And those of the religious persuasion are more and more unwilling as time goes on, to simply allow people to be who and what they truly are, without shouting biblical versus at those of us who are different.
Religion is simply becoming a device to inflict terror (yes, I mean that quite literally) on others — those of us who don’t belong. The world is getting more uncertain every day, and the fuel that keeps the fire of uncertainty burning is, RELIGION.
The flip side of the love Christians preach and believe in, is hate. And the distance between that love and hate is smaller than the eye of a needle.
Oh…. on a bit lighter note, the photo of Gabriella on the red is absolutely gorgeous.
“And the distance between that love and hate is smaller than the eye of a needle.” No truer words.
Gabriella is a darling in front of the camera, she really enjoys having her picture taken!
Wow.. I’m sorry that you think that way Bill / have been hurt in that way… I am a Christian, and in the circles that I am in, we define love as belonging to everyone, not related to religion or faith.
Yes, we believe salvation is black and white, that is one of our core values, but we’re not about to try to force our beliefs on you, nor chuck Bible verses in your face.
Love can turn into hate very easily. Just, please don’t assume that all those who believe in a religion will turn their love into hate towards you…
If I ever start shouting biblical verses at anyone, or call anyone an abomination feel free to give me a good, hard slap till I stop / come around.
I think.. hate is so interchangeable with love because, although they are both opposites, they are also core emotions… each will touch a response deep inside. Hate infers wrath, wrath infers negative action whilst love infers peace, kindness, helpfulness, caring.
Which is the easier path to take towards something that you do not understand, something you can never understand?
I apologise for all those idiots who seem to think that someone being different *in __any__ way* from them, is an excuse to be nasty and rude.
Err… Hope thats ok! :S
“Wow.. I’m sorry that you think that way Bill / have been hurt in that way… I am a Christian, and in the circles that I am in, we define love as belonging to everyone, not related to religion or faith.
Yes, we believe salvation is black and white, that is one of our core values, but we’re not about to try to force our beliefs on you, nor chuck Bible verses in your face.
Love can turn into hate very easily. Just, please don’t assume that all those who believe in a religion will turn their love into hate towards you…”
Kirrus,
There is a reason that I believe what I believe. I am a gay man and I have a partner. We have been together since 1975. We have been through a lot in our lives; abandonment from our families, losing many friends to AIDS as the “Christians” sat on the sidelines saying that “we deserve AIDS”, “AIDS is a gift from God”, “Thank God for AIDS”, and my all time favorite, “Kill a fag for Christ”. And out of all of this, we have even been “gay bashed”, with one gay basher, just before putting a 4 inch gash in the top of my head with his boot stated, “this is for Jesus”.
Through all of that, we both remained Christians. I was raised Episcopalian. My partner was raised Presbyterian. We always believed that Jesus was about love and that He knew our hearts better than anyone. When we were in San Francisco, we were able to belong to a church who openly accepted “us” as a couple, in every sense of the word, except for “married”.
We moved to Coventry, Connecticut twelve years ago. I wanted to find a church that both of us felt we could belong too. Since my partner was raised Presbyterian, I approached the pastor of the local Presbyterian church, in an email. I found their website, and it looked like a place we could be comfortable. But, in the email, I was very clear that we were a gay couple. I did this not to put our sexuality in his face, but so he would know in order to avoid any misunderstandings. We don’t hide who we are as a couple. To do so would be a disservice to our relationship, and to us.
I received an email back from the pastor telling us that we were doomed to an eternity in Hell, and furthermore, that we most definitely would not be welcome at their church. He ended that with an all-caps sentence that read, “YOU ARE NOT WELCOME YOU AT OUR CHURCH. PLEASE DO NOT ATTEND.”
Well, I could hardly believe my eyes. I expected a response that he may want to meet us before we came to church there, but not something like that. My partner had, shall we say, less kind words for his email.
I honored his request to not set foot on their property, but I left him with one final message, “Would Jesus have turned us away?”
Because of this experience, my partner will not attend a church again. He won’t even step foot in one. He won’t say that he’s atheist, but he calls himself agnostic. But that was just the clincher for him. As for me, I tried to attend a congregational church in our area that was “open and affirming”, but my heart just was no longer in it.
Today, I go to no church. We are disillusioned with all of it. God lives in our hearts and our actions, and my actions that I do everyday for so many people that I never talk about, well, that is where God is. If there is a test to be made, I made it, and I pass it every day through my acts of kindness, compassion, and understanding.
The church failed that test.
Hi Bill,
I have had a gay christian friend in the past. Living in Wales, there are a lot of gay people here, plus I’d already guessed that you were gay
I need to be careful about what I say here, because, after all this is a public blog, but I’ll say this.. IMHO, the church in the western world has been moving away from Christ’s teachings for a while. If you can find one that will include you, great, stick with it. If you can’t, use the ‘net to find people who are like you, and study the bible on your own.
I’ll say no more here… if you want to talk more, contact me through my blog… http://kirrus.co.uk/contact-info
“I have had a gay christian friend in the past. Living in Wales, there are a lot of gay people here, plus I’d already guessed that you were gay ;)”
Hummmm, I’m wondering if I type gay.
I agree with you Kirrus. Practicing Christianity, or not practicing it, is all a very personal decision. It was very clear to me when that church refused to even let us attend that it had missed the entire point of what Christ was teaching. Whether I decided to go to church or not, I knew that was not where I was at.
My only hope is that children raised with a strong church background can still, in this country at least, come away with a sense of love and compassion towards other people, or, if they will turn the messages they hear inward into a more exclusive and judgmental message. I fear that they will end up being very judgmental towards certain people. And that leads to nowhere.
I would love to make it to Wales someday. I’ve heard it is a very friendly place to visit. It has always been one of my hopeful destinations in the future.