Politics Dictating Faith...
When reading my dear friend Ben's blog, I was sad to see news of his Church shrinking in membership. All while growing up, the people I had known from that congregation have always been above-par nice, good-natured, and thoughtful. Being raised in Turlock gave me higher than average exposure to varieties of religious denominations, and the Presbyterian Church to which he belongs always seemed more tolerant and inclusive than most. I remember seeing concerts and playing on their grounds without a feeling of being pressured or unwelcome in any way, which is amazing to feel when one is a lone atheist boy. If there is a way for me to eventually repay that kindness, I hope to do so.
That, however, is not what strikes me to write here. In reading the article he linked to from the Christian Post, something struck me as not quite right. It described some of the governing politics tying the various Churches together. But this appears as an attempt to govern something that is utterly ungovernable.
When it comes to faith, there is something intrinsically personal about it. While there may be elements of it that are enriched by communing with those who share one's faith, it is still, at the core, how just one person perceives the world. It is the mind's bridge to the soul. There is nothing and no one that can touch or change that relationship. Religous groups and other people may help by presenting their ideas and interpretations of just what exactly will best get one across that bridge, but it may only be traversed by the one person possessing it.
The associations and alliances of Churches, however, should not be construed as a poor idea. It is a grand one and generally a genuine pact of aid. When combining economic support systems, groups that fall on unfortunate times have a much deeper well of resources with which to recover (*cough*Universal Health Care*cough*). This is another citing of that wonderful part of human nature to help one another and be stronger as a group than each can be individually.
The line is crossed when it is an outside act to change how one's faith should operate and what it should be associated with. Leaving one sect and joining another, deciding that the differences among the old and new members is of no importance or tolerable to forget cannot actually work, can it? A dictate cannot come from some ranking person in a hierarchy nor from a simple majority stating that everyone shall now belong to and believe something different. Or does human belief and faith actually operate like that?
I was raised with a multitude of options and thought of them as many different paths to Heaven. It was all a matter of personal choice, personal faith, and it was different for each person. I don't know. I have so far wound up with an understanding of life and soul of my own, along with a rather severe cynicism of the idea of organizing religion at all. So if there are any who read this can add their two cents on governing belief. I will admit my own lack of insight on most religious ideas, as I have always been an ouside observer squinting in the distance occasionally.
2 comments:
I'll give it a shot. It goes way, way back though.
The Christian faith is centered around what is percieved to be a historical event, the resurrection of Jesus. Whether you believe this actually happened or not, something happened that caused people to start talking about it. People talking about the same thing brings more people together to talk about it. Some people see the same things differently than other people, but many saw it the same way, and so on and so on. What followed this, and what we see in many faiths to which we can attach a historical founder or date, is an event that many people interpreted, and that many people came to interpret the same way. So while faith is indeed something personal, the corporate element is a huge part of the thing as a whole. It's not so much a group of people presenting something as a group of people sharing a common life experience. The thing that brings people together under one roof is a common interpretation of an event, or a series of events.
A common interest or life experience brings people together to celebrate it, talk about it, rejoice in it, enjoy it- think of why you enjoy music and playing music with others- the joy comes from personal intake of music, but it also comes from taking in what others are doing and playing. There were people in band back in high school who I had a lot of trouble liking personally, but when they pounded out a beat, or played a lick, they had something to share that I loved. It's the same with a common interpretation of an event and the faith and belief system that develops from it.
Anyway, back in history, we have the Christians, who start out in the province of Judea, and get kicked out because the Jewish leaders see them as a threat to their livelihood. If there's anything that brings people together in support of each other, it's persecution. So the Christians hit the road and then we see people like Paul traveling all throughout Greece and Asia Minor, telling people about Jesus.
What Paul did was set up churches and lay the foundation for governing them. Once people came together, who was to decide what was appropriate behavior? Should meetings involve meditation or banging on pots and pans? Paul's letters in the Greek Bible address these concerns and disputes- there are too many to go into here, but what arose from the question "what should we do, now that we're all here together?" came the need to self-govern.
So then you see the rise of church government. People didn't see it as a bad thing. It was just something, like anything else involving big groups of people, that was needed to keep the conversation and church life going. There were big disputes. Some big groups of people disagreed and broke away from the church. It got messy sometimes.
It is equally unsettling to me when people dictate what faith should be- this is why we have the Protestant church, which broke away from what had become a corrupt and politics-first Roman Catholic church. A debate of the Reformation was "how much government should there be, and what should it look like?"
I grew up in the Presbyterian church, which uses a system of representative democracy as a system of government- In fact, the Founding Fathers of this country drew heavily from Presbyterianism as they decided on how to set up their own government. Church leaders are elected, motions are voted on. It functions a lot like the federal government.
You ask some good questions in your second-to-last paragraph that are not easily answered because I find myself asking them too. Ideally, we would solve our disputes as friends, trying to return to the common faith and experience that brought us together in the first place. Realistically, people are going to say "my way or the highway" and then the church government must follow the procedure, which is agreed upon by the members, of solving the dispute.
If Congress passed a law declaring that all men must sacrifice their first-born child before a bowl of cheez-its, then you would not be taking Austin anywhere. Church members aren't so foolish either. Government exists to do the will of the people, and if the people wish to discern and carry out the will of God, they will expect their government to do the same in serving them.
Church government is a "necessary evil" as much as any other government, arising from the typical problems which occur when people get together in a big group to do something. In reality, it performs many of the same functions as a secular, state government. You'll see many governmental structures reflected in faith organizations, and that's just because people need it. Anarchy would be nice if we could all just get along, but it ends up being just inefficient and messy because people end up doing stupid stuff to each other.
I share your distaste for an organized religion that dictates down to the people what they must believe. I'm a Protestant and an American; it's what I've learned in my life's experience. A Roman Catholic might take an official doctrine from the papacy because he has faith in God's divine appointment of the pope. I'm OK with him putting his faith there. That's his choice. He may even have it right.
I hope I have conveyed my understanding and my experience properly and in comparisons that you can take to heart. I am always happy to examine myself and my own thoughts- thanks for the opportunity.
I'm sure that I have forgotten parts of your questions- if you'd like to dialogue further, I'd be happy to, either through email or here.
[bposluch =at= gmail =dot= com]
On a completely different note, do you think you could set up your blog so people could link to an individual post?
Also, if you're interested in getting some more dialogue (blogalogue?) up on this site, there are some good tips here.
Finally, I think you'd really enjoy Andrew Sullivan's blog. There are too many great blogs to read in the time I have on this earth, but I visit him daily.
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