Process Theology

It is really interesting and exciting stuff, but you cannot get from here to there on it in a hundred words or less. Our little tiny congregation church of progressive Christians had fully 14 people attend the first book club discussion on a book by John Cobb and David Griffin entitled Process Theology: an Introductory Exposition. (To give you an idea of what kind of congregation this is, on a good Sunday we will have 25-30 people attend services. So that means about half the people in the church will first of all read a heavy, academic assignment, and then come out on a weeknight for a 90-minute discussion.)

 Here's the scoop in only the most general terms: it's a 20th century attempt to apply the concepts of Alfred North Whitehead's philosophy to our thinking about God. It is dense and fun stuff. Its chief progenitors are John B. Cobb, Jr. and Charles Hartshorne. And it is seminal in the thinking of progressive Christians, although most of us may not even be aware of origins, we embrace the main ideas. I'll be writing about this some more, but for now let me lay out the concepts of God that process thinking rejects. You cannot but notice that these ideas are foundational in traditional unitheistic religions. So we will not take as our starting point the following assumptions about God:

1. God as cosmic moralist, that his fundamental concern is the development of moral attitudes. Which makes such attitudes intrinsic to the basic importance of human beings. No.
2. God as the Unchanging and Passionless Absolute. God is not really related to the world, that his influence upon the world is "in no way conditioned by divine responsiveness to unforeseen, self-determining activities of us worldly beings." No.
3. God as controlling power who determines every detail of the world, even down to deciding who dies in natural disasters, finding a parking place, or who wins a football game. No.
4. God sanctions the status quo. The previous three notions set the stage for this one. Cosmic moralist = primary interest in order; unchanging absolute = God has established an unchangeable order for the world; controlling power = God wills the present to exist. Therefore obedience to God is preserving the status quo. No.
5. God is male. He is the archetype of the "dominant, inflexible, unemotional, completely independent (read 'strong') male. No.

More on all this later. As you might imagine, if you start with the rejection of these age-old notions of the nature of God, you're definitely not in Kansas anymore.

The Horror of It All

As the World Turns: A woman has been stoned to death by her family in front of a Pakistani high court for marrying the man she loves. At least it wasn't the woman she loved. A Sudanese woman who was found guilty of marrying her Christian lover has given birth in jail. She will now suffer 100 lashes and then hanged. (source)

The woman in Pakistan was 25 years old. Her crime was going against the wishes of her family. Police watched her murdered and did nothing. The woman's father has no regrets about participating in the murder of his daughter. And they tell me this all has something to do with the will of Allah.

Peace and Stewardship

A friend of mine (thank you, Karen) from church sent me the link to this article about Jesus today. It more or less dovetailed with what our topic of discussion was this morning during adult religious ed. In short, to understand the historical Jesus is to understand that he was a non-violent person dedicated to the service of others. And to be his follower, we must be the same. And once you grasp this, it's perfectly clear why Christianity has failed. As G. K. Chesterton observed some time ago: "Christianity has not failed, it's just never been tried." It would revolutionize the entire globe if it ever were tried, but though I believe in my bones that this is what the practice of Christianity really is, I despair of even creeping a little closer to the standard myself.

Here's the heart of the article right here, carved out of it word for word:

The first great challenge to Christian faith in the future is the abandonment of the ways of violence and war. Love, peace and kindness must become synonymous with Christian faith.

The second challenge involves the ownership of property. This is a key to understanding the teachings of Jesus, who lived in a time and place of economic disparity. Jesus advocated a new celebration of the Year of Jubilee, which, according to the Bible, is the time when property and possessions were to be returned to the Temple priests for redistribution among the tribes of Israel. This massive redistribution was to take place every 50 years (though it never actually did).

Yet, there is no way we can avoid the clear Bible standard of limitation of private ownership — of land in particular and wealth in general. That was also the view of Jesus.

By Bible standards, today’s wealth gap between the rich and the poor is so enormous that it is a complete affront to the professed beliefs of those who are wealthy and claim to be followers of Jesus. The standard is clear: We are to be stewards of wealth, not owners.

It's really interesting that the heart of Christianity is not about sorrow for sin and obedience to law. In fact, to try and meet these two great challenges would require the breaking of numerous laws. If Christians ever began practicing Christianity, there would not be enough cops to contain us, enough jails to keep us off the streets.

Communist!

VATICAN CITY (AP) - Pope Francis called Friday for governments to redistribute wealth to the poor in a new spirit of generosity to help curb the "economy of exclusion" that is taking hold today.

I can hear the shrieks renting the air from the right already. You can be sure that Francis will be called: a socialist, a Marxist, a communist at the least. And probably a lot of other things. Whaddaya think the chances of "governments" following his advice are?

Prayer

When I first started getting serious about poetry (again), it was, as I recall, about 2000. Fully 14 years ago now, which I can hardly believe. Anyway, I and a couple of friends would every three weeks or so go to lunch, and each of us would share a poem we had found that particularly touched us or spoke to us. It was a beautiful spring day in Tampa and, as I recall, we had lunch outside some place. The poet I chose that day was Marie Howe, and the poem--I could probably find it if I looked--was about her taking care of her dying brother. I later wrote a poem about this experience we all had of her. All of which is just a long introduction to this latest poem of hers that I encountered a few months ago, saved, and then just recently rediscovered. She has perfectly described my own prayer life, which, I think, is probably not that much different than a lot of people I know whose brains are always going at 100 miles an hour. Poetry says it so much better.

Prayer

                                       

by Marie Howe

                                           

                                     

Every day I want to speak with you. And every day something more important

calls for my attention—the drugstore, the beauty products, the luggage

I need to buy for the trip.

Even now I can hardly sit here

among the falling piles of paper and clothing, the garbage trucks outside

already screeching and banging.

The mystics say you are as close as my own breath.

Why do I flee from you?

My days and nights pour through me like complaints

and become a story I forgot to tell.

Help me. Even as I write these words I am planning

to rise from the chair as soon as I finish this sentence.

Ah! The Sooner State

Actually these two stories could have happened anywhere. (I never fail to recall H. Wayne Morgan's wonderful observation that we should never forget that the U.S. is "one red neck from sea to shining sea."  Let's just say, I'm not surprised they happened here in our fair state. I read about both these incidents in Raw Story just a little while ago.

The first concerns the awesome power of prayer. In this case, the awesomeness was just too much. A guy prayed too hard and unleashed flooding that ended up killing 22 people and washing thousands out of their homes.

An Oklahoma pastor this week said that his attempt to remove demons from the United States had worked a little too well, causing a severe drought to turn into massive flooding.

In an appearance on the Christian Internet broadcast Generals International, Church on the Rock Pastor John Benefiel recalled how he had used a “divorce decree” to severe Baal’s hold on drought-stricken states like Texas and Oklahoma.

This happened during the early part of 2007 when months of drought were washed away by the heaviest rainfall ever recorded for Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas between February and June.

God's really something, isn't he? Just isn't able to judge when it's too much of a good thing for people.

And the second tale goes this way: A family pet, a two-year old pit bull named Cali, got out of the fence in Ardmore, OK, and was loose. She had on a collar, but no tags. Neighbors called the cops and of course animal control people got involved, but they had trouble catching the dog. Now here come the cops.  

Officer Brice Woolly wrote in his report that the dog acted aggressively toward animal control officers and several residents near a public park.

Woolly said he used his assigned shotgun to shoot the dog once in the neck, wounding it, and he asked an animal control officer to fire a second shot from a .22-caliber firearm to kill the dog.

Protecting the public, right? That's what the police chief said about his guy. But wait . . .

A neighbor told Brown (Cali's owner) that she did not see police shoot Cali, but she heard the shot and saw the officers’ reaction.

“Did you see the way its collar flew up into the air when I blew its head off?” Woolly told the animal control officer, according to the neighbor. “It was awesome!”

The neighbor said Woolly also bragged about shooting another dog with his handgun a few days earlier.

Here's the way I see it: another yahoo with a gun, a badge, and and a sense of entitlement to cruelty.

Going to Church

It's something that I do most Sundays. Church has always been for me about community, and that's what draws me back to it almost any week. I simply want to be with people I know and whom I've grown to love because I know them as people, their insides, who they are and how they hurt and what makes them laugh. It matters not to me how old they are or where they've been or come from, what color they are, or what kind of sexual life they lead. It's enough that they have a view of the Christian journey similar to mine. That would be one that's fraught with mystery and questions. Many, many more questions than answers. Even the question of how to proceed as a Christian--what does a Christian, a follower of Jesus, do in this world so full of suffering and injustice, so torn by hatred and violence, so twisted by greed, ignorance, and selfishness? And what's the course for old guys like me? Wondering even today why I've done so little to foster the gospel I have professed to believe most of my life.

So I go to church on Sundays and kind of hunker down with that little intrepid band that would understand such quandaries, even if they could not offer resounding answers for me. 

How Big?

I attend a tiny little Christian Church (tiny by the standards of what you normally think of as an urban church community). We're an open, accepting community, theologically and politically left. Not your standard-issue Christian. On a good Sunday we will have 35 people attend services. Our norm is about 20-25, and even fewer at religious ed. One of the brightest events of the day is seeing a new face or faces(s) at services. I've been going to the UCC of Norman for about 18 months, if my memory serves (and it doesn't a lot of the time), and I know that it's seldom a visitor comes back again after a visit. We never know why, and we don't question. People are where they are, and that's fine with us.

But the question of why they did not choose to come back is often nagging. Yesterday we had an engaging discussion about what people thought of growth as a church community. I think it's fair to say that opinion was divided. One the one hand there's the security, safety, and warm fuzzy feeling of being among people who accept you, listen to you, and (for the most part) agree with you. Do we want that endangered or diluted by numbers of "others"? Do we want to bend or fashion our bedrock beliefs to suit the sensibilities of others? These are valid concerns. But on the other, there's the desire to share what we have, to let others know that we follow a Jesus who's human first and foremost and who has taught us how to be authentic human beings ourselves. We believe in a God who is still speaking. Revelation of this wondrous God didn't stop in the first century. What we have to share with others is truly good, liberating, joyous news. We want to share this with people

Why then aren't more people interested in hearing it? That's our dilemma, as I suppose it must be for any group of people outside the mainstream, outside the ordinary. That constant tension between our being and our becoming, and how much choice we have in either. 

Progressive Christianity

Well, so much for the good intentions and the blather about writing more often. I think it must be over a week since I last wrote, although I haven't actually checked. Be that as it may, here I am again, Saturday afternoon after spending the morning over at my church listened to a man named Welton Gaddy speak for three hours about progressive Christianity. He was great. Susan and I want to hear him last night when he spoke just down the street from us. Gaddy heads up the national Interface Alliance in Washington DC. He also pastors a church and Monroe, Louisiana, and I was amazed to learn that there are actually progressive Christians there. This little snippet about him barely does him justice, but it will not be long before his talks of last night and today are put up on our web site and you can listen for yourself.

This understanding of Christianity has become my new rock. I went for so long feeling almost alienated in the Catholic Church, that it's just such a comfort just to be with people who don't cause me stress or tension, who tend to see the world like I do and who aren't afraid of either ideas or ideas that don't agree with their own. And who also understand the practice of Christianity the way I do. The practice not the belief system, which is non-essential, although it's the litmus test for many denominations. I talked briefly about the subject of progressive Christianity not too long ago: you can check it out here. So I'll not go over it again--others can do it much better than I; I'm just a neophyte-- but I would like to point you to some resources on the web in case you're interested in learning more about this. I'm absolutely convinced that there are scores and scores if not hundreds and hundreds of churchgoing and non-churchgoing people who need to hear about this. I cannot help but think that this is the kind of religion that would make sense to my children, my son-in-law, and my grandson, all of whom reject traditional Christianity, not to mention Roman Catholicism, as not relevant to their lives.

So the resources. Try these, and in all cases consult the "resources" section:

• The Center for Progressive Chritianity
• Progressive Christians Uniting
• The progressive Christian channel of Patheos (This site encompasses all the major world religions, as well as atheism.)

Some Thoughts about Church

This year (of our Lord, as they used to say) 2013, I'm going to cross the Rubicon of being 70 years old. In my mind, and that's the only one that really matters, it's a demarcation between aging or late middle age, and old or, less starkly, elderly. If you never could quite think of yourself as old, I submit that once you're into your 70s, you can stop fooling yourself about being anything other than elderly. All of this has been a matter of some considerable amazement to me, for we all can remember when we were young and thought about ourselves in the distant future at say, age 65 or 70, the notion seemed completely preposterous.

Even more preposterous are projections we make when we're younger about anything that's going to be true of our life when we get old. For example, except for my 5-6 year period as a near-atheist, I was a church-going Catholic. At age 45, I was ordained as a permanent deacon in the church and for the next 25 years faithfully performed my ministerial duties. And before ordination, I got involved in several different kinds of ministry. I was what could be honestly described as a "religious" person. The point of all this is, if anyone would have told me then or even ten years ago that at the age of 69 I would be out of the Catholic church (and of course out of ministry as a deacon) and not only that, but a member in good standing in a Protestant congregation . . . why what a truly absurd notion. Catholicism was supposed to be a life-long thing. But of course, what do you know about life when you're in your twenties?

Fact is, what you know about life at the stage I am now is only incrementally more. What you don't know is massive by comparison. And that's kinda the bedrock assumption of the little church community I belong to now, a United Church of Christ congregation that embraces a vision of Christianity that comports in just about every respect with my own. For years I silently reflected on the absurdity of my official standing as a member of the Catholic clergy, not because I didn't believe in service. Indeed, service was the only thing that made sense about it. The doctrines and dogmas certainly didn't. It became increasingly evident to me that if I were put in a position of saying yea or nay to a host of Catholic  theological propositions--redemption by Christ's blood, virgin birth, eucharist, Trinity, not to mention the easy ones like papal infallibility, exclusion of homosexuals, etc.--I would be saying either "nay" or "hey, let's talk about this" to just about all of them. I'm the last kind of person to let any proposition go unexamined. And the fact is, just about every theological notion I was taught to believe simply didn't stand up to examination.

Which I might have been able to abide--after all, I had found these propositions problematical for years--but I could not abide the overbearing authoritarianism of the institution and in the light of the massive still unfolding (after years of doing so) sexual scandals, the sheer depth of the hierarchy's hypocrisy and cruelty to children. The massive decades long cover-up of rampant pedophilia among the clergy. I heard a story on NPR the other day about the viciousness of the Irish nuns to the young girls they imprisoned in so-called "Magdalene laundries." Is there no end to these revelations of how un-Christian the Catholic church was and still is? 

It became just impossible for me to stay. So I left, and burned the bridges. I'm now with a group of people now who follow Jesus but who don't have dogma, who accept anybody who comes to our church no matter who or what they are, who believe in peace and social justice, who believe that God is still speaking to humankind, and who embrace a progressive vision of Christianity that we pray eventually will take root in the churches that look to Jesus as the model of how a human being should live his life. I'm not looking back, and I'm old enough now to confess that the future is out there in all its mystery. I don't have clue what it holds.

Now Here's an Idea

Hans Kung, several of whom's books I have read, is a progressive Roman Catholic theologian. I'll never forget what a huge impact his On Being a Christian (1976) had on me. I read it in the early '80s, and I have to say that Kung has probably had more influence on my thinking about church, Jesus, and matters spiritual than anybody else. (Leaving aside for the moment the question of the Spirit's influence which would, in any event, be pretty difficult to measure.

Anyway, I'm struck by Kung's latest cogent suggestion to the Catholic Church at large. In an interview with The Guardian newspaper, the German priest, now 84 years old, appealed "to priests and churchgoers to confront the Catholic hierarchy, which he says is corrupt, lacking credibility and apathetic to the real concerns of the church's members." He likened the "unconditional obedience" required of bishops to the pope as almost as extreme as the one German generals had to swear to Hitler. (A charge certainly to ring the chimes of the German pope Benedict XVI.)

"The priests and others in positions of responsibility need to stop being so subservient," Kung said, "to organize themselves and say that there are certain things that they simply will not put up with anymore."

Well, this is excellent, I say, as one of those who has been driven out by the Church's rigidity and increasing irrelevance to the lives of people whom I love (especially my children and siblings) but likewise to millions of just ordinary people who long for a spiritual existence that helps them make sense of their lives. But I also have to shake my head in disbelief. The idea that the sheep of the Catholic flock will ever demand anything from Rome (instead of the other way around) is too fantastic to contemplate. I think, sadly, that the Church is doomed to continue its slide into irrelevance.

But God bless Hans Kung for his courage.

Related articles

• Hans Küng May Be Old, But He's Still Fiery (zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com)

Where We're All Going

Tonight Susan and I went to a wake service for an old and dear friend named Carl Amend. He died in his sleep of a massive stroke a few days ago. Carl and I go back a long way here in Oklahoma. We first met him and his wife Sharan during our Marriage Encounter phase, an experience that led both Carl and I into the diaconate for the Church. We were in the same formation class. We spent a lot of time together. We were in the same tutor group, spent 10 days during the summers for three years at intensive training. It was not long after ordination, about 6 months to a year, as I recall, that Carl had to move because of his job, off to St Louis, New Jersey, and then the somewhere in Texas. I think it might've been Austin. He moved back to Oklahoma City just a few years ago, and one of the last "official" duties as I did as a deacon was to bless his house, his new house.

Carl and I were always simpatico. We thought a lot alike in the spiritual realm, and he was a guy you could always count on. I could always count on Carl to be there if I needed him. He had a big rollicking laugh, and he loved to drink beer, two traits that are going to endear me to just about anybody. But he was generous, funny, unassuming, loyal, and dedicated to his family. It's ironic, I think, that here I am retired from the permanent diaconate and active ministry after 25 years, while Carl after he left Oklahoma City right after ordination never again practiced active ministry. I'm not sure why. We talked about it, but it was never really clear to me. Sharan told me this morning that she wants to talk to me about the diaconate, about Carl's choices. I'm looking forward to the conversation. (By the way, I don't miss the deacon ministry very much, but during these "family" times – funerals, baptisms, marriages – I feel the loss of my ministry most acutely.)

But in the meantime I mourn another of my friends who's gone. In addition to only other woeful results of getting older among the worst is this one: friends die. To me, it's one of the worst aspects of what is admittedly pretty bad deal. I loved Carl. I will miss him.

Have to Share This

A few days ago, I blogged (angrily) at the "Fortnight of Freedom" initiated by the Catholic bishops. And today I discover my wonderful guide Richard Rohr on the same subject but oh, so much more charitably. Really, is there any better indication of how far I have to go spiritually than comparing my screed of a few days ago with the following? I have to share this whole thing with you. Nobody I know of could have put this in such the right perspective. This is how a real Christian sees it.

The Catholic Bishops of America have initiated a two week campaign to fight for religious freedom in America. It is called a “Fortnight for Freedom”. It strikes a large part of the population as crying wolf when there is no wolf. Probably no population in human history has had more religious freedom and more religious support than the present population of the USA. (I myself, as a Franciscan vowed to common purse, pay no taxes. Nor do our local parishes or institutions.) It feels like entitled people wanting more entitlement.

How different from the early Christian martyrs, whom we piously venerate, who became holy and courageous through the limitations imposed on them by empires and emperors. Too bad Sts. Perpetua and Felicity could not sponsor a fortnight for freedom from their prison cells. Now we suffer no limitations or constrants, refuse to dialogue fairly or up front, and just complain that “our freedoms are being taken away”. The final irony is this was initiated by an issue that 98% of Catholic women do not even believe in–contraception. It really feels like bishops are shooting themselves in the foot by trying to divert attention away from our own problems and sins. Christian spirituality has always first sought spiritual freedom, inner freedom, freedom from self, freedom for love, and never did we expect governments to supply our “freedom” by any political mandate whatsoever. Our dear bishops are beginning to look like “the Republican party at prayer” more than men of the Gospel of Jesus.

 Fr Rohr blogs regularly. Right here. You could do worse than read what he has to say sometimes.

The "Fortnight"

Its full title is "Fortnight for Freedom." It began on June 21. What we're talking about here is two weeks of "non-stop nationwide teaching, preaching and public events to press" what the US Roman Catholic bishops are calling "freedom of religion." What the bishops are all exercised about is a requirement in the new healthcare law that institutions provide free contraception insurance coverage. Now, never mind the contraception is an issue that Catholics really don't give a hoot about for the most part. Never mind that the Obama administration has offered a workable compromise on the issue. And, oh, let's not mind that the bishops are denying this campaign has anything to do with partisan politics.

They have been forced to deny it of course because the secular press has been all over them. Why?  because to any normal person the fortnight for freedom looks like a nationwide "Vote Republican" exercise. It certainly does to me. The bishops claim it's about religious freedom, but if you'll pardon my saying so, that's a load of crap. In the same issue of USA Today that ran a story about the Fortnight, there is another story reporting that in the Philadelphia trial of Monsignor William Lynn, accused of facilitating the transfer of pedophile priests in that diocese, had not yet reached a verdict. This guy served as the Chancellor of the archdiocese, and of course he's the fall guy for the real criminal, the archbishop. And thus it's been all over the United States, the bishops have steadfastly refused to own up to their crimes. And these very same guys are now telling us about religious freedom! Give me a frigging break.

The local Catholic paper here in Oklahoma is full of Fortnight stuff. The local bishop* is careful to say that the debate is "not about contraception . . . not about religious freedom for Catholics only . . . not about the Church attempting to force anyone to do anything . . . not a fight that the Church asked for, but one which is been forced upon us by the federal mandate." And let's not forget the mandatory statement: "This is neither a partisan issue, nor liberal or conservative issue, but an American issue." 

What pious nonsense. What it all boils down to is supporting the Health Care Act is a blow to religious liberty, which is un-American, and which means you should vote for the party and candidate opposed to the affordable care act.

*You can find the entire statement here.

Related articles

• Fatuous 'Fortnight': Bishops' crusade is about power, not religious freedom

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• US Catholic bishops' abuse of 'religious freedom' | Katherine Stewart

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• 'Fortnight for Freedom' shows Catholic split

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The Great Art Form

You cannot grow in the great art form, the integration of action and contemplation, without 

1) a strong tolerance for ambiguity; 

2) an ability to allow, forgive, and contain a certain degree of anxiety; and 

3) a willingness to not know and not even need to know. 

This is how you allow and encounter mystery. All else is mere religion.

From A Lever And a Place to Stand:
The Contemplative Stance, the Active Prayer, p. x (foreword)

I'm OK with #1. I'm shaky on the other two. I am greatly drawn the kind of Christian spirituality that Richard Rohr expounds. He wants us all to practice great art, and he teaches us how. I refuse to believe that the Holy is beyond. No, it is in all things.

"So What"--Really?, Part II

So you've seen all the numbers last time. And you've heard some of the stuff these "So What" people are saying. One guy, who attends the Catholic church to hear his mom sing in the choir, but for no other reason says, after reading neuro- and evolutionary psychology concludes that "we might as well be cars(!) That, to me, makes more sense than believing what you can't see." I don't suppose anybody has bothered to point out to this deep thinker that you can't see psychology either, nor atoms, nor truth, freedom, etc., etc. Maybe he doesn't believe in these things either, but I rather doubt it.

The thought processes that dismiss the validity of spirituality are broken and shallow, in my opinion, at least judging by the kind of comments the article contained. Here's another: "God? Purpose? You don't need an opinion on those things to function." Well, no, I don't guess you do. But you will function as what? Some creature of the consumer culture whose sole purpose in life is to acquire and to amass. And then there's this: "There may be unanswerable questions that could be cool or fascinating. Speculating on them is a fun parlor game [sic], but they don't shed any meaning on my life." Well, of course they don't, Bozo, because the meaning of your life is determined for you by the consumer culture that envelops you. And in fact, by making such a statement, you're basically saying that your life has no meaning. If you're good with that, than you're even more hopeless than you appear at first blush.

That gets to the root of it. The whole problem with discarding the big questions as irrelevant to one's life is that it makes one's life meaningless by definition. And if life means nothing, than there is no barrier to rationalizing the worst human behaviors imaginable. All the suffering we inflict upon one another, the injustices, the screaming inequalities, the stupid waste of resources and human lives--all of this can be justified if our lives are defined by nothing other than the accident of our being here.

I'm not claiming to have any answers to the big questions, no way. And I can certainly sympathize with those who execrate the baleful effects of organized religion in human history. Not a single one of them is blameless. But because religion is imperfect, grossly so, it seems to me, throughout human history, does not therefore mean our lives have no meaning other than what the world says. Hell, if that's the case, I'll take religion at its absolute worst. For at least they, in their halting, sometimes infuriating, sometimes scandalous and cruel ways, accept the concept of something bigger, something beyond the grubby, greedy self.

Related articles

• The Validity of Religion Outside the Mind (ideasandanecdotes.wordpress.com)
• Some Thoughts: What is Religion? (kevinjjmurray.wordpress.com)

"So What?"--- Really?

For some reason, and it's difficult to explain, this morning's piece in USA Today (which has become a frequent source lately since it lands in the driveway five days out of seven) entitled, "God, religion, atheism 'So what?' That's what many say" was really kinda upsetting to me. My spiritual journey in a nutshell: lifelong dissident Catholic; ordained deacon; out of the Church for myriad reasons since August 2010.

But still, to read that "So what?" characterizes the attitude of a growing number of people about matters spiritual is distressing. Apparently there are quite a few in this category, and judging my own family, both immediate and extended, and Susan's, too, that's pretty much the prevailing attitude. I cannot determine that many of those we are closest to and know best care about spirituality or even wonder about it. Maybe I do them all a disservice, and if so, I'm certainly sorry. But so it seems to me.

Here are some numbers:

• 44 percent told one survey they spend no time at all seeking "eternal wisdom"--a pretty lousy phrase, I think, but there it is
• 19 percent say "looking for meaning" is "useless."
• Another survey finds 46 percent who never wonder whether they will go to heaven

Well, okay, on this one, I haven't got much of a problem. I don't wonder about it at all myself. Heaven is a specifically Christian concept, and so is the notion--derived from Scripture and expanded and expounded by centuries of theology and Church pronouncements--of "earning" a way there or forfeiting your place there by your actions is at best problematical and at worst, silly. I tend towards the silly side. Why? Because the whole concept anthropomorphizes God into a crabby and totally unreasonable perfectionist who contradicts himself at every turn by first creating humankind in his own image, according to Scripture, then instilling it with appetites, proclivities, bad genes, and drives that ultimately cause it to fail his rather exacting code of behavior which must be followed to get into heaven. The other alternative is hell where you go if your behavior doesn't measure up to the said exacting code. Yet the Christian God is a god of love. Hmmm.

• Same survey found 28 percent who say finding a "deeper purpose" in the their life is not a priority
• 18 percent of those surveyed scoffed at the notion that God has a plan or purpose for everyone.

Does this mean that 72 percent are intent at some significant level on finding a deeper purpose in their lives? What does "priority" mean in this context? What about the 10 percent between the seekers and the scoffers? Are they seeking a deeper purpose but only sometimes or without much fervor? Sorry, I digress.

• 6.3 percent of Americans are totally secular, "unconnected to God or a higher power or any religious identity and willing to say religion is not important in their lives."

This figure is from Pew Forum's 2007 Religious Landscape Survey; it seems really low to me.

In fact, this has turned into quite a little essay, so I'll have to take it up again tomorrow. Right now I'm tired, and the subject really deserves closer attention than I've got to give it right now.

Related articles

• Spiritual apathetic, the new and fastest growing class of religion. (pastormikesays.wordpress.com)
• Religious Diversity among Atheists (freethoughtblogs.com)
• Study Finds American 'Millennials' are Spiritually Diverse (prweb.com)

Papist Proclivities

I read recently (here) that the religious beliefs of the one out of four Americans who call themselves Catholic are all over the lot. Fully 86 percent of them are not bothered that people holding beliefs contrary to official Church teaching consider themselves good members of the church. Even more amazing, four in ten Catholics say that you can be a good Catholic without believing in the "real presence" of Christ in the Eucharistic bread and wine. Other interesting findings, in line with these ideas: less than a third (31 percent) of Catholics attend weekly mass, and nearly half (47 percent) don't go to mass as often as once a month.

It's their own moral views, not those of the Church, that matter say over half of Catholics, even those who attend mass every week. The sexual scandal has had a devastating effect on people's view of the Church leadership. Eighty-three percent think the scandal has sapped leadership's political credibility; 77 percent thinks it's damaged pastors' abilities to minister. And only 29 percent (doubtless the troglodyte element) think the bishops have done a good or excellent job in dealing with the issue. I'm frankly amazed that any percentage at all could believe this.

The reason I even take time to notice all this, and find some of it amazing, is that I well remember the Church that was adamant about the necessity of believing everything taught by the Church lest your immortal soul be endangered. (It wasn't that long ago, if you're a geezer like me. It was million years ago if the only Catholic Church you know is the post-Vatican II one.) That has changed completely. I note with some dismay, however, that opposition to the death penalty is still relatively rare among Catholics. None of the numbers to the left there particularly surprise or bother me. Indeed, this chart more or less mirror my own feelings, except I oppose the death penalty a good deal more vehemently.

Fridays

It occurs to me that Fridays have always been an important day of the week (for me at least). First, and most obviously, Friday marks the end of a work week . . . if you are working, which as most of you know, I retired from a few years ago. Nonetheless, I still remember what a great day Friday was when I was working. Because it meant I was not going to work for a couple of days at least. Away from the commute, bosses (to which I'm congenitally allergic), pointless job, the boredom, the stifling political/cultural atmosphere (I worked for the Dept of Defense, surrounded by military guys/gals and a crew of civilians that pretty much loved the military)--so it was great to get away from that even for just two days. Hell, being away from it for one day was great.

Another thing that will resonate with the older crowd who were brought up Catholic. Friday used to be a day you could not eat meat. You had to eat fish. Like every Friday of the year. No exceptions. Church rule. We were taught by Holy Mother Church that if you ate meat on Friday on purpose, God would be sending you to hell for all eternity. From where I sit now, it is matter of almost total amazement that anybody believed this and a lot of other stuff that the church told us you were going to hell for all eternity for. Practicing birth control, for example; getting remarried after a divorce; not contributing to the support of your pastor/the Church--how thoughtful of God to make sure the church always got money by having the Church think up this rule. This doesn't even count the whole slew of other things that would send you to hell for all eternity: going to a Protestant church, getting married somewhere other than a Catholic church, marrying a non-Catholic or (horrors!) a non-Christian with church permission; entertaining "dirty" thoughts and masturbation (insurmountable challenges for young males of the species); reading books on the Index of Forbidden Books*--check out the listings in Wikipedia. And this list is just partial. It's also a matter of amazement to me the hold that the Church had on people. Nobody seemed to question anything, and a lot of people, including me, were scared of sinning 24 hours a day. You get the point. Being a Catholic back then was not for sissies, or should I say, for normal human beings.

I'm inclined to be thinking about this old pre-Vatican II Council stuff (that was 1962-65 when the Church joined the modern world with a host of real reforms and reformulations of which conservatives in the Church have successfully turned back or blunted a great many, but that's a whole 'nother rant) because of something in a blog I read regularly. Karen Lindsey's anything&everything recently had a post about antisemitism in the Catholic church of her youth. As I recall, antisemitism wasn't that overt in the New Orleans church. Plain ole garden-variety racism was much more common, but only, as I now see, because there just weren't a hell of a lot of Jews in New Orleans. I never even met a Jewish person until I was 23 years old and met a guy named Bill Marienberg while I was in the service. But certainly the church that formed me found not only Jews, but Protestants, divorced people, "fallen away" Catholics, homosexuals, and numerous other categories of sinners distasteful.

Anyway Friday was a day you could not eat meat or you risked the fate of your immortal soul. Don't know how I got started on this long tirade, but I've got issues with the Catholic Church that I can't see being resolved at this point. I have to say my whole sense of spirituality was fostered in the Catholic church, for which I am really grateful. And that still remains and has deepened over the years. As for the rest . . . I've been in the process of tossing it aside for years. And, I'm happy to report, I'm just about done.

*The list reads like an honor roll of some of the greatest thinkers in the history of mankind: Pascal, Hugo, Rousseau, Voltaire, Dumas, Flaubert, Montesquieu, Montaigne, and on and on and on. There are tons of authors on the Index. Now, bear in mind that for these authors, only select works were on the Index. Others had the honor of having ALL of their works banned. Such honorees include: Rabelais, Sartre, Zola, Balzac, Spinoza, Hobbes, Sartre, and others.

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WWJ Think?

I post the following with minimal comment. Results from a survey of 554 Republican primary voters nationwide.

How much more indictment is needed for the feeble-mindedness of evangelical Christianity? Just out of curiosity, I wonder how many of these respondents would wonder about black people's chance of being raptured? It goes without saying that Jesus is mightily amused by this . . . He is not the type to be appalled or feel wronged, don't forget. But amused? He certainly has a sense of humor.

You will find the source of this information here.

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