My God, Your God, let’s call the whole thing off

Ok, recently there was an article in The Atlantic about the state of religion in America. Some salient quotes include

“They found that young non-Christians have profoundly negative views of Christians. For instance, among 16- to 29-year-old non-Christians, Christians were viewed as “anti-gay” (91 percent), judgmental (87 percent), hypocritical (85 percent), sheltered (78 percent) and—surprise—”too political” (75 percent). In 2010, respected academics David Campbell and Robert Putnam’s landmark book, American Grace, concluded that partisan politics was directly to blame for the rise of religiously unaffiliated Americans. “The growth of the nones,” Campbell argued, “is a direct reaction to the intermingling of religion and politics in the United States.”http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/02/the-changing-face-of-christian-politics/283859/?utm_content=bufferd0f38&utm_source=twitter.com
and the one that is about where I am “the sudden need to make clear that they were “not that kind of Christian.” Pastors increasingly found that a partisan politics was pushing people away from faith and causing tension among those in their churches. ”

Recently I posted something about Christianity on “The Facebook”. It was an article by someone who said they wanted to be Christian, because most of the world is Christian and it is high-handed to assume the world is wrong. (It sounded a little….um….condescending in tone)

Anyway, I posted it on FB because, it was interesting/good food for thought (despite the tone). I did that usual pull a quote from the article to highlight it thing.

Unfortunately, some people (who granted I hadn’t talked to in a while) thought I was the one who was being condescending…I got some comments basically amounting to “I know your religious, but I think this whole God thing is ridiculous–and this article shows why” subtext: I can’t believe how crazy you are.

It made me sad. I mean, granted that the quote looked like it was from me, but still, they THOUGHT I WAS THAT WAY TOO!

I’m religious, I love God, I have three children, I’m only 30….

Yet I am also an intelligent, fantasy-loving feminist, who believes in LGBTQ rights.

I think I can do all of it at once, and I dream of the day when I find other people who feel the same way I do.

So far, not so much….

Haven’t really found them…

I have found a lot of “you can’t be a real pastor because you are a. a woman b. don’t condemn people to hell”

and a lot of “Oh your religious, right, can’t take that seriously so….moving on”

To “Fantasy isn’t religious, your crazy”

don’t forget “church is boring”

and finally “Religious people are the cause of all wars, and if your religious it MUST be because your a bigot”

The thing is, my God isn’t really the same as most people’s God

and it makes people uncomfortable.

Here’s how I feel about religious beliefs

1. Every relationship with God is different, maybe yours doesn’t look like mine, but thats ok…

2. Atheism is ok. In reality I don’t “get it” so its hard for me to be more than “ok” with it, but I think “ok” is pretty good, and more importantly, pretty honest, and I try not to get worried about it, because its up to that person/God to work it out, not me.

3. If your peddling hate and call it Gospel, that is where I draw the line. It hurts me, I mean actually physically gives me a stomach ache, when people purvey hate and call it Christ’s way. How can anyone even think this is beyond me…Jesus Christ hung out with the NONRELIGIOUS and AMORAL people of the time, because Jesus loves everyone, if you can’t get that, I don’t think we can really converse about beliefs

4. I’m not sure I can believe in a God that would send Gandhi to hell……seriously, that is how it is for me

5. And finally, If/When I face God I would MUCH rather get in trouble for Leaving the door way too wide open than too closed. I’d rather be in trouble for letting the wrong people into God’s house than keeping the right ones out. 

So that’s my God, it might different than yours…but I don’t see how denigrating each other can help……

besides, think of all the good we could do if we could band together against those things that all humans agree are wrong….

And if it happens in church, that would be awesome, because that happens to be where I like to go….

Unknown's avatar

Author: katyandtheword

Pastor Katy has enjoyed ministry at New Covenant since 2010, where the church has solidified its community focus. She now works at Capital CFO plus as the Non Profit Director. All opinions expressed on this blog are her own and do not reflect those of Capital CFO plus. Prior to that she studied both Theology and Christian Formation at Princeton Theological Seminary. She also served as an Assistant Chaplain at Trenton Psychiatric Hospital and as the Christian Educational Coordinator at Bethany Presbyterian at Bloomfield, NJ. She is an writer and is published in Enfleshed, Sermonsuite, Presbyterian's today and Outlook. She writes prayers, liturgy, poems and public theology and is pursuing her doctorate in ministry in Creative Write and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. She enjoys working within and connecting to the community, is known to laugh a lot during service, and tells as many stories as possible. Pastor Katy loves reading Science Fiction and Fantasy, theater, arts and crafts, music, playing with children and sunshine, and continues to try to be as (w)holistically Christian as possible. "Publisher after publisher turned down A Wrinkle in Time," L'Engle wrote, "because it deals overtly with the problem of evil, and it was too difficult for children, and was it a children's or an adult's book, anyhow?" The next year it won the prestigious John Newbery Medal. Tolkien states in the foreword to The Lord of the Rings that he disliked allegories and that the story was not one.[66] Instead he preferred what he termed "applicability", the freedom of the reader to interpret the work in the light of his or her own life and times.

Leave a comment