what a pretty non-religious person thinks about religion
I’m not really a religious person. I was baptized Methodist, went to a Catholic elementary school, and spent multiple summers at a christian summer camp as a kid. I attended retreats, vacation bible school, and youth group. I went to christian concerts and never missed a Christmas Eve or Easter Sunday service. But like I said, I’m not really a religious person.
I wouldn’t consider myself completely atheist, either. I’m indifferent, somewhere in the middle (as with everything else in my life, or so it seems). My mom and her side of the family are pretty intensely religious. A lot of them regularly attend church, and my great uncle preaches on Sunday at our family reunions. On the other hand, my dad and his side of the family regularly don’t attend church. My grandmother stopped going when she married her first husband; he didn’t go, so she didn’t go. One of my sisters is a youth minister at a Methodist church in Alabama, and the other two are agnostic, if not atheist. So where does that leave me?
I can best describe my relationship with the church, and religion as a whole, as overwhelmingly bland. I never felt this conviction towards God or Jesus or whoever, but I never felt like I was actively refusing him (them?), either. I didn’t have moments where God spoke to me, there was no divine intervention. I remember being a kid, laying in bed and thinking to myself, “Okay, if God is real this will happen,” If God is real, I’ll get to spend the night with dad tomorrow. If God is real, mom will let me get school lunch three times this week. If God is real, I’ll get a 100 on my vocabulary test. Lo and behold, those never came to fruition, at least not in that manner. Obviously, that’s far from proof that God isn’t real. From what people have told me, he doesn’t do well with ultimatums.
(And let the record show that I was incredibly good at vocabulary.)
I never experienced abuse at the hands of the church, nor have I been a victim of religious brainwashing. The worst experience I’ve had was being reprimanded for taking communion at my Catholic school’s mass in the sixth grade. Apparently, only those who are baptized Catholic can receive communion (I was twelve and just wanted to taste the wafer, give me a break). My teacher pulled me aside on the way back to class and then made me go to confession. Apparently I couldn’t take communion, but I wasn’t excused from going to confession.
Now that you have a little background, we can get to the rest of it. Recently, I attended a service at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Main Street in Canton. Oh, boy did it confuse the confusion I already had about how confusing religion can be.
First things first, there was a huge Black Lives Matter banner hanging out front of the church. Off to a great start, right? Upon entering the sanctuary, if it's even called that at a universalist church, I realized that it pretty much looked like any other church I had been in. Cathedral ceilings, rows upon rows of wooden pews, stained glass windows, a huge organ. They even had those fancy chairs that priests (reverends? ministers?) sit in.
A second look revealed a pride flag and a trans flag flanking the altar (again, if it’s even called that), and there wasn’t a single crucifix or cross anywhere. A chalice was lit at the beginning of the service and extinguished at the end, and there was a moment dedicated to “joys and sorrows” in the middle of the service (lots of churches have this, but I can’t even begin to remember what it has been called elsewhere). The hymns were from a traditional hymn book, but no mention of god. The sermon did not reference the bible and did not have a biblical lesson to take away from it.
The only time god was ever mentioned was when the Reverend exclaimed “I mean, Jesus Christ, what are we doing?” while gesturing to the stained glass window of the actual Jesus Chist. A little comedic relief, eh, Rev. Joe?
I guess for some people, all that would make the whole service easier to comprehend, and in some ways, it did. It also made it even more complex. I didn’t know who to look to if there wasn’t an omnipotent god somewhere out there. I didn’t know who I was supposed to praise and worship and thank and pray to if god or Jesus were out of the question. You spend years being taught about heaven and hell, the miracles and tragedies in the bible. You memorize prayers and hymns and benedictions. You’re told that virtually anything fun is a sin (alongside the more serious stuff like, I don’t know, murder), you are told to ask for forgiveness. But suddenly at a unitarian universalist church, all of that is simply taken away. Removed from the equation.
Instead, what the congregation and reverend seemed to be worshiping was… each other? And I’m going to be honest, I didn’t - don’t - really get it. But I’m starting to. From what I gathered, the entire point of this church was community. People coming together to offer support and camaraderie, a safe and secure place in the midst of all the crazy that’s out there. They are worshiping each other: they’re worshiping social justice and human dependence and climate action and respect and connection and solidarity. Every person is welcome, and every person is accepted. You worship how and when you feel comfortable. There is not a hierarchy of officials, no saint or anything of the sort that ranks higher than an individual. There is one collective group, complete equality and mutual respect. And out of everything the reverend said that Sunday, the lesson to be learnt was this: “We cannot be well if our neighbor is unwell.”
I’m not here to convince you to believe one thing or the other. To be honest, I probably couldn’t if I tried (religion tends to be one of those extremely polarizing topics). If you’re adamantly atheist, very cool, very nice. If you’re a die-hard Catholic, Southern Baptist, Methodist, etc… also cool, also nice. Beliefs aside, the one component that should be standard across any and all belief systems is the collective care for humanity and the space we inhabit.
To being well and making sure our neighbor is, too.
Lo
related:
if you haven’t heard of them already, do some research on CFCtoo, a group of survivors dedicated to uncovering the emotional, psychological, spiritual, and physical abuse inflicted by members of Christian Fellowship Center. their website can be found here, or you can visit their instagram.
