My mother’s tagline
lately has been “I don’t know why you’re so anti-religious.” Let me start off
by saying that I’m not. I think being religious can be a very good thing for a
lot of people. If it helps you find fulfillment and makes you a better person,
it’s doing its job. If you’re using it as an excuse to act superior, you need
to work on your reading comprehension skills.
What my mother means
is that I’m not pro-Jesus. One big thing about me is that if I don’t like
something right away and you try to force it on me, I will quickly want nothing
to do with it. On more than one occasion I’ve wanted to thumb through the
Bible, as a literary curiosity not a spiritual awakening. Inevitably someone at
my office will do or say something that makes me go “Never mind.”
There’s a woman at my
job I’ll call Rude Bitch. She hates me and I have no idea why. Recently I tried
to be nicer to her. RB was a few steps behind me one day so I held the door.
She did not say a word to me. I saw her in the break room one morning and said
“Good morning” to her. RB would not even look at me. She doesn’t even pretend
at civility. The only people I’ve ever seen her be nice to are other
church-going black women like herself. I even heard her talking about a book on
being a good Christian wife.
Another woman at my
job lives and breathes her church. Aside from watching bad reality TV, this
woman has little else in her life. I swear to Cthulhu sometimes she says Lord,
God, or Jesus just to fill silence. She gets my name wrong after 3 years and
looks down her nose at me. My mother worked with a similar woman. I don’t think
Jesus said “Thou shalt act superior to nonbelievers” so much as “Judge not lest
ye be judged.”
I can name two
friends of mine who go to church every Sunday but we can talk about other
things, they don’t judge, and they’re a high quality of people. We can have
discussion about religion. I was casual friends with a girl in college who was
an incredibly sweet person and a devout Christian. One of the best roommates I
ever had went home to attend church where her parents were ministers.
If I met more people
like this, I’d have a better view of Christianity. Instead I get adult women
who act like they’re the alpha clique in high school. We have creationists who
insist that be taught instead of evolution but not any other religious creation
stories, just theirs. There are political sects that believe a woman shouldn’t
have a right to choose because of their religion. Whether or not the woman
believes in their version of God is irrelevant. Whatever happened to hate the
sin, love the sinner and love thy neighbor? Did God send down a memo that you
get to pick and choose now?
Maybe my mom is from
a different era but she acts like the fact that I’m not down with Jesus means
she did something wrong. If not being Christian makes me a bad person, then
I’ll borrow a quote from Supernatural, “If I’m going to hell, I’m going
honest.”
I’m spiritual, not
religious, because I don’t think any one religion has it absolutely right. My
idea of God is closer to the Judeo-Christian idea but calling myself Christian
just to placate my mother is disrespectful to the people that do believe and
practice their faith. I think people who practice what they preach need to find
ways to get their voice out there more. We need to have more dialogues about
religion, faith, and middle grounds without hatred or judgment. I know that
side of the faith is out there somewhere. I just don’t see it very much.
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