What I took from Christianity

 A couple of incidents have occurred lately, bringing me back to thoughts about Christianity.  

One was a death more or less "in the family" of someone that I have described as "the most toxic Christian that I have ever met."  She caused emotional pain in the family.  Being around her was emotionally painful.  When she died I didn't feel any satisfaction, but I didn't feel any grief.  A couple of days later, however, I realized that I was reliving some very bitter moments and becoming very angry with her for the pain she had caused.  

I wasn't particularly pleased with that reaction.  Part of my concern is that the woman is dead, unable to cause any more pain, and, anyway, the pain she caused was long in the past.  I walked away from the relationship--one that started when I was born--three or four years ago, and never looked back.  She hadn't hurt me or anyone I loved for a very long time.  Part of my concern is that I generalize more than I want to from the actions of one Christian to all Christians.  Tharling Air Conditioning advertised with a fish on their business sign, and I flat out see that fish as a license to cheat--because Tharling cheated my mother.  The Toxic Christian was a gossip, a character assassin, a bully.  But I know other Christians who, while misguided, are not that consistently hateful.  What concerned me was that generalization, tarring all with the same brush, when I know that each of us is different.  I also believe, as an Ethical Humanist, that each of us deserves respect for ourselves as we are.  My reaction to this woman, in her death, demonstrated my own failure to live up to what I consider to be a standard for Ethical Culture.

The other event was the mass murder of (mostly) Asian women at massage parlors in Georgia.  There has been a wave of hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) for months now.  A wave, I say, because the frequency of these acts has risen lately, but there has always been some level of hate or discrimination or dehumanization or exploitation (etc.) of these people by Americans.  We are, if nothing else, very practiced in creating our own myth of what it is to be an American and then "othering" everyone who doesn't fit the (current) myth.  

What concerns me about this event is the killer's confession that he has a sex-addiction and was trying to get rid of "temptation."  The news reports link him to a comparatively recent baptism in a local Baptist church.  Well, I do know the sermons he will have heard, the feelings of self-loathing that they will have engendered.  Even if his only experience with the massage parlors was to get a nice relaxing massage, the thoughts that would have come, the very natural reactions of his body, would have caused him hours of humiliation and suffering as he would hate himself for even being tempted, much less acting in any way (including self-gratification) on those feelings.  

I can set aside the debate that is now going on whether this was a hate crime.  It was.  It comes from the intersection of several phenomena in our country.  Lax gun laws.  The sexualization of Asian women.  The cultural permission that allows men to act out their rages with guns.  Etcetera all day long.  One intersection that alarms me is that in which fundamentalist religion played a role in this tragedy.  Indeed, thinking about that intersection triggered my own memories of self-loathing and feelings of degradation as I entered puberty and had no guidance except fiery sermons to help me understand what was happening.  In general, the understanding that I came to was that I was a worthless, degraded person, unworthy of respect or care or happiness.  I didn't have any guns (although my father did), but I blamed myself rather than any of the boys that might have offered me temptations. That, too, is part of Christianity--blame the woman, not the man.

Don't think that these are the memories of a fallen woman who actually fell.  One fellow and I did try to fall, but we didn't know how and scared ourselves with trying.  But trying or even thinking about trying is enough:  Hell is very close for Southern Baptists.  

No, this is not about the debate about someone's hate crime.  It is about my own triggered response to the faith of my youth--and my whole family--and what it did to me.  What I want to do is get past that triggered response, which is both grief and anger, to a remembrance of what I took from Christianity when I left that community and that faith.  These are positives, and they are reminders that there are a few good things about Christianity and many good things about some Christians.

One is love.  I took from Christianity the notion of Christian love, the feeling of deep affection and desire to care for others.  I believe that my parents certainly contributed to my capacity to love others, but the admonition to "Love ye one another" carries a message that extends to Ethical Humanism quite well.  We, each of us unique, all carry inherent worth which requires respect.  I think that that respect can (and should) be extended to include love.  We should cherish one another for our worth and dignity and unique ways of thinking and being.  By loving one another, we take on a need to protect, to promote well being, to help each other over the rough spots.  By loving one another, we add dimension to our congregating together in community.  That dimension places us in each other's world as positive beacons of belonging.  The world is an ugly place without love, so I consider this an important part of my role as an Ethical Humanist--that I go beyond respecting others to caring for them, taking an active role where I can, to give them my best.

The second thing I took from Christianity is forgiveness.  A central tenet of Christianity is that all sin is forgiven by God through the blood sacrifice of his Son.  Another element of forgiveness practiced in Christianity is to "forgive those who trespass against us."  The problem for the individual is that there is no forgiving the self.  God can forgive us.  Others can forgive us.  We, however, cannot forgive ourselves.  If, however, there is no god, we have to give up all hope of ever being forgiven for the least mistake--or we get over it and forgive ourselves.  Forgiveness, I decided, was a good thing for those times when we screw up, no matter whether the screw up is a small one or the biggest (however we define it).  Forgiving myself, I decided was necessary, because, sad to say, I am not perfect.  No matter how well I may conform to the expectations of others, I often fail my own expectations.  I can wallow in the degradation of failure, even wish to die.  Been there, done that.  But that is not a productive way to exist, and I choose not to live that way.  Not for very long anyway.  Indeed, I will work very hard to understand my failures and forgive them as I then work not to repeat them.  

As an Ethical Humanist, I think it's reasonable to forgive ourselves for failure, mistakes, errors whether in judgment or behavior or thought.  We learn from our mistakes and do better.  Whatever we have done, we can always, I believe, do better, and forgiveness is the starting point for that.  I think, too, that the willingness to forgive must be extended to others.  When others fail to live up to our expectations, we have an obligation to pull out our forgiveness toolbox and go to work on an attitude shift.  This is not to say we should condone bad or inadequate behavior.  No, we need to stop the bad behavior, correct the inadequate behavior.  This is not to say that we should remove all consequences from wrong-doing.  Sometimes those consequences are necessary for learning and change to begin.  Forgiveness is not eliminating consequence or the need for change.  It is the extension of love that allows ourselves and others to be better, to seek the desirable paths for change and growth that would be closed if the entirety of our response was condemnation and judgment.  Failure to forgive is a form of othering, of dehumanizing.  I think it is an important part of my role as an Ethical Humanist to forgive myself and do better just as it is to forgive others so that they may do better.

The final take away from Christianity is my continued loathing for hypocrisy.  Indeed, I left the church because of my recognition of my own hypocrisy followed by my desire to eliminate that behavior in myself.  I don't know that there is any particular role for this loathing in Ethical Humanism, but I have seen a lot of hypocrisy among Christians.  And I loathe it.  

I guess I'll have to work on loving some hypocrites and forgiving their hypocrisy, but since I still loathe the deed, I guess I'll have to continue calling it out.  I'm looking at you, Ted Cruz!