The problem with religion

My story from the wild and dangerous world of a southern baptist youth group, in New Zealand

I was brought up Christian

Even though my dad was an atheist, my mother was a stubborn, determined and faithful believer.

I am a lot like my mother and a little like my father.

At school, I was one of those annoying Christians who told other kids that drinking was bad, cursing was evil, and dancing was from the devil.

I guess you could say that I was a young southern Baptist, growing up in little old New Zealand.

I read my Bible from cover to cover, a couple of times.

It was kind of like running a marathon, tough to read in parts, painful, but once you’ve finished, you could claim some street cred.

I remember watching a video at youth group on the evils of dancing and rock music. They even did some backtracking (played the record backwards) and made it sound like Metallica was saying “Satan is King.”

It wasn’t all bad, though… it may have narrowed my mind, stopped me thinking, and made me deliriously afraid of women, but I got an A+ in religious studies for never getting a girl pregnant.

I was also excellent at masturbation.

#Success

This is not a beat-up on faith or spirituality; it’s just my story and the way I feel about it.

Indoctrination, fear-based systems of belief, and ways of understanding life without the objective questioning of science tend to isolate people to a dogma. They make those who think differently, feel different, or love differently seem more… scary, dangerous, and lost… likely to drag you away from the narrowness you’ve been promised would keep you safe.

It’s taken me years to throw off the shackles of religious bondage.

To stop seeing myself as morally superior because of the things “I don’t do.”

Any belief that isolates you from your neighbor or makes you feel morally superior is the most dangerous belief you can hold.

Our world is full of people who have been indoctrinated to believe that their religion is the chosen one…

That they are the righteous.

That their pathway is narrow and all should choose to walk it.

At its deepest, most fundamental strata, what lies here is arrogance.

I am better.

The way of my family is the correct one.

You must come to believe like me.

Sometimes, in a variety of matters, I now tell my children, it’s not better or worse, it’s just different.

This is an important distinction…

For years, my ability to relate to others was stolen by a deeply implanted “religious sense of my way being the right way.”

The “other” was to either be feared or converted.

Of course, it was never presented that way.

Love the sinner, not the sin.

But it wasn’t sin; in most cases, they were just on a different journey.

The truly good news of my story is that life has now broken me open and I no longer feel the need to convert anyone to anything…

I am just here to learn, to connect, to relate, to get to know people in the mess of all of this.

I don’t want to convince people that my way is right…

I simply want them to see that there are many roads out of the city, and many pathways to the lake where the good water lives.

So long as you're heading towards love, kindness, curiosity, and truth…

What does it matter which road you take or which path you walk?

I hope only that the scenery is glorious and the company you keep is life-giving.

Much love

G.x