My Everyday Struggle: Religion

 

I was raised by my mother, who was, and still is, a devout Christian. I attended church most Sundays throughout the first 16 years of my life, and for the most part we attended Charismatic churches. For those of you unfamiliar with the “Charismatic Movement,” it is very similar to the Pentecostal denomination of the Christian Church. You absolutely know when you’ve been to a Charismatic church service; no sleeping going on in there! For one, many parishioners speak in tongues, and believe that God has given them the gift to speak in tongues. Now I could be wrong, but the purpose in speaking in tongues is to be able to pray for things that your conscience mind may not think about praying for. (Please correct me if I’m wrong about this, but this is what I remember being taught regarding speaking in tongues).

During my adolescent years, I also attended some very small (maybe 12 people) churches where services could last most of Sunday. Most of the time, you could forget about watching any of the 1:00 football games on Sundays. During these services, there was, of course, a collection of funds and a sermon. Most of the time the pastor preached, but sometimes one of the church members would prepare a sermon for the weekly service. I think I remember my mother preaching a sermon (she actually did very well).

Also during these church services, exorcisms would take place. Now don’t get me wrong, I never saw people’s heads spin around, and I never saw people literally bend over backwards, but I did see some pretty dark-sided stuff. Parishioners often had demons or whatever inside of them, and they would ask the congregation to cast them out. There would be alot of yelling, screaming and speaking in tongues performed by church-goers in order to cast the spirits out of their friend in need. They would “cast out” spirits of envy, fornication, promiscuity, jealously, etc. You name the “sin,” and there was a name for it.

My mother also hosted prayer meetings at our house on Saturday evenings that would sometimes go on until 3 or 4 AM. These meeting were attended by all women, and some women would bring their children (some were my age or older) if they couldn’t find someone to watch them, or if their kids just wanted to hang out in my room and play Nintendo or whatever. I enjoyed the food that people would bring over for these meetings though. Much to my embarrassment, many of the kids in my neighborhood would walk by my house on Saturday evenings and listen in to the unintelligible words coming out of the mouths of the 15 or so women in my living room. They asked me a few times at the bus stop the next day WTF was going on, and I would give some dumb answer. They stopped asking after awhile. Needless to say, the whole process freaked me out.

They would often lay hands on me in order to get the evil out, but I never passed out or anything. Every now and again, they would pray for me to be baptised in the Holy Spirit, which basically meant that I would be able to speak in tongues. I actually wanted this for myself mostly because I wanted to know if it was real. It never happened. Maybe I was too evil. Or maybe I didn’t want to sip the Kool-Aid that they were handing out. Who knows? I am still learning, and only God knows what type of lessons will slap me in the face this year, or further down the road. But I always felt that my mother and her friends/spiritual advisors were digging into some stuff that they had no business messing with.

As you’ve probably noticed, I am pretty observant. If we are together, and neither one of us is talking, I am constantly looking around to study my surroundings. With that said, most of these women that I saw on Sundays were miserable. Most of them were single (not to say that a spouse is the key to happiness, but they always talked about finding a husband). Some looked aged beyond their years. One of the ladies who was considered a spiritual adviser amongst the crew looked 25 years older than she was. I always wondered why these women were so beat up. You would think that people as obedient to God’s word as these folks were wouldn’t be so miserable. Maybe the abuse is part of a much bigger plan, but I do know that the people that introduced my people to Christianity have lied to me so long that I don’t know what to believe. For all I know, the exorcisms and what not could be a form of schizophrenia, or it could be that people have suffered so much that they want something to believe in. I always struggled with that notion, and that has caused me to stray away from religion…at least for the time being.

Now don’t get me wrong; I am not an atheist. I am not a Muslim. I really don’t know what I am. I definitely believe that there is a spiritual realm. I think it’s foolish to believe that some higher being didn’t create all of this. The Earth and it’s beings are way to complex for there not to be a master plan in all of this. I just don’t know what to believe anymore…

We’ve all heard some folks say that Christianity was spoon-fed to us by the “white man” in order to keep us in our place during slavery, and after slavery. “Turn the other cheek nigga, as the good book says. All of your suffering, working for nothing, the whelps on your back and your separation from your family are part of God’s plan. Now plow them fields!” We are told that the “white man” actually saved us from our own ignorance. We were shucking and jiving in Africa for thousands of years until the pure white man came, tainted our blood and introduced us to Jesus. I guess we owe the white man reparations huh? I’m sorry, but I can’t buy it.

I can remember asking this question to a few pastors while growing up:

“What is going to happen to all of the people that are part of remote tribes in Fiji, or Thailand that have never been exposed to Christianity? Are they going to hell?”

The answer was usually:

“Yes, they are going to hell because everyone in the world will be exposed to Christianity before they die, and therefore if they knew what was best for them, they would’ve accepted Jesus as their saviour.”

Oh really? It seems awfully arrogant of us, don’t you think? How would Christians feel if a large group of Muslims tried to force their way of living on them? I’m not a prophet, but I would think that there would probably be even more bloodshed than what we are seeing as a result of the United States forcing it’s ideologies on the people of the Middle East aka the Iraq War.

My suggestion is for you all to lead a morally sound life. Do what you feel is right. If you feel that being a good Christian is right, then that is what you should do. Do I need the Bible and a church to lead a moral life? That is part of my everyday struggle, but honestly I think you can. I know many decent people who happen to be Muslim or Buddhist. It’s really hard to believe that they are going to hell, when I know so many evil, tithes-paying Christians. I don’t want to kill, I don’t want to destroy, I don’t want to steal, and I want what most people want: happiness. Whether you find happiness in the smiles of your children, in a successful career, or in giving to the less fortunate; go for it.

I will leave you with this. Religion has caused my mother to disown me; not because I am a thief. Not because I am a murderer. She has disowned me solely on the fact that I am shacking up with my girlfriend. I also fornicate with her from time to time just so you guys know. I understand how some can see this as a sin, and maybe I do also to an extent, but I’m surviving the best way that I can. I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth, so I had to hustle my way through college the best way I saw fit. Needless to say, I accumulated alot of debt. My debt has since been payed off, and I attribute that to the fact that I sliced my bills in half by shacking up. Sue me! The alternative was to move in with my mother and end up in a straight-jacket. I honestly believe that if I lived by myself like the good Christian boy that she raised me to be, I would be in the same fucked up financial situation that I was in years ago. I could’ve chosen to wait for this miracle money-drop that was going to fall out of the sky (the same one that she has been waiting 50+ years for), and everything would’ve been fine and dandy. But, I understand that simple mathematics is just that; simple mathematics. Maybe my obedience to the good book would’ve payed off in the long run, but when is it going to pay off for my mother and her miserable friends? Maybe I’m impatient, but I don’t have 50 years to wait. I know many successful Christians, but are they truly blessed or just smart enough to know that alot of the Bible is misinterpreted due to being lost in translation? Is there a healthy balance between between being as extreme as my mother, and being completely liberal?

This is part of my everyday struggle. I mean really, is it feasible to still stone homosexuals (I think not)? How come we don’t see stories like Noah’s Ark, or Moses parting the Red Sea anymore? Were they just folklore? As dark as the current times are, you would think that God wouldn’t have stopped allowing the “Noah’s Ark” type of stories to still occur. Many of us are confused, and if something like that happened today then I wouldn’t doubt Him for one minute. Or maybe we haven’t “seen nothin yet”…Something to think about. Discuss.

-Contradiction