Religion- or Lack Thereof

The following words were written by me awhile ago, I guess I forgot to publish the post. While cleaning up my blog, I came across this and felt it was too good and too honest not to publish now.

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Yesterday, while in the shower shaving my legs (something I rarely do, because frankly, I really don’t give a damn), I had a revelation. A big, sweeping realization came over me.

I’m over organized religion.

Granted, I’ve been “over organized religion” for a long time now. But this is it. I’m done. In a grand (not really), public (not really), Anne Rice-ian gesture, I am shunning modern Christianity. Now, before you cry, or pray for me, or (depending who you are) call my mother, I am not, in any way, rejecting, disowning, denouncing, or shunning my god. I have my reasons.

Webster defines Christianity as “the religion derived from Jesus Christ, based on the Bible as sacred scripture, and professed by Eastern, Roman Catholic, and Protestant bodies”.

Derived from Christ.

Based on the bible.

Professed by different sectors that, although different, compliment one another and evolve out of the same ideologies.

When I was thinking in the shower yesterday, I couldn’t help but water down “Christianity” to its fundamental basis: a relationship with god. How is this any different from any religion? Is every religion that has ever existed not based around a relationship with a higher power (or lack thereof)? It is the fact that, in many religious groups, particularly the Evangelical realm of Christianity, this notion has become so muddled and ripped apart by pretentious assumptions, interpretations, and rules that the relationship itself has become lost. I feel like in order to be righteous or accepted in an Evangelical Christian church, instead of following a simple life of love and forgiveness that the bible instructs, everyone is held to ridiculous ideas and interpretations of the church body or leader.

That is what I’m over. I can’t be a part of something that has become so warped. I can’t be faithful to something that is the leader or the church’s opinion. I get sick when I think of hate being wrapped in opinion, accentuated with a couple choice bible verses, and served as truth or doctrine.

I can’t be a part of something that has become fueled by hate, bigotry, systematic inequality, intolerance, sexism, and/or anything else a person uses his or her religious beliefs as justification for. And that in and of itself is another thing I can’t support: the fact that so many people use their beliefs to attempt to justify their own wickedness. Because sexism, bigotry, intolerance; it’s all wickedness, I really do believe that.

When I tell you I support equality, please don’t tell me you’ll pray for me.

Author Anne Rice has been sort of a role model for me while making this decision. I would like to quote a statement she made when she went public with her decision to renounce Christianity. Although I grew up in a loving, open-minded Christian home, with parents who I know love and accept me no matter what, and was never an Atheist, I still see this well-put statement as totally pertinent to my situation:

“My faith in Christ is central to my life. My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn't understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me, but following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been or might become.”

So no, Jesus is not weeping, and God isn't shaking his head. Satan is not rejoicing.