The Christian Humanist

 
My response: Thank you for your note. It is always good to hear from those whose religious pathway has been similar to my own struggle for truth and integrity in religion.

You asked how I handle the issue of prayer particularly as it relates to children. Words have the ability to mask as well as clarify, so how and whether I use the term “prayer” depends on the situation and the context. At its most trivial “prayer” is a form of communication generally in the form of a request with the expectation of an “answer” or that something will “happen” as a result of the prayer. Even in the context of traditional Christian theology, prayer commonly is described as an attitude of meditation rather than a conversation, reverence rather than request, introspection and contemplation rather than plea, acceptance rather than anticipation of favors to come.

So back to my point, using the term prayer in the context of traditional Christianity makes me uncomfortable because I may not have the same view of what prayer is or means that my Christian friend may have; I am more comfortable with other words, such as reverence, humilty, meditation, etc. I would not use the word prayer with children because it is so commonly used to mean something trivial and silly and therefore is unhelpful in communicating meaning to children. I think we teach our children reverence at the mysteries of life and the universe, humility in the face of what we cannot know, and kindness and compassion to our neighbor. And of course you are correct that your daughter will be much more impressed by acts of kindness and consideration than by a whole book of religious stories and fairy tales. I believe prayer is an attitude of reverence, meditation, contemplation.

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My greetings for The Christian Humanist. I´m interested in the Christian Humanist philosophy and I would like to obtain more information about specific topics as sexual orientation diversity, human rights, abortion, drugs use and gender equality. Waiting for your answer, xxxxxxx, Costa Rica, Central America.

My response: Thanks for the email. I have not written very much for this website on the topics you suggest, but as soon as I finish a project that I am working on at the moment I will add an “ethics” section to the website with writings that will deal with the practical and ethical implications of Christian Humanism. A quick answer to your inquiry would be that (a) sexual orientation appears to be genetic, a matter of birth rather than preference, and as such is part of the natural order, nor a moral issue; (b) human rights are a fundamental part of any genuinely Christian ethic; (c) abortion is a religious issue for some but not for all and therefore must be a matter of individual conscience and responsibility; and (d) a Christian ethic requires gender equality.

I believe that drug use is a legal rather than an ethical issue except to the extent that one who uses drugs excessively damages himself and the lives of those around him or her. I believe the current punitive approach to drug possession and use is misguided―the real public issue should be the crime generated by drug users who will commit crime to feed their habit and the money and greed that leads to conflict between drug gangs. I think a more practical public response to harmful drugs is to take the money out of the issue by legalizing drugs and making them cheap…. Then the crime related to drug use is pretty well negated; there is no point in smuggling, criminal gangs, drug dealers, etc., if harmful drugs are regulated like tobacco and alcoholic spirits.

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Hi: My name is xxxxxxx and I am 39 years old, currently a Director of Education in a Lutheran Church. I'm writing because the kind of Christian vision you espouse is exactly my own (though I'm tempted to describe myself as a "POST-Christian Humanist") -- and I'm currently struggling with the idea of leaving the professional Christian ministry because I feel like a hypocrite. I'm basically an atheist who still believes in the (potential) meaningfulness of Christian symbols and who really loves Jesus! But most of the time, I feel dishonest representing myself as a Christian, especially with people who don't know me very well, because they are bound to make assumptions which are light years from the truth. I would greatly enjoy corresponding with you -- honestly, I have a lot of questions about how I might proceed. Needless to say, meeting you in person would be great too, but I'm not sure when I'd be able to get down to Florida! Anyway, thanks for reading this message -- I hope to hear from you soon.

My response: I understand the dilemma you are in. I had decided very early on that my theological perspective made it very difficult for me to continue to operate within the church. If I used the traditional language of the church without clarifying that I used that language in a different way or with different meaning, a tactic used by many of my theological school colleagues, I felt very uneasy that I was misleading; but on the other hand when I tried to explain some concepts and ideas by reinterpreting them in a way that made sense and that I could live with, I felt I was undermining the faith of people who did not want to know that their cherished ideas and formulations needed reworking in order to fit with what we reasonably can know and believe in the modern world. It was an uncomfortable position to be in.

What made it more difficult for me is that shortly after the exciting theological time of the late 1950s and 1960s [when I was in graduate theological school] when the church seemed open to reinterpretation there was a sudden retreat back into neo-orthodoxy with its “biblical preaching”-- which clouded the issues considerably in the more liberal protestant denominations and resulted in a much more prominent evangelical shift in thinking among what had been more moderate Protestant denominations.

I tried to avoid this issue, which for me had both emotional and ethical implications, by teaching religion in a college preparatory school, and that gave me a bit more freedom but it did not change the fundamental problem for me, which simply stated was that my beliefs were outside the range of what many considered to be fundamental tenets of protestant statements of faith. Had I been in Europe, where the churches generally have a more liberal outlook and tolerate a pretty wide range of Christian belief, my problem would not have been as great. It would also have been easier for me to sublimate my views had I been in a creedal denomination such as Episcopalian or even Roman Catholic, where I could have affirmed what the Church believed while reserving the right of interpretation in more literate circles and could have ignored the issued of whether I “literally” believed the creed or accepted it as a poetic and mythical statement of what the church believes.

My “cop out” was that I decided to affiliate with the Unitarian Universalist group of churches and to earn my living in the secular world rather than rely on support from a church where I had some discomfort with the difference in my views from the naïve “Sunday school” religion of the average church member.
I wish the American church was more tolerant of different and progressive views. I take religion generally and Christianity in particular quite seriously, but I believe that you cannot take either of them seriously and literally at the same time. One of the implications of that is that I choose to be a Christian in a world without a meaningful concept of god. Another implication is that I think Christianity is not for children―Sunday School religion tends to teach the trivial and unbelievable which cannot easily be unlearned later in order to grow into a mature commitment to Christian discipleship…. But that’s another story for another day.

I would be happy to correspond with you and look forward to hearing from you.

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I am a 19 year old student from [California] currently studying at [a southern university]. I have spent a large portion of my life hating myself because I could not bring myself to believe in god, at least in the traditional sense. I have lied to countless Christians to avoid judgment. I want so badly to believe in god but I just can't. I believe that there is some interconnectivity between all of us. I know that there is something, a god of sorts. I just have a very hard time thinking of god the way some people do. I have a hard time thinking that he is wrathful or angry. I think if there was a god, he would be compassionate and understanding. I also don't understand why people get so riled up about their religion, shouldn't your beliefs be based on personal thoughts and values about life? It seems people try to organize into religions like they do with political parties or athletic teams, trying to put down the others and promote their own. I like what you say about a Christian being a follower of Christ and his teachings, it seems obvious but I think the simplicity of what it means to be a Christian is lost. Well anyway, I could ramble for hours. I just wanted to let you know that you have eased my insecurities. I thought I was the only one who was confused and searching for what feels right to me. I really appreciate this website, I think i'm going to get the book to. It helps knowing other people have similar questions and don't pretend to have all the answers. Thank You, xxxxxxx.

My response: Thanks for writing to me. It is unfortunate that some people are defensive and combative about religion. I had decided to enter the ministry while a senior in high school, but that was about the time my doubts began to trouble me. I think I headed in that direction in the hope that more study would resolve my doubts and questions. I took a number of religion classes at the University of Richmond and they merely compounded my doubts and I had a pretty hard time dealing with the questions without coming to some disturbing and troubling conclusions -- which I tried to get rid of in graduate school studying religion and theology.

And, like you, I had a hard time dealing with family and friends, who were not interested in anything beyond simplistic and naïve beliefs which they were not willing to question. So I admire your intellectual honesty in facing up to difficult questions, but at least it is a bit easier today than it was in the 1950s and 1960s. I was impressed by Christian values (not in the way Christians used their values and ideology for their self interest), but I was not willing to accept a lot of the theological baloney that went along with it….. Please keep in touch with me. I will be happy to hear from you.

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Hi. Just to let you know that I read several of your articles in the Christian Humanist - reading that I began with fear and trembling as my relatively little contact with organized Christianity has been more conflictual (with individual exceptions) than anything else. And I was delighted to read your concerned and sensible pieces. Would that there were more voices like yours among the Christian community! I completely agree with your model of the Christian who helps the oppressed and has the balls to speak out against injustice. Jesus was a thorn in everybody's side. But my impression is that organized Christianity does not take that model of Jesus (though I may be overlooking some that work quietly, setting up soup-kitchens or providing help to refugees). Still in my more activist activities (Civil Rights in 63 and 64, Anti-Vietnam War marches, demo's against the U.S. role in Central America, opposition to the West Bank settlements, gay rights) the absence of organized religion of all sorts was noticeable. There were individuals - the Berrigan brothers, an LA protestant minister Darrel Meyers, some Jesuits (I believe) in Central America - associated with Liberation Theology I think it was called, who were counting bodies while Reagan was telling us he was building democracy in El Salvador... Hmmm, I'm beginning to preach. Anyway, the man who said that "All it takes for the world to fall apart is for enough good people to remain silent" was right on. Xxxxxxx [member of the faculty of a major university].

My response: I was delighted to get your note and to find a kindred spirit. Over the years there have been a number of brilliant individuals who have struggled uneasily to find a way to continue to call themselves Christians and who have found non-traditional, and sometimes quite radical, understandings of what Christian identity means. I went through the traditional route of theological education and was fortunate enough to have studied under some very interesting people who were both courageous and creative in thinking through (and forcing me to think carefully about) what being a Christian could mean to those of us who live in a “post-Modern” world. [That included among others, William Hamilton, author of the somewhat awkwardly misnamed “Death of God Theology.”]  However I did not have much interest in identifying with traditional Christian churches while holding personal and private views that “re-interpreted” Christianity in ways that did not rock the ecclesiastical boat. That led me toward teaching rather than preaching. I was involved in some of the same issues that you mention as a sometime activist in the anti-Viet Nam war and the Civil Rights movement.

What puzzles me about the current religious-political climate is the uncritical and extreme reactionary tendency of religious movements in our times, including the explosive rise of Christian Fundamentalism that acts as if the theological and biblical knowledge of the last century and a half had not occurred. We find ourselves reliving the “Monkey trial” era all over again. I guess we have to conclude that an ignorant and uneducated public lacks the knowledge to counteract the emotional comfort of easy answers. Let’s keep in touch.

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This is a marvelous website that states my religio-philosophic position precisely. Do you have the intention of further expanding contributions by others? Do you have more to say or offer on the practical aspects of a Christian Humanist life? If you've not already done so, you may wish to read John Shelby Spong's new work: Jesus for the Non-Religious. Thank you for so wonderfully putting to words all of my thoughts. I too am a Christian Humanist... and we are the future of Christianity!