To Be Christian Or Not To Be Christian?

Many of you who know me, know that I was born and raised in a middle income, Roman Catholic family. I continued to practice Catholicism until about 25, when I became a father. The obvious next step as a Catholic was to get my daughter Baptized. Thinking that the process of getting things arranged would be simple, I had come to find out how political Catholicism really was. You see, I had been going to church in a distant town, where none of my relatives lived. So to make it easier on my relatives, I decided to set up the Baptism in my "church of origin," the area where most of my relatives were still living. In order for that to happen, I needed a note from the priest at the church where I had been going, to say that it was okay that the priest in my hometown Baptize my daughter. I thought, "Really? God cares about that?" But I guess since God is a jealous God, according to the Old Testament, that feeling must have transferred to the priests as well. Great! Now I'm dealing with potentially jealous priests.

After getting things ironed out, in the way a priest's vestments get ironed out, I managed to get my hometown priest to wave the "permission slip." The Baptism was a religious family success, at least in the eyes of all my Catholic relatives. For me, it was a quite different story.

Now this may not sound like much, but this event got me questioning everything about Catholicism, religion and even the existence of God Himself. Through much mental and spiritual struggling, I ended up going to the extreme opposite end of the spectrum...atheism, but only briefly. After reading, learning and just experiencing day-to-day life, I became an agnostic and found a church I could identify with...Unitarian/Universalism. At that church, I could be, believe and behave pretty much anyway I wanted and no one in the church would have a problem with it. As long as I followed the golden rule and had an open mind, I was in. No judgment, no confession, no kneeling and we rarely read the Bible during service. All of that was refreshing!

Since that time, however, it has been a struggle to explain myself and my beliefs to my Christian friends and relatives. Why? Because I don't have any one book that I rule my life by, like they do. I once was approached by one of my Christian fellow co-workers, who was having difficulty understanding my beliefs. He started asking lots of questions and finally got down to these last few. It went something like this: Christian: "Do you read the Bible in church?" Me: "Not very often. We read from lots of different books." Christian: "Do you believe Jesus Christ is you Lord and Savior?" Me: "No, but he was a great man." (He's getting frustrated by now.) Christian: "Do you meditate?" Me: "Yes." He nodded and walked off, proud that he had finally put a label on me. I just laughed.

But this instance as well as others in my life, made me realize how little we, from different faiths and life experiences, understand each other. I also realized that even though I was a Catholic for 25 years, I knew, or chose not to remember, very little about the Bible. When having conversations with Christians, particularly Protestants, about Christianity or the Bible, I was put at a serious disadvantage of being able to support and even explain my positions on spirituality and religion. It became apparent to me that in order for me to understand where a Christian might be coming from as well as to communicate and to justify to them my own opinions, I had to meet them on their turf. Because in most cases, they were not willing to leave the home plate of King James. So I chose to take steps into what the Old Testament refers to as the lion's den.

It wasn't until I had access to the internet that I started really honing my Bible skills. A few years go, I started collecting my favorite Bible verses when I ran across them. Some I chose for inspiration, but most I chose because they were, in some ways, controversial or helped me support what I believed. Below you will find some of my favorites along with my own interpretation.

Here's two passages that seem to say the same thing. The first is from the Old Testament and the second is from the New:

"I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High." Psalm 82:6

³³"The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. ³⁴Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? ³⁵If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken;" John 10:33-35

(Bold lettering is my emphasis) Whoa! I don't know about you, but I certainly don't recall hearing these verses coming out of anyone's mouth! Yet, if you tell a Christian that you or they are a god or a goddess or even god-like, they would call that blasphemy, just like the Pharisees did in the above passage. So my interpretation is obvious...we are all gods.

Okay, here's another one that relates to the above:
¹²Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. John 14:12
 

These are the words of Jesus according to John. Jesus was saying that if you believe in what I say and follow my instructions, you will be able to create great miracles as I have done, and even greater! And the phrase, "...because I go unto my Father," means that Jesus is connected to the source of it all...God. Therefore, Jesus felt we could be just like Him and even greater. The obvious evidence of this is when you look at the 12 Apostles who followed Him more closely than anyone. They were also able to heal the sick and do great miracles just like Jesus. This would mean the true message of Jesus has been very distorted, lost, gone underground and/or intentionally hidden from the public. This is the core difference between my beliefs and those that are contemporary/conventional Christians. I never felt Jesus wanted to start a new religion or to have people worship Him. More so, He wanted people to simply pay attention to everything He said and did. Because He was a shining example of how one could be in the world, even given all the adversity that He had faced. For, "I am the way, the truth and the life." John 14:6

Even though these verses tend to bring about some disagreements in interpretation, it still allows us a common reference point of the Bible in order to better understand each other. The interpretations may be different, but the source of the message is the same. I'd like to ask some of my non-Christian friends that when they are in conversations with Christians, try to meet them, not in the middle battle ground, but on their turf where they feel comfortable and non-threatened. This takes you out of your comfort zone, which is the land of great vulnerability and growth. Because it's not about winning an argument or being "holier than thou." It's just about having civil, kind communication as well as listening and understanding. With understanding does not necessarily come agreement, but it does allow an opening of acceptance, wisdom and compassion in order for us to more fully "love thy neighbor as thyself," which is a passage we all can agree upon. (Passage found in Matthew, Mark, Luke & others)

It's the Economy, Stupid...or is it?

The Occupy Wall Street movement, which has inspired people all over the world, has had its critics. While the movement intended to join all of us together, well at least the 98 or 99% of us, I've noticed there seems to be a more even split, particularly in the US. I had seen a Fox News poll that included close to 400,000 Americans that said about 49% approved and supported the movement and about 47% disapproved of it. Granted, Fox News is certainly the most conservative main stream media outlet on TV, so those numbers would probably show even more support of the movement had the poll been taken on any other news outlet. But still, this shows that there are some divisive issues here.

It seems that no matter which "lame stream" media outlet you look at, there is little if any support of the movement. As a matter of fact, it took the media a long time before they even started reporting on it. This should tell you something about corporate media. The movement had to get going to the point that they, the media, couldn't ignore it. When the reporting finally started, there was a lot of downplaying, criticizing that there wasn't a clear message. They were being insulting that it was a movement of nothing but goofy drum-playing hippies without a purpose in life and nothing better to do. The protesters were threatening the very fabric of capitalism/society and pushing us towards Marxism and revolution. And I'm sure there are a few other criticisms I left out here, but you get the drift.

With regards to the movement's message, it has not been able to be put into a nice concise little 30-second sound bite, which the lame stream just love to eat up and then regurgitate at you through your TV screen. Yes, it is true there are a lot of issues that people are ticked about in the movement. But when it comes down to a simple message, I have yet to see a protest sign that says, "The economy sucks and I'm here to make it stop sucking!" That, my friends, would say it all and would give the media something to hang its hat on. Who could disagree with the fact that the economy is tanking with no end in sight? And all anyone hears these days is that sucking sound coming out of your purse or wallet.

While the movement has tried to separate the have's (1 or 2%) from the have not's (98 or 99%), the media has succeeded in manipulating almost half of the US population into believing they are better off not changing much of anything, except for maybe their representative in congress and/or the president. The folks that have been manipulated, tend to blame the government for the missteps in the economy, claiming that over regulation has suppressed corporations from creating jobs, providing loans, expanding infrastructure, etc. In reality, the exact opposite has been true. Not that government is not at any fault. But I think we all have to distinguish between the corrupter (corporations), and the corruptee (government). In other words, I tend to blame the initiator of the corruption more than the one who gets corrupted by accepting the monetary favor. Because as they say, everyone has their price.

The fact is, corporate deregulation has been happening since the Reagan administration with his, "trickle-down economics," and has been carried on throughout the Bush I, Clinton, Bush II and the Obama administrations. I've noticed that as corporations deregulate themselves through the government, our individual liberties start eroding away as well, but that's a whole other blog. The fact remains obvious that Reaganomics just doesn't work, but it's taken us 30 years to realize it. It's a system where the rich get richer, the poor get poorer and the middle class disappears into the lower class. (Insert sucking sound here.)

So it baffles me as to why almost half of Americans refuse to include themselves in the 99%. Because if you look at their financial standing, they are definitely part of the 99%. I guess maybe they're holding onto faith that someday they'll be in the 1 or 2% if we keep going full-steam-ahead, business as usual. Or maybe they're just not "rock the boat," type of people. Or maybe they forgot that just 2 or 3 years ago the Tea Party was on the streets protesting about some of the exact same issues. Maybe they don't want to be affiliated with drumming hippies. Or maybe...just maybe they're in a total state of denial that our government system and our money system are broken and corrupt to the core! And if that is true, then we have to look at all the ways they/we have given our power away. Okay, maybe that last sentence could take me into yet another blog, so I'll spare you.

But now we're getting somewhere. It's very, very difficult to admit that the country, who's flag you have waved, pledged allegiance to, paid taxes to and fought for, has failed its citizens. The greatest country in the world is falling into an economic and political abyss. And the ones in denial are holding onto the last threads of the rope to try to keep it from tumbling anymore, as well as even trying to hoist it back up. But these systems are like old, beat up cars. You can only repair them for so long until its not cost effective anymore, and you end up having to get a new one. These failing systems no longer work for the people and are certainly not cost effective to save.

So the Occupy Wall Street movement understands this. All those "hippies" are not in denial. They know there needs to be a complete system replacement and not just an overhaul. They know that there needs to be a revolution to make that happen. They know that there's no other way it can happen. And they are willing to unplug the patriarchy.

I will leave you with two things. Here is a link to an article written by a multi-millionaire, Mike Dillard, who gave a pretty fair depiction about his experience at the Occupy Wall Street protest. Even though I disagree with some of his assessments, it is still insightful. Also I'd like to leave you with a timeless quote from Benjamin Franklin:
"The refusal of King George to allow the colonies to operate an honest monetary system, which freed the common man from the clutches of the money manipulators was probably the prime cause of the Revolution."