Monday, December 9, 2013

On my religion

For many many years people have been telling me that I belong to a cult. My response has always been the same: an emphatic “It’s NOT a cult!” But in the last few weeks, someone else's reasoning has really lead me to question myself if I truly do belong to a cult. Now, I had always prior to this maintained that I could not possibly belong to a cult given that so many people belong to my religion, and besides, even if my religion is not perfect, it is not as bad as others out there (e.g. it does not force me to hand over 10% of my wages to “the church” out of every paycheck; or it doesn't ask that I call another random human being in a robe “father” in direct opposition to biblical scripture, etc. etc.) This kind of reasoning may not be enough, though, after what I've been challenged to think about.

I thought I knew pretty well what a cult was but just for the sake of being well-informed, I looked it up in the dictionary: “a small religious group that is not part of a larger and more accepted religion and that has beliefs regarded by many people as extreme or dangerous”. Well, my religion is certainly not a small group, it has over 7 million members (though small perhaps in comparison to Catholicism, Judaism, and Islam). Are the beliefs of my religion extreme or dangerous, though? No, I always told myself, other religions believe and practice even crazier things!... Well, I think they do. However, if I am honest here, there are many times I have suffered due to the doctrines of my own religion. I have suffered and hurt as a result of some doctrines that I personally find it hard to fathom are truly anything more than man-derived rules rather than true Godly-inspired interpretations of the scriptures. If I am honest - and I want to be - I have to share some of these incidents. Here is a list of some of the things that have come of my religion that have hurt me personally:
• As a kid, after the first few bible meetings, I was told that there was a code on how I should dress to attend meetings. Men must dress “like men”, and women like women. That’s not based on bible principles, I believe, but on what’s tradition. That meant not wearing what I felt most comfortable in (didn't God want me to be me or feel comfortable while rendering him worship?), but wearing what is “traditional”. Tradition? That’s exactly one of the issues I had with my catholic upbringing, doing things for tradition and not because you understand them. So, ever since I have been unable to relax in any meeting or feel like myself. Is that what God’s wants? Does he want my sincere heart and sincere prayer or does he want me distracted by my discomfort while I am meant to be worshiping him in a group? Well, I comply for “tradition”, but one day it would be great to be free of such absurdity again. 
• When I was a teenager and had been attending bible meetings for a few years, I was asked by the elders of the congregation to abstain from doing some things that seemed kind of “wrong”, let’s say. And you know what these ungodly things were? Holding my mother’s hand during prayer and putting my arm around her in an embrace during hymn-time or while we read the scriptures. My whole life I have been very affectionate towards the people I love and I had come to the conclusion that love was a good thing, especially love for your family. No, I was told this was not the case, that I was setting a bad example as my behaviour towards my own mother could be perceived as homosexual… I let that clearly twisted and perverted judgement go because of a scripture that was read to me about not (deliberately) causing other people to think badly of the people in God’s service.
• The most soul-shaking thing to have happened to me within my religion came shortly after that first incident, when I committed what I was told was a very very serious violation of God’s law. I cut my hair short. I am not exaggerating, that was the extent of my “sin”. Again I was pulled up by the elders of the congregation (though I still was not a baptized member of the congregation) and told that I had done wrong. I thought it was a joke and I initially laughed. No, no, this was extremely serious, I was told. The tone changed completely in a few seconds when I was told that (not asked whether) cutting my hair was a vanity-driven act of rebelliousness. Me vain? Me rebellious? Never in my life have those been things that have motivated anything in me. In fact, my whole life is quite the opposite as I am a very shy person. And as one of the elders spoke to me about my evil sin, I must have sat there with my mouth wide open in disbelief since his wife had shorter hair than me! I didn't at the time know what the word hypocrisy even meant, but injustice I was becoming familiar with. Again, I let this slide because at the time I wasn't yet baptized and I was told that had I been, I would most likely have been ex-communicated from the church. I took comfort in this; I thought at least they’re not kicking me out so things could be worse.
• Things did get worse. When I had first become interested in learning more about what I believed to be “true Christianity” and left the catholic faith, I had asked this member of the congregation to help me learn more about the bible and its message. I regarded this girl very highly and eventually (I studied the bible with her some years) I came to think of her as my confidante and friend. What happened was that that same week that I was told that I was evil for cutting my hair short (‘like a man, and unbefitting of a female Christian’), the girl who I thought was my friend came and told me that she would no longer be helping me study the bible anymore. I felt betrayed and like I was kicked in the guts while I was down. I asked why. She said that it was because I essentially was a lost cause. Yes, the blows kept coming. I imagined Jesus was incapable to do this to anyone, even the greatest of murderers and sinners, and yet here I was being judged and told by other humans that I was too far gone. This whole incident triggered what was my first and still most severe episode of depression yet. I was about 19 and I wanted to die.
• Now, eventually after some time, an older lady from the congregation took pity on me and spoke to me again about the bible. I studied with her for some years and she taught me that God’s people may not be perfect and they don’t always get it right but that sometimes you just have to believe, accept, and try to do better. She said it’s not like “blind faith”, though to me it sure did sound a lot like it. I guess I was just very grateful to no longer be so ostracized from people I thought to be good and nice people. I tried even harder this time to things exactly as I was told and not let my own thoughts and questions get the better of me. I did as I was told and not what I truly believed. I really did hesitate for many years on whether to become a baptized member of the congregation (since I had had so little luck even as an un-committed one) but I eventually took the plunge. I convinced myself by this reasoning (which at the time I thought was great): God doesn't care what religion I belong to or whether I am a “full” member or not, he will still judge me if I refrain from doing what is good or knowingly break one of his commandments. It was a literal case of ‘you’re dammed if you do; you’re damned if you don’t’! So I did… I am ashamed now to admit that I "joined up" not because of the benefits I thought having a loving God in my life would bring me, but out of fear of not pleasing this scary God who would just me harshly and punish me by withholding grace from me. And now I wish things I dare not express.
• You’d think that as a full member of my Christian congregation, I would have felt finally like I was in the in-crowd. In fact, the opposite happened. I soon learnt that it’s not judgement by God that I must fear (after all he’s a very forgiving and understanding being), but rather that of my so-called Christian brothers and sisters. When I still attended meetings regularly and strove really hard to do all the things that a good Christian apparently should do, I had managed to make what I thought was a good friend within the congregation. I would visit this girl, hang out and do things together with her, talk all sorts of things, and I’d even spend time with her family, especially her mum who is also a member of the congregation. I thought of this girl as a friend and both she and her mum would encourage me to do more Christian things. I liked this interaction and I thought of it as really uplifting… until they tried to encourage me and instruct me in other ways too.
 I can’t even remember how our conversations started but I figured that as a 20-something year old, one day you will talk about relationships and such. However I started to receive advice I did not ask for and that was delivered not in the most tactful of manners. One particular day, my friend and I had been out on a walk by a lake and were talking about relationships. Then my friend started to say that I don’t dress like someone who is serious about looking for a relationship (well, I actually also wasn't wanting one, but that’s beside the point). I said, well, I thought with this sort of thing, shouldn't you look for someone with whom you share similar ways of thinking etc? No, she said, I needed to wear “prettier” clothes and pants that fit better and a bra that doesn't make my ‘tits look like you’re fifty’. Wow! If she wasn't my friend, she would have made a very hurtful enemy. I felt offended by her comment, and in my mind the question popped up “is this girl really my friend or does she just like driving to the city and bringing her kids to my pool?” I was uneasy the rest of the walk to her house. When we arrived at her house, as if by relay, my alleged-friend’s mother brought a bottle of perfume out to me and sprayed it. She said I should wear it to get men’s attention. She said I should wear make-up too. And wear pants to make my bum stick out so that men get aroused. Really? That’s what I thought, ‘Really? I should wear clothes to make men think about fucking me like the good little Christian we’re all pretending we are here?’ I gave a very polite thank you for all the (unwanted) advice on how to seduce a male member of my congregation. Then I drove home knowing I never could think the same of these people ever again and that I’d never so much as waste a word on them. I must say, I have been so much happier since I got rid of all my so-called Christian “friends”.
• The most recent turn of events was receiving some very nice text messages from another of my Christian “friends”. Gee, she had some very nice and uplifting words to say. She was glad I was OK, that my family was well, that I still attended bible meetings (though only every now and again), and that I was healthy. She in turn was well and she thought it was such a shame that we couldn't hang out anymore because she had moved interstate, etc. etc. It was a very pleasant back-and-forth text conversation. Then to say goodbye she told me explicitly that she had contacted me ONLY to do her Christian duty of encouraging me to go to bible meetings regularly. I said she shouldn't have bothered. I meant that. I have decided after all these years, that I have no patience and no tolerance left for hypocrisy – and that is also the reason I don’t often go to bible meetings anymore.

Back to my original thought of 'do I belong to a cult?' Well, it’s certainly not a small religious group I belong to. However, my religion’s beliefs have been extreme at times, and dangerous and hurtful to me personally too. But the final clincher of the discussion with a (non-Christian) fried on whether I belong to a cult or not came when she asked me “how easy is it to get out?” Wow, that took me aback! I know typically so-called cults are difficult to get out of – well, to put it one way, my religion isn't one that is easy to leave. Don’t get me wrong, I mean it is extremely easy to get yourself kicked out of it, all you have to do is cut your hair short or talk to someone you’re not supposed to, and you’re out. But leaving voluntarily by any other way is extremely difficult. Let me take you through a scenario; let’s all pretend it’s hypothetical too:

There’s a very nice and devoted lady who loves God and loves her family. She is in an emotionally abusive marriage to a man who is not a member of her religion. She, naturally, wants to leave him. Her religion, however, says that it is a sin to divorce her husband unless he has been unfaithful to her with someone else. In other words, emotional abuse is not a valid reason to leave a marriage; and if she were to leave for this reason, she is deemed to be sinning. As a result of her sin, she would be ex-communicated from the church. She doesn't want to be ex-communicated from her church as she believes that she would then forfeit out of benefiting from eternal afterlife in a paradise. Losing this would shatter her life and crush her. She really does not want to lose this. So she stays in her emotionally-abusive marriage suffering every day. She’s trapped!

Now, this lady has five adult children. One of her children is a member of the same church as her mother, but the other four aren't. The lady loves all her children and treats them all with love and kindness, which comes naturally to her. Now, the child who is a member of her church also, her daughter, really wants to have a child of her own. The problem is that the daughter doesn't have and doesn't want a husband to have her child with, as their church mandates. The church says that if the daughter has a child on her own, she will be deemed to have sinned and subsequently will be ex-communicated from the church. The daughter doesn't really care about this. The daughter is at peace with and wants God’s approval only, not those of imperfect men who are elders of the church and at times act as if they were God to pass judgement as if they truly understood the mind and heart of God.  However, the mother doesn't want her daughter to be ex-communicated. You’d think why would she care? Because if this lady’s daughter is ex-communicated, the church will either 1) ex-communicate her also and call her an accomplice to the daughter (you know, for that sin of wanting to have a child), or 2) forbid the mother for life from interacting with her daughter (or that child she may one day have). The daughter does not want to “lose” her mother, she does not want to lose the great relationship they have and that beautiful warm feeling of being loved by a mother. She is petrified to lose this. And she is so regretful to have joined a church that dictates to her mother that if she were to leave, the daughter does not become again like the lady's other 4 children who never were members of the church - but that demands she treat specifically as the worst of the worst sinners. No one wants to be thought of that way to her own mother. The daughter is trapped!

And here I realise I've just described two people trapped in this religion of mine. It’s not small. It has been very hurtful to me. And it has people trapped inside it, trapped by fear of ‘missing out’ or invoking punishment from God. Maybe I do belong to a cult. Maybe God does not approve of this wholly. Maybe God wishes it was better. Maybe what God actually wants is for people to be happy and knows this oppressive religious doctrine is not the way to go about it.