Got Moxie!

The Disappointment of Modern Christianity

Guest blogger Carolyn Ride has been attempting to Feel The Spirit in her recent encounters with modern Christianity but is just left shaking her head in disappointment. Oh dear. What would JC do?

In my circle of friends, most of whom fit very comfortably at the left libertarian end of the political compass, I’m kind of the token apologist for Christianity.

Maybe it’s because I wasn’t brought up religious, so I can look at faith with a distant and benign eye. Maybe it’s because, given a choice of opinions, I masochistically gravitate to the unpopular ones. Whatever the reason, I often end up pointing out the good bits about our much-despised Judeo-Christian cultural norms.

For example, many Christians take their responsibility to the poor and dispossessed seriously. They run charities and feed the homeless and take refugees into their homes. The idea that poor people matter was so radical to the ancient Romans – normally tolerant of religion – that they banned Christianity. It’s still a radical idea and one I share from the atheist side of the fence.

I also respect the fact that so many Christians are the poor and dispossessed. Missionaries did some horrible things to other people’s lands and culture, but now – for whatever reason – the Global South has really embraced the Christian God. So I can’t say all Christians suck without writing off most of the population of sub-Saharan Africa, South America, Asian countries like the Philippines and the Pacific.

Lastly, I like the Bible a lot (as literature, not moral guide). I like the fact that if I really want to hear about Jesus I can do so for free – a bargain in a New Age of $520.00 per weekend workshop of loving gurus and healing avatars. I like gospel music and Christmas hymns and the fact that, even though Christians think I’m going to hell for being an unbeliever, most won’t use bombs or rockets to expedite my journey there.

So when Christians do bad and stupid things I – unlike my fellow pinko radical friends – feel disappointed, like a parent whose child bullied the shy and sensitive kid. I got to get in touch with disappointment THREE TIMES this fortnight.

Firstly, I went to an unnamed Catholic church with my partner and her sister (the one who actually goes to church). No, I wasn’t there to feel the Spirit, just because it was on the schedule that day, and I was quite happy to tag along. Unfortunately, the experience was quite off-putting.

It wasn’t that there were only about six people there besides us two Godless sinning homosexuals. It wasn’t that I didn’t know the songs. No-one tried to save us or interrogate us or quote Leviticus at us. It’s just that it seemed flat and joyless. People recited Bible quotes, responded to the sermon (or whatever the Catholic equivalent) and sang hymns in the same unenthusiastic monotone. My partner, Ms Weston(Culture), nearly elbowed me for putting too much woo and hoo into the Lord’s Prayer. I didn’t expect a slammin’ black gospel choir and people to shout “Testify!” but I did hope to see people getting something out of the belief system that keeps them going.

Maybe I just don’t get the quiet dignity of Catholicism, you say. But I have been to a Catholic church where a packed house oozed Jesus Love; which brings me to my second disappointment. Yesterday I learned that the Catholic hierarchy excommunicated Father Peter Kennedy of St Mary’s Catholic Church in Brisbane for “unorthodox practices”. Archbishop John Bathersby acted on complaints by Catholics (not from St Mary’s congregation) that Father Kennedy was blessing gays and letting parishioners lead the service.

Yep, St Mary’s was the church I went to in my brief spiritual searching phase. I realised I just didn’t believe in God, a bit of a barrier to picking Christianity. But I was still mightily impressed with St Mary’s. There were so many people there they were bursting out the doors, who sang hymns with gusto and shook hands with the people next to them with joy. I recognised lots of queer acquaintances, socialists, ex-druggies, former nihilists. It appeared St Mary’s welcomed them with open arms and supported them for being who they were.

It’s true that Father Kennedy and his fellow St Mary-ites were pretty provocatively unorthodox. They talked up gay rights, they called God both him and her. Then again, Jesus was quite unorthodox in his day. The heads of a declining faith (in the West) that supposedly values theological debate surely had better options than excommunicating a priest known for his work with the marginalised (homeless, indigenous, refugees) as well as popular.

The Archbishop must envy the fundamentalist Pentecostal-type churches, which get to be both wildly intolerant and Popular Wit Da Kidz. One of these churches in the US, p4cm, is causing a big stir with their evangelical T-shirts announcing that the wearer’s an ex-Diva, ex-Hypocrite, ex-Homosexual, ex-Fornicator, ex-Porn Addict, ex-Hustler and….ex-Masturbator! Someone sent me the video of the p4cm loons discussing the ex-Masturbator shirt (apparently it’s sexually immoral and says so in Corinthians, so there) and at first I thought it was a piss-take. Then I realised it was serious, but still pretty bloody hilarious. But now I think it’s kind of tragic.

I suppose it’s brave to walk around proclaiming yourself an ex-masturbator or ex-fornicator. Maybe it’s bravest to walk around as an ex-hypocrite. Much has been written about these shirts, but I don’t know if anyone else has noticed that the mainly young, black evangelists modelling these shirts aren’t exactly ugly. So can you wear an ex-hypocrite shirt when you’re using sexy young thangs to sell a no-sex message?

While we’re at it, what’s with the endless fundamentalist focus on so-called sexual immorality while ignoring financial immorality? Don’t they have some sort of financial crisis thingy in the States (and everywhere else now; thanks, guys). Doesn’t the Bible have some not complimentary things to say about money changers and temples, and workers of iniquity, and the love of money being the root of all evil? I’ll be impressed when p4cm “rocks” – as they put it – an ex-Hedge Trader shirt or an ex-Money-Grubbing Televangelist shirt.

The shirts and the ex-Masturbator video are pretty bloody funny. Sadly, some people – too many people – will take it seriously. Like the girl they chose to model the ex-Homosexual shirt, who was about to marry her girlfriend of five years before she got saved and is now a repressed idiot in a stupid and mean-spirited T-shirt. That’s what turns the “ex” shirt enterprise from ridiculous to revolting.

What would Jesus do with all this? I’d like to think he wouldn’t bore his flock to tears in his house of worship, ex-communicate his followers for asking questions or wear an Ex-Suspiciously Single Man Hanging Around A Bunch Of Blokes t-shirt. Then again, as a Godless homosexual pinko, what would I know?

Carolyn Ride is a writer, editor and has a lovely collection of hell-worthy handbaskets.

Related posts:

1. A very Ted St Patrick’s Day

© 2009 weston culture.