Nun of Your Business

This afternoon NPR aired a piece by Heidi Glenn called Losing Our Religion: the Growth of the‘Nones.’  The long and short of the piece is that more American’s are choosing to not identify with one of the major established organized religions.   My first reaction after reading the piece was, “duh!”  Followed closely, by the urge to bury any fledgling ideas for this post in the shed out back and forget about it. 

However, one of my words for 2013 is guts, and we’re all going to need some to have this conversation.  Because that’s what I am convinced the Pew Study is referencing, a national (and perhaps worldwide) conversation that involves the entire human family. 

“Religion is like a knife: you can either use it to cut bread, or stick in someone's back.”   Desmond Tutu

There is a bad taste in people’s mouth regarding religion. Leaders of various organized religious groups turn out to be corrupt, dishonest, selfish, dangerous, or worse and people lose faith.  Too often religion is used for cutting down our opponents, rather than providing a common ground for dialogue.  But religion is the human institution, made up of human beings, and therefore subject to human flaws and shortcomings.  

As one who is an active member of a traditional organized religion, I struggle when church scandals take place.  I am saddened and frustrated when religious leaders make statements, which I believe are counter to the accepting and forgiving spirit of the faith.  For these concerns there are internal dialogues, which must be held to enact changes here too, but that’s a topic for another post. 

Please understand, that I’m not encouraging or justifying why more people are walking away from religion.  I believe that faith is a fundamental element for wholeness and provides unique gifts and insights into the world.  But in order to start talking about solutions, we must identify some of the problems.  After reading the NPR article and the Pew Research, there are a couple of pieces that the authors missed. 

People are tired.  It’s been my experience that people are just tired of the perceived judgment that comes along with most religion.  Whether from official leadership or zealots down the pew, most Westerners are done with petty judgments.  And I can't say that I blame anyone who has reached this point.  

Religions change at a glacial pace.  Most major religions are struggling to meet people where they are.  Many groups try to apply old models to a new generation of people who are used to a user-centered instant update approach.  When they don’t find what they want, people walk.  This attitude is not all that dissimilar to the “lack of customer loyalty” cited in business discussions.    This capitalism of religion means that if a religion says something I don’t like then I’ll go across the street to someone else.

People don’t need religion to function in society.  The role of religion as a functional element of daily life has diminished.  1,000 years ago your religion determined your worldview, but it also had strong influence on where you lived, what profession you held, when you worked, who you did business with, and served as a persons fundamental social and cultural identity.  The rise of nationalism brought competition with religion for our loyalty, but even then religion maintained influence.  100 years ago a person’s religious affiliation determined an individual’s place in the community and their social circles.  Today, to many, religion is a checkbox on a form, a line on the online bio, and a place you go for an hour a week.   The schism between religion and secular aspects of our life is so complete that a person can function without religion and notice very little societal impact.

Religion, for all it's faults is not the faith.  Religion is not the spirit of the movement.   

Religion can (and often does) serve as the embodiment of the ideas of a faith tradition.  When members of the Red Crescent or Magen David Adom bring relief to those in greatest need - religion becomes the hand of God.  When Nuns, Brothers, Priests and ministers bring reconciliation, comfort, and healing into prisons and communities who have known violence - religion becomes the face of God.  When groups from churches, temples, mosques, and synagogues reach out to the surrounding neighborhood to build community - religion becomes the family of God.  

I think that if we all exercised a little more compassion and understanding, that the major religions would have an easier time connecting with people.  All across the board, we can all get a little better about meeting people where they are.  And if we do that, we may just start seeing some progress.     

This post really doesn’t answer the big questions, but I hope it starts or continues or in some way benefits the conversation.  

“I really feel that some people neglect and overlook compassion because they associate it with religion. Of course, everyone is free to choose whether they pay religion any regard, but to neglect compassion is a mistake because it is the source of our own well-being.”  The Dalai Lama                  

(Come on, you know I had to do it)

Thanks for asking...

I've been reading a lot of the writings of Anthony de Mello, S.J. over the past couple of years. De Mello is famous for saying/writing things that are hard for us to hear. He admits it. In his wonderful book based on his retreat work de Mello famously says, "You're an ass. I'm an ass. And that's ok." It's a refreshing perspective and really the key to getting through his text. He is not an author for the easily offended. He challenges you each step of the way.

On the website dedicated to his teachings (http://www.demello.org/) de Mello offers "one minute wisdom" that are gentle guides to keep us in the right mindset for getting through the day. One of my favorites is this:

ADULTHOOD To a disciple who was always at his prayers the Master said, When will you stop learning on God and stand on your own two feet? The disciple was astonished. But you are the one who taught us to look on God the Father! When will you learn that a father or mother isn't someone you can lean on but someone who rids you of tendency to lean? – Anthony de Mello, S.J.

Isn't that a great sentiment? A parent is one who rids us of the tendency to lean. How true. I think back to my own family and parents. We were never pressured to be this or study that -- rather we were challenged to find what made us happy and pursue that to its end conclusion. Don't get me wrong we were all encourage to do something after high school and be mindful of grades--but those were more general guidelines.

In light of the upcoming holiday in honor of mothers I'd like to take a quick moment and say thank you to my Mom. I remember in high school Mom encouraged us to be well rounded and try many different activities so we could have a good foundation in a lot of different things. Her theory was simply that we had the rest of our lives to specialize as an artiest, athlete or academic but high school was a good chance to diversify the interest portfolio.

One thing that will always stand out in my mind is that it was common for Mom (and Dad) to ask about our day. No matter how tired, busy, or frustrated they may have been with thier life they always asked my sisters, brothers, and I about our day and what happened at school. And they were genuinely interested. They wanted to know what was going on with us, what bothered us, and what got us excited about life. They even encouraged us to take an interest in each other's lives -- enven encouraging the more extroverted ones (like myself) to learn to be quiet and listen.

Beyond the formal encouragement Mom and Dad both offered us wonderful examples of selfless giving and commitment to serving others. For most of my high school and college career my family (along with a couple of my aunts, uncles, and cousins) provided 24/7 care for my Grammie (a formidable woman in her own right) in her final years. Mom worked 3rd shift full-time at a hospital 60 minutes from home, covered shifts with Grammie, managed a household of 6 kids, and was pregnant with number 7 for 9 of the last 18 months that Grammie was alive. Non-stop.

In addition to the super-human feats of organization and juggling, Mom was also half of a dynamic duo that just celebrated 30 years of marriage last month. THIRTY YEARS. You just don't hear about too many of those kinds of marriages any more. But here they are, my parents, still together and still having fun.

The point I'm trying to make is that my brothers, sisters, and I have been blessed to have great examples and champions in our parents. They genuinely cared about us and each other. No matter what happens we know that we have thier love and support, and that is a tremendous gift. It wasn't until I left home and was serving in AmeriCorps that I learned just how wonderful our home was growing up.

Thanks Mom (and Dad).

Tolerence: Religious Ideal or Hippie Mantra

In my experience, those who speak out about great pitfalls of organized religion are often sucked into mindsets of intolerance of which they accuse religions to possess.

It is no great secret that many unjust acts (war, discrimination, torture, persecution, execution, etc.) have been carried out in the name of religion. Christianity, Islam, Jeudism, and many other organized religous groups have all been misused and misinterpreted at times to justify the weak, selfish, and corrupt acts of religious zealots.

But we, who are here and now, are shouldered not only with the burdens of the past, but the decisions of the present which will impact the future. Religion is not going to go away--at least not in our lifetime.

Should there be religious tolerance? Yes. But there should be tolerance for religion too.

I witnessed an interaction with college aged students (18-24 year) not all that long ago that illustrates this point. The group was having a discussion and a young man jokingly called a local politician a, “pink-o commie bas*ard.” Two young women in the group, abruptly turned on the author of the comment and vehemently defended the tenets of Marxism, preaching tolerance and acceptance of people, and ending with an assertion to the effect of, ‘if there was more communism in the world it would be a much more tolerant place.’ The young man was stunned to silence due to the vigor of the outburst and the conversation returned to more neutral topics.

Not an hour later the two women who launched the pro-tolerance sermon, engaged in a rather unfair and lengthy roast of Christianity and all Christians. The excessive criticism expressed by these young women caused many in the group to take pause at the severity. The discussion ended in one of the young women performing a very off color impression of someone with downs syndrome.

I find this situation, while extreme, to illustrate the growing mentality slated toward a fundamental call to tolerance – with a stark exception of tolerance toward Christianity and those who adhere to the more ‘traditional’ Christian worldviews. As illustrated by this situation, the young women felt very strongly about tolerance for non-Christian religious groups, any ethnic and racial groups (other than European Caucasians), and anyone who seeks a spiritual existence outside of religion – but somehow considered Christians an exception to the tolerance rule.

The reality is that not all Christians are redneck bigots, any more than all Muslims are terrorists, any more than all rappers are dangerous gangsters, any more than all democrats are hippies, any more than …

Do you see my point?

Tolerance goes both ways.

For those who want to practice a more spiritual existence outside of religion, more power to them. Not my choice, but I support their right of free expression. One of this country’s greatest founding principles is religious freedom. But to criticize and ostracize those who adhere to traditional Christianity, or Judaism, or the tenants of Islam just because they practice a religion is to be equally as judgmental and intolerant.

Young people who adhere to the more traditional religions are increasingly being made to feel as though they should be on the defensive. Is this justice?

There are those who will, of course, throw in my face a litany of atrocities committed in the name of religion. Admittedly, there are many. But upon deeper reflection and study, I would wager a guess that the abuses of power that happen under the banner of religion are still products of human weakness. And let us all remember that there are very, very few large human organizations that don’t have dark moments in their history.

The reality is that most traditional world religions at their core preach peace, justice, compassion, reconciliation, and tolerance.

And these, we can call agree upon are some of the fundamental tenants of a just society.