Being Blessed

Sunday, December 13, 2009
I swear I live under a rock. Apparently the Vatican added some new deadly sins to their list in April of last year, and I TOTALLY MISSED THE BOAT. Just think of the blog fodder inherent in the Catholic Church adding "excessive wealth" and "increasing poverty" to the list of deadly sins. I'm so disappointed.

But it does tie into some conversations I've been having lately with other irreligious people.

One of the many, many things I don't get about the Christian religion is how come, from a moral perspective, someone who "accepts Jesus Christ as their personal savior" is in a better moral position than an irreligious person who spends their whole life doing the right thing and serving others? What makes me feel "blessed" is not dedicating my life to the worship of the principles of Christianity, but enriching my humanity by helping others.

If you define a "Christian" as someone who follows the teachings of Jesus, then I know many, many irreligious people who are far better Christians than those who self-identify as such by virtue of their acceptance of him as their "personal savior."

And that's the rub, isn't it? For me, as an outsider, being a moral individual is all about ACTION. That means living your live in way that makes you your brother's and sister's keeper, and doing the right thing, even when it's hard, or inconvenient, or unpleasant. For Christianity, it's about BELIEF. That creates a system where hypocrisy is not only possible, but practically built in. I realize that being a "Christian" based on faith is not mutually exclusive from being a moral individual. I know enough Christians who live and breathe their faith traditions in a consistent way that it keeps my view more balanced than it might otherwise be. But there are enough "Christians" out there who are also complete douchebags that the entire system leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

12 comments:

Warner (aka ntsc) said...

..."dedicating my life to the worship of the principles of Christianity..."

You have the nub of it in that sentence, which is the attitude of many, far too many Chritians.

Not performing the principles, but worshiping them.

mom in northern said...

The church as always been long on original sin and short on original thinking...ask Galileo

vince said...

As a Christian, I believe part of the answer is that the Bible says faith without works is dead. Jesus himself explicitly states how we will be judged - when I was hungry did you feed me, when I was thirst did you give me to drink, etc.

Sadly, said douche bags you describe miss this, concentrating instead on being Pharisees and explaining how wonderful they are and how everyone else is going to hell in a hand basket, especially those Christians who don't believe exactly as they believe. They're too busy hating to want to remember that Jesus said that the entire law was to love God with your whole heart, mind and soul, AND to love your neighbor as yourself. He even used the parable of the good Samaritan (Samaritans in that time being considered by most Jews to be evil, nasty, rotten, and almost as hated as the Romans) to explain who our neighbor was, and it wasn't the pious douche bags who walked right by the poor bastard who had been robbed and beaten and did nothing. Nope, it was the rotten, no good, really bad Samaritan.

Sadly, the world is full of douche bags and hypocrites, and they come in all stripes. And it really pisses me off that so many of said persons label themselves "Christians."

As for me, I'll associate with those who don't believe as I do but whose actions show love and compassion for their fellow men over the pious haters whose actions spit in the face of the teachings of Jesus as I understand them any and every day.

Janiece said...

Vince, I can't tell you how happy I am that you are not a hypocritical douchebag, and that you have the courage to call out your coreligionists who are.

When people like me do it, we're disregarded (since we're going to burn, donchaknow). Change will come from folks like you.

Random Michelle K said...

For what it's worth, "accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior" is NOT a Catholic thing.

As far as Catholicism, Vince nails it with the "faith without works" bit. All the Catholics in my family are very active in their communities and involved in volunteering as much as possible--the cousins spent spring breaks doing Habitat for Humanity projects. (My Catholic high school had required service hours--you didn't get your service hours, you didn't graduate.)

So I am actually unsurprised that the pope added those "sins" to the list. That was very much the doctrine with which I was raised.

Doesn't mean that there aren't parts of the Catholic church that are fucked up, and that there aren't horrible selfish Catholics. It's just that unlike most of the Evangelical Christian faiths, faith isn't just believing, it's a call to action, and a call to live by example.

The Catholic church gets a lot of things wrong, but what you're railing against here is not (in my experience) one of the failings of the Catholic church.

Steve Buchheit said...

Hey look, two other deadly sins I don't need to worry about.

vince said...

Steve, me neither :-)

And Janiece, the people I find abhorrent don't much listen to or like me, either. In their eyes, I'm pretty much just like you.

Which is fine with me.

Janiece said...

Michelle, I went to Catholic school, too, and I think the truth of the matter is more specific to the diocese in question. If the churches where you (and your cousins) went encouraged good works, then good for them.

But you'll note my comments about living your beliefs were aimed at "the Christian religion." My comments about the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church saying that "increasing poverty" is a deadly sin while at the same time advocating policies that result in just that is another matter. And every public school in my county requires public service to graduate, so I don't think it's that uncommon now.

nzforme said...

At one point, my sister (Jewish) was engaged to a Christian dude. Said dude asked his father, "Is my fiancee going to go to Hell because she hasn't accepted Jesus as her savior?" His father replied, "No -- she's a good person."

It is precisely that sort of Christianity that I respect -- one which believes that your fate in the afterlife doesn't depend on whether you bet on the right guy, but on how you spent your time when you were here.

Jeri said...

Interestingly enough, your equivalency of Christianity with Catholicism is one which many fundamentalist Christian churches would dispute - they believe the latter adherents to be 'lost'. (In reference to religion, that word gags me!)

Random Michelle K said...

Jeri is correct--many Evangelical groups do not consider Catholics to be Christian, which is why I felt the need to point out that "accepting Jesus into your heart" is NOT a Catholic thing.

And I'm glad community service is now required for graduation. It wasn't for my younger brother when he graduated from public school.

MWT said...

My experience has been that every denomination of Christianity thinks (secretly or openly) that every other denomination aren't "real" Christians. So that doesn't surprise me in the least.