On my drive home from work yesterday I saw a billboard on the side of the highway that read:
“Repent. The day of the Lord is near.”
These words were written on a back drop of a black and red inferno.
I was not surprised by this billboard. On a pretty regular basis there are a handful of billboards lining the highway with some version of Christian Scripture or Christian belief system. (And I’m not even in the Bible Belt of America!)
So it was not the billboard itself that caught my attention.
What got me yesterday was the black and red inferno which I inferred to be symbol of hell with a message of fear and intimidation to “get my act together, or else…”
I found myself judging this message and this billboard, and then I tuned my attention back to the news story I was listening to on the radio at the same time.
It was an interview with a grief-stricken mother who had lost her 18 year-old college bound daughter in the Orlando shooting last Saturday by someone who appears to have been a very confused and intrapsychically conflicted young, 1st generation-American, Afghan Muslim man who described himself as “inspired” by The Islamic State, the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing, and the 2015 and San Bernardino Shooting .
In that moment, the juxtaposition of what I was seeing on the billboard and what I was hearing on the radio became quite synergistic in the way that the two experiences came together for me, and I was reminded of this quote from the novel The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd:
“History is not just facts and events. History is also a pain in the heart and we repeat history until we are able to make another’s pain in the heart our own.”
For those of you who have not yet this book (though I highly recommend it!), it is a fictionalized piece of 19th century American history intertwining the lives of two well-off, White, Southern sisters who rebelled against slavery and misogyny as active abolitionists and early women’s rights activists in the United States, with a Black enslaved woman and her family who ultimately escape to freedom.
Being reminded of this quotation and this ultra-American story (though largely ignored by the cannon) brought me back to a larger historical context about the way in which individuals and groups have claimed “religious reasons” for the oppression and harm of others for millennia, and quite frankly, it pisses me off.
(So I guess you could say I have moved from sadness to anger in Kubler-Ross’ 5 Stages of Grief…)
When I finally arrived home last night, after this odd and slightly surreal experience while driving, I continued to contemplate (or maybe stew) about other historical examples of groups mis-using and abusing the role of faith and religion for their own political, economic and/or institutional agenda, and as an American, for me this history is largely in the Christian tradition.
I began to reflect on Manifest Destiny and the genocide of Native Americans as a way to steal territory in North America all the way to the Pacific Ocean. I thought about the use of the Christian Bible to authorize the bondage of African Slaves in order to build a viable economic system in early America and the Caribbean. I recalled a piece of history I had learned, but had never been taught in my early education, that early American Protestants were known to burn Catholics alive in the town square. I thought about the Salem Witch Trials, and the use of the Christian Bible to rationalize the preservation of a legal and economic system that excluded the entire female sex in the United States until 1920.
I was reminded of a quote from a film I have written about in this very blog called The Way in which one of the characters, a writer from Ireland, refuses to enter any of the gorgeous Spanish Cathedrals by reasoning,
“Where I come from, the Church has a lot to answer for…temples of tears. I don’t go in them anymore.”
This led me to think about Europe and the Crusades, the Dark Ages, the political choices of the Vatican, the Spanish Inquisition, and the way20th Century Fascist Dictators around the world have claimed “religious reasons” (and I include fanatical atheism in this group too because certainly Joseph Stalin would fall into this category) for atrocities from mass rape of women, destruction of religious and spiritual architecture, forced relocation, internment camps, ethnic cleansing, and of course all out warfare.
I thought about all of individual stories I have been told over the past 13 years working in psychotherapy that involved a woman, child or man being targeted by their very own religious group for the purposes of being hurt or harmed with the implication that the abuse was sanctioned by something “religious” or “holy.”
I called to mind the abuses of power for the purposes of sex, particularly with women, by gurus and yoga founders like Bikram Choudhury 
(Bikram Yoga), Amrit Desai (original founder of Kripalu Center), and Trungpa Rinpoche ( Tibetan Lama and teacher of the author and teacher Pema Chodron), and the more recent multiple charges of sexual assault and rape that have come to light specifically against BikramChoudhury in the context of Yoga Teacher Training events and classes .
Yes, there is so much anger…
Yes my blood boils when individuals or groups use religious language, religious philosophy and religious text to rationalize inhumane behavior.
Yet here’s the kicker, and many people in my own life do not agree with me on this point, I do not believe that we, as progressive and evolving human beings, need to abandon organized religion and spiritual faith in order to eliminate the threat of more violence, oppression and abuse of power.
In fact, I believe religions should be reclaimed by those who find them to be a meaningful “packages” (to borrow a word from author and professor Reverend Barbara Brown Taylor) for connection to soul, spirit and community in a way that nourishes the life of the individual, but does not hinder or harm the lives of others.
Ironically for me, I take heart in more modern aspects of Christianity, though I’m not a Christian.
For example, I am very moved by historical religious individuals like Dorothy Day (1897 –1980)
who was an American journalist, social activist, and Catholic convert.
I am also encouraged by those still working and living amongst us like Jean Vanier,
who is a Catholic philosopher, theologian and humanitarian who founded an international federation of communities for people with developmental disabilities called L'Arche , and progressive Jesuits like author Rev. James Martin, S.J. and Rev. Greg Boyle, S.J. who founded HomeBoy Industries in Los Angeles for former gang members.
I am inspired by Liberation Theology which spread throughout Latin America in particular as a means to explore the Christian faith and doctrine for the purposes of empowering the poorest amongst us.
I find lightness and humor in the laughter of faith of leaders like South African Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu
who not only survived South African Apartheid, but then led the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to help his people find a way to grieve this traumatic period of their history as a community. I come back again and again to his words from an NPR interview:
There's no question about the reality of evil, of injustice, of suffering, but at the center of this existence is a heart beating with love. You know, that you and I and all of us are incredible. I mean, we really are remarkable things that we are, as a matter of fact, made for goodness. And it's not a smart aleck thing to say; it's just a fact. Because all of us, even when we have degenerated, know that the wrong isn't what we should be, isn't what we should be doing. We're fantastic. I mean, we really are amazing.
This sentiment, posed by this man, leads me to believe that perhaps Western Buddhist teacher and author Sharon Salzberg
is correct when she says: “We can always begin again.” Perhaps these examples from just one religion, Christianity, demonstrate this phoenix-from-the-ashes possibility that is available to all religions.
I take heart in my own religion, Unitarian Universalism.
In one of our texts, A Chosen Faith, by UU authors and leaders John A. Buehrens and Forrest Church, it is noted that there are several core values in our religion that guide an individual for a free search for truth that does not hurt or harm others.
We believe in the freedom of religious expression. All individuals should be encouraged to develop a personal theology, and to openly present their religious opinions without fear of censure or reprisal. We believe in tolerance of religious ideas. The religions of every age and culture have something to teach those who listen…We believe in the worth and dignity of each human being. All people on earth have an equal claim to life, liberty, and justice; no idea, ideal, or philosophy is superior to a single human life.
I find these words inspiring and hopeful for the future of organized religion.
What individuals and words bring you hope for a humane and progressive future for religions?
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