The church I attended as a kid was led by a fiery and energetic pastor named John Bartlett. He built up the church, located in Tonawanda, NY, a town outside of Buffalo, by recruiting people like my family from the inner city. The church sent school buses (painted with the church's colors and logo - "The Lighthouse Baptist Church"), to pick up congregants who didn't have cars and would otherwise be unable to attend service. At its peak, the church had a fleet of 10 buses. It was an impressive accomplishment. Bartlett took the church from a membership of 100 or so when my family joined, to about 400-500 members.
Bartlett was a good preacher - he knew the scripture, had passion and energy, and had a knack for cultivating new parishioners. Bartlett's take on the scriptures is why I couldn't listen to worldly music as a kid. There was no gray area in the bible, you were either with the lord or with the world. My mom was decidedly in the pro lord camp. For about 8-9 years we attended Sunday morning services and often Sunday evening services as well, and during certain periods in those years we also attended Wednesday evening services, Thursday evening AWANA (a more christian version of the Boy Scouts), Friday evening basketball night (the church compound had a gym), and and occasionally did the knocking on doors thing on Saturday mornings.
Suffice to say, we were deeply enmeshed within the church and for me, opportunities to recuse myself were limited. My stroke of luck, the event that enabled me to assert my independence, was when Pastor Bartlett, the married father of three kids, took off to Florida with the wife of a church deacon (she left behind 5 kids). For my mother and many of the other city families in particular, this was a fatal betrayal. Within weeks, the Puerto Rican contingent, of which we were an original part, had shifted to a doctrinally similar Spanish language church located a few blocks from where my family lived. I think I attended service there twice before asserting that my lack of fluency in Spanish made my attendance pointless. At this point, my mother just gave up I think.
The armchair psychologists among you may be wondering whether Bartlett's gross hypocrisy is what turned me off to religion, it didn't. Credit for that goes to my free mind. What my experience with the Lighthouse Baptist Church did was expose me to the hypocrisy and danger of fundamentalist religions. Fundamentalists believe the bible, koran, torah, etc. - books written by men long after their respective prophets were dead - to be the inerrant word of God, to be followed without compromise (that each major faith feels the same thing about their particular book of rules only means everyone who thinks differently is good hearted, but misguided). The bible and other books are the absolute word of God to be obeyed, or else. But absolutism is an unwise and impossible ideal in most instances, and striving for it often comes at a heavy price. The people who listen to these sermons believe them, and like any message that gets repeated over and over, like any message told with conviction, they're adopted and internalized by many, and given the role that the afterlife plays in religion, the dangers of its misuse are apparent.
All of this brings me to the news that Ted Haggard, leader of the 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs and president of the 30 million member National Association of Evangelicals, has stepped down after his affairs and drug use with a gay prostitute were revealed. Like Bartlett, Haggard is a real bright line guy, a with the lord or with the world type of fella, someone who believes the bible is perfect. It probably doesn't need to be said .... but of course, Haggard was a leading proponent of laws that sought to deny gay people the right to marry and professed that homosexuality is an abomination.
Bartlett was a good preacher - he knew the scripture, had passion and energy, and had a knack for cultivating new parishioners. Bartlett's take on the scriptures is why I couldn't listen to worldly music as a kid. There was no gray area in the bible, you were either with the lord or with the world. My mom was decidedly in the pro lord camp. For about 8-9 years we attended Sunday morning services and often Sunday evening services as well, and during certain periods in those years we also attended Wednesday evening services, Thursday evening AWANA (a more christian version of the Boy Scouts), Friday evening basketball night (the church compound had a gym), and and occasionally did the knocking on doors thing on Saturday mornings.
Suffice to say, we were deeply enmeshed within the church and for me, opportunities to recuse myself were limited. My stroke of luck, the event that enabled me to assert my independence, was when Pastor Bartlett, the married father of three kids, took off to Florida with the wife of a church deacon (she left behind 5 kids). For my mother and many of the other city families in particular, this was a fatal betrayal. Within weeks, the Puerto Rican contingent, of which we were an original part, had shifted to a doctrinally similar Spanish language church located a few blocks from where my family lived. I think I attended service there twice before asserting that my lack of fluency in Spanish made my attendance pointless. At this point, my mother just gave up I think.
The armchair psychologists among you may be wondering whether Bartlett's gross hypocrisy is what turned me off to religion, it didn't. Credit for that goes to my free mind. What my experience with the Lighthouse Baptist Church did was expose me to the hypocrisy and danger of fundamentalist religions. Fundamentalists believe the bible, koran, torah, etc. - books written by men long after their respective prophets were dead - to be the inerrant word of God, to be followed without compromise (that each major faith feels the same thing about their particular book of rules only means everyone who thinks differently is good hearted, but misguided). The bible and other books are the absolute word of God to be obeyed, or else. But absolutism is an unwise and impossible ideal in most instances, and striving for it often comes at a heavy price. The people who listen to these sermons believe them, and like any message that gets repeated over and over, like any message told with conviction, they're adopted and internalized by many, and given the role that the afterlife plays in religion, the dangers of its misuse are apparent.
All of this brings me to the news that Ted Haggard, leader of the 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs and president of the 30 million member National Association of Evangelicals, has stepped down after his affairs and drug use with a gay prostitute were revealed. Like Bartlett, Haggard is a real bright line guy, a with the lord or with the world type of fella, someone who believes the bible is perfect. It probably doesn't need to be said .... but of course, Haggard was a leading proponent of laws that sought to deny gay people the right to marry and professed that homosexuality is an abomination.
My big problem with Haggard, is not that he's a massive hypocrite or that he's been lying to thousands of his earnest believers and abusing the trust of the people he claims to care about (though they may care), it's that his version of Christianity has been steadily rising in influence in our government over the last six years - Haggard speaks to President Bush weekly. People like Haggard are influencing policies that affect us all and that's personally scary as well as irreconcilable with our constitution. The version of Christianity that Haggard preaches puts us in the position of having, for example, churches fighting for exemptions to non-discrimination laws so that they can deny their employees health insurance for reproductive services, while the leaders of these churches, like Haggard or the Cahtolic priests, don't practice what they preach behind closed doors. Accross the country, Haggard and people of his ilk have been waging fierce campaigns to replace science with theology in our public schools. We're distracted by campaigns that warn us of wars against Christmas while criticisms against the handling of the real war we're in are chalked up to hysterical anti-Bush hatred. Killing abortion providers becomes the lesser of two evils and while Haggard may not approve of such conduct, the theological underpinnings of the murderer's acts are similar to what Haggard preaches.
Religion cannot be held accountable for what crazy people do in its name, but the rest of us need to be accountable when we allow religion to gain new footholds in our government and civic institutions. We live in a free country so pray how you see fit, just keep your mythology and INEVITABLE hypocrisy out of my government and the laws that govern this land.
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11 comments:
Well written bro. As critical I am of organized religion, it is the inappropriate mixing of religion and politics that worries me. It is the true problem in our country as well as others being led by crazy divine leaders.
our gov't has got to remain free of religious ideology.
Amen. There are few things that I feel as strongly about as this, the problem that religion (there is no point in saying "modern" religion because it's the same backward thinking that was practiced 500 years ago minus some of the more painful punishments, which some of all faiths would, I'm sure, love to see return) poses to the advancement of the people of Earth. All problems would not be erased but I'm sure it'd be a different place.
Even though zealots the world over would scream in protest, but I'd love to see a series of essays and/or short films describing a world in which the Bible, Koran, etc. had never been written.
Perhaps it's been done, don't know.
I think the idea of worshipping a higher power is innate to humanity - religion has existed in all lands and all cultures throughout history. So I'm not sure about a world without religion is desireable, practical, or necessary. Religion is part of the human experience. And despite my criicism of the hypocrisy of religion, and of the mingling of church and state, I think religion has positive attribute that help people. For many, religion provides a support network, aid to the needy, "therapy" for parishioners, etc. A lot of devout folks do change their lives to be and do more good. I've also heard some very positive sermons over the years, from Rabbis, priests, pastors, who focused on positive themes (instead of focusing on what you had to do to avoid going to hell). So religion is not a problem in my eyes. It's the use of religion to control people that bothers me. The forcing of religious beliefs onto others. The belief that a book written hundreds/thousands of years ago should have some sort of weight in our public lives and institutions. That's where I have a problem.
Here is an article I've kept in my personal archives and passed around last general election about fundamental evangelicals and their influence in American Politics -- it seems as though this is something new but this influence dates back quite some time. I compare fundamentalists like Haggard and LaHaye to books on the best NYT best seller's list -- just because they know how to draw a crowd doesn't mean they're any good. Read on: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/5939999/reverend_doomsday/
I guess if you were a studio exec, you'd shoot down the project.
But seriously, perhaps I overstated my case; religion might be innate to humanity but it seems that more often than not it leads to people telling other people what they should and should not do behind closed doors, mostly with completely ridiculous reasons to back these rules up. And it's never open to discussion, it cannot be questioned. Dogma.
Positive sermons, etc inasmuch as they serve as positive reinforcements or replacements for addictive drugs are cool if someone can change his or her life but it'd be nice to see religion move towards a more curious venture (mysticism?) as opposed to the whole if you do x, y, or z you're going to hell approach. That sounds a lot like your issue, social control.
There is no doubt that humans need religions to understand our universe. But once religion becomes a rallying cry for hatred, separation and out right extermination of other peoples and cultures then it has gone too far. It is hard to say whether religion has helped humanity more than it has hurt (just think of all the religious based conflicts that have led to genoicides). but at the very least in our country: 1) religion should not be part of gov't in any form and 2)no religion that advocates violence should be allowed to exist.
It amazes me to see people push for prayer in schools and to hear them claim that the lack of prayer in school is the cause of our problems. talk about denial. its just crazy.
Even though people who agree with him will likely be the only ones to read it, Sam Harris, author of "The End of Faith", has a new book entitled "Letter to a Christian Nation", which from the looks of it, directly addresses the topic being discussed in this post.
Hey Nittles,
I read the Rolling Stone piece. It's funny how conservatives attack the fact that George Soros donates his wealth to the Dem party, progressive causes, etc., and it's such a big deal. Some scary billionaire is trying to secretly influence our country, they say. Yet Soros is open about his donations, unlike the republican billionaires discussed in the article who operate with a total cloak of secrecy and fund all sorts of political and religious campaigns. As for rapture theology, I recently learned that in Islam there is a end times prohpesy as well and that some Islamic scholars were pointing to world events suggesting that the end times were near. Just goes to show, these fundamentalists are all birds of the same feather.
what Pator Bartlett is this that un refer to? What is is first wife's name?
What Pastor Bartlett is this u refer to? What is his first name? his wife's? I've been trying to find out wat happened to him.
PNGSommers, I don't know what happened to Bartlett. Who are you, btw?
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