CC15: On the Road to Jericho

Yesterday I watched a rerun of Law and Order that was fascinating for its depiction of a righteous, devout, sincere Roman Catholic woman who was put on trial for murder after a botched exorcism killed a teenaged girl. Interestingly, the woman had been a nun before leaving the convent to follow her "gift from God."

The assistant DA was sent to interview the woman's former Mother Superior. The Mother Superior informed a surprised DA that the former nun's intense belief in the devil proved that she was more obedient to her faith than other people, not less so.

In the show, everyone agreed that the woman's faith was sincere. In court, she testified in a calm, persuasive voice that she had a gift from God, and that the archangel Michael had commanded her to beat the devil out of the rebellious girl. She had obeyed St. Michael. She had failed in her mission not because the divine command was flawed, but because she wasn't strong enough to overcome the devil. The girl had died when the devil took her soul. She regretted her personal failure to save the girl's soul, but she didn't regret the attempt. She had cared about the girl, and she'd been trying to do the right thing.

Fiction? Exaggeration? Misrepresenting the facts in order to make good TV?

Not really. In fact, the show didn't go far enough in showing the reality of this kind of religious mindset, and the damage these "sincere, devout, faithful" people cause with their beliefs. 

Many "sincere, devout, faithful" people used to believe in creatures that were part man, part horse -- the centaurs of Greek religion. Sincerity of belief has no bearing on the veracity of a belief. You don't have to accept the Church's teachings about "the devil" any more than you have to accept the ancient Greek belief in centaurs. Shown here is South Metope XXVIII, originally from the Parthenon in Athens, now on display at the British Museum, London. Photo credit JAT 2023.

Just last week, the Globe and Mail published a brief article about three cult members in Baltimore who have been convicted in the death of a toddler ("U.S. Cult Members To Be Sentenced For Starving Child," The Globe and Mail, May 18, 2010). Says the article, "Prosecutors say cult leader Queen Antoinette told the mother that denying food would cure her child's rebellious spirit." What had the child done? He had refused to say "Amen" after meals.

The article also includes this eye-popping fact: the child's 23-year old mother (who is already in a residential treatment program) made an unusual plea bargain "in which her plea will be withdrawn if the child is resurrected."

If the child is resurrected?

Many members of today's church would like to distance themselves from this kind of bizarre thinking, and would like to pretend that church teachings on the devil, on Judgment Day, on bodily resurrection of the dead, and on exorcism aren't really real. But these teachings are real. And they continue to create terrible suffering in the world today.

Let me be clear. I'm not saying that the devil is real. I'm saying that the teachings about the devil are real.

The teachings are still official church law. If you're a righteous Christian -- a sincere, devout, faithful believer in the church's teachings -- you're supposed to believe in all this apocalyptic b*llsh#t.

Mind you, apocalyptic b.s. is not new to the world, and it's not limited to Christianity. Scholars aren't sure when apocalyptic religious claims first surfaced, but they know that plenty of bizarre apocalyptic claims about God and the devil had been circulating long before Jesus of Nazareth lived. There's a lot of raw apocalyptic material in Plato's writings, but Plato wasn't the only one to make dualistic claims about good versus evil. There's a long track record for this kind of scary religious belief, and it's found all over the world.

Why is it found all over the world? It's found throughout history and throughout the world because -- radical thought, this -- because serious mental illness is found throughout history and throughout the world.

Human beings all share the same basic DNA. Part of our human DNA package includes a susceptibility to major mental illnesses such as unipolar depression, psychotic depression, bipolar disorder, psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia, not to mention addiction disorders, personality disorders, and psychiatric symptoms that are secondary to primary medical disorders. (For instance, sepsis -- systemic blood poisoning -- can cause sudden psychosis). Certain kinds of major mental illness are known to lead to certain kinds of recognizable -- but highly dysfunctional -- thinking patterns.

Apocalyptic thinking patterns are dysfunctional. I don't care that apocalyptic beliefs have been enshrined in many different major world religions. I don't care that I'm supposed to fully honour and respect everybody's religious beliefs. I refuse to honour any religious belief -- whether it's Christian, Kabbalist, Muslim, animist, or whatever -- if that particular belief system is founded on teachings that emanated from mental illness. So I don't care what somebody's revered prophet once said if that prophet showed clear signs of mental illness. Apocalyptic teachings are a clear sign of mental illness.

The human genome hasn't changed much over the past few millennia, and that means that prophets who lived and taught 3,000 years ago had the same basic DNA as you and I. They had the same vulnerability to biologically-based psychosis as you and I. The difference between then and now is that we finally have the tools to recognize these major mental disorders, and we finally have some good treatments for them -- such as SSRI's and olanzapine.

I have no patience and no sympathy for people who tell me that all religious traditions are equally worthy of respect. They are not. Religious traditions founded in dysfunctional, dualistic, good versus evil thinking are not worthy of respect. This means I believe that some aspects of the Christian tradition are not worthy of respect. I also believe that some aspects of certain other religious traditions are not worthy of respect.

I'm not going to apologize for this. Religious leaders have a moral duty to reexamine the traditions of their respective faiths to weed out all teachings that originated in mental health disorders, teachings that continue to contribute to mental health disorders, teachings that create great harm in the world today.

The church must take responsibility for its past failure to work closely with scientific researchers who have been trying to show that bizarre, abusive behaviour is a medical, social, and educational issue, not a spiritual or religious issue involving evil forces.

The church needs to "grow up." It's not helpful to anyone -- especially to those who have a genetic vulnerability to major mental illness, and are therefore easily traumatized by teachings about evil forces -- for us to pretend that we can all happily and lovingly accept every "religious belief." We can't. Each world faith must start to take responsibility for its own doctrinal garden. Each world faith must begin to weed out the destructive teachings that have grown in its garden over the centuries. Each world faith must plant new seeds that can close the current and utterly inexcusable chasm between science and faith. Each world faith must begin to cherry-pick among its own teachings, and keep only those teachings and traditions that allow people to enter into a full, loving relationship with God based on the values of trust, courage, devotion, and gratitude.

This is what Jesus was trying to say 2,000 years ago. Maybe it's time we listened.

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Once upon a time, long, long ago and far, far away, there was a certain man who was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. He fell into the hands of robbers who were led by a man named Saul. They stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half resurrected.

Now by chance an orthodox Western priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a universalist ecumenist, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 

But a woman who came from a distant land and had also once been beaten and left for dead by her kinfolk came near him; and when she saw him, she was moved to pity. She bandaged the wounds that had been bleeding for 2,000 years, and she took him to the local women's shelter. There the little children knew him, and those who were like the little children knew him. 

The man who was just a man happily died.

Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers led by Saul?

"On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, 'Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!' When he saw them, he said to them, 'Go show yourselves to the priests.' And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, 'Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?' Then he said to him, 'Get up and go on your way; you faith has made you well'" (Luke 17: 11-19). Photo Credit JAT 2013.

CC12: Update on "the Sin Within"

Yesterday, the Globe and Mail published an AP story by Nicole Winfield (May 16, 2010, updated on May 17) entitled, "Thousands Flock to Vatican to Back Pope Over Abuse."

At the Vatican. Photo credit J MacDonald 2011.

 

According to the report, approximately 150,000 people showed up in St. Peter's Square on Sunday, May 16, in a spontaneous show of support for Pope Benedict XVI. Banners had been hung in the colonnade, including a banner that said, "Don't be afraid, Jesus won out over evil."

The article quotes the Pope as saying, "The true enemy to fear and to fight against is sin, the spiritual evil that unfortunately sometimes infects even members of the church." 

The mayor of Rome, Gianni Alemanno, was among the faithful in the Square. Alemanno told AP journalists that "we want to show our solidarity to the pope and transmit the message that single inidividuals make mistakes but institutions, faith and religion cannot be questioned."

Meanwhile, on the home front here in Canada, the Roman Catholic Primate of Canada, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, is in hot water because he was "simply stating church doctrine" when he told a reporter that it's always morally wrong for a woman to have an abortion, even in cases where the woman has been raped (Nelson Wyatt, "Statement From Catholic Cardinal About Abortion and Rape Causes Uproar," The Globe and Mail, May 18, 2010).

Notice here that church doctrines -- the formal belief statements touted by the church as "truth" -- are being placed on a pedestal. The doctrines themselves are sacred. Sacrosanct. Holy. They act as a divine shield against that horrible cosmic power called "sin" or "the Devil." Unfortunately, individual people sometimes get attacked by evil despite the protective power of these doctrines. Therefore, the faithful must redouble their efforts to obey the moral laws contained within the doctrines, says the Church. In other words, it's all right to challenge the actions of individual abusers, but it's not all right to challenge the doctrines that contribute to the creation of these abusers. Even when the doctrines violate all common sense and all common humanity, the doctrines are right and you are wrong.

These Christian leaders show us that they are cowards. They lack the courage to trust in God, they lack the courage to take responsibility for the historical errors of church doctrine, and they lack the courage to make meaningful changes.

I see no evidence in their teachings or in their behaviour that they actually believe in a loving God. However, I see plenty of evidence that they believe in a God who loves some children more than "he" loves others (i.e. election), who is too stupid and too weak to prevent cosmic sin from entering Creation, who thinks it's okay to hold a major grudge-fest for all eternity against one man and one woman who made a mistake (i.e. Adam and Eve), who is required to follow all the laws and doctrines that male church leaders have dictated to God over the centuries, who is going to have a really big yard sale one day in the future to clear out all the unwanted garbage (according to the church's teachings about Judgment Day, that garbage might be you!), and who is so touchy and narcissistic and sensitive to an attack on "his" sense of honour that he couldn't stand the thought of fixing the sinful world alone, and had to send in a pinch-hitter (Jesus) to save "Team Humanity" from that wily guy who's pitching for the other side.  

Does this sound like the kind of God you want to get close to? Because this is the God that fills the pages of orthodox Western Christian theology. This is the portrait of God that "cannot be questioned." This is the portrait of God that cowards like to hide behind.

Not every church leader is a coward, and not every Christian is a coward. These days, individuals from all religious traditions are challenging the teachings of their conservative leaders, and are asking daring questions about God. Some of these people are so distressed by the narcissistic intransigence of their own conservative religious leaders that they're leaving the church and seeking spiritual solace in other ways. 

Please ask all the questions you can. Only through our honest questions and honest answers can the church of the third millennium heal the sense of "brokenness" that many writers have described.

Please help find a way to invite God the Mother and God the Father into our hearts and our lives. Our beloved Mother and Father are nothing like the fickle, judgmental, authoritarian dude described above. Jesus knew this. I've had the privilege to come to know this. I invite you to know this, too. God loves all their children. 

Even you.

CC9: "The Sin Within"

Like many people, I've been following media reports about the sex abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church. 

At the Vatican. Photo credit J MacDonald 2011

 

On May 11, 2010, the Globe & Mail published a Reuter's story entitled "Pope Says 'Sin Within' Is Church's Greatest Threat." There are two parallel threads in this report. The first thread is the Pope's statement that "today we see in a truly terrifying way that the greatest persecution of the Church does not come from outside enemies but is born of sin with the Church." 

The second thread is encapsulated in this quote from the Pope: "We must admit that the Catholic faith . . . was often too individualistic. It too often left concrete things to the world and thought only of individual salvation and religious affairs without realising that there was a global responsibility (for economic decisions)." 

Ya think? 

Hmmm . . . maybe there's a connection between the second thread and the first one. Maybe -- just to go out on a limb here -- maybe the Vatican's own theological belief structure of sin and salvation is a major contributing factor to the abusive behaviour of some of its senior clergy. 

I really, really hope that when Benedict says "the greatest persecution of the Church does not come from outside enemies but is born of sin within the Church" that he isn't trying to imply that the true source of this "sin" is Satan, a.k.a. the Devil. It would be typical of orthodox Christian thinkers to try to pass the buck to the Devil. Christians have been pulling this stunt since the apostle Paul wrote his Letter to the Romans. (In Romans, Paul made "sin" a sort of cosmic force, and many other Christian authors followed Paul's lead.) Yet, before Paul, there was apocalyptic literature. Read that stuff (including some of the Dead Sea Scrolls) and you'll hear all kinds of paranoid speculation about the cosmic battle between Good and Evil. Long before that, Plato was scaring the crap out of people with his Evil World Soul doing battle with the Good World Soul (see Plato's Laws). Yup -- there's a time-honoured tradition amongst philosophers and theologians of blaming bad behaviour on the devil. (I'm old enough to remember comedian Flip Wilson's famous line, "The Devil Made Me Do It.")

Lest you think I'm being unfairly suspicious about the Pope's beliefs, the honest truth is that Original Sin and the Devil are still very much a part of official Roman Catholic doctrine. If influential senior clerics didn't still believe this stuff, they would take it off the books. 

It's too easy to blame bad choices on an imaginary Devil. We have enough difficulty trying to understand our relationship with God without making up stories about big bad scary evil beings. There are plenty of logical scientific explanations for abusive human behaviour -- particularly scientific observations related to brain physiology and mental illness. 

Occam's Razor: go with the explanation that requires the fewest assumptions. The simplest assumption in this instance is that the Roman Catholic church has not properly assessed its clerics for evidence of psychological dysfunction. No imaginary Devil is needed in order to explain the abusive behaviour of these men. It's just plain old fashioned brain chemistry. 

An even simpler assumption is to ask what happens to people's brain chemistry when they're told over and over, year after year, that human beings are a worthless, sin-ridden lot who may, if they're lucky, be blessed with the gift of salvation, but could just as easily end up in the eternal torments of hell. I'm thinkin' these teachings are probably as healthy for the brain as a dose of carbon monoxide. 

The reason carbon monoxide is so deadly is that it bonds like crazy glue to hemoglobin in the bloodstream, and hogs the sites where oxygen molecules are supposed to catch a ride to your body's cells and tissues. You end up asphyxiating invisibly from the inside out because you can't get enough oxygen into your brain, organs, etc. -- even though you may still look normal on the outside. 

If the church fills up people's brains with toxic "carbon monoxide" teachings, there's less and less room available for the life-giving "oxygen" of Jesus' teachings about divine love. 

It's well known that people who've been poisoned by heavy metals can show marked changes in behaviour. (The classic example is the Mad Hatter who, in former days, used mercury salts to craft gentlemen's hats, and gave himself mercury poisoning). 

Maybe we shouldn't be surprised that some Roman Catholic clerics are behaving so badly. Many of them seem to be suffering from a case of self-induced "sin poisoning."