posted
There has been a lot of discussion here about the role faith, religion and church should have in our own lives, politics, and world. We range from total control to total abstinence of the church.
Part of the debate is muddied because we all have different ideas about what a church is. I don't mean that we can't recognize that tall building with a cross on the top. I mean that how a religious organization defines itself and its purposes vary drastically.
A good example: The fact that the Jewish faith does not have an Evangelical component seemed to confuse and baffle some folks who's faith centered around the Evangelical drive. Someone even criticized the Jewish Jatraquero for not trying to spread the laws their laws all people.
For over a year I spent my time working with different churches in the region selling advertising for their directories.
The one thing that I discovered was that each church was drastically different from the last.
These differences I categorized in my mind, and ran to a nice list of 9 facets of the church that varied. Of course, they break down into three categories of three facets, a nice trinity of trinities.
Which made me wonder if I missed any, so happy to have a nice symbolic division.
If you rate your expectations from 0 (none) to 10 (Full and complete) you can define your church, synagogue, mosque, ashram or other institute.
What would be interesting is to take these to various religious organizations and have people fill them out. Then you see if there are notable similarities by Faith, Denomination, Location, and Size of Congregation. You can also see if there are notable differences within the same organization based on hierarchy, gender, years of worship, and a thousand other differences.
Group 1 Spiritual:
1) Person Spiritual Experience. How important is personal spiritual experience. 2) Hierarchy. How dependent are your on religious leaders to decipher, translate, intercede, or define your faith. 3) Logic. How important is logic, science, and historical accuracy to your faith.
Group 2 Social
1) Evangelism: How important is it to spread the faith to others? 2) Setting Moral Code for the Community: How important is it to set the moral code for all the community though actions ranging from political to providing examples. 3) Service to the Community: How important is it that you be of service to others. Hospitals, feeding the hungry, doing good works, and other options?
Group 3
Identity 1) How much of your identity comes from following this faith?
2) Individual. How much of your faith comes from identifying with a particular individual (other than the founder, if the founder of the faith has been dead for over 100 years).
3) Fighting Evil. How much of your faith can be defined by fighting evil, the devil, heretics, or the Un-Godly as compared to other aspects of living a faithful life?
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posted
I have a very good friend, an award-winning sf and fantasy writer. We were talking about church and he very freely and comfortably admitted that he doesn't believe any of the doctrine. He likes the social aspects.
Before you decry him as a hypocrite, I have quite a few friends who when they speak of church they only speak of a)Choir, or b)the dinners, or c)business networking, or d)the sports leagues.
And you don't have to go far to find ordained clergy or self-identified Christian scholars who don't necessarily believe that a)Jesus existed; b)Jesus was God's son, or c)Jesus was resurrected, even though the official doctrine of their church requires acceptance of all 3.
Posts: 270 | Registered: Apr 2009
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posted 06-04-2009 12:26 PM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have a very good friend, an award-winning sf and fantasy writer. We were talking about church and he very freely and comfortably admitted that he doesn't believe any of the doctrine. He likes the social aspects.
Before you decry him as a hypocrite, I have quite a few friends who when they speak of church they only speak of a)Choir, or b)the dinners, or c)business networking, or d)the sports leagues.
And you don't have to go far to find ordained clergy or self-identified Christian scholars who don't necessarily believe that a)Jesus existed; b)Jesus was God's son, or c)Jesus was resurrected, even though the official doctrine of their church requires acceptance of all 3.
-- This sounds like the common case of most American Jews. They go through all the rules, but don't believe in any of them. I have some it my extended family connections.
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posted
My mother claims to know a lot of academic types at universities in Utah who, like herself, belong to the LDS church but will admit in certain circles that they don't really believe in it, they just like the social aspects. It sounds like they want enjoy two somewhat incompatible communities: religious and the skeptical-scholarly. I'd have to think that there are also those who forego the latter inclusion but still privately maintain the same beliefs.
I think some churches are OK with this, but I don't really think it's okay within the purview of the LDS church; you're not supposed to take part in various church activities if you don't believe the doctrine. Maybe they don't, but then you don't get the full social benefits of inclusion, so I suspect most play along as if they believe when in the church context and take care not to be 'outed'.
I wonder how many of them 'bear testimony.' My mom took to standing and bearing testimony to things like 'I think God would love and accept everyone' to alleviate her anxiety about how her sons (in varying degrees of church activity and belief and church standing) perceived their personal worthiness.
She continues to attend. Part of this is definitely an identity issue. She was devout from infancy to probably 40-45 years of age. It's ingrained. She has had spiritual experiences of great importance to her which she still treasures. One of these is the feeling that someone loves and treasures her unconditionally. On an intellectual level she has rejected the notion that her church, or any church, accurately explains her spiritual life, but she embraces it still.
Her father was the individual who most impressed and inspired her to be religious. She hasn't lost that impression either; I think she grew up thinking her father was holy and would like to still believe that.
Service is an interesting one because I think she always resented it. Didn't like to receive it and didn't like to give it. She had a very busy life with six sons and various part time work and a huge garden and yard to care for, so she never felt she had excess capacity to serve others outside the household but felt obligated. She also was surrounded most of the time by people with more money, better organization, a better-lacquered social face. This made her ashamed and embarrassed to receive anything from them, most especially if it could be construed to be aimed at her lacks. Yet for a few friends she would sacrifice hours and days to try to help them through difficulty...mainly those she identified with I think.
Hierarchy, evangelism, moral authority, she has rejected nearly all of this. She has no residual fondness for patriarchal authority structure or claims to know Truth. In fact I think this is what pushed her away.
Logic, I might have to ask her about. How important it was to her as a believer, how she feels about the logical soundness of the doctrine now. It's a church that has little tolerance for paradox, certainly.
Since various churches discourage heresy (for varying values of 'discourage' and 'heresy') I expect variation within denominations to be much less than variation across, but I just finished describing significant deviation from the norm, so maybe I'm wrong. I think the data set would actually be VERY interesting, with these 9 dimensions.
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posted
Personally, I tend to find that there are few things more fatal to spirituality than the end result of generationally calcified dogma.
It gets stuck in its own rules and regulations while simultaneously straining to remain relevant and acceptable in modern-day mores. It gets downright Byzantine and leaves in place fairly stupid ideas.
I about want to cry when I see a couple in a loveless, terrible marriage and they honestly don't think they're allowed to get divorced, find someone new, and remarry, for instance.
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posted
When I was a kid we lived around snake-handlers (who go more properly by the term Pentecostals, although not all Pentecostals are snake handlers). Besides the great rock music which always accompanied their services, there was one thing which always greatly impressed me. If you claimed to have Faith, then you were expected to pick up the copperhead, or rattlesnake, handle it, hold in your mouth, and dance. Also, drink strychnine.
If you didn't want to do that every Sunday, fine. But in that case you needed to just shut up and don't tell anybody else how to live or what to do or how to act or what you think about God.
On the other hand, if you're a little wishy-washy about the God thing, there a probably a lot worse places to hang out than in a church and a religious community. Who knows what can happen there?
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quote:Originally posted by ken_in_sc: This sounds like the common case of most American Jews. They go through all the rules, but don't believe in any of them. I have some it my extended family connections.
1) Person Spiritual Experience. How important is personal spiritual experience. 2) Hierarchy. How dependent are your on religious leaders to decipher, translate, intercede, or define your faith. 3) Logic. How important is logic, science, and historical accuracy to your faith.
1) Pretty important. Then again, I'm not one of those people who "feels" very spiritual very often... the last time I had a truly holy moment was early in 2007. I do feel gentle nudgings, and sometime experience the numinous sensation though... I think maybe because I don't experience much "spiritually" it makes it all the more important when I do feel something. I do tend to get annoyed at people (usually middle-aged women) who gush about talking with Jesus every day and having constant wonderful experiences - I'm normally not one to judge, but a lot of them are pretty f'd up for someone who's supposedly in constant communication with God.
2) Not so much. I do appreciate my pastor and tall to him for guidance, but I'm not catholic - I don't believe he/the pope are pretty much God incarnate. I also believe that God gives people the mind and understanding to read and understand the bible without needing a priest to interpret.
3) It's important to me for my faith to be internally consistent - I can handle, for example, that parts of the bible may be mythical (and I mean this in the c.s. Lewis sense of "a story that underlies a greater truth", not "false" as myth has come to mean to some people) and appreciate that it has been written by human authors and translated and edited through the years, so it's not entirely reliable. But I also take the bible very seriously, and try to understand it. It's great to read the Epistles, for example, alongside a history book/website about the cities and people in question. It sheds a lot of light on the quotations used by Paul and others, the political and cultural atmosphere, a lot of subtle meanings that'd otherwise be lost. I think people tend to read the bible as an artifact to itself, rather than a part of history that makes more sense when fitted with the rest of the historical jigsaw. I'm a very curious, logical person, so this kind of stuff is fun for me.
Externally, I'm not one of those people that need their faith to by justified by science. I can discuss intricate details of evolution and understand it mentally, while also believing that God is responsible for the creation of life and giving meaning to it all. I'm sure he's got a way to make it all fit together, but I don't really buy into intelligent design or whatnot - I don't think the bible is meant to be a science textbook.
quote:Group 2 Social
1) Evangelism: How important is it to spread the faith to others? 2) Setting Moral Code for the Community: How important is it to set the moral code for all the community though actions ranging from political to providing examples. 3) Service to the Community: How important is it that you be of service to others. Hospitals, feeding the hungry, doing good works, and other options?
1) Pretty important. That being said, my main goal isn't to "win souls" and chalk up my bodycount, it's to tell people about the wonderful things God has done for me, and hope they can also find him and let him do some of those things for them. I typically don't start a conversation talking about God, but if it comes up and the person is receptive, I'll go ahead and do so. (I've shared my faith with all my coworkers, and most of my acquaintances. I'd like to get to know someone before talking about it, but I have with strangers in the past)
2) I'm pretty strongly against legislating Christianity, mainly because that always manages to come back and bite ya in the rear when you least expect it. I think the church should be an example for the community (a city on the hill), but should avoid trying to force standards - that just draws resentment, unless the church is acknowledged as the community leader.
3) VERY, very important. Arguably, the sermon about the sheep and goats is the most powerfully worded sermon Jesus ever gave, and it's been a central tenant to my faith since I became a believer. I believe service is at the core of Christianity, and while good works aren't necessary for salvation, if you're saved and the holy spirit is working through you, you'll be moved with compassion for the "least of these" and do what you can to serve. Pity and humility are great virtues, and I think Jesus lived his life as a servant for a reason - living with the poor, feeding the hungry, socializing with the outcasts (lepers and cripples), and especially his preaching of Jubilee (the year of the lord's favor).
Simply put, this is the core of Christianity. This is what Jesus did for us as a species (compared to him, we're far more destitute than that beggar/prostitute/drug addict), and he explicitly commands it of us.
quote:Group 3
Identity 1) How much of your identity comes from following this faith?
2) Individual. How much of your faith comes from identifying with a particular individual (other than the founder, if the founder of the faith has been dead for over 100 years).
3) Fighting Evil. How much of your faith can be defined by fighting evil, the devil, heretics, or the Un-Godly as compared to other aspects of living a faithful life?
1)More and more as the years go on. That's a good thing, I guess...
2) I identify with Jesus? I guess that doesn't count... no, I don't really identify with one specific Christian, so a "not at all" for this one.
3) By our good deeds, evil is subverted and ultimately, undermined. I think there's something to be said for spiritual warfare, but yeah... I don't believe in any holy wars or whatever. We're here to love people into following Jesus, not bomb or shoot them into loving him.
Hope that works for you! Keep on doing this survey, it'll be interesting to read other results...
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posted
I don't know if you're looking for actual responses to those points on this thread, but here are my brief responses from an LDS standpoint.
Spiritual: 1) Personal spiritual experience is very important--continued personal spiritual experiences are key to our faith, I would say, and an indispensable part of how our church functions. 2) We believe our leaders do have the authority and inspiration to guide and serve spiritually in the spheres in which they are called. We depend on them for certain guidance but also depend on our own personal relationships with God for guidance. 3) Science and logic are valued and certainly not ignored by church members. They aren't used to define core doctrine or arrive at spiritual truths.But they are certainly regarded as useful for what they can produce. Historical accuracy is obviously valued, as much as it is anywhere else.
Social: 1) We are very missionary-oriented. I would say our style differs greatly from many other churches, but it's definitely a big focus of the church. 2) Setting moral code isn't a primary drive of the church. We are reminded to be good examples and good friends and neighbors. 3) Service to the community is important. Not the primary focus of the church but definitely something that is done very regularly. Opportunities are offered all the time, and the church as a whole does quite a bit of service and charity work both locally and worldwide.
Identity: 1) My identity has stemmed partly from my faith and the beliefs about who I am that come from my faith. But certainly not entirely. I suppose my identity comes generally from the same sources everyone gets theirs from. 2) I certainly hold many church leaders as good examples and people with character traits I would like to emulate. My faith doesn't come from identifying with one particular person, however. 3) Fighting evil doesn't define our faith, I wouldn't say. There is the awareness of evil as a very real force to be avoided and resisted. We certainly aren't in the practice of calling people heretics and defining ourselves against them. Our focus is very much more positive, on living a good life and inviting others to share what we have.
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1. 10 Having a personal relationship with God is pretty much the point of the whole thing.
2. 5 The pastor's the guy who went to school to know what the book's saying. He's usually pretty good at knowing which bits are literal and which are metaphorical. I especially like it when he talks about words meaning something a little different in the original language. That usually adds a lot for me.
3. 8 I still have room to say "God did it because he's God", but I like the basics to make sense. For me personally, I find that they do.
Group 2
1. 7 The churches I've gone to like to share. I personally don't, and I've never had problems because of it. It's not that we feel we have to; it's just that we like it so much we want others to have the chance to experience it, too.
2. 5 We're much pickier about behavior within the church than without. (Paul even states at one point that non-believers aren't held to our standard.) But even when folks mess up, we still believe in love and forgiveness.
3. 8 Faith without works is dead. What does it matter if God gives you lots of spiffy gifts and you don't use them? It's not like there's a hard and fast rule anyone has to follow about how much or how often or even what kind of service they should give. (Except the tithe, but that's God's rule and dealt with by Him.) But the church organizes lots of opportunities to serve.
Group 3
1. 5 I don't run around defining myself as a non-denominal Christian - until I compare my beliefs to other people's. Then there's a huge difference, and I stick pretty close to what I was taught.
2. 0 We don't keep membership records, and I couldn't tell you anything higher hierarchy-wise than my own pastor. I can think of other parishoners I want to live like, but it's more of a role model thing.
3. 3 Evil should certainly be resisted, but we're more positive folk. We talk about actively doing good things, not so often the bad things we shouldn't do. Individual opinions on driving off demons may vary. Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
I wouldn't mind church, except for all the god stuff, so I can certainly understand how some people could go for the community aspects.
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quote:Originally posted by MightyCow: I wouldn't mind church, except for all the god stuff, so I can certainly understand how some people could go for the community aspects.
Have you considered becoming a Unitarian?
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posted
We (me, wife, two kids) attend a Unitarian Universalist "church". My wife is atheist (as are about half of the members) and I'm a deist / anti-Buddhist.
I'll address the questions as a generic Unitarian:
Group 1 Spiritual:
1) Person Spiritual Experience: Can be completely inseperable or completely non-existant. 2) Hierarchy: Generally non-dependant, but it depends on the group and individual. 3) Logic: Generally extremely important, but some people operate in a vacuum (without logic).
Group 2 Social
1) Evangelism: Somewhat important. Unitarians are generally very active in the community, though active prosthletizing is frowned on. 2) Setting Moral Code for the Community: Though Unitarians claim that everyone should have their own individual moral code, they heavily advocate liberal values (in most instances). 3) Service to the Community: Very, but it isn't required.
Group 3
Identity 1) How much of your identity comes from following this faith? Varies among members. 2) Individual: Varies among members, from complete to non-existant. 3) Fighting Evil: The group very actively fights "social" evils.
Unitarian Universalists do vary from congregation to congregation --- some may be completely atheist, eclectic (usually the norm), pagan, or fundamental Christian. For many people, it's almost a "religion substitue" where people can get the benfits of religion (socializing, community service, sense of belonging, etc) without participating in dogma.
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posted
Interesting. I never knew UUs had a strong atheistic element. I was under the impression that it was more a very liberal non-denominational church.
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posted
They're big on "everyone is welcome" but I think they probably expect you not to try too hard to convince the other church attendees (do they have 'members'?) that they should be atheist too. Just a guess, though. Herblay?
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posted
Like Herblay said, individual UU congregations vary considerably, running the gamut from strongly Christian to not at all, among other attributes one might choose... As for the religion as a whole, I wouldn't say that they have "a strong atheistic element" so much as the church embraces theists and atheists equally. The Unitarian Universalist Principles work just well if you believe in God or if you don't.
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