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<DIV><FONT size=2><BR><FONT size=3><SPAN class=green-kicker>Senior pastor,
Advent United Church of Christ in Columbus, Ohio</SPAN> </FONT>
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href="http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/susan_k_smith/">Susan
K. Smith</A></H2>
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<P>Smith, a Yale Divinity School graduate, is author of "Crazy Faith: Ordinary
People; Extraordinary Lives", a winner of the 2009 National Best Books Award.
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<H1
style="MARGIN-TOP: 15px; FONT-FAMILY: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 5px; FONT-SIZE: 18px; FONT-WEIGHT: bold">God,
yes; organized religion, no</H1><!-- begin blogger thumbs --><!-- end blogger thumbs -->
<P><EM><STRONG>Q:</STRONG>What should pastors do if they no longer hold the
defining beliefs of their denomination? Do clergy have a moral obligation not to
challenge the sincere faith of their parishioners? If this requires them to
dissemble from the pulpit, doesn't this create systematic hypocrisy at the
center of religion? What would you want your pastor to do with his or her
personal doubts or loss of faith?</EM></P>
<P>Mahatma Gandhi was said to be studying Christianity and was impressed with
Jesus. He was studying law in South Africa, and was on his way toward becoming a
Christian. He decided to go to a Christian church to worship.<BR><BR>A white
elder met him at the door and asked him what he was doing; Gandhi said he wanted
to enter the church to worship. The elder told him he'd do no such thing: "There
is no place for you here, Kaffir. Go away or I will throw you down the
stairs."<BR></P><A id=more></A>
<P>Gandhi left, and later said, when asked about Christianity, "I like your
Christ. I do not like your Christians." He admired Jesus but said that followers
of Jesus were not like their Christ at all.<BR><BR>I say all of that to say that
I believe in God, but I believe less and less in organized religion.
Christianity is a disappointment, not because of God and not because of Jesus,
but because of people.<BR><BR>As an African American, I believe with every fiber
of my being in God. It has been God, surely, who sustained black people through
the horrors of what we have been through in this country. It has been God to
whom we have turned for supernatural strength to hold on and push on, despite
great barriers put before us.<BR><BR>But Christianity, or more specifically,
Christians, have been a disappointment. Following Jesus should mean people know
what Jesus taught and seek to do it. That has not been the case. Christians, too
many of them, are Christian in name only.<BR><BR>Christians have been taught by
organized religion, and organized religion and its dogma and doctrine are as far
away from the ideal and idea of God that I hold onto as the east is from west.
Organized religion has pushed my idea and ideal of God to the side and replaced
it with human desires and interests. Organized religion has denigrated my idea
and ideal of God.<BR><BR>But therein lies a big problem: there is no ONE
theology. Niebuhr says that theology is anthropology; he says that theology is
"interested language," meaning the language about God is shaped by the interests
of the people who are teaching God.<BR><BR>So, too often, God has been taught as
an arm of people who oppress others and use God as justification. This God has
been at the helm of oppression, sanctifying racism, sexism, heterosexism,
militarism, and exclusion of others.<BR><BR>My God is not an exclusionist. My
God is love. My God demands that we love and accept other people. To me it is
not rocket science.<BR><BR>I am not surprised that there may be a lot of
preachers/pastors who are non-believers, and the reason I am not surprised is
because the state of the world bespeaks the phenomenon. We either have
non-believers or fundamentalists. Non-believers leave God out of the picture;
fundamentalists push a mean-spirited, racist, controlling God down our
throats.<BR><BR>When I was at seminary I was surprised when, on my first Sunday
there, instead of heading out to church, many of my classmates were heading to
the tennis courts.<BR><BR>I could not understand it. Why come to seminary if
you're not going to go to church? <BR><BR>I now believe that even as they began
to study, they did not believe in God. Seminary was just a step toward getting
to where they really wanted to be.<BR><BR>On the other hand, "believers" came to
seminary with zeal and excitement, but sadly, many of them have used God to
their purposes, to manipulate and control people to do their bidding. God is no
more in their pulpits than in the pulpits of the non-believers.<BR><BR>I
struggle with God, though I believe in God. God does not make sense to me, and
really, can make no sense to anyone, Tillich and other theologians
notwithstanding. We have an anthropomorphic way of relating to God, and an
anthropomorphic way of understanding God, myself included.<BR><BR>So, when God
does not do our bidding, which is often, we are at a loss. We wrestle with
theodicy; we come up wanting.<BR><BR>Many of us in the pulpit wrestle with this
God whom we do not understand, and try to figure out what we do not understand
to our flocks.<BR><BR>And yet, at the end of the day, I still believe that
people need God. I teach God as I can; how a person receives it (or not) is not
up to me. My prayer is that whatever I teach deepens their belief in God, so
that when the earth drops from under their feet, as the earth is wont to do from
time to time, they will have something more than their fear, anger or confusion
to latch onto.<BR><BR>I pray that whatever I teach about this mysterious God
will sustain them, and that they will not fall into despair. <BR><BR>That's all
I can do, and frankly, sometimes it feels like it is not even close to being
enough.<BR><BR>But I believe in God. I accept the stories in the Bible as
stories, but with inherent lessons that are valuable. I accept that I will not
ever understand God. I believe in this God. I believe in Jesus, and I believe
that both God and Jesus would hate how organized religion devalues
them.<BR><BR>Like Gandhi, I love Jesus. It is the followers of Jesus, we
Christians, with whom I struggle. We Christians who build the doctrinal and
dogmatic walls of organized religion.</P>
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<P style="LINE-HEIGHT: 140%" class=posted>By Susan K. Smith | March
18, 2010; 9:43 AM ET <!-- SOCIAL MEDIA SHARING BLOCK --><SPAN
style="DISPLAY: block; PADDING-TOP: 10px"></SPAN></P><A id=comments></A>
<DIV class=sectionhedComment><A name=comments></A>
<H3>Comments</H3></DIV>
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<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">As an African American, I
believe with every fiber of my being in God. It has been God, surely, who
sustained black people through the horrors of what we have been through in
this country.</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>How do you deal with the fact that it surely must have been your omnipotent
god that even allowed these horrors to happen?</P>
<P>Slavery is seen throughout the OT, rules on how to be a slave and how treat
your slaves. Slavery is an approved human practice in in your religion. How do
you deal with that?</P>
<P>Do you know who R.J. Rushdoony is?</P>
<P>Here's a quote from his book, <I>The Institutes of Biblical Law:</I><BR></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT color=#0000ff>"The white man has behind him centuries of
Christian culture and the discipline and the selective breeding this faith
requires… The Negro is a product of a radically different past, and his
[genetic] heredity has been governed by radically different
considerations."</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P></P>
<P>In fact, you are a follower of the same gods as the people who believe as
Rushdoony. They are incontrovertibly evil people. What kind of escapism are you
using to believe in the same gods as these people?</P></DIV>
<P class=posted>Posted by: barferio | March 19, 2010 6:22 AM
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