Pews Emptying

By -
It happens sometimes that I read one of my letters in a publication, agree with it, and discover I’m the author. (I admit my countless letters are one reason I haven’t blogged faithfully.)

It just happened again. I came upon a letter I submitted to National Catholic Reporter in December. It applauded an article about “churchless nones.” They are identified as non-affiliated with any religion in surveys of religious participation by the Pew Research Center. The article that drew my comment accepted “nones” as often being spiritual without being religious.
. . . If you’re looking for a place to comfortably park your soul, coming out as spiritual offers benefits.
But it wondered what the “nones” believe. I wrote,
What do they believe? It matters not what God-images draw them to the Inner Realm. But what’s better than the images given by the spiritual master Jesus? The inner Reign is like yeast, like a seed, like buried treasure, like a pearl (Matthew 13). I vastly prefer these images to the father-son gods created by the religion that claims to represent Jesus of Nazareth. 
I believe Catholic pews are emptying because the gods imposed by stale Mass language are no more credible among educated persons than pagan gods. We need a hierarchy that spreads teachings of the spiritual master Jesus instead of regulating liturgies to promote a god and male supremacy.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Though I place no labels on myself, I suppose many would consider me a "none". What do I believe? You could call my philosophy "What Is". I believe in what is, which, by the way, includes what isn't. Think about that. I've heard a description of God as "I am what am". To restate, I believe in "what am" and "what am not". They're the same thing. Or as the Grateful Dead once put it, "I don't trust in nothin', but I know it turn out right". Too simplistic for all you deep thinkers? Perhaps. Perhaps not.
January 14, 2018 at 11:24 AM
Unknown said…
Before the passionate, loving Jesus the Christ was practiced, the Catholic and Protestant Churches would have to empty their coffers, open their libraries, be "down" with the people, stop being political except for Truth and Justice, ....... and except for a very few.... that just isn't going to happen. And their are other reasons, Jesus' words were for Jews, not the gentiles. So, all other religious practices would have to be left alone. That isn't going to happen either.
January 15, 2018 at 3:48 PM
Karen Tate said…
I think pews are emptying for lots of reasons. The Christian brand is dying as more see the shallow and hypocritical everywhere, or the prosperity gospels, a linchpin to prop up capitalism that's run amok and killing us. Only the very scared or the most easily led remain, comfortable as part of the herd, or those who want to have dominion over everything that provides people individualism, liberation, joy or free thinking. Can't get Joel Osteen out of my head during the hurricane, not opening his mega church, making excuses, but all I saw was a rich man not wanting to get his carpet dirtied by the poor. I wish Jesus could come back and send them all to hell.
January 15, 2018 at 3:56 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Goddess in the Bible

By -
Linguistic, archaeological, and scriptural studies reveal that the people of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) worshipped the Goddess. Their literature is suffused with female images of the Holy One. This information came to me primarily from Raphael Patai in The Hebrew Goddess , Asphodel Long in The Absent Mother , and Phyllis Trible in God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality . An exclusively male God-image does not meet the psychological needs of humanity, and—here’s the surprise—it does not fully reflect our Judaeo-Christian heritage. According to Patai, "historical scrutiny" shows that for centuries following the Law of Moses, sole worship of Yahweh by the Hebrews "remained a demand rather than a fact," because the people chosen by Yahweh also worshipped Canaanite deities. In light of the thundering Bible prophets, that did not surprise me. What dumbfounded me was the scope, the popularity, and the legitimacy of Goddess worship as revealed by researchers free of ma...
Read more

Grace & spirituality, Part 2 (Guest Post)

By -
Those of you familiar with my conversation with Jeanette know that I'm an atheist; I do not believe in an anthropomorphic, creative entity called "God." I think that all the universe is natural - there is no "supernatural." But I also think that there is spirit, human spirit being part of that. And to me, spirit is tangible, natural, a function of the universal matter, light. I experience it, I can hear it, see it, feel it. It is a matter of attention and perception. Scientists, even atheist scientists, will someday identify how it works. Carl Jung, many years ago, spoke of observing “synchronicity”. He also posited the notion of the “collective unconscious”. I happen to think that there also exists a "collective sub-conscience," a universal knowing of yin and yang that connects us all to each other and everything else. It is in those places, I believe, that we find spirituality. I don't think that believing these things are molecular and sub-atomi...
Read more

Eckhart's Trinity

By -
The nexus of divinity and humanity lies not in one man but in the inner core of all creation . . . The only-through-Jesus stance violates the Nazarene’s message, but the image of Jesus Christ helps our human minds to recognize the divine-human connection. God Is Not Three Guys in the Sky Language about the Trinity confuses people because meanings of words change. “Hypostatic union” is indeed defined as two natures, divine and human, in one person—Florian was correct about that. And “Trinity” refers to three persons in one God. The center of confusion is the word “person.” We moderns envision persons as individuals, but that’s not what the theologians who formulated the doctrine of the Trinity had in mind. When the word "person" first entered the doctrinal debate, it meant a mask or role—what an actor on the Greek stage put on—and it did not mean a distinct personality or a separate "I" as it does today. Persona may be closer to the original meaning than “person.” T...
Read more