Taking the Hate out of Church

I’m constantly amazed that people can hate and kill in the name of a loving God. I think this trend is very sad, destructive, and could actually lead to serious damage to the planet and the human race.

There’s a very powerful, vocal, active, and in my opinion dangerous group of religious people in the US who call themselves “Christians” who are trying, and in some ways succeeding, in taking over our government and our country.

The people I’m talking about are also called “Christian Fundamentalists”, “Extreme Right Wing Christians”, “Fundies”, or, as I like to call them “Christian Fascists”. Now, if the definition of a “Christian” is someone who emulates Jesus Christ in their thoughts and deeds, then these people clearly aren’t Christians – they just call themselves that.

As I’ve said in previous posts even though I admire and attempt to emulate the teachings and ways of Jesus, I would never call myself a Christian because of the terrible taint the Christian Fascists have had on the very term “Christian”. So, that got me thinking, are there any religions out there that are actually rational? Tolerant? Dare I ask… loving?

Well, there’s good news brothers and sisters – the answer is YES!

First lets talk about The Unitarian Universalist Church. This church began in the 1770’s and their credo features phrases like “It is our covenant to affirm and promote the inherent dignity and worth of every person; Justice, equity and compassion in human relations; Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations; A free and responsible search for truth and meaning; The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all; Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part”. WOW!

The Unitarians have over 1,000 churches in the US and they sound like pretty terrific people.

Next is The Church of Reality. This is a real on-line church that has actually gotten its 501(c)3 tax exempt not for profit organization status from the IRS. The Church of Reality is an “open source” religion without any actual buildings, and here is some of what they say about their church:

“Realists are not without values or morality. Our values are based on Humanism rather than a holy fictional book. As Realists, our values include Positive Evolution, Exploration, Honesty and Integrity, Freedom, Individualism, Peace, Courage, Environmentalism, Compassion, Justice, Inclusiveness, Scrutiny and Doubt, Humility, Reason, Wisdom, and Personal Responsibility. We believe in Original Virtue rather than Original Sin. We are a Doubt-Based rather than Faith-Based religion. These Sacred Principles form the basis for our Church Doctrine and are logically consistent with our missions.

The Church of Reality is an evolving religion. We are not tied to a fixed doctrine that was written in the past and is slowly becoming obsolete. If we get it wrong, we fix our mistakes. We are an Open Source Religion and everyone is welcome to participate in the development and improvement of our religion. We live on a vast wondrous universe that we are just beginning to explore. Why would someone want to waste their entire existence on a fictional world view when there's all this wonderful reality to investigate and understand?”

I personally don’t think that being a member of a church is necessary for enlightenment, but the more I think about it the more I think it’s a good idea to strengthen and popularize good churches perhaps in the hopes of weakening intolerant churches filled with hate.