Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," blue politics, bored gods, and buzzards all the time! If you're new to the fold, welcome! If you've been here since the dawn of time, thank you so much! I love you all.
I also love the United Methodist Church. Being a member changed my life.
Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Wait a minute. This is a Pagan blog." And you would be right. But that doesn't mean I can't feel some gratitude toward the good ol' UMC.
When my first daughter was born, her great-grandfather took me aside and made me promise to raise her "churched." He was Roman Catholic, and thank all the bored gods he didn't ask me to take her to that den of scoundrels. But he did want her to be "churched."
I said yes. I was fond of the old fellow. My own parents were faithful church-goers, and I had grown up going to church every Sunday. So I pretty much went eenie-meenie-miney-mo among the Haterfield (aka Snobville) churches and landed at the Haterfield United Methodist Church.
I attended for 16 years, almost every Sunday.
The experience was demoralizing, frustrating, and irritating. I got along best with the diaper babies in the years when I ran the crib room during the 11:00 service.
For awhile the church had a chill and liberal pastor who regularly excoriated his flock for being privileged and complacent. (He was unpopular.) When he resigned, matters went downhill. And still I went, and I took my daughters, and they hated it. But I had made a promise.
There wasn't one moment when I decided I'd had it with the United Methodist Church. There were about 125. Maybe more. But what put the kibbosh on my membership for good was when the national leadership defrocked a female pastor when she told her congregation that she was gay.
Mind you, her congregation already knew. And they loved her. What she did was, she made a public pronouncement about her identity. That's all it took. She lost her job.
The hypocrisy was astonishing. I bounced.
For the record, both of my daughters were happy about it. They are blissfully "unchurched" to this day.
I formally severed the ties with HUMC in 2004. Long time ago! But this week in the New York Times, I read that they are still persecuting gay clergy to this day. Times may have changed, but not the United Methodist Church, by cracky.
Readers, I am so deeply grateful to have enjoyed 15 years of Paganism, free of the UMC, free of that hidebound Bible, free of the well-dressed snobby hypocrites, free of the stewardship sermons, free of the cackling hens in the "women's circle." Free of a place that discriminates!
Since 2004 I've met many, many fascinating people from many spiritual paths. I've explored several of those paths myself, before settling on my own eccentric blend of pantheism, ancestor veneration, and buzzard worship. None of that, not one single post in this long-lived blog, would have been possible if I had stayed with the Methodists.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Methodist church! Your stunning inability to recognize the dignity and worth of every human being was the final push I needed to step right out of Christianity and not look back.
Altar call: Some of you might be contemplating a similar move. Do it! There are Other Voices in other rooms! You can change your life! Our operators are standing by to take your call.
4 comments:
This is an amazing story.
It's odd the way that even though I (and many other people I know) aren't following the Christian path, there can still be a ... nostalgia, maybe?... for the cultural tradition. MY mother, who is a lifelong Catholic, has been extremely disgusted and frustrated by the recent scandals, but when she talks of leaving, there's a part of me that wants to talk her out of it.
But treating people with dignity and love should be the first task of any religious faith. If it can't be part of making us healthier and bringing the world together, it's not worthy of the name.
Let 'em crash.
Great post, Anne! I enjoyed reading about your spiritual journey away from the UMC.
There is no reforming such institutions from within. People must vote with their feet and leave in order to be free. I have not been a believing or practising Christian for 40 years now and have never regretted it for one instant. Taking responsibility for my own spiritual growth was the best thing I ever did. I went far further and much deeper for myself as a woman and a lesbian than would have ever been possible in Christianity, even assuming that I had continued to believe in the basic Christian doctrines.
I left the catholic church in 1977 and never looked back. praise be the flying spaghetti monster!
It is not the people. The people are basically good people - they have just drunk the cool-aid. Church people are like the Trump voters: fine friends and neighbors but easily influenced. The are so pious in their own judgement that they readily judge everyone else by their standards.
Churches apposed integration in the south, they led the way against interracial marriage, they have staunchly apposed gay marriage and gay people, their professed piety and outward bigotry has always been their credo; but hidden under the worship of the invisible man.
the Ol'Buzzard
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