While I have tried to remain civil, eventually something was going to snap. Here's what did it - one of the places in Bristol that I most loved was evicted and destroyed, for the sake of "the advancement of the Roman Catholic and Christian faith". (see: https://freefactory.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/against-eviction-and-gentrification-in-st-pauls-for-the-defence-of-liberated-spaces/). This happened six months ago, but it is only now it's been gone so long that I realise exactly what this place meant to me. It sounds stupid and sentimental, but it's taken this long to realise that I'm pissed off that an awesome project was destroyed by Christians doing God's work. Every time something like this happens I start to hate it a little more, and now it's got to the point where I have to vent or explode. What follows is a self congratulatory rant about how I found out that the Church was crap. Read it if you want to, I guess :-).
Six years ago, I discovered something beautiful - something that made sense. I called it the Kingdom of God. I could write chapters about my 'journey', but I'll spare you the poetics and get to the point. I realised that if you took the moral teachings of Jesus literally, three things happened - first, the rest of the Bible started to make sense, second, they had profound political consequences, third, life took on a new sense of purpose. Jesus commanded the rich to give up all their possessions, and share with the poor. He commanded that we love our enemies. He commanded that we love God and our neighbour before anything else - including the law. Jesus' non-violence and care for the poor at all costs has obvious political consequences - Christians have an obvious obligation to work against oppression and poverty, at all costs. Allowing Jesus to be political makes some of his more obscure statements make a lot more sense. "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour." is a weird thing to say if it just means something spiritual. Finally, Jesus' command to love our neighbour at all costs has profound personal consequences - you can't live in an expensive house, drive a Mercedes, and run a bank, if you want to follow Jesus. If you've got all that stuff, you have to give it up. If you've got fuck-all, then rejoice! - God's on your side: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.".
The honeymoon period only lasted so long, however. For one thing, living up to this new ideal proved to be a lot more difficult than I'd expected, as did working out what it really meant. Though, I couldn't help feeling that if it wasn't just me, things would be a lot easier. Why shouldn't my congregation and family, who had been worshipping Jesus and reading about him for so long, be able to help me out? Well, it turned out I couldn't find ANYONE I knew who had sold everything they had and given it to the poor. Nor anyone who was a conscientious objector. I could, however, find plenty who lived in the richest part of my city, and drove expensive cars. On closer inspection, I found something. Some people gave 10% of their income to charities. Some people tried to forgive other people a little. However, I was uncomfortable that this was the best the Church had to offer. The fact was that even though we all paid lip-service to the martyr who died on the cross, no-one really went out of their way or did anything daring. Unless it was in order to convert sinners, of course.
At first, I assumed that people just hadn't imagined that their lives could be anything other than what they were - that they just needed someone to give them an example of what it could mean to follow Jesus. As time went on, I realised that people liked things how they were, that they didn't want any more from God, especially if it meant taking risks! So, I studied hard and began to try and argue people into following Jesus. I thought if I could just show them that the simple things Jesus said (never mind the complicated ones, they could come later!) - for instance, "love your enemies" (i.e. don't kill them), really were intended to be lived, then they would start to try it out. When I did this, everyone had their excuses (or, as it's commonly known, theology). However, though I always started with the simple, literal stuff, I had been studying hard, so I had a pretty convincing theology too. (to be fair, this is no reason to be arrogant - it is always going to be easier to argue that the son of the living God meant what he said). Finally, just when I thought I was getting somewhere, people might commend me for having an 'interesting perspective', or for 'making them think'. Worst of all though, was when they nodded and agreed with me! This was almost always an intellectual agreement, often they would carry on doing the exact opposite in real life.
Though I did not manage to convince anyone this way, I did manage to eventually meet a few kindred spirits, and start trying to live out the 'Kingdom of God'. Sharing more of what I had, doing non-violent political activism, and protesting war. Despite having spent literally years searching, out of the millions of Christians in this country, I have only ever met a few people who really believe in the simplest of Jesus' teachings - in non-violence, in loving at all costs, in working to liberate the oppressed. Of this few, only a handful are actually making any real attempt at living it (i.e. an attempt involving real sacrifices or changes). When this handful are not being ignored, pitied, or despised by the mainstream 'Church', they are held up as Saints. Sometimes this is due to honest guilt - people point to them to show that not everything is wrong with the Church, that even though they are not good enough, there are a few holy examples who are perfect enough to do something. (by the way, I have met these 'saints' and they are very far from perfect and are simply normal human beings) Sometimes it is more sinister - Christians revere their saints because they help the image of their religion, and allow them to convert more of the heathen. I have met more than one bastard evangelist who pretends to love 'radical' christians, simply in-order to ensnare more unsuspecting atheists.
Anyway, eventually I left the church completely. Once I had managed to make some small steps towards integrity, two things happened. First, I got to know some really good people who were trying to change the world. They all had something to teach me, and none of them were Christians. Second, I started to feel used by the Church I was in. Although I had felt dissatisfied with the churches I had been in for a long time, and believed that their very existence was one of the reasons behind the apathy of the people in them, I had stayed in order that I might try and convince people of something different, and perhaps change it from within. This all fell apart one day when a preacher said to me "I often worry that my church isn't radical enough, but because you're here, I know we must be doing something right". Before this, I could not have imagined that my very presence in a community could be enough to make them feel justified! It was as though the fact that I was there made it ok that most of the congregation lived off the backs of the poor, and supported war and killing. So I had to leave. Thankfully, by this point I had already begun to feel more comradeship with those on the 'outside' anyway.
Once I had left that dreaded institution, I got to thinking about God, and Jesus. If Jesus' message was really compelling, why did not more people try and follow it? If God really transformed people's lives, why after travelling for miles (in a so-called christian country!) and searching for years, could I only find a handful of people making any sincere attempt to live lives based on justice? And why is it that people who are not Christians often seem to be doing just as good a job of living good lives as those who believe? I understood that Jesus would not transform the world right now, and that until the second coming of Jesus we would only see the 'first-fruits' of his Kingdom - a few healings here and there, a few hungry people getting fed, a few prisoners getting freed. However, I did not see the slightest evidence of God using any of his miraculous to liberate anyone. Nor did the argument 'God uses people to change things' hold water any longer - I had met too many good atheists. As such, I was left with a choice - I could deny that God exists. Else, I could believe that God changes people regardless of what they read, pray, or believe, and that he does miracles in a way that no-one could notice. Either of these choices spell the death of religion. If praying, reading the bible, or believing in Jesus do nothing to transform you as a person, you might as well be an atheist. If God never does anything visible, there is nothing there for you to worship or thank him for. Realising this, what is left of Christianity? At best, it is an opiate that gives a few struggling people hope, despite being a fiction (and I see nothing wrong in opiates). At worst, it is an incredible waste of human time and energy, that helps the worst people in the world to feel justified in what they are doing, yet saps the strength of the very best. Despite possessing a holy book that commands care for the poor, that book is used as the cornerstone of vast and expensive buildings while people without home or shelter beg for places to sleep. For myself, I want nothing more to do with it.
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
Tim
