Relationship issues.

This story also originates from this "religious friend" of mine. She is now in another American Evangelical transplant church over in Germany. I think this one is not as extreme as the last - for a start the pastor is a Democrat(!) and struggled with persecution over in the US.

At my friend's wedding (my first exposure to an Evangelical wedding and in fact my first religious wedding), the pastor emphasised how marriage was a sacred vow and union ordained by God (no surprises there). He went into a lot of relationship advice-type preaching about the hard times in marriages, which I thought was novel, and maybe kind of cool. Although he did go on about the hard times quite a lot. And made marriage sound like a war. But to be honest, I preferred his straight-up There are going to be Tough Times line than the one taken by some others that now everything is going to be wonderful and glowy and easy and the couple are now going to get along like a house on fire just because God approved of the union.

Then he said something that really struck me. That what makes a good marriage is learning and growing (I don't think he said anything about exclusively female submission, surely I would have noticed) and being prepared to stick it out during the hard times. No problem there. But then he said that a truly good and wonderful marriage can only be achieved if God is present in the relationship.

Immediately my low self-esteem was triggered. I have been in a wonderful, Godless relationship with my "boyfriend" for 14 years. We are not married in the eyes of God or the law, because of my personal issues with marriage as an institution. However I want to be with him forever. I fully desire commitment until death do us part and am totally in this, for better or worse. I understand what that commitment means after 14 years, and I want it.

But those words caused me to question my relationship. Were we really doomed to have a sub-standard relationship without God? But we are dedicated to learning and growing and serving each other, and have already seen out some hard time,s and I hope will see out many more. I want to try harder and be better, for him. But even with this desire and our own best efforts, were we doomed to fail or struggle or have a lacklustre relationship without God?

My boyfriend (really partner is a better word) is quite simply the best thing that ever happened to me, the best thing in my life. I struggle with most things, but our relationship gives me constant joy. I feel immense sadness when I fail him and speak in anger or irritation. I do it often and battle with myself constantly and he has always had the grace to forgive and let me try harder. And I have done the same for him.

This may sound pathetic, but I cannot imagine living without him. My life is so deeply entwined with his. There is me, and there he is, and we are two individuals with different needs and ideas, and we nurture that as best we can. But there is also a third thing between us, a mutual thing, a life and language that we share, that is so much a part of me now that I feel like I would not be me without it. I would not know how to be without it, live without it.

Maybe some would call this unhealthy. I really do not think so, but it is not for me to judge.

I felt conflicted in that church, doubting the best thing in my life, the thing I felt I have truly done right. And then it occurred to me: obviously I do not believe, so this should not be an issue, but even if it is true, even if my relationship is not truly blessed, is not as great as it could be if God were present, it is still great.

I could not ask for anything more in my relationship. I feel thankful every day for it, and it may not be the superior Christian relationship that this pastor claimed was possible, but I would not change a single thing nor ask for one thing more than what I have. Even if we end up falling apart despite our hard work and best intentions because we did not join with God, I would not change a single thing about the last 14 years. They were a gift we gave ourselves and one bestowed with luck, good fortune and hard work.

We have been together for 14 years and I am still learning about him and how he works. I hope to keep learning for the rest of our lives. Together.

My substandard Godless relationship is everything I could possibly need. I hope that even my Godly friends can experience this. And if they get this and something even more, my best wishes to them.

The danger of submission.

I had never in my life come across the more fundamentalist branches of Christianity (that all seem to stem from the US) until one of my South African friends fell into the clutches of one of these churches. At the time I could not fully comprehend or comment on what she was telling me. I now believe that her church was a cult. It frightens me. I don't think she is in this extreme church any more. I hope not.

The church was American, but at an army base in Germany. It practiced conversion of homosexuals, literal interpretation of the Bible (at least the parts about Creation, all the rest appear to be metaphors according to the apologists?) submission and complementarianism.

She is an only child, a true leader. She was born to lead in every way that I was not. She led sports groups and volunteer groups and church groups. All of a sudden she came to me with this book on how to be a submissive wife. I should add that she had not found a prospective husband at that time in her life, her late twenties. This was, I am sure, a stressful thing. She had previously broken her own purity ideals but had repledged herself and been remade into a virgin (apparently this is a thing).

I won't go into my views about submission in women and wives now, that it another post. But I will say, the type of submission that she was trying to apply for herself was not good. Not a good idea at all. As a natural leader she was trying to learn to suppress her natural self. She was actively trying to work out how to let her future man make all the decisions. Some women are more likely to follow others in life, as are some men. I work best with a boss telling me what to do. I am a follower at work. At home I say what I think, take my partner's ideas into consideration and we decide together from there. That is a healthy way.

But as a natural leader, I was frightened that she would stifle all of her natural aims and desires and talents and that would lead her into a terrible state of depression and eternal failure. She would have to change her deepest self.

As a personal anecdote, I remember at the end of first year university I was voted as leader of the gymnastics club. This was simply because I was the person who attended most often, I was in fact the only loyal attendee in our already small group. That is what I do well, loyalty and pitching up. I was not very happy about recieving this role because I have no talent for leadership at all and find it incredibly and debilitatingly stressful, but I thought it was good to challenge myself. At the time my friend seemed very upset that she was not chosen, but I did not think too much about it. The fact was, she was not often there. So how could she lead the group?

Well the year that I was to lead was the worst of my life. I would have been a terrible leader anyway, I was not doing a good job before disaster struck, but my brother committed suicide, and I was an absolute mess who could barely get through a day. And my two gymnastics deputies disappeared from the scene, never to be seen again. I was alone, and I battled and hated every minute. IT was so hard for me to do what I needed to do for that club. I loved gymnastics, but this was not my talent and when I mourn, I go into hiding. For me, an introvert this is a healthy thing. I need to be alone to process and to heal. But I was forced to deal with things that I could not cope with and it was horrible.

By the end of that year when the voting time came, my friend was chosen as leader. She did a fantastic job. She led the group for the next four or 5 years until she left the country. She organised inter-African and international university competitions. She was the best for the job, out of all of us, male or female.

I was a terrible leader but not because I am a woman, because my talents to not lie there. She was a better leader than all of the men in the group and because of her, the group thrived where with me it floundered badly.

 If I had known how much she wanted to be leader way back in the beginning and how she thrived in that position, I would have happily let her lead. I derive no pride from leadership, it is only a burden to me, and I knew I did not want to lead. I only took it on because I was the only person who was there regularly.

I am HAPPY to see that now that she has moved and married, and had a child, that she plans to go back to work soon, that although her husband wants another child now, she allows herself to realise that she is not ready for a second just yet and needs to apply herself to her work for a while. I am HAPPY that her husband does not expect her to submit to him, because she is a woman. She is listening to herself again.

I think she is out of danger.

I think knowing yourself and paying attention to what you know about yourself are part of the keys to a healthy, balanced life. Submission, if you wish to call it that, should be mutual. A man can sometimes be a doofus, can be ignorant and unable to make a rational decision. As can a woman. That is why a relationship and community are good things - they are there to provide alternative views and provide balance.

At least I think so.

Did Jesus descend from David?

A query for today. Right at the beginning of Matthew there is a list of the descendants of Jesus, going back to David. Jesus is linked to David through Joseph, his earthly father.

HANG ON. Joseph had no genetic input into Jesus at all, so he is in fact not descended from David.

Apologists claim that the word for son and son-in-law are the same in Hebrew.  The version I am reading (Good News) mentions Joseph by name as the descendant of David. It says nothing about Mary. It was highly unusual for people in those days to trace heritage through a mother - it was only a father's line that was considered of any significance. Jesus was not genetically related to Joseph at all. Others argue adoption, but relatedness is to do with genes and nothing more. Jesus is not descended from David. How can Matthew be wrong? How can this Gospel be so vague?

Then there is the issue of Jesus's "brothers". I know it is offensive to Catholics (and perhaps other denominations) to consider that Mary had other children with poor old Joseph after Jesus, because in their minds anyone who gave birth to the Lord has to be perfect. Which makes no kinds of sense to me at all. No human on earth can be perfect, by the very nature of Christian sin. God did not get another Goddess to have his child, the whole point was for God to take human form. Mary was a human and could not be perfect. And since when was having sex outside of marriage wrong?

Anyway. Apparently the Hebrew word for brother is the same as for cousin. But that does not prove Jesus did not have brothers, it only casts a question mark over the issue.

What amazes me is with so may faulty ideas and contradictory claims, is that Christians so much WANT to believe, they CHOOSE to believe, that they are willing to overlook or explain away any number of issues. However if a con-man came to them asking them to lend him their bank account for his sick granny's inheritance, they would not accept any faulty ideas or contradictory claims at all. Most people have a level of self-protection in the form of a bullshit detector, but religion requires one to shut that very instinct down.

That people would willingly do that is a true mystery to me.

Let the dead bury their dead.

I am currently reading the Bible. I am starting with the New Testament because I want to really try to understand what Jesus was all about. Mainly I want to understand why C.S. Lewis said that if Jesus were not the Son of God he was a "lunatic... or the Devil of Hell".

Obviously as an atheist I do not believe that he was the Son of God (although of course this position may change after I finish the Bible), so I want to know why he would be a Devil of Hell. I get the lunatic part, in that it was possible that he was delusional. I think Lewis is indicating that if he was not delusional and not Divine, then he was conning everyone on purpose.

So far I have only read Matthew, and oh my, so many questions! I have had to Google almost every line, and never fear, there is an apologist to answer every query I may have!

The first major thing that bugged me - when a man who was told to follow Jesus asked if he could first go home to bury his father, Jesus says "Let the dead bury their dead"  (Matthew 8:22).

The man must rather go and preach the Good News of the Kingdom of Heaven.

My first thoughts : That was a little harsh, no? Also, Zombie Apocalypse, hello!

But after I moved on from the image of zombies with shovels digging graves I asked some sensible questions of Google.

Surely Jesus, although he is the Son of Man, yes, can allow a man to mourn? To attend his own father's funeral? Even I, a heartless atheist, can appreciate that the ritual of the funeral is one of the most desired rituals of those left behind, one that brings comfort to some and closure to others. He can preach the Gospel as soon as his father is in the ground, right?

Well, according to the apologists, Jesus is speaking in Metaphors, which is similar to Tongues, in that it makes little sense. Whenever there is a tricky line in the Bible, the apologists resort to metaphor. Which is weird, considering they are Bible literalists and take the clearly metaphorical Genesis (which is written with as much detail as to explain the world's origins in fable-form to six year olds) to be literally true.

They say that the man's father was not really dead (although I can see absolutely nothing in the text that suggests this) and he is asking to go and be with his old father until he dies, which may take ages, possibly just to get his inheritance.

The man literally just asks if he can bury his father. That is it. I can see only one interpretation of that sentence. Anyway, the apologists claim that Jesus was not literally saying that the dead would bury each other (ok, duh, I thought he was just being rude) but he was saying that the spiritually dead, those who are not Gospel followers, should attend to such things and that the one and only aim of Gospel followers is to preach and only preach, no mourning allowed! After all, you will see your father in the Kingdom of Heaven!

Only that is probably not likely, considering the poor man died just as Jesus got going. But anyway.

Anyone else out there have any thoughts on this verse?

An evangelical Presbyterian Methodist, with a sprinkling of fundamentalism thrown in.

Even though I consider myself an agnostic atheist, my exposure to various forms of Protestant Christianity is considerable.

I considered myself Christian until my mid-20s, then theistic, and only truly atheistic for the last 5 years or so.

South Africa was a "Christian" country before Apartheid fell. All the government schools were therefore Christian by default. The government favoured the Calvinism of the NG Kerk, but I remember the daily religious assemblies as being fairly non-denominational - a daily hymn and Lord's prayer followed by a Bible reading and then a Prayer - but then maybe I wasn't paying enough attention to the message. Also my knowledge of denominations was not great. Our schools were Calvinist in attitude - discipline was of utmost importance, they were still caning boys into the 90's, and rules and uniforms, and abstinence and piety (and NO SEX BEFORE MARRIAGE!) and all that stuff was thrown at us constantly.

Apartheid fell in 1990 and schools were opened to all races in 1991. I was 10, but compulsory Christianity in schools continued for my entire school career. My sister says that by the time she reached my high school they had done away with the daily Christian assembly and instead installed a secular daily assembly where they sang a song and recited a daily pledge about diversity, peace and tolerance. Why did I not get to go to school at this time?! That sounds right up my alley. It made sense. At my high school there was a large Hindu contingency (I am guessing that now the school is majority Hindu) and they along with all the Muslims and other non-Christians had to sit through the daily Christian assemble and weekly Bible study class.

I also voluntarily went to various Sunday Schools, churches and Youth Groups over the years. I find this really weird because my parents did not practice any religion at all, and nor did their parents. I think we were all brought up to be Christian at school and accepted ourselves as culturally Christian, but apart from that my parents were utterly apathetic towards religion. For that I am truly grateful.


Nevertheless, I was a child with a deep need to obey rules and do the right thing -  a bunch of kids were attending Sunday School - I probably just assumed it was something you were supposed to do so I took myself off to Sunday school.

The first one I attended was at my own Primary school in their hall and classrooms. I had no idea at the time what denomination they were. A few searches on the internet tells me that at first a Methodist group went there but it was taken over by a non-denominational evangelical group. So I started out a Methodist (supposedly) and then took up with the Evangelicals (strangely I did not pick up any differences in doctrine at all).

The Evangelicals then moved their church to another school. My memory gets really hazy now- I was on the cusp of going to highschool, but as far as I know a Presbyterian youth group and Sunday school then set up at my school. IT was run by a girl in my year's dad. The Evangelicals who had just moved out was run by another girl's dad. I remember attending both the Presby group and the Evangelical group during those times. I am not sure how or why.

The Sunday school lessons lost us. They were so boring, repetitive and not conducive to learning. There I was, a willing student who had given up my Sundays voluntarily and not at the wishes of my areligious parents - and they lost me. A big problem was that for some reason the other kids in our class were all from the mega-cool group in school. They did not care one bit about the Bible -they talked about boys, clothes and music during our lessons. Their main interest and activity was planning various dance routines that we would do for the church, wearing very dubious outfits that probably gave the real church members a heart attack.

When I got to high-school I gave up on this lot. I was getting the daily message at school, but I was wasting my time on Sunday. I was not cool, I was a total misfit and I was not interested in crop tops and swirly skirts and did not understand how they were related to church.

The friends I made at high school were uber-religious though. They were a diverse bunch, Catholics and Anglican and Methodists, but also some radical fundamentalist types. I went to a Youth group a few times. We all went. They were of the speaking in tongues type of people. This place scared the crap out of me. I was terrified of the girls who started sobbing while we were singing, and muttering, and laying hands on each other. I soon stopped going there. IT seemed too close to some kind of possession for me. This was a Pentacostal type place, strongly influenced by American style Christianity. There are many US-influenced churches, even in my small neighbourhood. American religious colonialism is a big thing.

 I never knew that any of these groups hated gay people, believed that the world was created 6000 years ago, and all the other things that have caused me to leave Christianity since. I was clueless. I see now that this particular group does not believe that women can lead faith-based learning. If I had known any of these things, I would have been quite shocked.

Somehow despite all my interaction with Christianity, very little actual information was being conveyed to me.

I did pick up during my time with the evangelical and fundamentalist groups that Christianity was about a feeling, some kind of divine feeling that you accept Jesus as your saviour and have a personal relationship with God. If it wasn't for this I may have been a Christian today. But that feeling never came. I wanted it to, I tried to feel it. I remember sitting in church, feeling guilty and confused because I didn't feel it - and then I just stopped worrying. It was not my fault I didn't feel it. You can't force a feeling. I had no pressure from my family to be religious so it was never a traumatic thing for me.

I still kept trying though. I attended an Alpha course. I could not tell you what even one word of that was about. I was a teenager and our group was led by someone our age. We did not even pretend to discuss whatever it was we were supposed to discuss - just school and parties and relationships. Our leader eventually asked me out. I told him I was not interested and did not know him. I was not attracted to him at ALL. I honestly thought he was kind of gross but that seemed so cruel I eventually said yes to him. Luckily he cheated on my soon after so I never had to kiss him. Ah, the dramas of Alpha. What a waste of my time.  Can someone tell me what Alpha is actually about?

Again, there I was, voluntarily offering myself to Christianity, and not one word of information reached me. No one took me, the willing raw material, and made a convert out of me. Missed opportunities, people.

The last attempt I made was back at the Evangelical church hosted by my friend's dad  - some or other course on youthful relationships (probably no sex before marriage, I truly had that one down already).

 I remember in Biology class I was exposed for the first time to the idea that some people did not believe in evolution, because my friend offered my teacher some theory about bones sinking differentially during the flood to confuse the scientists about times and ages of bones. I had never imagined that there was a problem reconciling God with evolution - his all-powerfulness seemed to fit perfectly with the beautiful and complex systems of Biology, whereas the Bible account sounded like a fable to help ancient societies have a grasp on our beginnings.

I was probably a total non-believer by then - I just went to these things out of kindness or obligation. I remember this same friend expressing her sadness that two of us girls were going to hell unless we were born again. I already knew I was unable to have this feeling that would allow me to be born again (I was religiously constipated!) and I remember the other girl and I just laughing and saying, oh well, at least we will be warm! And I still agreed to go to church events with her.

In my 20's religion never even entered my head (I still went sporadically to some churches if a friend asked me to, I am a very soft person). I was exposed to HIS people once - apparently they outlaw dating and hand-holding and other such fundamentalist things. We were told we needed to attend an official welcome to the university, so all the first years in my residence went along - we thought it was some kind of university thing-  to be treated to interpretive dance by the HIS people. Wow. So much dislike in one room for one religious group. The fact that they had tricked us into attending a religious session was what annoyed everyone.

 As time went on I thought that God probably did exist because it was such an unlikely story, and often the unlikely thing is the more true one. Um, interesting. I was also completely indifferent to His existence as it seemed to have no bearing on my life at all.

Now I am an atheist. It took a while for me to get here. And I had zero pressure to be religious in my life. IT always impresses me that someone can walk away from religion after being an active, true believer with religious family. It takes courage, and clarity of thought to achieve that - for me it was just a natural progression and so it was easy.