Bad PR (Politics & Religion)

My deconstruction from right wing Christianity culminated with Donald Trump’s first campaign and subsequent election in 2015-2016. There were already a lot of nails in that coffin but that was certainly the last one. What started as a critical look at theology and interpretation turned into a complex craft cocktail of confusion that only a maniacal jester could come up with. Yes, that’s an archetypical reference ;). The deep conviction I felt while observing spiritual abuse, manipulation, lack of accountability, abuse of authority and dysfunction in general within the different circles of christianity I was a part of built up slowly.

As I looked beyond the rhetoric of right wing talking points and into the history of our country and colonialism, I painfully realized that the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness bore a striking resemblance to what had been happening within western christianity. They were being offered the keys to a “kingdom of this world”. A position of prominence, comfort, social and political power. For those who don’t know the story, It was the devil who made a similar offer to Jesus, and he rejected it. Later when he was being questioned by Pontius Pilate about his kingship he responded, “My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom belonged to this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”
I spent my whole childhood in bible studies, learning apologetics, and listening to conservative talk radio day in and day out. I knew the arguments and the rationale, but I had made one incorrect assumption: that truth would be held as the highest standard, wherever it may lead. I could no longer reconcile the heart of christianity with its culture or institution. I knew my time was up. As the goalposts of morality, ethics and patriotism were being moved out of my grasp, my theological questioning was forced to expand toward new horizons to try and understand what our supposed “values” are really rooted in. 

In my search for something that offered a way to bridge the gap, I came across a book by Jonathan Haidt: “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion”. It resonated with me. The average right wing christian wasn’t yet as comfortable airing their more unsettling opinions as they are today, and Haidt’s book provided a framework to understand the disconnect I was seeing. He shares a metaphor about the elephant and the rider, the idea that we all have the same set of value polarities: (Care/Harm, Fairness/Cheating, Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, Sanctity/Degradation, and Liberty/Oppression) but we all rank or prioritize them differently. The idea is that this value ranking kind of lives in the background as our innate moral code. This is the elephant. The mind is the rider, who thinks he has control of the elephant but is usually just finding ways of rationalizing the direction the elephant is taking him. It’s not a perfect metaphor but I found the theory to be observably true in myself, by examining my evolution from “semi-calvinist pentecostal tea party enthusiast” all the way to where I was mid deconstruction. It also seemed to be true in my observations of people on opposing sides of the political/religious spectrum, as far as I could tell.

I spent years felling trees in empty forests, thinking that when the next one falls someone will finally hear it. The apologist in me was still desperately grasping for certainty. Living under the illusion that the perfect argument with the best evidence is undeniable. Until I realized, people don’t hear trees fall until they pause to listen, and people don’t listen when you’re trying to shove content down their throat. As I’ve learned, the world is a mirror and I was using the same methods of “persuasion” I berated evangelicals for. People will believe what they want to believe, until their belief no longer serves them. Even then they still might cling to it. Aside from relationships with the strongest bonds of trust and vulnerability this is almost always the case. Letting go of the need to change people, prove something, or get their validation is incredibly freeing and powerful. It allows old wounds to begin to heal and the holes get filled with a sense of security that can only come from within. It breaks generational cycles of blind obedience and makes room to reform relationships based on mutual respect. It makes room to accept people as they are and see their whole person, beyond the parts you disagree with. When you can accept a whole person as they are it softens your heart to understand the cycles and patterns that have shaped them, which ones they’ve broken and which ones they’re still stuck in. 

The sentiment of many ex-evangelicals could be summed up with Gandhi’s statement, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ”.

The teachings of Jesus are profoundly simple, and seem to touch on a universal Truth that resonates with anyone in search of it. Most of the divisions and cognitive dissonance we see in the church today are nothing new. There was always bickering over how his teachings fit into the narrative of his culture at the time. It wasn’t much later that Constantine jumped in, taking the initiative to help decide what should be omitted or changed, conveniently serving the interests of the Roman Empire at the same time (intentionally and unintentionally).
I don’t think it’s sunk in deeply enough how this alignment of christianity with the power of empire shaped western perspectives on the peoples of the world. The religiously tinged conquests of empire completely severed much of Europe’s ties with its ancestral indigenous history via persecution and threat of death. Medicinal knowledge of plants, our nervous systems and the cycles of our cosmos were cut off or forced into hiding because it was considered witchcraft. Indigenous Europeans were labeled savage and uncivilized before being forced to convert or be killed. I wonder if they had any suspicion that their English and Spanish descendants would repeat the same actions in the Americas, Africa, India and other parts of the world. A large part of Christianity has been aligned with the interests of imperialism, colonization and power almost since the beginning. Rejecting the value, knowledge, and sovereignty of anyone who doesn’t share its agenda, scoffing at what they don’t understand. Compromising the teaching of Jesus for material comfort and security. It’s the least we can do to protect and treasure what’s left of the cultures our ancestors almost erased, and learn from them.

It wasn’t until the last century that western science really started catching up to the traditions it snubbed for so long, formally recognizing the accuracy and knowledge of ancient civilizations around the world. Meditation, Chinese medicine, the healing power of nature on the nervous system, North and South American knowledge of ecosystems, land management, agriculture and architecture, Vedic teachings that cover everything from astronomy, to health and biology in Yoga and Ayurveda, to human consciousness. These are all organized methodologies that existed before the dark ages of Europe. What we’re learning through studies of epigenetics is revealing how far these dominos fall. The stories and traumas of our ancestors are expressed in our DNA, showing up in our emotional temperaments and in our bodies, in how we cope and how we survive day to day, what we see as essential.

Our wounds are deep, they go further back than just our personal wounds with religion or family. 

As we step into the second half of the 2020’s I think we’re witnessing a cosmic revelation of Truth. Everything that’s buried in the backyard of our society is being brought to the surface. Every excuse to ostracize and punch down, every failure to hold the powerful and corrupt accountable, every time we’ve wrongfully taken land and lives, every time people decided that the government has the authority to enact god’s wrath but not god’s mercy, every time we refuse to listen to and learn from the grief of those we’ve harmed by sweeping it under the rug, holding our noses while saying “just move on”, every time we choose division over cooperation. It’s all coming out. As time passed I realized it’s not just the failures of the government, it’s an unveiling of a sickness in people’s hearts that needs healing. Kept hidden behind nice language, politeness and religion since long before the protestant reformation. It’s generational cycles, the looping and rhyming lessons of history, the cosmic wheel turning around asking us again, “Will you learn this time?”. I still hope the answer is yes.