Natalie Miller is feeling a little overwhelmed by the Religious Right, and wonders: Where's the middle ground?
By Natalie Miller
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I’ve been having dreams this week about the Religious Right chasing me – the people I believe to be neither religious nor right. In the dream scenarios, they always try to take me away and my voice is not loud enough – but in the end, I do wiggle my way out of the situation.
Talking about dreams sometimes makes me seem like a raving lunatic, but I believe this set is indicative of my daily news habit. Lately, there’s been tons of religiously controversial news, and that’s sinking into my subconscious. Justice Roy Moore and his cronies – the people who helped him sneak the Ten Commandments monument into the rotunda, and who prayed around it as he was lead away. The pedophile priest court cases. The anti-homosexual statements of the Pope, the President and all those “abomination” folks.
Here’s what scares me – even if religious right types are in the minority, they are so well-organized and drawn to controversy and publicity is drawn to them that it seems that their views are overwhelmingly popular. Now, most people that I know are reasonable about social issues – civil rights, separation of church and state, churches having to follow the law – but they are not organized into any kind of form or forum. This means that when a poll shows 51% percent of people are against marriages between people of the same sex, the headline uses the words “overwhelming” and “backlash.” To me, this means this is an issue where people have sharply divided opinions, pretty much right down the middle.
I guess this is a continual problem – the people who are radical on an issue are the ones who get the attention. I’m sure there are tons of people out there saying, don’t worry, that will never happen to whatever the slightly off-kilter suggest. But, my alarm bells go off when the Senate Majority Leader and the President both refer to an amendment making marriage between a man and a woman. Hardly necessary, and slip-sliding down the religious/legal slope.
Here’s one of the things I cite as to why our country has very little discourse about religion – there’s seem to be two major factions – people who believe this should be a Christian nation (but everyone seems to want it their way of being Christian) and the other side, people who ignore religion successfully most of the time. So, your choices are: take what you are fed spiritually, or feed yourself in other ways. Wait, couldn’t another option fit in there? Possibly searching for spirituality in nature, in world traditions, learning more about the faith you were raised in and other religious pursuits? Not a very publicized option, is it?
I wrote two columns in college about how I thought religion was a necessity for people, but that the rigidity was a turnoff for most college students. I cited a few key elements I thought religion should have: the Golden Rule, social justice and ways of expressing spirituality. That was the column that got the most letters – almost all of them advocating their churches. One of them was Unitarian Universalist, the church I now attend. I’m active in the church, and excited about being there, which makes me an anomaly due to my age. I would say that out of my peers from college, I am one of few who care this much about my spiritual life right now.
Unfortunately, the people I see in their 20’s follow this pattern: go along with religion to the extent that their parents are concerned with it, reject or ignore it in college, and try not to think about it after that. An occasional philosophical discussion might occur, but only under the influence ,when people get loose.
A strange trend is people returning to religion when they decide to get married – but it’s not always a true return, only a temporary one. They just need somewhere to have the ceremony, and always imagined it would be in a church. There is a trend in churches to try to capture the people who get married there into the congregation, by making it harder to get permission or by asking them to join. (In the far past, this was not an issue as people got married in their own home churches, of which they had been a member and grown up.)
As people become parents, I think there is more of a pressure to join a church and get those kids a proper religious education. I think that many church memberships made for this reason are a façade of belonging to the community, rather than undertaken for personal spiritual growth.
I think that people go that route, where they go along with the church because it feels like the right thing for them to do. Or they don’t go anywhere, and wonder why other people seem so hopped up on their “church thing.” Honestly, when people in the past tried to talk to me about their churches, I would try to end the conversation with them as soon as possible. Because what I had found was that everyone is supernice and welcoming until they spring “the rules” on you.
“So great that you could come. But, women should know their place is in the home.”
“You should try my church. Boy, it’s too bad everyone else is going to hell because they don’t go there.”
“Could you donate some money to convert the savages?”
I don’t think my views about equality, tolerance and respect are radical, but for a long time I thought they were the anti-thesis of religion. I’ve found that I’m wrong, but liberal religion is not nearly the force it could be if more reasonable people would discover it and use it for spiritual growth. Until they can mobilize to counteract the religious right, the world will be subject to vitriolic and ignorant rants. I just hope it will not disturb my sleep any longer.