Allow me to be frank from the beginning. The Christians will cry blasphemy. They will disagree with the following statements almost one hundred percent. They may call me a heathen or a lost soul, but do not fret, for I am neither of these. The Agnostics may laugh and find my statements feeble and my beliefs uncommitted and fickle. That is just it though; as Bill Maher says in his documentary Religilous “I just don’t know.” Now everyone is wondering just what in the world I am about to mark into this paper. Well, I will tell you. I am neither Christian nor Agnostic, but rather a combination of both. This is not a tough concept to grasp if you are agnostic. For a Christian however it may be baffling. So, hear me out fellow Christians and I will explain to you the beliefs of which I speak.
So, my set of beliefs is like a combination of the two. I believe fully and strongly in the Bible. I believe that it is the word of God, and that it is the only way man can begin to wonder about the essential nature of things. Of course man has altered it over the years, but it still retains its goodness and validity. I also firmly believe that Jesus was the proclaimed Son of God who came to earth to pay for our sins by his own death on a cross. That is the belief I share with Christians.
What sets me apart from my fellow Christians though, is that I do not, and cannot partake in religion. Religion is nothing but rules man has put on faith. How can faith be regulated? Religion is comprised of rituals and practices that have little to do with ones actual faith or beliefs. It is nothing more than a way to flaunt ones faith. The problem is that Christianity puts too much stock in religion. So much so that it can be a roadblock. People will get so caught up in the whole religious mumbo-jumbo that is pumped into their heads from birth that they miss the entire point. Most of you are familiar with religion, be it of whatever belief system, but do you see the futility in it? Can you even tell what these roadblocks are?
The biggest and most outstanding roadblock is the organized church. People will get so caught up in their church as a piece of their salvation, a requirement, or an obligation that they lose sight of what the church was meant to be. The church itself forgets this. The church is me, it is you, and it was meant to be a body of believers that would occasionally gather together in fellowship to worship. No matter the number, no matter the location, or the preferred style. “And the church is his body; it is filled by Christ, who fills everything everywhere with his presence.” (Ephesians 1:23 NLT)
The church is not the place or the organization as it has come to be, it has become corrupt. It tends to develop around charismatic leaders, slick productions and programs designed to meet the needs of the members. The bible says that we were to do good works for others. The church now equates good works with teaching Sunday school, leading Bible studies, working in the church nursery, attending church committee meetings, ushering, greeting, volunteering to do whatever it takes to keep the programs of the church running smoothly or giving money to keep the programs and church running. How does any of this have anything to do with someone’s beliefs and personal relationship with God? In the book So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore, An Unexpected Journey the authors, Wayne Jacobsen and Dave Coleman, make an excellent point: "This is no distant God who sent his Son with a list of rules or rituals to practice. His mission was to invite us into his love - into a relationship with his Father that he described as friendship. But what do we do? We are so quickly captured by a work-driven religious culture that thrives on guilt, conformity, and manipulation that it devours the very love that it seeks to sustain." (p.34) A person’s spirituality is now judged by their commitment to the church’s programs and their attendance. It is a country club mentality; the members are homogeneous and the club exists to meet its members' needs. Accountability is to the group now, not to God.
It is because of the church, my church in particular, and it’s many roadblocks that I have the set of beliefs that I have. I was brought up at the same church from about the age of 4 or 5 until just recently. It used to be a simple church. It was almost as if they actually got it, or it at least seems that way from what I remember. Now however, all I can think of when I think of my church is what it has become. I was never much involved in it at the beginning. I went to Sunday morning services with my family, but never Sunday school or youth group. That was until eighth grade. In eighth grade I changed schools and a lot of my old friends were in the youth group at my church. So I started to attend. For the next two years I was addicted to anything and everything my church was doing. I felt that I had to be everywhere and do everything that was happening. I was stuck at the religious roadblocks my church had created. At one point I even felt like I wanted to be a Youth Pastor. This all changed of course. Why? Conformity. I refused to conform and for that I was pretty much marked as a pagan. Everyone started to question my faith and my walk because I started to look edgy or because I stopped attending frivolous events. So when I quit my position as a Lughead (a small group leader for middle school students) sophomore year to run sound for the very same event everyone thought I had lost my religion. In fact yes, I was finally beginning to lose religion. It wasn’t until I learned that the Pastor of Students had told my brother that he committed treason against the most high for drinking and that people thought I was a terrible sinner for smoking that I lost all interest in the religious nonsense. What did that have to do with my faith? Smoking was not a great decision on my part, nor was my brother drinking under age, but it had nothing to do with faith.
Working at my church for the past 2-3 years has shown me a lot in the way of the church’s problems. The biggest and most obvious of which was the production end. When you walk into the main sanctuary on Sunday morning you can expect to be greeted by the scent of hazers and a slight feeling of moisture from them too. The stage bears large silver scaffolding like lighting racks. Candles sprawled out across the stage and even into the seating sometimes. There are tons of spotlights, gobos, LEDs, and other venue lighting. To each side of the stage rests high up on the wall a massive 16:9 screen with a full 1080p image projected on it. There are cameramen along the back wall and usually one or two right in front of the stage. The youth rooms are much the same only smaller and taken up a notch to add ‘coolness’ I suppose. As a Sound Tech I was not exactly going to complain about all the nice gear and everything I got to use, but there is something terribly wrong with that picture. I was told we were the first all HD church in America. Well that’s cool right? Sure, but that cost a lot of money. Especially when on top of the two massive projectors and screens, they throw in 1080p monitors sporadically placed throughout the sanctuary and lobby. Oh, and don’t even get me started on Room 101 which looks like a full fledged movie production and editing studio. Do you not see a problem with this? How is all of that going to better the community? How is it going to bring the members closer to God? That not even all. Besides the production end there were other roadblocks getting in the way.
The youth group especially seemed like it had lost its way. Part of the churches motto or whatever is “helping the next generation.” They have a huge youth group, but sad to say it centers on the cool events, socializing, and the youth pastor. I am freaked out when I see kids that do everything a youth pastor tells them without question. They follow this one person as though he has all the answers and knows what is best for everyone. They follow him as if he were Jesus himself. Well he is not God and he is certainly not perfect; no man is. It scares me to think that the majority of these students are getting caught up in the religious side of things; that they are not seeing the whole picture. They follow blindly the proclaimed leader and don’t think for themselves. They are road blocked.
Hopefully, fellow Christians you can now see the fallacy in religion. I am not saying that you are all wrong or stupid. The church has its merits. I am still a part of my church, one because I have a job there, but also because it is good to hear other opinions. My real church though is quite small; consisting of the very few people I can really talk to about my faith. I am not a ‘true agnostic’ yet I do hold religion in the same light as they do. Technically that is the main aspect of the agnostic beliefs. After all religion is an obvious and huge roadblock to our faith.
We can’t medicate man to perfection again
We can’t legislate peace in our hearts
We can’t educate sin from the soul; It’s been there from the start
But the blind lead the blind into bottomless pits
Still we smile and deny that were cursed
Of all our iniquities ignorance may be the worst
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