Christianity teaches self-denial.
Self is the problem.
The flesh wars against the spirit.
The spirit wars against the flesh.
Far too many Christians live lives filled with guilt.
Guilt over giving in to the flesh.
Guilt over letting self have control.
It goes something life this…
Anger is bad. Anger is a sin.
Yet, anger is a common, normal human emotion.
In fact a person who doesn’t get angry has either taken too much Zoloft or there is something seriously wrong.
Anger is a good thing.
Yet, how often people become angry with themselves because they are angry.
Thus they are angry about being angry.
Is it any wonder that many Christians live such conflicted lives? They are caught in an impossible conundrum.
Let me pose a question to my readers.
What if it all is a lie?
What if the very premise of self-denial is a lie?
What if envy, pride, lust, greed, anger,etc are a normal part of the human experience?
Perhaps self-denial is the problem rather than the solution.
The flesh, who you really are, is not evil.
Stop to think for a moment…Christians profess to believe that God created humanity. (or at least the first two human beings)
God gave to humankind emotions. Evidently God thought emotions were a good, even necessary part of being human.
Christianity comes along and says that how God created humans was in some way defective.
Deny who you are are. Repress who you are. Live in denial of your emotions.
Of course this is an impossible way to live.
Countless hours are spent in therapy trying to undo such thinking.
I have come to see that self-denial, at its basic level, is a lie. I can no more deny the emotions of self than I can survive without food and water.
Certainly emotions can run wild. There is always the danger of extreme and excess.
But denial is not the answer. It leads to a schizophrenic living of life.
I have lived most of my life suppressing who I really I am.
Few people know the real me.
The man they know is not who I really am. They only know the caricature. They know the facade. Perception is reality.
As I attempt to find the real me there is some ugliness.
A life of repressed emotions, a life of self control, once freed from the constraints of Christianity tends to be like a wild horse freed from a stock pen.
Imagine living your life denying the very essence of who you are.
Imagine living a life of guilt over being human.
I have come to see that I believed a lie.
A well-intentioned lie? Perhaps.
Perhaps you are saying to yourself…I could never let my emotions have free reign.
If I allowed my emotions to control me I would certainly do terrible things.
Are you sure?
Or is that what you have been told?
The slippery slope…if you look at a nice looking woman and say nice ass…you will become a child molester. If you allow yourself to be angry you will someday be a murderer.
Extreme? Sure. But, the slippery slope is fundamental to the Christian teaching of self-denial.
If you give into the flesh you are setting in motion things that will lead to disaster in your life. It is the same logic that suggests watching violence on TV makes a person violent.
Most men look at porn without becoming sexual deviants. That a few men who look at porn become child molesters and rapists only proves that a few men who look at porn become child molesters and rapists.
Vast numbers of Evangelical Christians believe that drinking alcohol is a sin. One drink and you might become an alcoholic. The slippery slope.
So what’s the answer?
For many Christians the answer is to become reconnected with their humanity. Allow yourself to become reconnected with your emotions.
I am no longer a professing, practicing Christian.
Rediscovering who I am has been an exciting, frightful, contradictory journey.
I am starting to feel again.
Bruce
If anger is bad is a “sin”, then why did “god” get so pissed off and drown the earth? Why did Jesus make a whip and chase out businessmen from his “temple”? Today they’d be arrested and forced to take anger management classes.
“Evil” is a label. Used in dichotomous thinking. Good vs evil (note: not good vs bad) , flesh vs spirit, god vs satan, day vs night, salt vs pepper.
Emotions are a part of life. As long as you don’t harm yourself or others with them, I would not be concerned with them. Don’t deny emotions…acknowledge them…they are how you feel.Whether or not, or how you choose to act upon them is the adult decision making do- I- do-anything- with- this reply to emotions.
If I look at a nice looking woman and think “nice ass”, I am comfortable that I feel that.To me, that is a biological trigger. Like smelling a pizza. Do I act on it? No, (only in the pizza situation). I am married, and do not want to hurt my relationship with my wife. And I do not want to go thru what Tiger Woods is going thru. Wrath, golf clubs, and embarrassment…too much.
Seems to me there is an enormous difference between someone who enjoys consenting adult sex,… and child molesters and rapists!
My dad is a retired preacher. As I remember, his whole life he’s labeled folks:if a woman sleeps with more than 1 person before marriage..if she even “necks”, she is a “protitute”.
“Saint” Paul (sorry, I don’t believe in “saintness”) …( or demons, or angels, or afterlife…but that’s offtrack here) says (according to what was “written”) that if some thing causes you to sin then cast it away so that the whole may be “saved”. If my remaining good eye spotted a nice woman’s ass, and I was unsure if admiring that nice ass was a “sin” or not, would I risk ripping out my eye and cast it away? Honestly, I’d take a mental snapshot. And smile. Remember the song “I’m a girl watcher, I’m a girl watcher, watching girls go by, my oh my my..?”
Did jesus masturbate? who cares?
Seems to me that most folks on the earth are embedded in the culture into which they were raised. Religionwise, sections of the world are mostly Muslim(Middle East), Hindu (India), Bhuddist(S.E. Asia), Christian (here), etc. If you are brought up in whatever matrix, in general you tend to stick with it. Partial product of culture.
I think in evolutionary terms…the evolution of languages, cultures, customs,tribes, nations, religion, sciences, understanding of geology, biology,politics, technology, etc. As far as Christianity goes, to me it is a middle eastern religion…belief in afterlife, messiahs,sin, martyrdom,holy writings,being a chosen people, etc… and common invented customs, such as praying,churches, synagoges,altars, sacrifices, etc. and group harmony thru singing and chanting (talk about peer pressure).
I really love my dad, but do not accept his belief system of religion. I have absorbed his beliefs of fairness, compassion, honesty, responsibility,etc…and am happy that his belief system works for him. Some of my siblings agree with me, some don’t. I am o.k. with that.
And some were brougt up preacher’s kid’s. Live and let live.
Jim
Great, thoughtful comment Jim.
One of the difficult things for me is to watch my kids find their own way. Religion makes it easy. We BELIEVE. This is who we live. MY leaving Christianity, the Church, the ministry ripped away from my kids the rock of their life. I was the patriarch. I was the final authority. Now they must choose their own way and I am happy with wherever they end up. I still have an opinion and viewpoint BUT I am no longer the law.
Bruce
I’m glad you are feeling again. It’s going to hurt, but, it’s better then walking around alive, but dead…if you know what I mean. And I think you do.
Thanks Zoe.
Bruce