The Bee has been covering Christianity more and more lately. My guess is that it has something to do with the economy. Surveys reflect a rise in church attendance since the recession started. Today they ran an article maintaining how “Some Sacramento-area faithful [are] turning [their] backs on pastors [because of] spiritual abuse.”  This on the heels of a previous article’s coverage of a South Sacramento area pastor who is being accused of manipulating some of his flock members into financing his new car, vacation, and other stuff. Today’s article–and its commentators–raise some good questions I’d like to cover in brief here..

First, it’s interesting how many Christians criticize the Bee for writing  “Christian bashing” articles. I observe nothing of the sort. To my knowledge, the Bee has never maintained the isolated cases on which they have reported are representative of widespread pastoral “abuse,” nor have they ever cast Christianity in a negative light for that matter.

As far as I’m concerned, the people who are labeling these recent articles “anti Christian” are clearly not reading them objectively. In this tumultuous era of economic crisis, I firmly believe matters regarding one’s money, investments, tithes and so forth are important to discuss openly and honestly.  Furthermore, in those cases where one has abused one’s position and is funneling, extorting, coercing, or picking money out of the pocket of another,  I think it highly commendable that a news organization should choose to expose them.  I say BRAVO Sac Bee and Jennifer Garza. Nice work.

Second, the responses to these articles are very disheartening.  It’s truly disappointing to see how many people have written Christianity off entirely because of A) the deplorable  actions of a few; or B) the philosophical musings of both antiquated and modern atheist doomsayers who have successfully convinced them all religion is a fraud, “opiate”, fairy tale, and/or diabolical  “saw”-grade puppet show on the part of its purveyors.. without ever having personally surveyed the religious landscape and investigated the claims both for and against God, and the necessity of His church in society.

I won’t turn this website into one on cosmology, metaphysics, and theology, but I will say this: Don’t believe everything you hear or read on EITHER side. On the nontheist side, people like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins make some riveting  points, but if you bother to read their critics, you will find their philosophies are rife with error and conflict.  G.K. Chesterton said, “Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies simply because they become fashions.”  Amen to that. On the flip side of the coin, we should be just as weary of preachers of prosperity who stomp  up and down their mega stages in their mega churches preaching the exact opposite of what Jesus preached about the storing up of earthly riches.

Third, despite what you may have been led to believe, the brand of Christianity I practice (which is Roman Catholicism), is NOT about being served. Au contraire. It is about SERVING OTHERS. We practice what we believe to be the centrality of Christ and that is that he came to “serve, not to be served.” (Matt 20:28). ANY institution that seeks to be SERVED, or preaches that its members should seek to be served, is not practicing Christianity. They are practicing something, but it is not Christian. Clearly Christ was a servant leader and to model him is to serve others selflessly and without desire for recompense.

Finally, I don’t know about other churches, but mine does not wish to “control” people.  What it wishes to do is UPHOLD the sixty-centuries-old  moral law that has clearly served as the bedrock for the civil law that secures our FREEDOMS and prevents our society from descending into anarchy. That some institutions cannot be supported does not in any way, shape or form translate to “we hate you” as the Bill Mahers of the world would have us believe. They simply mean “We love you, but we can’t support your propensities because they are opposed to the moral law.” As G.K. Chesterton said, morality REQUIRES that we draw the line somewhere. That is reality, not hate.

Yes, I am fully aware–and sharply REBUKE–those rogue leaders of the church who– like police officers, doctors, dentists, school teachers, politicians, presidents, movie directors, daycare providers, and many others–fell to temptation and abused their positions of authority. And yes, I am fully aware that some zealots of the early church (both Catholic and Protestant) lost their way and many people suffered as a result. I get it. But those things–while admittedly atrocious in scope–do not tell the whole story.  In fact they don’t even represent a grain of sand on the beach that is the twenty-centuries-old story of Christianity, and it is gravely dishonest to represent that they do.

In the final analysis–at least from this Joe’s perspective–the actions of the few (and they ARE a mere few over the course of the TWENTY CENTURIES the  church has existed) do NOT represent the beliefs and behavior of the many, most of whom have contributed immensely to the common good and played a substantive role in the miracle that is The United States of America.

A commenter who responded to the Bee’s story stated “Religious people scare me. Spiritual people inspire me.” He/she always states this same thing in response to every religious article the Bee posts. This comment always gets lots of supporting votes. But I submit while it’s a nice sounding byte, it’s outrageously fallacious and ignorant because “spirituality” is the quintessential by product of RELIGION!

Spirituality is religion’s goal. Saying you love spiritual people but hate religion is like saying you love orange juice but hate oranges. It is nonsensical. Whether he or she likes it or not, the “spiritual” people this person adores so much are deeply religious. They may not label themselves as such, but by nature they are.

On a parting note, the Bee asked local conservative radio personality Eric Hogue to weigh in. He suggested people “read the Bible.”  While I think that’s a great idea, at the same time it is dangerously incomplete. One should not only read the Bible for themselves, but they should also get a great bible handbook (I love “What the Bible is All About” by Dr. Mears) and find a great Christian mentor to help them along with questions, and so forth.

Here’s to the true Christian religion.. not fanaticism.. not fundamentalism.. not extremism .. just plain old LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF golden rule-based religion that accounts for all the spiritual good in our country–if not the world–today.