Divine Revelation...

Our friends Dana and Bowe invited us to the christening of their daughter Brooke today. So off we went early this morning to Palmerston to help prepare the 'post-baptismal fellowship lunch'...for sixty-some-odd people. There were a lot of beans served. I think a sizeable number of Palmerston Anglicans are boldly putt-putting around their houses this evening.
I'll tell you a secret, dear blog: I wasn't looking forward to this day overmuch. I haven't been in a church since my wedding and haven't attended a Sunday service in over ten years.
The wet snow that came down this morning in Palmerston certainly improved my mood. While the rest of the folks around me succumbed to gloom and grump, I was whistling Christmas carols. There's something about the first snowfall that sets my heart to singing. Not much of a chance of wiping sweat out of my eyes for the next half-year or so! Precipitation that doesn't adhere to my glasses! Blizzards! (Yeah, I'm surprised nobody kicked me in the groin.)
For a not-quite-one-year-old, Brooke performed quite admirably at her baptism. She was mouse-quiet except during the hymns (she's undoubtedly going to grow up to be a singer of the Mariah Carey persuasion) and during the actual sprinkling.
Preface to the following: I mean absolutely no offense by what I'm about to detail. If you, reader, attend church once, twice, thrice weekly, more power (or perhaps that should be Power) to you. Until today, I'd have called myself a spiritual believer in the Christian tradtion. Now, I'm not sure I can say even that.
It's not that I disagreed entirely with the service. Actually, some parts of it resonated strongly. I was impressed with the reverend's belief on 'original sin'. He doesn't see it as a literal 'curse' on mankind. I knew a few Baptists who would have been appalled at that sentiment being voiced from a pulpit.
Likewise, Communion wasn't restricted to Anglicans, but rather open to all Christians who chose to receive. And something I found most refreshing: he acknowledged that there was more than one way of looking at Communion. Some people, he said, see the bread and wine as the literal Body and Blood of Christ...what the Catholics call Transsubstantiation. Some people see it as as bread and wine, but a potent symbol...a metaphor. And some people believe Communion to be a simple (though profound) memorial.
In the Catholic churches I attended as a child, all those confirmed in the faith were required to receive Communion. And no fooling around here...this is the Body and Blood of Christ. If you don't believe that, to Hell with you.

But this liberal attitude goes only so far. The service today was replete with such phrases as 'walking in the way of the Lord", "hating every other way", "repenting from sin and returning to God" and "fighting Satan and all his evil forces".

Now here's where I start to get kind of touchy.

How does one 'walk in the way of the Lord'? Are there any two people in history who have wholeheartedly agreed on this? Remember when you answer this that you're ordered to 'hate every other way'. It's precisely this attitude that starts wars...the kind of wars wherein each side maims and kills the other in the name of Almighty God.
What is 'sin'? Has there been consensus on that? And has anyone seen Satan and his evil forces skulking around? Who are they, anyway? Why, they're all those people not walking in the way of the Lord! Non-Christian heathens!

As part of the actual baptismal ceremony, we were asked to reaffirm our own baptismal vow. This is the Apostles' Creed, supposedly dating to ten days after Jesus died (the second time). It bears a strong resemblance to the Nicene Creed that came after it. The Apostles Creed distills Christianity into four sentences, thus:

I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to the dead
On the third day he rose again; he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.

And you know, I found I couldn't in good conscience even pretend to recite it.

First sentence can stand, but for the minor quibble I have with God "the Father". Do we really want to restrict something so big as God into one gender and one role?
I have two issues with the second sentence. One concerns the Virgin Mary--sorry, never believed in her, or at least her intact hymen. The sooner the Church comes to understand there's nothing inherently sinful about sex and that Joseph undoubtedly had one Jesus of an orgasm about nine months before the manger, the better.
Never mind that; there's something else here in this sentence that actually offends me: 'God's only Son'. Uh, pardon me, but even in Christian parlance are we all not Sons (and Daughters) of God? I'll go you one further. One of my spiritual core values is that we are all, every one of us, a part of God. And yet some would damn me to Hell (eternally apart from God) for saying so.
Third sentence, and one giant brick wall. No, it's not the Resurrection. I have no problem believing Christ rose from the dead: medical science (or God working through medical science) accomplishes resurrections on an almost routine basis these days. No, my big problem with this sentenceis that part about Jesus/God judging.
Nope, no way, no how. God's supposed to be all-loving, right? Unconditional love and all that? So what's this about judgment?
WE judge people--the living and the dead. It's one of humankind's most grevious errors. Why would we ascribe to our God one of our worst behaviours?
The last sentence packs a real punch. Holy Spirit, check. I'm okay with that. One holy catholic church...
Wow.
I wonder how many people mouth that without knowing what it means.

Look up 'catholic' in the dictionary. You'll get a shock. A BIG shock if you're Catholic.

catholic, adj. Pertaining to the whole; universal. The issue was of catholic, rather than national, concern.

Okay, the Catholics I used to go to church with probably don't see the big deal in that. There is one holy Catholic church, right? Set foot in something else that dares to call itself a church and then die with that on your soul and you're going straight to the Hot Place.

*Sigh*

One holy universal church. Hey, I could get behind that...so long as there's not one holy universal doctrine behind it all. Sadly, I think the creed as worded assumes that there is. And that (surprise, surprise) said doctrine is Christian. In the minds of Catholics, Catholic. In the minds of Anglicans, Anglican. In the minds of...

Okay, everybody, say it with me:

MINE IS NOT A BETTER WAY...MINE IS ONLY ANOTHER WAY.

Go out and preach that and change the world.