Baggage
Photo by Erwan Hesry on Unsplash
God is everywhere, even on Substack. There are 33,000 denominations, and according to the statistical database adherents.com, approximately 4,300 organized religions. Although the prevalence of snake handlers, holy rollers, fundamentalists, and freewheeling liberal Protestants spread across the fruited plain makes for a bewildering variety of choices for the God-hungry skeptic, there are some bedrock commonalities when discussing faith groups. It is dangerous to write about religion - in some places, it can get a person killed. Religion chips away at the emotional scabs protecting nearly every facet of our lives. Lastly, to scrutinize any religious tradition makes people uncomfortable. Any analysis is a challenge to belief. The stakes are high when asking spiritual questions.
The oldest questions in human history are religious questions.
- So how did we get here?
- How do we explain the world around us?
- What happens when we die? (Do we go back to where we came from?)
- How do we remember those in our clan, tribe, and community who die?
- Do we leave them where they lay? Do we place them in tombs or inside the earth? Do we say certain words? Do we dress their bodies in certain clothes? Do we leave their possessions with them so that what they possess in life may accompany them in death? How should we remember those who are not here?
Thousands of years ago, religion consisted of questions shared around a campfire and offerings brought to mark the change of the seasons.
"What is religion?" or "What is Christianity?" (Rightly or wrongly, many in America conflate Christianity with religion and vice versa.) I've heard these responses from average people, not Phi Beta Kappa graduates of Vacation Bible School.
Christianity is the "not" religion. Christians are the "not" people. We're big on setting limits and writing rules about how one can live or not live and how we mortals can best make God happy.
The world makes generalizations about Christianity and other spiritual traditions. Faith is a matter of perspective. Religious people do not see reality as nonbelievers. To faithfully follow a divine tradition, one must be willing to stand to one side and look at the world from oblique and often complicated positions. The world looks different to people who believe in God.
Many see faith as a harmful force in society or view religion with shallow indifference if they give it any thought at all. Believers don't do themselves any favors. The mainline church and middle-of-the-road followers of God, Allah, and Krishna are largely invisible amidst the coverage of Christian Nationalists, a resurgent Taliban, and populist movements across Asia. This misrepresentation in the media is a grave injustice to the true essence of faith; it's a distortion that needs to be corrected. Despite the best intentions of well-meaning believers everywhere, this is what it means to "be" a "something" in the modern world.
Why is this? Is there something about Christianity that attracts legalistic nitpickers and people who enjoy six thousand-year-old Mesopotamian purity codes? Why are we seen as narrow-minded downers, big on burdens, and long on blessings for the people we decide to follow our limits better than others?
There are 613 commandments in the Old Testament. While many focus on the big ten, the Torah contains 603 others we sometimes miss. Carefully examining the 613 commandments reveals 248 positive suggestions (do this) and 365 negatives (do not). That's one "thou shalt not" for every day of the year. The negatives outweigh the positives. At first glance, the Judeo-Christian tradition appears to be a faith focused on prohibiting behavior, a theology rooted in a deep pessimism.
Christianity makes this claim: death is not the end of life. Humanity is, however, not guaranteed an existence in eternity. Life after death is a promise made to those who believe in the salvific ability of one individual. Life is a gift. Death is a certainty. Life after death is a transaction between the believer and the Divine. If we publicly and privately commit to the promise, we accept responsibility for our lives in eternity. Most people need help deciding on wills, powers of attorney, and how to save money for retirement. Christianity wants its adherents to prepare for an existence grander than the idea of time itself. That's a lot to ask of anyone. The continual stress of living with such implications has one of two effects: escapism or legalism. I call this the "it is what it is" theology. Ignorance becomes bliss. What we don't consider won't condemn us. Alternatively, our faith may devolve into a daily quest to meet the finite standards of the church so that we can embrace the infinite God. Nothing is more demanding than a faith devoid of joy and consumed by completing checklists in the present designed to reserve our space in eternity.
We bear the heavy burden of belief and the weight of religion. We've inherited our faith from family and friends. We're trying to be good and repair sins that aren't our place to fix. God's heart remains whole, but we believe the ancient shame narrative: mortal humans can disappoint the creator of the universe. A religion that needs guilt to survive is not a religion; it is a cult. This burden is not light; it's a weight we carry every day.
Our hearts are breaking under spiritual and emotional baggage we should have never consented to carry. We drag around rotting yokes of 'thou shalt nots,' forgetting that Jesus and his light yoke determined humanity to be free. We're breaking under the burden of trying to be good enough and earn our Salvation. Jesus says, 'You are good enough.' The burden of being good enough to earn God's favor is, as Jesus says, something the Divine removes from our lives. It's exchanged for something gentler to our souls—rest, wisdom, grace, and humility. We no longer bear the responsibility of trying to earn Salvation, and this realization should bring a profound sense of relief to our spirits. This is a freedom we should all embrace.