A Culture of Conflict

If I were asked to choose a single emotion to describe how I feel after leaving the strong fundamentalist religion in which I was raised and coming out as a gay man, I would have to choose the word...

relief!

Not just relief from resolving the internal turmoil from hiding my inherent sexual preference for men all those years. And not just relief from the guilt of failing to live up to unattainable religious standards -- like never praying "enough," or fasting "enough" for that matter. Come to think of it, I never could read my Bible or witness "enough," either. (I can remember a former pastor once telling us in a sermon that he had spent many, many hours in prayer that last week, and still felt he'd not prayed "enough." How is that supposed to make us feel?!!) And the list goes on. But the relief from stepping off of the religious treadmill is not what I'm talking about either, though that is significant.

No, the relief I'm feeling is the joy from leaving a culture of conflict.

I cannot imagine what it is like to live in a war-torn country like Iraq or Afghanistan, with religious fanatics who will blow themselves up for their cause! Where innocent people die everyday for no good reason, other than for some extremist leader to have made some senseless political point. Such a waste of human creativity and life!

Further, I cannot imagine the relief experienced by those who leave that turmoil to live in Europe or America. To step from a plane and realize that all the strife, worry and hatred are gone! It must be amazing! But perhaps also feeling sad about those left behind in the conflict zone.

I believe that it is not unreasonable to draw a comparison between a conflict zone and the cultures of conflict that exist in many strongly conservative religious organizations. I realize that not all Christian denominations follow the "culture of conflict" model, but my former church did.

What I'm referring to is a religious model where you have multiple figurative battles raging all of the time. Much of the basis for these conflicts originate from the writings of the Apostle Paul, who seemed keen on war as a metaphor.

You have the internal "war" within each of us, where our carnal man (or woman) fights with our spiritual man (or woman) for control of our souls. We have the battle between those in the church who hold onto the "Truth" and those within the church who compromise and settle for false doctrine and error. Then there is the war between the church and the world, where souls are being snatched from the lake of fire by the efforts of Christian soldiers witnessing to their friends and family members. Then there is the culture war taking place within nations like the U.S. where folks of faith organize to oppose godless sinners who want to purge our government and society of all traces of God, religion and decency. (At least, that's how conservatives put it.) And of course, we have the global struggle between the spirit of Anti-Christ and God's Church, which will culminate in the great battle of Armageddon at the end of our age.

The religious culture of conflict serves a number of useful purposes.

• It gives the religious organization a purpose for existence.
• It creates a "cause" for which leaders can motivate their members to give of their time, money and resources.
• It identifies common enemies, against which the church can unify its members.
• It gives religious leaders leverage to exert control and influence over their congregants.

However, this culture of conflict also has a number of other less desirable consequences.

• It rewards extremists and causes imbalance in many people's lives. Those who fast, pray, study and witness the most are the ones with the most spiritual clout, but are also often out of balance personally and socially. I have seen several extremely passionate evangelists who saw demons lurking around every corner, whose personal lives ended up becoming figurative train wrecks of tragedy.
• It wears out common people who grow tired of the relentless struggles. Battle fatigue among religious conservatives can take a tremendous mental and emotional toll.
• It fosters an "us vs. them" mentality that infects the ranks of the faithful. When everything is black and white (i.e., everything must be categorized as either "good" or "bad"), people get used to thinking in those absolute terms all the time and end up turning on each other. What I would call a mild form of ideological paranoia can make it easy for people to demonize and attack each other for political and personal reasons. It can get ugly.
• It incubates the creation of all kinds of enemies. When one gets tired of fighting the same old foes day after day, what does one do? You go make some new enemies! From the "spirit of overspending" to the "demon of homosexuality," there is no shortage of enemies to be concerned about. If one wants to combat a particular trend or idea within the church, just name it a demon and you've got a skirmish started!
• It gives a bad name to Christianity. Those outside the conservative fundamentalist ranks take issue with people of faith trying to dictate other people's lives by trying to legislate morality and limit others' choices and options. It reminds me of the bumper sticker, "God, protect me from your followers!"
• It hardens otherwise peaceful people and enables them to condone real wars in the name of religious values. It amazes me that among the conflicts between America vs. Muslim extremists and Arabs vs. Israel, all parties claim that God is on their side! And with all the hype about Biblical prophesy and the "end times," war in the middle east could likely end up a self-fulfilling prophesy!

Having stepped out of this culture of devout dissonance, my question is, "Why?" Why do we have to always be fighting something? Fighting ourselves. Fighting our brothers and sisters. Fighting our neighbors and countrymen. Fighting the world. War is a bad thing, not a good thing! If you don't believe me, ask an Iraqi!

Yes, the Bible was written in ages when war was constant. Fighting for survival was a fact of life for most people. But isn't it time that we mature as people and come to civility and peace? Peace with who we are individually. Peace with the notion that "different" does not equal "evil." Contentment that not everyone has to think or believe like me in order for me to respect them or their way of living. Why can't we just "live and let live"?

I think the answer to that last question is: control. War is all about control. But that leads to another question: "Who sanctioned conservative evangelicals to be in control?" By definition, "faith" is believing something which cannot be proven. No one can prove that their understanding of the Bible gives them authority to rule the world. When did we cross over from personal relationships with God to religious imperialism? That's what I call the arrogant belief that, "We are right, everyone else is wrong, and we're going to fight for control so everyone else can be corrected." What an exhausting mandate!

How much good could Christians do if we simply channeled all the energy we spent fighting into efforts like ending homelessness and hunger? What if people stopped judging everyone else and simply tried to live at peace and help their neighbors unconditionally? Talk about changing our world! I think that is more what God has in mind for us, and that's certainly what I want for myself!

So I'm going to take a stab at proselytizing my long-time friends and family and say, "Hey, step out of the war zone and into true peace! The relief is amazing!"