Shedding Faith – An Essay: Part One

Religion is a funny thing. Everyone either has one or doesn’t, there’s really no in between. Some who adhere to a religious dogma range in degree as to their faith level from overtly optimistic, Pollyanna, rose colored glasses to covertly believing, but not practicing any specific degree or religiosity. Some are dogmatic while others are in limbo, ignoring their feelings, beliefs or specificity to an apathetic point.

Unfortunately, everyone is affected by religion, guided by religion directly or indirectly and religion is entrenched in our society. Some claim to have no religion and do nothing religious. Others do not practice a religion, yet believe in a deity or that there is a spiritual element to our physical world. Those claiming no religion but think there is a higher being manipulating the world around them in fact do have a religion without clarity, it’s just less obvious, more inward. Other’s hold complex rules, regulations, expectations and ideologies close to their heart thinking that these activities will move them along in the world dreaming, hoping and wishing for that uncertain future, clinging to the notion that it will be better than this, in that other world, that future world, ignoring the only life they now know. For these, religion is much more obvious as they march off to a church, follow a guidebook, rule set and practice a prescribed concept taught to honor a higher being. Those who hold little value in faith simply have no religion, no belief system and are often the minority. Unfortunately, they are greatly affected by it every day through social moires, political affiliations and family dynamics. It’s all around us whether we adhere to a religious philosophy or not.

Those steeped in religious activities, typically driven by a “church” organization are either involved in the majority or minority in respect to their primary religious leaning. Muslims have extremist, moderates and liberals while Christians have the same multifaceted variations that are as varied and vast as the stars. Christianity has many, many, many different factions, beliefs, sub-beliefs ad nausea. Christianity is prevalent in western society, while Islam is more entrenches in middle eastern cultures, YET, Christianity was, in all honesty, formulated in the eastern regions. Either way, religion plays a role in society regardless of regional location across this globe.

Within each main stream religious group are factions, sub-groups or variations on the same theme to which they adhere. Most current religions practiced worldwide follow the teachings found in a document, a book or some other written method passed down through the ages. Additionally, these religions typically originated from a period in global history steeped in the unknown, drawn from the minds who had little knowledge or understanding about the world, with one exception, Mormonism, born from the mind of a single western settler who had an encounter, wrote about it, created a religion and is now on a skyrocketing growth trajectory. However, the majority are from an ancient society that ceases to exist, civilizations that have been scattered across the globe fractured in nature, but galvanized in belief regardless the government form they may reside. Basically all religion comes from men or women, who had been given an idea, origin unknown, who wrote the idea down and called it good.

Religion is questionable and fickle in nature, as every person who’s exposed to religious forms have the arduous task of deciphering the ancient code, review and study, using rationality and reason, to determine or ascertain a truth. Complexity and confusion comes from lacking in agreement, unanswered questions, missing information, incongruities or plain wrong assumptions. Every group through the ages have disagreed on so many details and aspects about what is right, that millions have suffered and died a wasteful death.

Religion is part of this world, this society and it has a great influence on what is normal, what is believed to be true and what society bases their daily lives upon.

In the beginning

For nearly thirty years, I practiced a religious ideology based upon Christianity not affiliated with any top tier mainstream version, Catholicism, Protestantism or Eastern Orthodox. (Yes, Eastern Orthodox is much bigger than most Americans know). Falling under some variation of Protestantism or Fundamentalism, my religion would sometimes even have been misconstrued as cultish, yet never met the true criteria as such in that it was no different than any other mainstream group driven by a charismatic leader. In essence, the founder formulated the doctrines starting at the beginning and ignoring all other religious dogma, coming to conclusions without the noise and historical rattlings called Catholicism, Protestant variations or Eastern Orthodox. Instead, all old ideas were thrown out, new doctrinal postulations were formulated, ultimately creating a religious organization known in it’s hey day as the Worldwide Church of God (WCG).

In it’s early days it had other names, Radio Church of God, RCG Worldwide and eventually it became the Worldwide Church of God. However, this is not a history about this church, it’s derivatives, splinters or off shoots, rather it’s merely a mention in that it was the over arching world view professed by the WCG ministry that affected many lives through the sixties, seventies, eighties and beyond, including mine.

Tenets that drove the people involved with WCG were based solely upon Biblical scripture through the interpretations postulated, preached and idealized by Herbert W. Armstrong (HWA), his ministry and the council of elders. Core premises such that the Sabbath was holy, to be kept on the seventh day or Saturday, was a founding doctrine. Rather than adhering to modern, mainstream dogma, HWA’s Biblical interpretation derived at such conclusions as; Old Testament law was not done away, (meaning eating unclean proteins as outlined in Deuteronomy were not to be partaken), the original holy days as kept by Abrahamic Israel were to be followed, those holy days amended by Jesus were to be modified accordingly and new holy day activities established by Jesus were to be included. Heaven and hell do not exist, rather there is a future Kingdom to be established after an Armageddon on this earth, several resurrections to be cycled and eventually all physical beings accepting Jesus, the truth and believing in the future return will become spirit in nature to live for ever more. Details about daily life regarding tithing, makeup, skirt length, hair length, sex, marriage, divorce and child rearing, to name a few, were outlined, changed, modified, updated, rethought and highly subjective in nature according to HWA whims and scripture interpretations. While some appeared clear, the esoteric details were often difficult to interpret requiring the ministry to “make a decision” for various respective baptized church members. Deeper ideologies such as baptism, Gods nature, Jesus purpose, human salvation, the soul, resurrection, armageddon, Gods ultimate plan and mankind’s future were ongoing subjects in sermons professed from the pulpit on a weekly basis.

Preaching a Gospel or message about God’s future plan was paramount to the activities that drove the core administration and organization. Churches around the country were organized in traditional fashion; small, medium and large depending on the metropolitan area where people gathered ruled the size. Rather than build specific purpose buildings, it was the policy to simply rent a local public building for the weekly sabbath. Church members who gave their tithes regularly were doing so with the idea that the Gospel was being sent out through various media, radio, television and print in order to convert the lost, teach the masses and proselytize like so many organizations before it, but with THE Truth. Many various campaigns were launched through the years, such as booklets on newsstands delivered by local church members, phone banks for those being called who’d seen HWA’s telecast and were curious to learn more, booklets were published in mass, universities were built to teach the youth, HWA performed world travel, meeting with dignitaries professing the WCG truth about the end times, all activities fully supported by WCG’s members. Grand buildings were built at the head quarters in California for the express purpose of creating credibility with the world professing the idea; The Worldwide Church of God were not crack pots. We were mainstream. College campuses were expanded to teach the young or those who wanted to know more, become the church leadership or just to be involved in something grand. Youth organizations were funded, summer camps established and many local churches grew through the sixties, seventies and eighties reaching a zenith of over 140,000 thousand pushing the prophecy dictating that a 144,000 would be saved during the end times.

Many issues cropped up through those years. Scandals riddled the church, ministers fell in grace, rebellions arose, new ideas were proposed and splinter groups formed around their newl ideologies, yet the church kept it’s core doctrines in tact. Members who were against the church were ostracized, excommunicated publicly and or ignored, but the faithful kept marching on. Those not affected directly simply shrugged off the indiscretions as the individual man or woman’s problem, gave little pause to the odd balls who thought a space ship was on it’s way or ignored the outside influences, simply thinking it was not the individual church members concern holding fast to the core belief about their calling and the truth. Like any organization, these bumps in the road simply provided introspection with evaluation to confirm ones own beliefs, viewpoints and values. Ever faithful, the core membership marched towards the end times.

Normal Religion?

What is a normal religion? How is it defined? Religious norms are defined by the majority, who profess a certain belief set, not necessarily right and wrong, but that many believe the same way, adhere to various notions, think a certain way and consider their future fait to be guided by the Gods almighty unseen hand, but with free will. These ideas may be considered normal.

In Christianity, it’s the three main branches that make up the norm. Those major Christian forms and organizations have great impact on the public at large to help define normal. Generally held ideas, concepts and holidays like worshipping God on Sunday, heaven and hell or that Christmas is Jesus birthday, make up the Christian normal. If a religious person’s opinion differs from these and other “normal” dogma, then your religion is anything but. By that definition, WCG was not normal.

But, what is normal? Is it simply believing and worshiping a God? Is it having a regular family who do regular things like go to work, school, the mall or to your grandparents home for a visit? Would having a loving family, with a father who provides and a mother who guides be considered normal? Is playing sports within the churches confines, keeping the sabbath, serving God, volunteering at church, setting a good example in life or reading the bible considered normal? If so, then these are the things everyone in the WCG did every day, every weekend and throughout the year.

When it comes to religious practices, such as getting dressed up, carrying a bible under your arm and marching into church, what is normal? Here, things get a bit more blurred, more fuzzy. If taking a cracker, excuse me, wafer, into your mouth and treat it as if you’re eating a body part, flesh, bone or even skin for that matter that IS the son of God, drinking a small thimble with wine, which IS, not represents, but IS Christs blood, then are these acts considered normal? If so, millions do it on a regular basis making it “normal”. If washing feet symbolizing humility and willingness to serve your fellow human being is odd, then why was it written in the Bible as an act during the passover service, suggested, by Jesus, to continue after that moment? Is washing someones nasty, gnarled feet considered normal? What about removing all bread products or any food product containing baking soda, baking powder or yeast and doing it on an annual basis for a week? If someone were to say, go to this little closet, sit and confess your sins through a shroud, mutter a few words about Jesus mother Mary, her grace and the importance her womb is to all mankind, whereby all your sins would be magically wash away, would that be treated as normal if you’ve never done it or even heard about such a thing?

In society, psychology, physiology and science, normal is loosely considered, conforming to a standard. Normal is really a persons reference frame or viewpoint, highly subjective and difficult to truly ascertain when that standard is revealed in many different ways. Standards are something that make things normal. Standard dress, standard ways people do things, speak, behave and treat each other. While normal can be applied to just about anything in our daily life, activities and wakeful moments, how we treat each other weigh pretty heavy. What is normal should be carefully weighted and considered.

Consider someone standing in line at the post office who starts muttering profanities, spits at the wall, then turns to the person behind and calls them nasty names. This would be considered pretty abnormal. After the incident, this person suddenly switches gears and looks down in a humble manor, eyes on the floor in shame. Why is this considered abnormal? Because very few people are afflicted with Turrets, yet to the afflicted, this behavior is their normal. Their situation and how their body and mind is wired has great impact on what they perceive as normal.

In late November and early December, various colored lights begin to appear on home eves around neighborhoods across the world. Fir trees suddenly show up in windows, lights twinkle and wreaths hang from doors. Some homes are dark to these activities showing little or no sign indicating any similar notion or agreement with how to celebrate the winter period known as Christmas. Is the dark home abnormal? Are the winking lights that look pretty to the beholder considered normal? How do you determine such things? Subjectivity is at play.

Living the dream

Through childhood, I had my own normalcy. My parents were your average guy who met girl, fell in love, married and began a family. With little background in religion, they chose to search for a truth. Their truth. In doing so, they began to live by the principles professed by Herbert W. Armstrong through the Worldwide Church of God ministry, actually, they began when it was the RCG Worldwide, as the name changed in 1968. They had joined a few years prior to the name change at or around the time I was born. I was four when the name was changed, barely a year after my parents had married.

Living the life as a member in WCG was pretty normal, pretty average and actually fairly mundane. We acted and behaved like regular people you’d see on any street, in any southern town or suburban neighborhood. We were normal. Randall’s grocery store was where we purchased weekly groceries, Sears was huge for my father, who loved tools and we drove a regular car, lived in suburban Houston and for all practical intents and purposes, were normal. I was oblivious to the craziness, obtuse to the outside world, for the most part, like any other normal kids growing up in the big city.

My truth, my normalcy, had been hard wired and when confrontation(s) occurred, I defended my religion to the hilt. I’d been known to expose Santa for what he was, getting slapped in the process by the little neighbor girl who was not happy about my postulations and public school was a whole different matter.

Going to church, having friends, drawing cars while the minister preached and playing church league basketball were our normal. It was no different than anyone else, save for the two hour service part, but after years with conditioning, it was pretty normal. When you don’t know any better, you just don’t know that most church services only lasted less than half the time that WCG service program would. This was normal and it was fine. We had singing, we had socials, we had happy times, we had fun, we had sports, we had each other.

Living as a Christian who believed the end was close was pretty straight forward. Our truth was founded on the Bible, founded on the interpretations by those much smarter than the lay member and it was extremely plausible, extremely clear once explained and very much something that in my heart, I felt chosen. I felt special and I felt vain.

I’m better than you

Probably the worst thing that I can say is that I was a terrible Christian. I felt, no I believed, I was better than everyone else. I didn’t walk around spouting my inner personal feelings of superiority, beating my chest or wagging my finger at everyone I met, BUT, as a young adult I thought in my mind and in my beliefs that I was above everyone else because I had the truth. Subconsciously I projected this belief to those around me both inside the church and out. In my professional life, I worked with similar or like minded church members as I lived close to the college area which harbored numerous members, college students, ex-members, ex-college members and everyone in between. As my career morphed to managing people, away from the confines and walls of commonality related to my beliefs, my attitude did not waver much in my superiority. I’m sure many thought me to be something akin to an ass. I think the current modern vernacular is; a douche bag.

Knowing something different than everyone else makes you vain. Scientific knowledge with high magnitude of complexity makes scientist feel superior to the average man or woman. Religious knowledge, or “The Truth”, gives the believer a sense that they’re lives are more meaningful than those who don’t have the same knowledge. Thinking that you are better than the average person who marches off to church on Sunday and keeps Christmas makes you vain. Believing that God has chosen you to become a part of his family, a part of his future plan to build a new kingdom makes you a horrible Christian.

Everyone says this is a big struggle and I say, yes it is (was). Along with thousands who believe(d) as I did, the WCG membership struggled with their superiority, their knowledge and ultimately their vanity. I struggled with everything I knew, everything I believed, what was right, what was wrong, how to feel, guilt, anger and above all confusion when our world was rocked, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Making things  worse, I attended Ambassador College. It was the elite. The best of the best. Where the special migrated, where the chosen congregated and the most vain came together to marry, learn, rub off on one another and become better than everyone else, myself included. My own father, a devout member still professing the beliefs he chose back nearly fifty years ago, stated that same sentiment repeatedly wishing I’d never attended such an institution as Ambassador College. Knowing this hurts, but the past can’t be undone. He was right, I should never have attended such a place.

Ambassador College graduates believed themselves to be above everyone else. I believed I was more chosen than the regular church member. We all thought we would be the ones who would lead the church into the next millennium, would go back to their respective congregations and provide leadership, moral guidance and direction for those less fortunate. We believed we were being directly educated by the established elite, the elders and senior intelligence that was Ambassador College. Many former graduates will argue this point, but I say, go stand in front of a mirror, stare into your own eyes and say this wasn’t so. Ones ideas may have morphed, mellowed, humbled over the years, thoughts may have changed, but the principle stood and it was the underlying purpose, the unstated ambition, quiet derision that Ambassador College stood to achieve. Make the best, teach the best and send them back to continue in their righteous pursuits.

I would venture to guess, this sentiment, this ideology and plan permeates through out many religious organizations shrouded in righteous college academia from coast to coast, region to region and religion to religion. It’s the way the message continues for each respective organization, Worldwide Church of God not excluded.

The earth moved

Standing high above the Los Angeles valley looking down at homes glistening in the California sun, I felt the earth move. Sirens shrieked as I made my way through the million dollar home bouncing off walls where we had just finished installing a circular bar with such magnificent vistas. Vast greenery, glistening homes and far off buildings had been distracting, now, I was more distracted than ever as the rumbling earth jostled my body. I ran towards what I believed to be safety. Really, I simply followed the natives out to where they believed safe ground would insure the least destruction. I was ignorant about these things. A huge plume filled with dust, rock, gravel and grass showered the sky making it’s way back down from the rocky ledges known as Angeles Crest. Finding out that the San Andreas fault was literally yards from where I stood, I shivered at the limited knowledge I’d acquired about such a legendary crack.

Aftershocks rocked our little apartment for several days spreading glass and plaster across our shabby carpet. Walls wiggled and our bed shook more than I’d cared to ever experience again. This and the fact that property values in the west were sky rocketing, led to the decision to extract ourselves from the Southern California lifestyle and move back home to Texas. We’d gone west, saw, examined, calculated the costs, didn’t like what we witnessed and went back to the East Texas safety rife with humidity and tornados, but cheaper housing and no earth quakes.

Later, sitting in a cool air conditioned building while the heat sweltered and temperatures rose from the concrete and asphalt that was Dallas, I sat with a young baby on my lap, a dutiful wife by my side and I listened to the stoic minister grind through the letter from head quarters that expounded the doctrinal changes that were about to wash over our humble little church. Doctrines that were considered the core truths, the foundational pivot points to humanity, our fait and destiny, those doctrines were being wiped clean, changed, modified and rearranged. They were all I’d known since before I could speak.

The earth moved again!

Self examination is a difficult thing, if you really think about it. Starting over is hard. Every human being, every person, every thinking, feeling, conscious being on this planet should, no HAS, to go through constant self examination and review. Otherwise, we stagnate. I had stagnated in the quagmire called religious existance. I had done nothing to truly prove, actually verify and examine what I believed, how I lived and what I had based my entire life upon. I was simply going through the motions set in stone as a child, young teen and at that moment in time, a young adult staring at a long life ahead.

True self examination and awareness began shortly after the earth moved for the second time in my life. Prior to that moment, that day, that hour, that utterance about our doctrines which affected my beliefs, I simply had gone through the motions with the knowledge I had been given and had let others provide direction. Until then, I was simply existing, living day-to-day without really KNOWING the truth, really KNOWING what was going to happen in the future and really KNOWING if what I was doing every day regarding religion, God, my soul or spirit was actually worth the effort, worth the focus and worth the emotional turmoil I’d buried.

Now, the earth opened up endless possibilities and I jumped into the abyss feet first. Along side me was my still dutiful wife, Jodi, who’d had almost the same reaction about our past, our life and our existence. Unconsciously, we began a journey at the same time, never really approaching the subject directly for several years.

Get the hence

Removing the huge rock in your way is the first step to moving forward. Without expounding on the boring details, removing myself from the turmoil, the craziness, the splinters and the emotional roller coaster that I see others continue to ride, I removed myself from the center stage called the church. With little to no influence I basically did what ever I felt like doing, became extremely cynical, adversarial and down right mean on occasion. It was my coping mechanism for which I am not proud. I can use the excuse, everyone reacts in a different way, but that would be shallow. Truth is (was), I was pissed. I was angry and I took it out on the ones I loved, both who stood beside me and those who I considered friends.

Distance is a good thing when it comes to influence, thought and emotion. Long distance has the same advantages, but equally it has great challenges. Initially, I chose the physical distance by exiting any semblance called church, religion or otherwise. I rode a spiritual roller coaster on my own, no one around, except immediate family, but my mind was rattled with ideas, emotions, thoughts and turmoil that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

Inside I was a wreck, outside I became a rock focusing on career and the tight nucleus family Jodi and I had just began. Ultimately ignoring all things related to a religious world, I rearranged my priorities and God was not written anywhere on that list.

My religious, spiritual roller coaster ups and downs flattened as the years progressed. No longer being pushed to the edge around every unknown corner, the curves straightened. Horizons were vast with endless possibilities no longer clouded by uncertainty, no longer shrouded in guilt ridden sermons, world affecting complexities, odd rules of engagement, regulations for which to adhere and all the other aspects previously placed upon me, my mind cleared.

Years sped by after removing myself from the turmoil and angst. As things clarified, I began to reassemble my spiritual mind with lucidity only achieved through removing the clutter, junk and outside influential noise that I’d previously allowed to infiltrate my mind. Anger had slowly ebbed from my conscience, I became settled, comfortable in my own skin and happy.

One deep dark night when the moon was gone and I couldn’t sleep, I suddenly realized something with such clarity that I sat up for the rest of the night staring into the inky blackness rewinding everything I’d known from the moment I could remember to that point. I wound through the years at various feasts, the trips we’d taken, the joys I’d experienced, the people I knew, friends I’d forsaken, peoples lives I’d brushed against, to sitting with my father asking hard questions as a youth; “what will happen to our family when we’re taken to the place of safety?”. My mind breezed through my teen years trying to find myself, flashing to the moment I kissed a girl I loved deeply feeling guilt the entire time, to the moment I was baptized wondering when the spirit would hit me, to the moment I muttered those words, “I do until death do us part”, scared shitless about what I was doing. Everything in my life had been affected by the life I’d led as a church member.

I finished that sleepless night attempting to put the pieces together, make connections, delve deep into my conscious mind to understand, to figure out what it meant, if anything, to be spirit, to accept an unknown deity and to truly know what it was that made me the way I was. I didn’t justify or rationalize this event as being influenced by any etherial power, spirit or otherwise. Like every other human being that had accepted a version of a truth about a deity, a god, the God, Jesus and the church, I had to use my own brain, my own mind to rationalize and think through what I needed to know. How had I come to this state, how had I learned what I knew, where had the knowledge come from and who had provided it. What’s the foundation, the starting point and most importantly, where had the ideas I’d based an entire life come?

I had to know the truth and that was what had been previously lacking. I’d previously ignored my Christian religious past, pretended it didn’t happen and wondered why I’d gotten to this state. Instead, I embraced my past, put aside my old anger and frustration and decided to reinvestigate, open old ideas, think about what I knew and to start over to find my truth.

I realized, having knowledge about “A Truth” and knowing “The Truth” were two very different things. I had been given one, but I had not achieved the other. The Truth loomed out there and I had to know what it was.

~ For those who care and wonder.