My Father’s Churchgoing, Plus a Propaganda Note

I digress more than I get to the point lately. I suppose that’s the hallmark of a distracted mind. I’ve got a few more important things on my mind than religion. By definition, as an atheist, I’m fairly unconcerned with it. I don’t really want any misconceptions here: I do think that religion is mostly nonsense. I do think that any system that puts doubt in doubt is beyond tragic, and that convincing people to believe without seeing does them a great disservice. All superstitions aside, including the time wasted knocking on wood and kneeling for prayer of any sort, there are churches that don’t do a whole hell of a lot of good in this world, and those are where my attention most readily goes. I wish I had time to explore again, to see what’s good in the world, but for now, I’ve fallen into a rather pessimistic phase.

But all is not lost. Apparently, my family has made a bit of a return to God, and my father left this comment on the blog recently. Given that most people don’t patrol the comments, looking for new content, I wanted to post it here on the front page for all to see. Though he’s back in the good graces of God, I want you to notice that my skepticism is far from God-given: my attitude is straight up genetic.

Mom, Melissa (my younger sister) and I have been attending a Church that one of Melissa’s friends’ family likes. I will mention no names here. When you enter the Church, located in the Industrial area of Simi Valley Ca., you are greeted by a very nice coffee bar, in several flavors. There are the usual folks standing at the door with the agenda for the service. The seating is Movie Theater style with the seats gradually set higher than the ones in front to allow a good view.

The regular preacher has been in attendance only once in the several times we have been there. He was on a vacation to Hawaii the first two times we attended.

We went to a service in the evening a couple of weeks ago and he actually was there. He sounded more a motivational speaker than a preacher. He is young and handsome. He wears street attire and delivers his words in a more common manner. He uses no big words and wears a perpetual smile.

When you enter you may sit where you want. Then… the music starts! The front man is shoeless fellow with a preacher’s message. His back-up band is a motley crew of musicians. Among them are two lead guitars and sometimes three. There are acoustic and electric. There is a drummer and a keyboardist. The music is so loud that I have resorted to wearing earplugs! I do not think that God meant for you to have your hearing ruined for life.

Back to the band if I might. One of the lead guitar players is tipping his guitar back side up as he plays. One base player looks as though he just stepped in from the halls of a very informal high school. He wears t-shirts with some sort of message on the front every time he plays. Some of others look like the usual battle of the bands type. Funny hats, faded blue jeans and tattoos. A couple have the clean cut look. There is even a screen that shows the lyrics while you sing along. But, the last time I was there, after the lyrics to Amazing Grace had been depleted, they added a made up verse of their own. And that one had no screen assistance. It left thinking “What the?”

As I said before, I had to wear ear plugs. The funny thing is, they were not much good to me as the music was extraordinarily loud. After the music was over, I could hear only my ears ringing. I could not make out half of what the preacher was saying. In short, the word I was supposed to receive was unobtainable to me.

I am told it was a pretty good sermon. I will never know though. I don’t know if I will try it again. Maybe I am getting to old for this? I do wish that they had, had a healing session after, I could have used it.

I love my family, and I hope that this church gives them what they want without any of the bad aftertaste that the Mormons occasionally left them with.

Which brings me to my second point. I endured a bit of a public shaming (via Facebook no less) from my mother this week. I made a comment about being in a Laundromat and how disturbed I was that there was so much religious propaganda in it. I’d found some of these little notes on cars outside of the grocery store (in the rain, no less), but in the Laundromat itself, there were dozens of them scattered about. They weren’t simply on the tables, they were also on top of every single washer, every dryer, and even tucked into the faces of some of the machines. You literally could not cast your eyes across the room without spotting at least ten of them. I, being a good Samaritan, decided to read some of them, to see what they were about and what kind of vision they were propounding. Some were about God and whether or not he “cares when you’re suffering,” while others were about (and I kid you not here, dear readers) exactly to whom people are talking to when they say they’re “talking with the dead.” We all know how I favor the psychics around here…

Long story short, I took the pamphlets home with me. Not just a couple, or one of each type, but as many as I could get my hands on. I also came away with a couple of magazines from Watchtower, the Jehova’s Witness press. Basically, I took these things out of circulation to prevent them from falling into the wrong (read gullible) hands.

My mother literally told me “shame on you. Someone else might have found what they were looking for in those things.” I don’t take such a comment lightly, especially from my mother. Despite common assumptions to the contrary, I do care what she, and others, think of me. I really do. And thus, this explanation:

The next time you see propaganda from a church, I want you to take a page from my playbook and ask yourself a couple of questions about the people who wrote those leaflets, left them there, and espouse the beliefs that caused them to come into being. First of all, what kind of church is this? Second, what kind of information does this pamphlet contain? Third, is there a drastic disconnect between the true beliefs of that organization and the pamphlet in question? In my case, many of these things were left by the JW’s, whose beliefs include several harmful, ridiculous notions. In the literature, there was, of course, no mention of those less savory things, but instead, only discussions of God’s perfect love for us. (We must assume that this love for us doesn’t include any respect for our lives in some cases, especially those that center around blood transfusions, but whatever.)

This is my point: if you see religious propaganda from a church, you should be suspicious. What kinds of churches need to disseminate propaganda around town just to bolster their memberships? (Hint: often times, it’s the not so good ones, the ones that have dark secrets, the ones that have to have two faces just to get by.) I will tell you all the same thing I told my mother: if these pamphlets had been from a community church, with a Xeroxed flier on the wall with tear-off tabs that said, “we’re here to help,” I would have left it alone. But when they lure you in this way, with the best of their doctrines only spearheading a slow simmer of regrettable details to follow, they’re not worthy of even the briefest consideration. If someone wants to find God, I would never stand in his way. But if “God” is trying to find you, especially through a pamphlet in a Laundromat, you might want to figure out who the real source is before you end up trapped.

One final explanation: among the bad tastes that the Mormons have been known to leave in people’s mouths are their bizarre beliefs about death. My mother was once informed that my eldest brother’s soul was irreparably lost because she had had him cremated. Other leaders of the church disagreed with the genius who made this claim, but the damage was done. There is also the “keep the Sabbath day holy” nonsense to deal with. If you’re a good Mormon, you’re not allowed to do anything on Sunday. It’s not quite as harsh as ultra-orthodox Judaism (where you can’t even push an elevator button on the Sabbath), but it’s bad enough. No sports, no swimming (and this includes lounging in the pool, according to some), or anything of the sort. No gathering for anything except for church… These details, when turned into social pressures, shouldn’t have to be a part of the bargain, and thus, I will always secret away the propaganda I find from this type of church. I don’t agree with anyone who presents a one-sided case, only to spring the less-agreeable facts later on. After all, this is what so many of us dislike about our fellow human beings in the first place. When was the last time you approved of a lie by omission?

But I’ll keep it civil. If you disagree with me, I’d love to hear your opinion, but first, I want you to consider these questions before you reply:

1) Am I thinking about my own church and giving it undue deference because it’s the one I belong to? (I don’t want to hear, “oh, well, we put out happy fliers and then weigh people down with Sisyphean stones later, but it’s okay because I believe in it”—that’s crap. Though, I would like to see the word “Sisyphean” in the comments someday. Good story that.)

2) Would I not rather the soon-to-be-believer come to a church that really does have a sense of community not based on guilt-trip returns once the honeymoon is over? (Both the Mormons I’ve dealt with and many of the JW’s I’ve read about have these problems, but there are obviously better alternatives out there–how about a church where love really is the answer?)

3) Do I really think that these pamphlets would have been helpful as more than foot-in-the-door, gateway-drug, conversation starters? (This is the only of the three I can see having any sort of intelligent argument behind it, and thus, I am most open to this interpretation. Still, given the potential consequences, I am undeterred in my mission.)

I’m interested in what you think, but I do want to mention that, if you believe as I do that these churches should stop their predatory practices, don’t just pass these things by. Take the items in question. Recycle them. Leave what you will in their place, a letter of understanding, a business card with your church’s details written on it, whatever. I’m not saying we should cut God out of these public spaces, I’m saying we should cut churches who succeed because of their big budgets (more than their love and mutual respect) out of society. Period. It will be far easier to build a better tomorrow without them, I assure you.