Christ Is Still On His Cross

—F. ROBERT DE LAMENNAIS

I went to a private Lutheran school for fourth through eighth grades. In my family, my paternal grandmother was religious, but no one else was. They were all too smart, too educated to take religion seriously. I was the only member of my family to attend a religious school, and I think they sent me there because Ritalin wasn’t available yet.

I took at face value what I was taught, but I was surprised to see a difference between words and deeds within the school. I think my teachers believed in what they were teaching, but the interpretation seemed strange to me. They didn’t seem to see that they were being cruel; they felt it was more important to instill discipline. Years later, I can see the layers of culture on top of the lessons, but at the time, all I could see was the hypocrisy. By the time I left the private school to go to the public high school, I was pretty disillusioned, and started exploring other religions and philosophies.

But I’ve always had a hard time accepting the difference between the words of Christianity and the actions of Christians, particularly those who feel that their faith gives them license to hate or to judge. There’s so much work out there to be done, but I don’t see anyone doing it. Instead, they’re selfishly trying to impose their view of the world on others while hiding behind a crucifix.

Maybe my role is to play the spoiler, to point this out as my man Robert did above. I don’t know, and don’t really care. I became a Taoist long ago because of the gap between Christian words and Christian deeds. I keep looking for people performing the deeds, but I never seem to see them, or hear about them through the din of Christian words.

Tolstoy, Leo, A Calendar of Wisdom, August 17th