thread: 2007-01-04 : Self-identification vs. Membership
On 2007-01-13, Larry Lade wrote:
All these hemming and hawing over validation by a religious hierarchy is pretty foreign to me.
I will now be uncharacteristically sincere. Don't even attempt to read sarcasm into this.
Long before my time, my very WASPy grandparents stopped attending Zion Lutheran Church out of protest for my father and his brother being kicked out of the choir for not being able to sing. The funny thing here is, they really CAN'T sing. My dad's painfully tone-deaf. Well, irrelevant—my grandfolks had been good dutiful donors throughout the years, and this very un-Christian thing was too much. What's a little odd to me is that they didn't shop around for a congregation that was more to their liking; they just stopped being regular church-goers.
However, at no point did they stop considering themselves devoted Christians. Religion was still hugely valued by them, as evidenced by large cash gifts for Confirmation, and the great pride for my cousin who became a pastor.
Any hypocrisy or contradiction in this state of affairs didn't seem to even enter into the picture. And why should it? It's very much in keeping with the Lutheran tradition that clergy are not somehow more special than laity (ministry is just, you know, their job) and that you get your forgiveness directly from God without intermediaries.
I don't see the point in losing any sleep over rightness of affiliation with a religious organization that would even wield the threat of excommunication, which cudgel I see as evidence of spiritual invalidity. That's strong evidence of cult behaviors. I mean, as if any human agency even has that ability! That's just preposterous.
Avram, thanks for bringing up the Noahide laws. Not enough Christians are aware of those, which is unfortunate, because they instead co-opt the Jewish laws as their own. Then wonder why Jews chafe about it! In particular, worship of the Trinitarian Deity can generally be considered a violation of these.
