Not All Approaches to Religion Are the Same

Things I learned about Christianity That I Didn't Know Before

Growing up as an American Christian or even just as an American, the Christianity most of us are exposed to is very much influenced by the modern protestant evangelical fundamentalist movement, not to mention the Puritans who founded the country. As I started to explore the history and theology of Christianity, I came up against this perception within myself; that Christianity, and most especially Roman Catholic Christianity, equals fundamentalism. This is so incredibly far from the truth, but it took many months of reading and exploring to start to see it.

I entered into my RCIA classes (weekly, for 6-8 months) expecting dogmatic fundamentalism. I might as well have been wearing armor, that first class. I felt defensive and full of anticipatory anger. A small classroom in the rectory basement held 10 people, of all ages and races, who welcomed me immediately and then we launched into a discussion of how to interpret the Bible. The first thing we were told is that it is not intended to be literal. The years and numbers of the Bible (7 days, 40 days, etc) are not actual exact timespans in which things happened. Adam and Eve didn’t necessarily live in a Garden with a snake and a magical tree. Much of it is mythic and metaphorical.

I was completely shocked to hear this, in the basement of a Catholic rectory, from the people responsible for forming me into a Catholic. And it went on like that for the rest of the process.

Upon asking what the Catholic Church’s stance is on non-Catholics and other religions, I was told that Catholicism is the way ‘for us’, because we were called to it. Catholicism does not damn people of all other religions to hell. Upon reading more deeply into the Catechism later, I saw that this was true.

The Catechism irks me in a lot of ways, especially when it comes to sexuality. Catholicism still has a long way to go to be truly loving, welcoming and inclusive of all the Children of God. But in the 1960s there was a huge council called Vatican II, after which many many things were altered. Many Catholics, then and now, did not approve of the changes. There is a whole schism in the Church between, I suppose you could say, fundamentalists and progressives. As there is in the rest of society. There are parishes that are still very much influenced by the older, conservative, fundamentalist Catholicism. There is even a movement amongst young Catholics to bring that back.

Is any of this surprising? People are complex. We don’t like change.

When I first had the vision of Jesus in 2021, the first place I turned was to my Lutheran/Presbyterian aunt and uncle. I was staying with their daughter at the time as I dealt with severe long covid. We had a video call and I explained to them what I’d seen in the vision. I was a little pissed off, at the time, about this vision. I was pretty staunchly anti-Christian, although this had more to do with my perception of Christians than with Jesus himself. I expressed my bafflement at many Christian beliefs, specifically ‘Jesus died for your sins’ and ‘You have to believe in Jesus to be saved.’ Uncle Jack flipped through his Bible, reading passages while they tried to explain. I just kept arguing and saying it didn’t make sense to me. Finally, Uncle Jack closed his Bible and folded his hands on top of it. He looked into the camera and said something like, ‘Our path is not your path. You’re going to have to find your path, but we’re here to support you along the way.’ And they were. They took me in a few weeks later and I stayed with them for 1.5 years, having many conversations about faith during that time.

I didn’t know where to start, but I knew there was such a thing as Christian Mystics so I plugged that into my podcast app and up popped Turning to the Mystics with James Finlay. The first season is based on the works of Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk who lived in the mid-20^th century. He was, like Dorothy Day, a wild child before hearing a call from God (are we sensing a theme here?). In his later years, he became dedicated to interfaith cooperation across religions, as well as an anti-war activist. He died at the age of 53 in Thailand, while on a tour of Asia to meet Buddhist religious leaders (possibly assassinated by the CIA but that’s a whole other story).

From there I discovered the Center for Action and Contemplation, a school in New Mexico where the podcast is produced. Through them, I took a number of classes on Franciscan spirituality and ‘perennial philosophy’: “a perspective in philosophy and spirituality that views religious traditions as sharing a single, metaphysical truth or origin from which all esoteric and exoteric knowledge and doctrine has grown.” I read The Universal Christ by Richard Rohr (founder of the CAC) which delved into all my moral and theological disagreements with the Christianity I’d learned growing up and offered ‘alternative orthodoxy’. I took all the free online classes through the Apostolic Johannite Church, “an esoteric, Gnostic and Christian path of spiritual understanding and self-discovery.” I discovered Way of the Rose, “a diverse, inclusive community dedicated to the forgotten earth wisdom of the rosary…and to the Lady, by any name you like to call Her.”

I read books like The Wisdom Way of Knowing, Inner Christianity, Tantric Jesus, and The Gnostic Gospels. I read a thick history of Christianity (link) and learned how it grew from a small group of followers, to a persecuted underground religion, to the official religion of the Roman Empire, and into the monolith of the medieval Roman Catholic Church; becoming along the way the Greek and Russian Orthodox faiths, many many Protestant denominations, and the hundreds and thousands of churches I don’t have space to list here.

I began to understand that Christianity has never been only one thing, and people have been pushing back against dogmatic orthodoxy from the very beginning. The many attempts to enforce orthodoxy had everything to do with power and politics, and nothing to do with anyone’s unique relationship with God.

And so I come back to the title of this essay: not all approaches to religion are the same. There are mystics, and esotericists, and fundamentalists, and activists. We can approach religion through the lense of history, sociology, politics, psychology. There are dozens of different types of theology; liberation, feminist, systematic, moral, biblical. I could go on.

I think all of this diversity in belief and thought is beautiful. In the same way that ecosystems thrive on biodiversity, I believe human belief thrives on spiritual diversity. For some people, structure and consistency are the cornerstone to their relationship to the Divine. For others, structure turns into rote duty and spiritual dryness. Maybe the difference is between creating that structure from an understanding of your own unique rhythms, and following a structure someone else said you must follow to be good, or achieve salvation.

The only approach to religion that I object to is any approach that attempts to force other people to worship or behave the same way you do. Full stop. Leave other people alone and do whatever you want.

How does all of this work within Catholicism? It’s confusing, to be honest. I entered the church during a long period of change, starting with Vatican II and continuing into the present day and the Synod happening right now in Rome. There are many ‘rules’ that aren’t actually ‘rules’, but preconceptions from movies or anti-Catholic progaganda. Then there are rules that ARE rules, but some priests and parishes are more tolerant than others. I started participating in the Eucharist before I was confirmed, after sharing with a priest my understanding of Catholic history and theology from my own studies as well as my beliefs and relationship with God. I have sex, within a committed monogamous relationship, but outside of marriage. I don’t go to Mass every Sunday. There are queer couples in my parish, divorced people taking Communion, betrothed couples living together before marriage, all kinds of folks using birth control.

I have been told by more hardline or fundamentalist Catholics that I am not truly a Catholic, that I lied during my Confirmation ceremony, that I’m doing it wrong. I also personally know dozens of openminded Catholics who are queer or queer-affirming, antiracist, support the introduction of women to the deaconite and/or priesthood, are pro-choice. Like I said, people are complicated. It’s what makes us beautiful.

The Catholic Church is not actually the monolith it might appear to be. It is a very large umbrella, and underneath stands over 1 billion people, all interpreting the Gospel and the doctrines in their own ways, according to their own culture, upbringing, and personal nature. This upsets the fundamentalists, but it’s true.

Not all approaches to religion are the same.

This icon is by the amazing Kelly Latimore, and is a modern interpretation of The Trinity by Andrei Rublev

*I got the title for this post from this article on mysticism and fundamentalism