A Little Crazy Behind the Eyes: The Bachelor and How to Date 15 Churches at Once

Apparently "Worth the Drive"

by Amanda Taylor

My parents packed up and carried off their three little girls to church every week, every Sunday morning, every Sunday evening, and every Wednesday night for my entire childhood. Thirty-five minutes it took to get to the modest, small brown building on the left-hand side of North Court Street in Circleville, Ohio. Thirty-five minutes to get there, thirty-five minutes to get home, every week through the cornfields and past the paper plant to sit in the pew right behind the 85 year-old woman who’s had When the Roll is Called Up Yonder memorized since 1936.

“A Church Alive is Worth the Drive.”

What is a “church alive?” That phrase has continued to silently whisper in my ear, haunting me since its plastic black letters first appeared on the church sign out front 22 years ago. By many of today’s standards, this church was deadern’ a doornail. Small, both cramped and yet somehow drafty, adverse to change, enthusiastic about routine, skeptical of outside influence, a lover of How Shall the Young Secure Their Hearts.

It is as objectionable to me now as it is entrenched. The comfort, love, and safety I feel in that small Church of Christ setting is something that I am certain will never be replicated, but it is also confining, and limiting, and maddening. So where do I belong? How do I practice this faith in a way that will honor my parents’ commitment, as well as the great blessing and curse of my own?

After swim practice in the fifth grade a friend asked me what religion I was, and when I answered, “Church of Christ,” they told me that wasn’t a thing. Feeling bad for me, they asked if I was, you know, Catholic or something? I pondered, unsettled, and panicked and then asked my dad on the way home from church the next Sunday, Hey Dad? Are we Catholic? Only years later did I realize how incredible my question sounded to him, once it became a running joke through our entire extended family that I might be “the Catholic one,” but that I wasn’t sure.

A little crazy.

Perhaps this confusion about belonging burrowed a little too far into my heart and mind, because now I wonder all over again “what I am.” I must go to church; I have gotten this far.  But the decision of where that will occur is another matter entirely. I find myself, having watched The Bachelor a time or two, seeing parallels between my pursuit for a church community and the latest Bachelor’s quest to date 15 women at one time. Every single option is beautiful, though it carries with it the subtle suspicion of crazy behind the eyes.  

For the record, I don’t think it’s normal to date 15 people at one time. The idea of getting to pick your soul mate while chaotically making out with as many people as you can get away with in the meantime is insanity, which I presume is why it makes for such good television. The human emotion on display is very raw (reference ugly cry here) but it’s expressed in the midst of an entirely orchestrated and fake environment. How do you honor what is real within a production?  

Doesn’t church educate me about what is true and eternal in this human experience through the mechanism of a production? Are churches focused on creating an environment that draws you in and convinces you of their authenticity and relevance, in a great bid for relationship? If The Bachelor is how we are normalizing relationship building in society, is not the church susceptible to similar whimsical and fleeting ideas of commitment? I don’t know how to date 15 churches without inherently judging them all and committing to none, and I’d appreciate being able to blame reality television if at all possible.  

In participating in all these competing religious environments however, I’m struck more by the similarities than the differences. I notice the love and the passion and the cold indifference, coexisting in foldout chairs and velvet-lined pews. I see and experience comfort in the routine, and feel resentment in our complacency. I feel music wash over the body gathered, the rhythm of the words fusing the masses, the repetition calming and steadying, and maybe the drums, either loud and accosting or beating out any worry and tension we’ve brought with us that day.  

The uniting of many for the glory of one is very powerful, and critically important to the practice of faith. We humble ourselves before what is perfect in the hope that we may rest in it, for just a moment, to carry away to the corners of our world whatever remnants are gracious enough to linger.

Person or symbol?

Watching the black smoke turn to white this week, I found myself humbled by the Catholic faith, connected to it. This is the uniting of many, centered, focused on who will lead them in pursuit of the glory and honor of one. This is not political posturing or parochial strategy or a statement to society as much as it is the body of Christ, a church alive.

The press surrounding this important and significant changing of the guard is chilling; it’s analytical and manufactured, yet it reminds me too much of my pursuit of a church community. We have already stripped Pope Francis of his humanity and understand him instead as his geography, his routines, his Jesuit background, and his political implications.  

The Catholic faith quickly becomes a body we review as we would another social psychology case study, peering in upon its internal strife and posturing, labeling so much as scandal and tawdry. We turned church into The Bachelor and asked ourselves if our favorite contestant won. How perilous to think of faith as something that can be contained by policy and bureaucratic refinement or understood by the world’s standards.

In the end church is a production of sorts, an orchestration of people, ideas, action, and relationship, to say something to the world and to the individual about the Creator. It is inviting us to see its relevance and look past its flaws and, more than anything, is asking for participation, for faith, to just show up to own version of a modest, small brown building on the left-hand side of North Court Street.

“It is to provide an example that submitting to the practice of worship and the leadership of those in charge is a Christian teaching about humility and submission to God.” My dad said that.

Amanda works in “community development” and no, she doesn’t know what that means either. Forever the critic. And enthusiast. Never one for dichotomies. Follow her on Twitter @tayloram03 if you’re not into receiving tweets.

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A Tale of Two Popes: Catholics, Copts and the Spirit That Binds Them

Pope Francis I

by Sebastian Faust

Yesterday, the Roman Catholic Church selected a new pope. The world turned its attention to Saint Peter’s Square, where Pope Francis I stepped out onto a balcony and greeted the crowds. He wore a simple cross as he prayed with the people, and then offered them his blessing.

But before ever he emerged, as I watched the white smoke rising over the Vatican, and the bell of Saint Peter’s Basilica was ringing, I was reminded of the choosing of a different pope; it happened late last year. 

On a Sunday in early November 2012, the Eucharist was being shared inside St. Mark’s Cathedral, situated between palm trees and the city streets of Cairo, Egypt. A high vaulted ceiling arched overhead like the dome of heaven; below, a throng of people filled the cathedral past overflowing – outside, the crowds covered the balconies, the stairs, flooded down into the surrounding streets. 

All through the liturgy, an ornate box sat upon the altar, something out of place on any other Sunday – inside were three pieces of paper, each inscribed with a different name. One of these three would be the next pope.

The rites that surround the selection of the pope in the Coptic Orthodox Church stand in contrast to those that we witnessed yesterday in the Vatican. There, in the Sistine Chapel, 115 cardinals met in conclave, walled off from the world in order to conduct the sacred affairs of the church. Though they are free to choose the next pope from outside their own number, doing so would break a tradition that has stood for over 600 years. 

Sequestered inside the chapel while in conclave, the cardinals convene and vote for their next leader, until someone proves able to attain the two-thirds supermajority mandated by church law. A millennium ago, after they had made their choice, there was required the consent of the lower clergy and the laity before the investiture; now, it is the choice of the College of Cardinals alone. But how different it was in November of last year, when the Coptic pope was chosen. 

St. Mark's Cathedral

There, the selection process included not only the highest body of clergy, but extended out through the laity. (Both men and women take part in the process, which is notable considering that the Coptic Orthodox Church is a highly patriarchal faith.) This is true both of the nomination process and the actual voting. Clergy and laity offer nominations for the next patriarch and are allowed to challenge nominees if they feel their former behavior speaks against them. And when the list of names is finalized, both groups vote together for those they feel are most suitable. Yet when this voting is done, they still have not chosen the next pope. Instead, the candidates have been narrowed to three - three names, on three pieces of paper, placed inside a box on the altar of St. Mark’s Cathedral.

For three days, the faithful have been fasting. For three and a half hours, the Divine Liturgy is observed. Three aspects of the Divine are invoked: God is beseeched to lead his people, the Son draws near to them in the mystery of the Eucharist, and it is asked that the Spirit will descend upon the community. 

And when the Divine Liturgy is completed, there comes a little child forward to the altar. He is five years old; he trembles slightly as he stands before the congregation. The names are taken from the altar and placed within a chalice, and the child is draped with a blindfold. From the chalice he draws a name – the next shepherd and patriarch of the faith.

It’s the Sorting Hat of Pope-Making. It’s drawing straws. It’s casting lots. It’s Pope Powerball. But, to be honest, I just like this. I like it a lot. 

What I like so much about it is that it goes out of its way to make room for the Spirit. Drawing names from a chalice is an analogue to the replacement of Judas, when Matthias was chosen by lot to be the twelfth apostle. The broad inclusion of the laity and clergy in the voting process is reminiscent of the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15. There’s room for hearing God’s voice speaking through God’s people; there’s room for God slipping into the material world, moving through the physics of chance and guiding the choice.

There’s just such beauty there. There’s a beauty to leaving space for the divine, for an outside force to interact with our decisions – an idea that is often so terrifying to us. There’s something in this seemingly anachronistic action that is beautiful, something mysterious and profound and sacred, and so foreign to our Western mind.

But as much as I love this, as much as I love this more than the conclave we saw yesterday, I want to make it clear that I’m not saying that I think the College of Cardinals is some flawed, second-rate system. And that isn’t because I’m so post-modern as to avoid value judgments, or that I’m trying to appease my Catholic friends. 

The selection of the Coptic Pope

The election of Pope Francis I was a process that itself made room for God; as I phrased it before, the voice of God speaks through the people of God. And the discernment that comes by the Spirit plays itself out in the choice that is made. We shall see what the future brings with Pope Francis I leading the flock, but his first address to the faithful brought me nearly to tears. He showed himself to be a gracious man, a man of humility, and rich in compassion. He showed himself attentive to his people.

During his discourse, Pope Francis I made a lovely homage to that former practice of the consent of the laity. As he came before the crowds in St. Peter’s Square after his investiture, he led them in prayer, and then came a remarkable moment: he bowed to the laity gathered there; humbly, he asked them to offer their prayers for him, and then he grew silent, a silence that lasted and lasted, drawing out so long that when he spoke again, I realized I had been holding my breath for a very long time.

In his first address to the world, the Pope made himself a servant of the people; he made acknowledgement of the communal nature of this endeavor, and in so doing, the Pope made room for God.

Sebastian Faust is an avowed heretic, armchair theologian, and a self-styled canary in the coal mine of pop culture. He lives in Nashville with his dog Watson and what sounds like a family of squirrels that have squatters rights to his attic. If you'd like to follow Sebastian on Twitter, you can't, because he doesn't understand technology.

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On Christian Superstitions

by George Elerick

A black cat. Friday the 13th. A cracked mirror. Locking your door numerous times. Tying your shoes incessantly. Eating your foods in a certain order. The number 23. A rabbit’s foot. Our culture is riddled with superstition. But what is it? Why is it important? And is the church perpetuating it?

Dating back to the 14th century, the term superstition is defined early as an "excessive fear of the gods." Remember, an excess is something outside or beyond the normative experience of reality. It exceeds something. And the fear itself is the anxiety of not knowing whether we can control fate, to bring about our desires. 

In ancient times, superstitious practices served to appease or persuade the gods, attempting to 'control' them, to coerce them to: bring rain, heal someone from the brink of death, sustain crop growth, win wars against other tribes, and so on. It was a method of trying to manage the fear, to achieve what was desired by means of a specified act (i.e., murdering a virgin, offering the first crop, etc.). 

Superstitions are practiced in an attempt to control fate; to achieve the object of our desire, or to protect us from the frightening prospect of a world that is eminently dangerous.

In the movie 'As Good As It Gets' with Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt, Nicholson plays a man suffering from severe OCD. He has to avoid cracks on the sidewalk; he has to lock his doors a certain number of times before he is able to feel safe.  

This last part is key; it gives us a window into his obsessive neurosis. The object of his desire (i.e., safety from a dangerous world) is not focused on the specific door, the locks, or even the idea that this single door provides some barrier between himself and the world, but rather, all these things represent something much more important. They are imbued with power; they are symbolically something more than the object itself. The door is not just a door; it is a DOOR. All doors, taken together, represent the desire for safety from a perversely septic world.  

These actions, which are self-imposed rules, force the person to then view these rules as 'other'; they must make these rules sacred in order to justify them and their relationship to them. These self-created rules become superstitions, imbued with a great power, justified by an interior logic: "It is not that I wish to avoid the crack in the sidewalk; rather I MUST. If I don't, then I might be injured; it might bring bad luck; it might cause others harm." 

Notice the theme here: Safety. This person thinks the world is an inherently dangerous place to be. His self-imposed superstition grants protection from what he fears; it helps him achieve his desire for safety.

Has not the role of the pope become a form of religious superstition? In the modern era, its functional significance is anachronistic. It’s noteworthy that while the Vatican currently sits without a physical pope, socially speaking the papacy hasn’t been this empty for years. It suggests that in the current arc of history, society is beginning to question its own superstitious upbringing. For one man to be the mediator for billions of other humans not only seems like an eccentric role, but also one that relies upon suspending belief in one's self-worth. 

When people fetishize other humans (another example would be when people become obsessed with actors/actresses) they ultimately negate their own inclusion (and experience) in the narrative of life. Their life is simply a translation through the gaze of another.  

When superstitions become self-justifying, they demand allegiance and observance, and ultimately remove any space for actually experiencing anything beyond the superstition itself (i.e., reality). They require people to create a world where their fears and desires control them; desires and fears which are dealt with only in temporary fashion, and only by people offering themselves to a reflexive ethic of being (i.e. the way one walks, talks, one’s verbal responses to specific events, one’s physical actions required after certain situations, etc.). 

This is one reason why Freud addressed religion as a superstition. To achieve its ends, it required a sacrifice: the very essence of the person committing to it.

And is not this the current state of the Christian church? I use church in the institutional sense. The implications here are various, but for quite some time, one such superstition that has continued to rear its head involves the exclusion of women from leadership. 

Okay, let's stop here for a second. What's the implication when we must create rules (i.e., superstitious ethics & behaviours) around half of the human species? Is it not that they in some sense do not naturally embody humanity as fully as men do, that they must somehow earn that humanity? In this light, the superstition supersedes the ontology of ‘woman’, so much so that it is not necessary that ‘woman’ even exist because the superstition has taken her place. In this regard, superstitions are quite evil, a parasite needing a host. Here, it’s an archaic host that now must seriously be dealt a tragic blow: patriarchy. Patriarchy demands a sacrifice; in this case, the opposite gender.

When viewed in these terms, is not sin itself a form of superstition? The idea that either some or all of humanity is inherently flawed and so, to deal with this flaw, we need a sacrifice to appease the 'gods' - is this not an excess fear of the gods? And is not the earliest conception of worship a part of this same practice, a form of superstitious disavowal of self? 

Let me explain. Worship is undertaken with the hope to make god feel good about herself, or to recognize who god is and who we are, or to pay homage to the person of god or (well, the list goes on). But what are the implications? Certainly, one is that God needs it, that God demands it, that God can't exist without it. And in a very perverse sense, some use this idea to coerce God; they use the promise of worship as a bargaining chip to entice God to give them what they want.

Ultimately, superstitions are beliefs we act out; we rely on them out of fear of disintegration. We create rules and actions that we imbue with significance, with holiness, with power. We cordon off reality (which we cannot control) by circumscribing it with superstition (which we can). We think that living through these constructs will save us from the danger of having to engage what we really want.  

In this light then, people need the Pope because they are afraid to meet with God. People need to see the black cat because if they don’t, they will have no reason for why things went bad. Superstitions are the hope that we can make sense of how things work. 

Yet, Jesus offers something different: Spirit and Truth. In Hebrew, these terms speak of the essence of a person - not objects or rituals outside of us. They speak of a person living out of the very center of their being - not through external objects or practices. Jesus says this is possible. And I think we find just such a person waiting for us beyond the pornography (excess of reality) of our superstitions.

George Elerick is an author, speaker and activist living in London. He is the author of Jesus Bootlegged and a regular contributor to the Huffington Post. You can find him on Twitter @atravelersnote or read more of his work at his personal blog The Love Revolution.

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