How I Believe.

[Warning: This entry contains Jesus. Parental discretion is advised.]

Alright, I hate to have to do this thing right in the middle of the usual, but I have something that I need to say. It needs to be out there, because I think I’m just going to pop if I let it germinate too much longer. So, here goes:

I’m a believer. Yes, beneath all the rampant skepticism and secular miasma which is central to my character, I’m what they used to call a Christian. I can even remember when the term wasn’t a divisive point among the liberal community in America. But how did this devil-may-care punk from Manhattan end up being one of “those kinds” of people? Well, strangely enough, I wasn’t raised to believe there was any sort of divide. My mother is a Presbyterian, and my father a Catholic, and yet there was no arguing over who taught what aspects of religion to me. Over my many years of religious schooling, my pastors all preached acceptance and love of every walk of life. The message was so simple, and the way was so clear: you were supposed to be a good person, and not go out of your way to hurt anybody. They had done that a bunch in the Old Testament, and it just made God so angry that he killed a bunch of people. How easy is that to understand?

Then things started to change. Our first pastor, who was a kind and understanding man with a true passion for the Gospel, was dismissed from the church. Turns out that he was a homosexual, and that fact was much, much more important than his winning ways with the clergy. His replacement was a nasty man who delivered a sermon during the children’s service about why there is no Santa Claus. He also kept a mistress on the payroll. His replacement was the sister of a very famous Manhattanite who ended up suing the archdiocese for sexual harassment. It turns out that her replacement was the mistress.

It was at about this time that I left the enclave of religious education and began my tenure at my extraordinarily left-leaning high school. After all I had seen I was beginning to grow skeptical of my own faith. I had been told to love everyone and keep a very distinct moral code, but those who had taught me that had proved to be utter bastards. The week before I left parochial school, one of my peers had caused a power outage in the East Village because he was fucking around with the fuse box. He blew himself up. It was time to leave.

So I threw myself into this new secular surrounding. Now, I had not lived a particularly sheltered life. I couldn’t have; it was the Eighties, and I was living in Alphabet City. Haring lived down the street, and Chico was seemingly everywhere. Meanwhile, Dad let me watch Predator, listen to rap music, and have beer every once in a while. This was not a strict house, but our secular nature was always balanced by a sense of piety and devotion to God. We had a good life, and he had definitely provided the means to get by. This balance went to the dogs during my time in high school. A succession of awful events, not to mention my exploration of new and daring political and social views, started to divorce me from the church and from Christianity in general. It turns out the world is harsh, nobody follows the rules, and I’d been fed lies. I was out.

I’m not sure who I should credit for bringing me back. Actually, I know exactly who, but I’m not sure if she would take it. Shortly after the first diagnosis, I spent a while speaking with Memphis on the nature of her faith. We both shied away from using the terms “religious” or “Christian” when describing our relations with God, because both of those had become code-words for either the fanatic jerks on TV or the fanatic ankle-biters on campus that refused to even acknowledge the existence of other religions. I knew these kinds rather well, as I had gained a bit of infamy on campus by combating them in my “Religion and Ethical Issues” course on the eve of the Iraq War. I asked Memphis if I could ever come back to the church, whether it had shifted too much towards these detestable individuals to let me back in. She put it very simply: it’s about love. My teachers, the zealot pundits, and my ridiculous peers didn’t matter; all that mattered was that “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whomever so believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” God set a standard, and all he expects from us is that we treat our fellow man with the common decency that we’d grant him. If those who claim to be Christian can’t get that right, then fuck ‘em.

So listen up: I’m gonna tell vulgar jokes, make violent movies, and campaign vigorously for better sex education programs in public schools. And still I’ll believe. I’ll believe with every inch of my soul, because to believe is to know that you can make this world a better, happier place for all involved. Why bicker when he gave us so much to celebrate?

That’s why I’m a believer. Because I know, and because I know it’s right. Can you say the same?