Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, March 3, 2009

There is no heresy or no philosophy which is so abhorrent to the church as a human being.

- James Joyce, author; on this day, 1873, the US Congress enacted the Comstock
Law against “obscene, lewd, or lascivious” works being sent through the mail;
Joyce’s “Ulysses” was banned.


This (if you are a “Christian”) is Lent. Be careful. Joyce understood the devious side of “religion”. It can be a blessing ………. and it can be an outright curse. It does not take much to turn “religion” against human beings. You can see it in many of the ages of the Church. It starts right at the beginning. Desert monks and other “ascetics” flagellating themselves, thinking of the body as “evil”. You can follow this nasty thread through many of the ages of the Church’s Life. It isn’t just sad. It’s (to put it metaphorically and anthropomorphically) “the work of the Devil”.

Alas. The Christian Church has colluded in this ….. and worse, it has supported and encouraged it. In my view, such “religions” should be firmly rejected. There is nothing more ungodly than a religion which abhors “the human being” as we are, in all our human glory, whatever the challenges human being-ness presents.

If you follow a religion, and it in any way denigrates, condemns, insults, refuses to see the innate wonder and loveliness of being human, doesn’t wholeheartedly embrace and uplift being human, find something else.

We are saints. We are sinners. We are frustrating. We are contradictory. We are unpredictable.

God likes us that way!

Brian+