I have spent 38 years of my life as an ordained minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and after 69 years, I meet myself, once again, in the New Year!

I am most grateful for the openness, flexibility, and opportunity to find my voice among the various churches I have served.  And these very same communities have helped me clarify why I no longer consider myself a Christian.

This is because I have also learned that the answer to the most burning questions of the human community will not be found as long as we segregate ourselves into disparate communities and label ourselves into all too common and exclusionary (and actually non-existent except in name) groups called Liberals, Conservatives, Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Socialists, Anarchists, Christians, Agnostics, and Atheists.  No one is wholly and exclusively any of these things, and yet perhaps out of insecurity and fear we cluster together with like-minded people and thereby feel a sense of security and collective power.

I no longer feel a need to belong to any organized religion or group.  I do consider my moral compass to be formed and informed by the teachings of Rabbi Jesus of Nazareth who taught the universal message of forgiveness, acceptance, inclusion, compassion and unconditional love.  Not as a way to start or found a new religion, but to free us from religion and its demands and strictures.

When Jesus speaks of his father I believe he is not referring to an objectified power or presence outside of our humanness but to the very source of life and what makes us human.  To me that is God.  Some people who consider themselves Christian become angry, nervous and defensive when I talk about the fact that historically speaking Jesus was a Rabbi and died Jewish.  Simply put, he was not a Christian. He does not speak of or even hint at starting a new religion, but rather that we should reform the oppressive and greed-driven temple culture of his day.  How?

By practicing kindness.  By feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and those in prison.  Perhaps the best example of what I am talking about is found in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 25, verses 31-46.  The message is clear, and it is universal.  The words address “all the nations,” not any one particular group or religion.  By making your life your religion. That is what the Biblical word “repent” means.  The Greek word that is translated as repentance in this verse is metanoia.  One of the meanings of repent is “change of mind” or “to turn around.”  Literally, the word means “a change of mind about something.”

In other words “practice what you preach,”  or “Live what you believe.”  No other doctrine is needed.  Virtually every religion that I have studied over the years has at its core what we in the Western World have come to know as “The Golden Rule.”  “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

The Matthew passage I reference makes it abundantly clear that if we are looking for Jesus we might want to skip going to the temple to sacrifice an animal and bypass the magnificent cathedral and instead look for him in the lost, the hungry, the thirsty, the naked and voiceless ones.  Finding and embracing them, you will meet Jesus.  The central message of Jesus is a call for humankind to care for one another practicing kindness and unconditional love.

I personally reject the understanding that our sins (as defined by the church) are somehow removed by some magic act that horrifically calls for a father (God) to demand his only son’s death to atone for the sins of humanity.  I believe that understanding, called “substitutionary atonement,” regards Jesus as dying for others, instead of them, stems from the ancient Jewish practice of sacrificing animals to atone for human sin.  Jesus replaces the Scapegoat.  Humankind has evolved beyond that superstitious and primitive understanding to embrace an entirely different core idea from the teachings of Jesus.

It is we ourselves who are responsible, not only for our own behavior and welfare but the welfare of others as well.  We often hold onto superstitions and religious certainties because we are afraid to admit that the creation, indeed the cosmos itself for all its wonder can be, and is a very scary and unpredictable place.  So, we try to make it less frightening by creating a scenario that sounds plausible and brings us a measure of comfort.

I believe that God is life itself.  God is love, hope, compassion, wisdom, charity, light, healing, grace, and awareness, and is ultimately beyond objectification.  I love the practice I have seen in some Reformed Jewish worshiping communities when in print the name of God is written G-d, indicating that the essence of God will not be captured by mere human language in any word.  I do believe in God, just not the God that man and religion have created in our own image. 

I believe in a God that is in every breath.  In every moment.  A God that is everything that exists and not a Superhero in the sky that decides who goes to heaven and who goes to hell.  Hell, and heaven is not a place where we go after we die, they are conditions of life that exist here and now.

Today, as I reflect on the 74 years of life and 73 Christmases celebrated, I realize that I have gone full circle.  Full circle on a journey that began with what that little boy believed, to wandering off seeking meaning in everyone else’s understanding of life, only to return to where I began.  On the eve of a New Year, I am grateful that the little boy was right.

Blessed New Year to you and your loved ones.  May the journey that will be the year 2020 be graced with good health, hope, and the making of many memories!