The Pastor and His Religion

What have we here?

The whole idea behind using parables is that there is some overlap between the concrete, literal meaning of the words and something beyond words indicated by the terminology. This blog is the ephemeral touch point for my virtual parish. So long as your Internet connection works and the DNS resolves so that your computer can fetch the contents of this webpage and display it in your browser, for that long you are a member of my parish.

That’s the full extent of what parish membership requires of you. On my part, it bears a much higher liability. I’m opening myself up to your interaction, regardless whether you take advantage of it. Like any parish pastor, I’m here to serve everyone who can find me, not just those who get involved and provide any kind of support. I’ve been wide open from the start and anyone who supports this work knows where that support goes, regardless what shape the support takes — not just actual money, but comments, moral support, feedback, etc.

In other words, it’s a little bit like the so-called “click-wrap” license on some software. If you read the notice, you have already agreed to it. Except, in this case, if you read the agreement, I have already agreed to be your pastor. The act of reading is your end of the bargain, as it were.

As noted before, a lot of folks might be comfortable pointing to this blog and telling others, “This is my pastor.” They might not be so comfortable saying, “And his religion is my religion.” You are under no such obligation. That’s no different from what you should expect from a mainstream parish pastor in meat space.

I may not have a clue what your religion is or whether you even have one, but you’ll have to tolerate mine in order to read this stuff. Instead of the religious soup kitchen and the “ear beating” the clients have to accept before the soup is served, you take a small “eye beating” when you read this blog and maybe get some soup for your soul.

Yes, your sarcasm detector should have gone off by now, because I don’t take myself that seriously. I do take seriously the mission to help all those folks who somehow didn’t get all they needed from mainstream religion. Mainstream religion failed me, but I’m not taking it out on the people or organizations involved. My bad experiences only empowered this drive to offer an alternative. Feel free to consider me an additional source even as you remain well within any religious organization that makes you comfortable with God. That includes those who don’t believe in my God or any god at all.

I use the phrase “virtual parish” for a reason, because I don’t want to be seen founding a new religion with an attendant organization. Rather, I’m offering my religion as an example of what you can do. Religion here is defined as a human response to a spiritual impulse. Some part of you senses a calling from another plane of existence and you try to answer that call. Religion is your effort to meet the demands of that voice. A critical element in my religion is reminding you that mine is mine, and yours is yours. We can collaborate and agree on a great deal, but in the end, you stand before God individually.

So it’s almost impossible to think of this as an organized religion in the sense of folks gathering over common belief and practice. Rather, we are a spiritual community almost entirely without organization. It’s more of a movement than a religion. There is a fundamental assumption about human nature, intellectual processes and the meaning of religion itself. I reject the mainstream Western view of reality, and this is easily the foundation of what sets my religion apart from the others that claim Jesus Christ as Lord.

If you grasp any part of that, you realize that you really can’t have my religion. You can’t read my stuff without getting a heavy dose of it, but I am utterly certain you didn’t get it if you come away in full agreement with every detail. Any attempt to clone my religion for yourself means you are already outside of it. Even my wife of 36 years is not that tightly bound under my personal dominion. It would violate my religion to make it obligatory on others.

But you can surely join the movement, as it were. That is, you can choose to operate on that Hebrew epistemology and propagate this alternative approach to things, and in that sense be a very close part of this virtual parish. In actuality, the intellectual part is nothing more than a means to organize and implement a response to God’s moral character as impressed on your soul.

Make it your own. Restate it in your own way, using your own brand of expression. Let God’s glory shine through you as you work it out with Him. If I can recognize it as being something that accomplishes the same mission, I’ll include you and make reference to your work. Anyone, even those who think they are enemies, can use mine as they see fit, so don’t be bashful. Include yourself under the umbrella of this movement to whatever degree it suits your sense of taste and calling. At some point I might even ask you to assume an explicit connection. Take what you want and give back what you can. The voluntary nature of this offer is fundamental to my religion.

Sure, there are ways you can get yourself excluded, but it’s pretty hard to reach that point. Beyond what I’ve stated in the “Readers Note” page linked at the top of this blog page, the easiest way to get kicked out of this virtual parish is by demanding too much dominion over others. When you attempt to eliminate the spiritual and moral freedom of someone else, you make yourself a heretic.

You are already “in” — just decide how much you want me or anyone else to know, and how much you want to participate.

Addenda: Yeah, this parish has a name: Kiln of the Soul.