I am a doubter and a religious skeptic. A few days ago I shot video of a Presbyterian Christmas service.
As I entered the church with my equipment I was greeted warmly by many in the congregation. I returned their greeting in kind. Truth be told, I was happy to be there because the officiant was a friend of mine and this video was going to help her get ordained.
It was a very moving service, different from the Catholic Mass I grew up experiencing. There was a time for people in the congregation to ask for prayers or give thanks for good fortune. There was beautiful music and many moments of good humor and laughter. Topping it all off was a Christmas pageant in which the children of the community dressed as the familiar biblical characters and recited lines from the Nativity story. Much of it brought a tear to my eye, I am not ashamed to admit.
As a well-known doubter you might think that I would have found all of this distasteful. Not at all. The warmth and love in the room was something to be celebrated and I was glad to be a part of it.
But, also being the filmmaker that I am, I couldn’t help but notice that the moments in which the people in that room glowed most brightly were the moments of interaction between them. As I have noticed in my own Catholic upbringing, the reading and analysis of scripture is often met with polite attention, if not actual boredom. And this seemed to be the case here as well.
The moments that were most moving to everyone, and the moments which brought little gasps of joy from the people there, were not the reminders of Jesus’ birth and suffering but the little things that people did for each other.
An elderly women had brought in an illuminated version of the Christmas Story that she had created as an art student in the 1930s and everyone gathered around to see it and compliment her.
There was an announcement that a youth group had collected pairs of shoes for the poor far beyond anyone’s expectations. A wave of appreciation swept across the room.
There were several challenged children in the pageant being gently prodded along by the other children.
There was a “Joyful Noise” collection in which the kids collected coins in cans for a local homeless shelter and then began shaking them noisily to demonstrate how much had been raised.
ALL of these things were intensely moving for me, and believers might say that these acts were inspired by the Gospels, but I didn’t see that. No, in fact it seemed to me as if people were biding their time through the Gospel to get to the “good stuff” of human interaction, kindness and caring for each other.
Am I saying that this proves that the bible stories are not true? Not at all. That’s a conversation for another time.
What I am saying is that throughout my life I have seen it demonstrated again and again that the story is largely unnecessary. I know many people claim to get inspiration from the bible but I don’t think that’s where it’s coming from at all.
The good feeling, the inspiration and love is coming from the people around you. If you are religious the bible is just a “hub”; a convenient totem around which all of this activity circulates but which, in the bigger picture, is really not needed.
So God IS all around us, as the bible says. Look to your left and right. There He is. There She is. So why then the fetishization of ancient notions of atonement by torture? Is religion really necessary for us to feel good about each other and help each other, when that same religion can be used to oppress, deny rights and justify hatred, mutilation and murder?
This doubter says no.
Maybe it’s time for a Doubter’s “church” in which the same sense of community is achieved but without the reliance on dangerous and outdated mythology.
What do you all think? What would that look like? What songs would we sing? What readings recite?
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