Thesis 16: Fetus Faith 101

Fetus Faith 101

I was a 27-year-old university student when I learned that the biblical creation story was likely an allegorical origin story written in much the same pattern and style as those of a number of other religions. I went to a Christian liberal arts university where everyone had to take the same suite of core courses across various disciplines, one of which was a second-year philosophy course. The professor was a specialist in philosophical metaphor.

What if, the professor asked, seven days might not mean seven twenty-four-hour periods, but the story might be early humanity’s way of adding wonder to billions of years of God-guided evolution they can’t possibly understand?

My first reaction? Hell, no, can’t be. I walked away from that class feeling angry, betrayed, and outraged that this person dared question the inerrancy and perfection of scripture.

In that stubborn moment, though, some things began to solidify, and expand. I’d already experienced years of seeing what I learned in Church clash with real life, persistently odd gaps and contradictions in scripture, festering abuses I and friends had suffered at the hands of bible-wielding leaders, and frequent encounters with God and Christ that kept happening away from Church and their people. In other words, the simple promises and truths of my young faith weren’t as certain as I’d been led to believe they would be.

What if there was more to scripture than the literal?

Turns out, there's way more to the Word than just the Word. The scriptural universe, when explored through rational, figurative, and scientific lenses enlarges the faith experience: it expands at the speed of light, in fact. The more I thought about it and learned, the more I realized that I’d been walking through the world with fetus scales on my eyes.

And that trusted people in my life had placed them there.

I’m a parent now, and so I understand the need to keep things simple for young minds. My partner and I tell the stories like we heard them as kids. The earth from darkness in seven days. Adam and Eve and that pesky serpent. Noah’s incredible boat-building skills and the miracle of two by two by two. David vs Goliath. Mary’s struggle, the stable, and three wise men kneeling next to the manger. Jesus dazzling the elders in the temple. Feeding the five thousand. That chopped-off ear. Three days and the empty tomb, the holes in his hands and feet. Ascension. Paul’s scaly eyes and that road to Damascus. And so on.

We tell the stories this way because our young children need easy stories of black and white and miracles. Heroes and villains. Easy morality.

But like it says somewhere in scripture, how we reason as children is not how we’re supposed to reason as adults. As soon as they can handle it, our kids are going to get the whole picture. Everyone should, if only because humans are curious.

So why do so many of us still live in our infant minds when it comes to faith? Specifically, even though there’s mountains of evidence supporting how dynamic and evolutionary the scripture we hold in our hands really is, why do so many people never evolve past the kid’s stuff? Or, more to the point, why do our faith leaders keep spooning out the pablum?

Because easy faith is easy money and power. Perpetually treating the sheep like babies and keeping them blind is big business.

A small amount of blame lies with obstinate folks who hear and learn and choose to ignore, because they picture the alternative as chaos. However, the world’s oceans of fault lie with the leaders of churches and institutions, many of whom know the figurative nature of scripture far better than I do: they know that the more people learn, the less comfortable they are with tithing their lives and money away to human-built creations that cannot stand against serious scrutiny.

Fact: with apologies to Yoda, you can’t unsee what you’ve seen, and you can’t unlearn what you’ve learned.

Church knows this, and knows knowledge is power. So it tells its pastors and businessfolk to make sure that the sheep stay blind and infantile because sharing power defeats the whole point of top-down religion. And there’s nothing worse for capitalist greed than the sharing of wealth and resources.

Think about all the power-money-things that rely on this juvenile faith. A massive Christian youth industry. Praise and worship concert spectacles. The Pope as infallible. The prosperity gospel. The religious self-help juggernaut. Bible tourism. The monetization of Christian Nationalism. The cancerous spread of megachurches. The entire overseas missions industry. Donald Trump as the saviour of Christian morality.

Or basically, everything Church has built to sell its version of corrupted faith.

This is a big part of why we’re here at the BCP. We want everyone to know more, and to never stop learning and questioning. You see, all of those glittery edifices crumble when stood against even an iota of good reason and knowledge, which is as it should be, because human things fail. Always.

However, God, Jesus, faith, and the way we’re supposed to serve our neighbours? Well, those things are bigger than anything we can create, and will absolutely stand the scrutiny. Even more, they demand it.

Because genuine faith and service aren’t stupid, young, or naïve. We’ve just made them that way.

Keywords: Fetus Faith 101; Faith; Deconstruction; Religion; Christian; Christianity; Church; Sin; Corruption; Scandal; Bible; Abuse; God; Jesus; Stewardship