What I love and hate about Christianity

I'm reading The Naked Buddha: a demythologised account of the man and his teaching by Eric Harrison. The author has been a committed Buddhist for 25 years and a meditation teacher for more than 40 years.

He explains why Buddhism grows very very slowly, and why Westerners turn away. He's refreshingly honest:

...my approach is to highlight the good as I see it (which can be very, very good) and point out the bad (which can be quite awful).

This honesty—so rare it's almost unthinkable—stimulated me to think about what I love and hate about Christianity. And why I walked out of church in the 70s and virtually never went back. I'm not highlighting the good and the bad objectively: this is strictly personal.

What I love about Christianity

• My Dad, a vicar and a battler
• God is love (the message we got from our Dad)
• Worship, being consciously grateful
• Values of kindness, service to others, and generosity
• Peaceful meditation and food for thought
• Inspiring ministers: good, brave, wise people
• Jesus: a human being
• "Life is real, now: make your own heaven"
• Aesthetics: music, stained glass, flowers
• Poetry: the King James Bible and Book of Common Prayer
• Mary
• Ritual and chanting
• Myth and metaphor
• Adventurous theology
• The City Mission.

What I loathe about Christianity or at least some factions

Some of what repels me, like the first item, is not intrinsically bad: it simply doesn't suit me at all. Some is all in my own mind. And some is genuinely bad, bad, bad.

I know people who help to create wonderful church communities and they belong there and improve the world. But I walked out one Sunday when it struck me that only 5 of the 400-odd people in the church would have the slightest understanding of my own position. (The 5 included the minister, bless him!) In every service I had been mentally translating the words into a more compatible theology.

Then I caught feminism and the translation job became impossible. Frankly, I didn't belong in a church.

Gradually feminism began to soften church misogyny. But it was far too late for me. I can't stand:

• Being part of an artificially constructed community
• Boring, false, or foolish ministers
• Persistent masculinity and paternalism
• Too much guilt
• Arrogance
• Persistent anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-other attitudes
• Exclusivity: this is the right way and the only way
• Wealth and control and greed
• A sense of pointlessness.

Well, let it go. Growing older, I can see the big picture. I think...

Photo: The Jesus Place at Gobind Sadan, Delhi