What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been…

August 19, 2024

On occasion, I get asked about how I came to where I am now in my views on faith and religion. How did I come to the spiritual principles that I call home? How did I come to my conclusions about what lies outside of our experience in this world? It’s a long story. Seems like a good time to tell it.

I was born into the Roman Catholic tradition back when it was still done in Latin. Most of us came to our current views on spirituality in the same way. You are born at a starting point. From there, you journey, or stagnate.

The RC church does have it’s benefits — In the Christian tradition, they are the church of God the Father. They do the pomp & majesty of the all powerful better than any other Godclub in town. Beautiful, ornate buildings, grand and solemn rituals, cool costumes, and the authority of 2000 years of selling God.

It is like being born into a portfolio of blue chip stocks, and the way they present themselves is that you can worship any way you want, but it’ll never be as good as they do it. Gotta admired the entrenched hubris. So it is in the Roman Catholic church that the idea of God was introduced to me the way that the Roman Catholic church saw God.

I have always recognized the strong spiritual nature in myself. I have always been drawn to the idea of understanding how to be a better human, and questioned what it was that God wanted from us. The RC church was my “Religion101A” course.

I did the usual RC childhood — baptism, communion, confirmation… CCD classes, the youth group, helping with mass and around the rectory. The priests recognized that I had some talent in the area of religious studies. I was drawn to the idea of the priesthood, and encouraged to pursue an education towards that goal.

That being said, I never accepted things at face value, and have always been bothered by inconsistencies in the faith. During my preteen training for confirmation (what the RC uses as the counterpart to the protestant “confession of faith”), I would ask bold and impertinent questions. In one Q&A session with the bishop, I inquired that if we were to not bow down in front of idols, how does that kneeling in front of the statue of Jesus on the cross work? There is an actual, if convoluted real explanation that the church uses, but I was told it was “a mystery of faith” and then the bishop moved on.

That set the stage for what has been my chief objection in any religion — the inconsistencies. The Christian assumption is that God is all powerful, and all good. That would imply consistency in my mind. The way the RC church operated was anything but consistent in any logical sense, except that the priest was always right, no matter what he said. Hanging out with the priests in more social settings, when they were among peers, the inconsistencies with how they were among themselves as opposed to at the pulpit had a scarring effect on me.

Oh. I found girls around that time too. I decided that I liked girls better than I liked living a pseudo-monastic life. It didn’t take long for me to leave my semi-holy attitude in the dust.

What followed was a bit of overdone hedonism. The sort of chaos that happens went a captive animal is freed for the first time. I am not proud of the lessons that I had learned in that period, but nothing that I learned was not valuable to know.

After some time, a Southern Baptist couple took an interest in me. They seemed to have a consistent faith backed by extensive bible knowledge (something not encouraged among the RCs). I became immersed in learning and showed promise for pastoral work. Long story short — studies, seminary, and earning my collar. I became a teacher in the denomination, preached regularly, and wound up as an associate pastor in a small SBC church in southern California.

Once I was sitting in a position where I was responsible for the spiritual well being of others, I started to see the more subtle inconsistencies. All Christian churches teach that Jesus fulfilled the sacrificial system of the Old Testament, and by that, the Old Testament was obsolete, and we were to live emulating Jesus. still, my SBC brothers and sisters stayed mired in the Old Testament and Judaic law.

They used the OT to marginalize and reject the very people that Jesus went out of his way to help in the Gospels. They had an attitude comparable to the Pharisees (who displeased Jesus to no end) with anyone outside of the “church family”. It was not long before I came to the conclusion that although the SBs talked the talk, they had a lot of difficulty walking the walk. I resigned my position and my title, and started shopping around again.

Over several years I dipped my toe into many other traditions both within Christianity, and in many other religions. I educated myself in, and attempted in good faith Islam, Buddhism, Ancient Philosophy, Modern Philosophy, the Natural religions (my term for Wicca and like beliefs) and even Atheism. Everyone had good ideas, and positive ways to live, but still alive was my belief in a higher power that was consistent — not one sending out conflicting instructions to differing groups.

I was raised in the teachings of Jesus, so I have a natural tendency to see things through that lens. The concepts of love, caring for others, inner peace and assurance, and above all a beneficent and loving God were the characteristics that I felt within my soul would best describe the higher power immersed in the human experience.

I had decided to pursue my faith on my own, using the teaching that Jesus summed up his entire ministry in — what we call the “Golden Rule” (For it, I like Mark 12:30–31) — to honor God by showing others respect and love. As important among the teachings of Jesus was his admonition to not judge others.

This was not just a stripping away of inconvenient things that I disagree with, but a full examination of theology, apologetics, scripture, translation issues, archaeology, and historical anthropology concerning my beliefs. It also compared biblical history with other recorded histories of the time period. Every tool that was at my disposal through my education and experience was brought to bear to get me to my starting point. I moved on by myself, putting my faith in action as a solo commitment to a faith that makes sense to me, and began to build from there.

Fast forward a bit to the events of 9/11. I was in midtown Manhattan that day and watched the towers fall from a rooftop at Columbia University. To say that day was transformational is to fall far short of the impact it had on the direction of my life. I felt the need to return to church, and be in the company of other people of faith. Yet, I had closed the door on many approaches finding them all to fall short on the two main principles I find necessary in “God” — consistency and hope.

A friend suggested a Unitarian Church, which was described to me a “Christian, but you can believe whatever you want”. If nothing else the idea was intriguing, so I tried it. It wasn’t exactly what I was told to expect, but it was close. People of many persuasions and backgrounds expressing their faith in God while honoring their own traditions. The church had social groups among the different traditions — everything from Islam & Buddhism through Wicca and Secularism. Everyone gave me a warm welcome, and I still maintain some of those friendships. The only group lacking representation was, funny enough, Christians.

The Pastor there was also a former Baptist preacher who shared a similar line of thought to myself. He felt that there should be a place for face-front Christian representation. He was aware of my background and asked me to teach a course on Christian theology for the benefit of the entire congregation.

The classes were very well attended, but it was a hostile audience. Considering the Unitarians are a marginally Christian denomination, the Conservative Evangelical movement had damaged the reputation of Christians, who seemed to be intolerant puritans that committed everyone to hell unless you were one of their particular sect. The Unitarians were not particularly sympathetic to anyone who chose to brand themselves Christian.

While polite, the participants asked all of the hard questions that I had been wrestling with for my entire life. The basis of Unitarian respect lies not in what you believe, but in your ability to express and argue your faith in an intelligent and logical manner. Canned answers were not accepted and usually jeered.

I was forced to do the hard work of not only determining what my Christianity stood for, but how it would work in the world around me. I needed to explain all of the things non-Christians think Christians are. And the things that they really are. I needed to do it in their language — in a way that made sense from where they were coming from.

This was a two way street for me. As we discussed various topics we found that even though our traditions and beliefs were different among us as a group, we also held much in common. The most common thing being a desire to help others. That was the true start on the road to where I am today.

This was a true distillation of my Christian beliefs to their very basic core, and that very basic core is common to most religions — major and minor — and also to atheism. It is a good thing to be kind to one another. It is bad to be a jerk.

Showing others respect and honor is pleasing to God/Divine/Source as it promotes peace and mutual caring. Peace and mutual caring leads to cooperation. Cooperation leads to a better world. A better world nourishes itself. This is both pleasing to God, and useful to the human race.

I have carried and further developed this belief system ever since. I have since served the Episcopal community, and have worked with independent Christian churches, Nazarene communities, Quakers, and anyone who asks. I maintain ties with Interfaith and secular social service organizations in the area and nationally.

In 2019 I formed New Ecclesiastes Ministries with the idea of returning to the type of “church” that was described in the First Century CE — The groups that formed around the teachings of Jesus who took on the task of caring for the poor and marginalized within their community and reaching out in love and community with all other like minded groups. A large portion of that ministry reaches out with assistance to the homeless communities that are endemic to the warm and pleasant weather of California.

A basic tenet of the practice of New Ecclesiastes theology is that no one group has exclusive rights to God. This is why we reach out in solidarity with other faith and secular groups committed to “loving your neighbor as yourself.” It is God’s universal request of us, and as it works out, practiced in atheist communities as well, sometimes with more genuine love applied than in faith communities.

What has grown from this has been an interesting co-ministry. In these days where the Christian faith is under fire — and mostly from the actions of a small, but vocal group — many people are re-examining, or sometimes for the first time, examining what they believe and why. The fashionable word for this now is “deconstruction”, but it is, in essence the process that I have had in place for better than 30 years. It is merely seeking to have the faith that I practice make sense to me. Many people are in this process now.

Most of them seem to be cropping up from the Evangelical movement, which has a good heart in wanting to share the Good News of the teachings of Jesus, but gets bogged down in politicizing social issues rather than in ministering to them. Or in monitoring sin and salvation rather than in pursuing the solution to these issues through love and service.

It is good to examine your faith. Faith should not be a “collectable” that sits on the shelf untouched in its original packaging. Faith should be worked and played with regularly. That is how it matures and becomes durable and true. Faith that is not engaged atrophies.

My variety of experience in Christian faith communities, as well as the education that I have receive in other faith traditions, has put me in a position to assist others in their spiritual walk, and allows me to speak in a language that they understand from their currently held, but questioned, beliefs. An unexamined faith is a blind faith, and blind faith is not faith at all, but wishful thinking.

There is a sampling of this work evident in my social media posts, but the bulk of it is done in personal, face to face conversations, for as long as it takes for others to understand God’s love and hopes for us, in a way that makes sense to them. Every spiritual walk is individual. There are many faith traditions, because God was the first to understand that one size does not fit all. What those faith traditions hold in common is far more important than their differences.

Too many of us focus on our differences. Too many of us demand that we are the sole possessors of the truth. Too many of us have allowed humanity’s ugly nature to overtake it’s beautiful side. None of this is either pleasing to God, or beneficial to the human species.

We all take a spiritual journey that lasts for our entire lives. Some work it and are rewarded for it with understanding. Some do not and are tossed about in their life by a chaotic and random world. This is true whether you believe in God or not. You are in the driver seat in your life. Your choices determine your path, and your path determines your outcome. Whether you direct your life, or get tossed about like a leaf in the wind is entirely up to you.

If you are in a position where you are questioning your faith, that is a good thing. It means that you care enough about it that you want it to make sense. Sense is available. You need to pursue it. Help is available, if you need it. You only need to ask.

In Peace, Faith and Love,

Ecc. RL Brandner, New Ecclesiastes Ministries