The more we hear of religion these days, the more is being exposed of past wrongs done with so many lives destroyed. Religion is something that should be precious, beautiful, filled with goodness and joy. Something that brings people closer to God and to each other. Sadly, it’s most often been the total opposite.
Women have suffered for many years in marriages filled with abuse, control, bulling and being put down while used in every way imaginable with no one offering support, defending or helping them. Lives have been lost due to it, illnesses caused by the stress has destroyed so many people. How they all keep their faith in God says far more about the goodness in these women and the Grace of God than it does of the Church. Men too have suffered, sometimes from the same abuse and also in different ways.
Babies torn from women, sold off, put out for adoption without the mothers’ having any say in it. Babies left to die and buried with no one knowing where or what happened to them. Sex abuse too of so many poor children in all the Christian religions has been rife. Cover up after cover up has been done as stated by Justin Welby, former Archbishop in the Anglican Church who resigned due to being part of that cover up. He said he was too scared when in charge, too weak and overwhelmed by the size of it to expose the sex abuse he knew about. He said it was so big, so widespread he had no idea how to handle it.
My wish would be to see the Christian Church as a whole built up to be something good, truly good. One Church united rather than all faiths under that banner fighting against each other and divided as now. I’d love to see all corruption within the Church eliminated and exposed. Everything cleaned up, past sins accounted for, to have strong people in charge who will expose such badness, cruelty and abuse of power in the most despicable of ways.
Why were women made to suffer, forced to stay in cruel marriages with others punished in ways men weren’t if they got pregnant outside of marriage? Why if going for an annulment were they treated as sinners to be bullied by the hierarchy rather than treated kindly and with respect as victims of abuse should be treated?
Why were the babies of so many poor women made to suffer as they were? Nothing much has changed in all these years has it? Still women are expected to stay in abusive marriages, still women are ostracised for being unwed yet men aren’t. Still many priests refuse to Baptise illegitimate babies as though it is their fault they were conceived and born.
I adore religion in so many ways. I love the beautiful ceremonies, hymns, solemn music, the worship of God as a whole, His Blessed Mother, Joseph and the angels and saints – the real saints rather than the far too many of today so often canonised for the wrong reasons now sadly. What I don’t love, is all the badness, control and corruption.
To see real devotion that brings humility, kindness, compassion, caring and unity of everyone with unconditional love and acceptance shown is a wonder to behold. It’s just not seen in most people connected to religion as we all know. It is on the surface, but not when going below the surface.
Corruption, badness (of which some is pure evil), deceit, division, power struggles, superiority and hypocrisy on unprecedented levels are all seen far more than any of the positive things one would hope to see from anything professing to be of God and about Him.
My life was stolen from me due to religion, many women have had the same happen to them. Children’s lives torn apart due to how their mothers were treated – and still are. Other children torn from their mothers to be disposed of in a variety of ways. Then we have the children sexually abused in the most horrific ways by priests and others within religion of all faiths on unprecedented levels. It is these things and more that has seen so many today turn away from religion. That and a lack of good, strong leaders with no proper spiritual guidance or help.
Sadly, most who walked away from religion due to control, abuse, lack of spiritual guidance when asked for and sheer hypocrisy have also walked away from God. It is my dream to see a clean sweep of all Christian faiths, to see those guilty ousted and punished for what they have done to so many people, for all the lives they have helped destroy. It is my dream to see religion built up to what it was meant to be about, WHO it is meant to be about.
It won’t happen in my lifetime, I’ve been told it won’t. I was also told there had to be a death of religion before it could be built up again to what it was and is meant to be. It was told to me many years ago that the death of religion would be seen to start in my lifetime, but that after its death, it would take a long, long time to build up again as one, as a united religion with no division, no badness and no power struggles. I won’t live to see it happen, none living now will, but some will see the start of the clean up begin, the changes for good.
So many people’s lives have been destroyed. So many unhappy, suffering throughout their lives at the hands of religious who were meant to be as God, yet who acted more as workers of Satan. So many priests and religious who will be answerable to God for all they’ve done wrong when leaving this world. The fact they were meant to work for God makes their sins against Him – and those belonging to Him – far greater.
My dream is to bring people back to God. It is to see religion restored and cleansed, but I know this won’t happen for a long, long time. In the meantime, we can bring people to God even if not to religion. We can teach them God is not religion, He is greater than anyone or anything. He is greater than man made religions and buildings. He is more loving, caring and forgiving than any religion or man made rules. He loves unconditionally and always forgives, but only if sinners repent their wrongs and truly mean it.
To live by God’s laws is hard to do in some cases, especially in modern times where no guidance is given, where so few true good leaders are seen nor lead by example. We are the ones responsible for our own actions. If so many people who have been let down badly by the religions they were part of can be good people, then so can others. If they can separate God from religion, then so can everyone else.
Sadly, some who witnessed abuse will become abusers themselves – have already done so. Many others will shun abuse and all abusers. We make our own choices in life, and no matter what has been done to us, no matter how it can alter who we are, how we sometimes behave and how we think in some ways, it does not make us turn to badness as well unless we want to. We are responsible for our own actions, we choose to be bad or good. No one makes us be one or the other.
Instead of turning away from God when you read or hear about atrocities done by those within religion, or that religion has allowed, don’t let it harden your heart. Don’t let it make you turn away from God. Instead, let it make you want to seek God out even more. Turn to Him for your guidance, your example of how we should live and behave. Look how Jesus suffered and was abused at the hands of those within and out of religion, yet He never turned against it nor did He turn from God, His Father.
Religion has some beautiful parts, some wonderful priests and religious. Focus on those only and help build those parts. Walk away from all that’s bad in religion, don’t walk away from all that’s good too though. I have walked away in most ways due to what it did to me and how I was treated. How those meant to guide and lead forced me to live. How they treated me like a criminal when later put in front of a panel for seeking an annulment. I have walked away due to the hypocrisy seen in most people within religions. Many are there for the wrong reasons, others are surface kind and pleasant, but deep down just as divisive as their leaders teach them to be.
Don’t be as them, rise above them. Don’t turn from God, turn to Him. Listen to God’s teachings not man’s. Live your lives by Jesus’ example. Allow the Holy Spirit to enter your lives, hearts and souls to guide you. If you have witnessed abuse, don’t become the abuser as well. If you have witnessed others being abused, be their support, their refuge, their strength. If you witness hypocrisy, turn away from it.
Judgement is in two ways. We all need to learn those differences. One is acceptable, the other not. Judging a persons bad deeds and punishing them for them is one thing, but judging that person as a whole is something very different. By knowing someone’s behaviour, it gives us the knowledge needed to avoid mixing with them as this protects us. We are allowed to dislike their deeds just as God does, but we cannot judge them as a person unless we know whether it was caused by events of life, true mental sickness or if it was of their own choice because they enjoy being bad people. That judgement is for God alone, not us.
In this world where we see badness escalating rapidly in so many ways, YOU can be that person who makes a difference for good. YOU are the future. YOU are who can and will make differences that will mark the start of changes much needed. YOU can unite with all good people regardless of their beliefs or unbeliefs. By uniting we have strength, but by being divided as we are, we are weak.
YOU can love all unconditionally. Loving unconditionally doesn’t mean accepting or liking badness, as God Himself doesn’t like badness either. He does though still love that person despite not liking them. We need goodness to shine its light on the world. Your light, your goodness united with everyone else’s light and goodness gains strength that overcomes badness and eventually diminishes it.
God is goodness, stand in unity with God and help cleanse the world as much as possible. Come back to Him today and if you cannot believe in Him for whatever reason, then at least believe in goodness. Come back to goodness if you turned away from it. Believers and non believers alike can be united. We unite in love, by accepting the ways others choose to live their lives unconditionally. We unite by spreading only kindness, goodness, generosity and compassion everywhere we go and to whoever we meet and by having the strength to call out bad behaviour, to expose and turn our backs on badness and bad people.
YOU are our future. YOU can make those much needed differences. All you need is a passion and desire within to stand strong and be together as one, to be a whole with others so we gain strength and power against evil. Together we can fight badness, together we can and will win the good fight. Separated as we presently are, we don’t stand a chance Be that person today who starts those much needed changes, be that person who makes the world a better place. United we stand, divided we fall.
You must be logged in to post a comment.