Why I Wouldn’t Ever Sign a “Statement of Faith”, and You Shouldn’t Either
April 4, 2011 - No Comments
by John Cummings
As my continued disillusionment with the modern Christian church marches onward like Sabine Baring-Gould’s Christian Soldier, I’ve recently been put in a position where I was asked to sign a “Statement of Faith” laying out affirmations about what I’m supposed to believe in, and making sure that those beliefs correspond directly to the biblical interpretation that the majority of the congregants have determined is “what God meant when he wrote this.”
My personal feelings on each point of faith aside, I would never sign such a thing in principal – regardless of what it said. Putting a statement of faith in front of someone as a condition of involvement is no less offensive than if I walked in Sunday morning with a “Statements of Scientific Fact” sheet laying out point after point in direct opposition to the majority opinion and asking others to sign off.
You get the point. From almost the first bullet point, the list is designed to insure the least deviation possible from the collective view. It shouldn’t surprise me, but it continually does. Christian arrogance – keeping it real since 1096.
Faith is, if nothing else, ever changing, complex and – most importantly – PERSONAL. Putting paper in front of me and asking me to affirm that something personal to me is in line with how you “think it ought to be” tells me that the divide between what I believe and what you believe may be too wide to ever be bridged again.
Rather than sign something I don’t believe in, I’ll affirm my own personal statement of faith right here:
1. I believe that Dinosaurs and humans never walked the earth together
2. I believe that the earth is substantially older than 6,000 years
3. I believe that people are born the way they’re born, there’s nothing wrong with it, and it’s not something we need to try to “fix”.
4. I believe that the other three billion people in the world have thoughts, ideas and insight to contribute that is just as valuable as the Christian view.
5. I do not believe that “praying about it” is going to solve your problem.
6. I do not believe that God uses natural disasters to “get back” at people who don’t believe what I believe. Fuck you Pat Robertson.
7. I believe that some of the best people I’ve met have never set foot in a church, and some of the worst are held up as examples of what I’m supposed to be like.
8. I believe that living your life in a perpetual state of unworthy shame devalues the very life you claim to take joy in.
9. I believe that there are many other worthy causes and organizations to whom I can provide time and money that aren’t hilariously hypocritical.
10. I believe that there are other people standing right there with me who feel exactly the same way.
Amen. Praise Jesus.
