At first glance, that statement by a deist would seem to be loaded with oxymoron-laden elements.\u00a0 However, this is not the case for Religious Deists (RDs) and maybe it shouldn\u2019t be for many other deists either.\u00a0 RDs have a unique, arguably positive perspective about organized and even revealed religion that most other deists do not.\u00a0 Where RDs disagree with Christian and other revealed religions is not in services, religious community and most moral issues.\u00a0 As we have regularly stated, we believe that continuing to attend your traditional Christian services is better than not attending religious services.\u00a0 Of course, RDs disagree in many cases with Christian Church actions and inactions.\u00a0 However, in the end, it is mostly about theology.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, with Easter tomorrow, how should Religious Deists, and perhaps other deists, consider this all-important Christian day? Should we all join Jewish families at the movies? Maybe. However, perhaps we should use Easter and Christmas as days to remind us of our undeniable Christian roots, good and bad, from personal experience and\/or simply as a member of our Western society. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If in fact RDs all come with some kind of former religious background, and most likely a Christian background, then it is highly likely that we have residual religious feelings about Easter, Holy Week and Lent, because of our past personal experiences or perhaps because of the Christian family and friends around us. And, for our children, Easter and Christmas are almost as much Western holidays as they are Christian ones. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, RDs feel that we should treat these days special for two other theological reasons.\u00a0 First, and despite all of the possible problems with Christianity, we believe that we owe it a bit of a debt of gratitude.\u00a0 If we can believe half of what the Bible and Christianity say about Jesus, he was quite a person.\u00a0 And, if we understand and accept Jesus as characterized in Zealot, the book by Reza Aslan (which we highly recommend), then it is Christianity that effectively took Jesus away from us – us being worshipers of God and the world in general.\u00a0 Remember, Jesus supposedly said to pray the Our Father to God, not to him.\u00a0 We suspect that Christianity later changed the prayer to its own ends just as St. Paul, through his marketing magic, almost certainly turned Jesus into someone else, someone convenient for Roman times.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jesus\u2019 brother, James, effectively took over the \u201cJesus cult\u201d after his death. And probably\/supposedly as Jesus intended, he tried to make their new religious community and theology all about mercy, humility, helping and loving others to try to create heaven on earth, and about getting closer to God, many of the things that deists and certainly Religious Deists hold as fundamental. Likewise, there are other Christian leaders like \u201cdoubting\u201d Thomas, Thomas Aquinas, Francis of Assisi, Mother Teresa and even Pope Francis who stand out to RDs as people who challenged their established religious beliefs and took their religion and theology to next levels by challenging the status quo, insisting on the importance of reason in theology, truly focusing on helping the poor and eliminating theological\/religious contradictions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Second, and very simply, Religious Deists believe that we can take these immensely important Western religious days and have them become a celebration of sorts about our transition and evolution from Christianity to our now better, more perfect, less contradictory RD theology. Our Christian mothers used to say the misguided saying \u201cBut for the grace of God, there go I\u201d. We would propose that perhaps on these important religious days, we say instead, out of thanksgiving and pity for Christians, \u201cBut for the grace of our courage and conviction to become closer to God, there go I\u201d. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At first glance, that statement by a deist would seem to be loaded with oxymoron-laden elements.\u00a0 However, this is not the case for Religious Deists (RDs) and maybe it shouldn\u2019t be for many other deists either.\u00a0 RDs have a unique, arguably positive perspective about organized and even revealed religion that most other deists do not.\u00a0 … <\/p>\n