Life in the Box

Rules comfort me.

While I enjoy freedom and autonomy, I still find solace in boundaries and guidelines. I suppose this preference is one of the reasons why I still remain a fairly fundamental Christian.

Like many believers, my faith was not something I got to choose early in life. My parents had me oiled up and greased down in a church pew almost every Sunday. Later in life I chose to continue on the course they set for me, but I will readily admit that my spiritual path was probably decided well before I understood faith.

As I've grown older and spoken to more people, I've found that many people who share the beliefs I have on social issues are often vehemently opposed to organized religion of any kind. It was a strange experience for me to arrive on a college campus and meet people who proudly proclaimed to be atheists, although there weren't that many of them since I did go to an HBCU.

After engaging in several debates and discussions I often found that people were opposed to religion because they rejected the dogma that accompanies most traditional doctrines. Rules about sex, drinking and a host of other sins seemed outdated and arbitrary to many folks, and even those individuals who professed a general affection for a particular religion struggled with embracing all of its guidelines.

I thought about the struggle between personal preferences and the rules required by certain faiths when I read a recent New York Times editorial discussing the Catholic Church's decision to consider updating its list of sins. You can read that editorial here.

As the article points out, it's a tricky dance that all religions must engage in to remain relevant while retaining the core values that should separate them from any other social club or group. Plus, anytime religious tenets are updated to bring them in-line with the current political or social morays there is the potential for a catastrophic disaster. Previous church teachings on slavery, civil rights, colonialism and the Holocaust are proof of that.

Yet, at times, religions must set guidelines, even those guidelines that are unpopular or seem unacceptably harsh. And human beings must search their own hearts to determine just how closely they will adhere to the rules of their faith and when they will let their own morality be their guide.

Personally, I've adopted the mindset that the rules are the rules whether I agree with them or not. This means that while I frequently break the rules (I've got a filthy mouth), I rarely complain that the rules are unfair and agitate for their repeal. I also rarely try to rationalize my failure to adhere to biblical guidelines by pointing out that my own moral compass says this is the correct course of action.

For example, while I thought pre-marital sex seemed like a good way to test out the car before you bought it, I never claimed that my stance was better than the one advocated in the Bible. Instead, I just accepted that what I was doing was wrong and resigned myself to the consequences.

Obviously, it was much easier for me to take this stance than someone whose core existence challenges the basic rules set out in the Bible or other religious faiths. I'm sure "the rules" are much less comforting to a homosexual attending a traditional Baptist church, or a budding feminist being raised under an oppressive Muslim regime. These rules surely seem to strangle and constrict, rather than reassure and strengthen.

And, while I acknowledge this dilemma, I still cling to my rules because I find the world an easier place to navigate with them in place. Some might argue that this is the easy way out; letting some anonymous higher power legislate my actions so that I can avoid making the difficult choices myself is a coward's approach to life.

Perhaps they are right. But, in my heart I find a world where everyone creates their own morality, where everyone makes up their own rules as they go, a much scarier place. I've seen human beings rationalize the most heinous actions by cloaking them in religion or objective science when they are really just satisfying the darkest desires in their hearts.

I do not trust my fellow man.

So, I sympathise with the Catholic Church and its members as they try to determine the next set of rules that will govern their lives. I understand those who argue that it is past time to take a holistic approach to qualifying sin, and I understand those who argue that some things are better left alone.

Personally, I believe that the core tenets of most faiths--love, respect and fidelity--should be a good enough guide for all people to co-exist together, but the reality it that those vague values do not suffice.

So, we have rules.