The Hard Questions

These thoughts are inspired by a post at Sue's place, where she includes an image of the chocolate Jesus, and asks if it's offensive. What do you think?

Sweet Jesus, Cosimo Cavallaro

Made of solid dark chocolate and unveiled near Easter in 2007.

Is such an image offensive to you? Why or why not?

The reality is, many Christians would find this image offensive; for the nakedness, for the fact that it is made of chocolate, because it was created for gallery exhibition. It would be assumed that there is something sacrilegious about this. However, most would not stop to ask themselves why it was so offensive, other than, well it just IS. Church leaders would say so.

Much of what has changed about my faith fits nicely into this post. For so many years of life, but especially the five years I was imprisoned in the charismatic church that it took so much effort for me to leave almost five years ago, it seems we were forever rallying against something or other...something sinful, something satanic, something evil. This chocolate Jesus surely would have been one of them. It's a graven image. It speaks to the sin of gluttony. A thousand reasons, none of which would make much sense.

I drove by an interesting "church" today...Eckankar: The Religion of the Sound and Light of God. I was fascinated (not of the "it speaks to me" sort, but of the "train-wreck" sort) because I had never heard of this "religion", so I did some research online. I'm not going to link to them, but feel free to Google it. Pretty standard cult stuff; pay your money and some "teacher" will "enlighten" you. Chant, meditate, the whole nine yards.

One of the sites I came across in my research was an ex-Eckankar site; support for those who have left the cult. The following words there really hit me:

"It's pretty much universal when it comes to cult involvement. Everyone thinks no one else will understand - if you ever attend an ex-member workshop - you will be totally amazed that people involved in psychologically controlling groups all have the same experiences - different but the same. My daughter was in a Bible-based group for five years - got out last year - and has the same psychological problems as a person who has been in TM or new age or etc."

I haven't felt so shocked for a long time. I never would have said the church I left was a cult, except for reading these words. The overwhelmingly difficult process of LEAVING has a lot of weight when identifying it as a cult. This, to my perception and probably clinically, indicates a heavy dose of control. Control not only over salvation, but over money, relationships and self-esteem. The fact that so many of my friends chose the church over their relationship with me, when they were told by leadership that I was "unsafe"....well what does that say? Wow, this realization in itself is going to bear some real thought on my part...but later. Just when I think I have it all sorted, some new angle comes along...sheesh.

So...control. Most of you know that obtaining some measure of control over members is a primary goal in many christian churches. One of the ways of doing this in a cult or a church is by controlling what members believe through misinformation and lies.

Often I was taught that something was satanic, demonic, or at least sinful, when there was no real logical or scriptural basis for believing so. I had to give up the logical part of my mind to belong; I had to at least pretend to believe these things. And the definition of "pretend" is somewhat hazy here...I'm sure that initially I would just go along to fit in, but after time would truly believe what I was being fed. And this church had an opinion on everything. We were just expected to believe because we were told, and usually given some mightily twisted bible verse to back it up. It was clear that there was never any real thought, research or intellect put into these "opinions". They made it up as they went along.

Part of the detoxing process has been relearning to think for myself. These days I analyze things where I might have been fearful of them in the past. I ask myself questions: Is there any real reason to fear this? What does my spirit say? Have I checked my facts, or only listened to others' opinions? Am I being true to myself? I have found that with these questions, very many of the things I was afraid of or even hated because I was taught to really were not deserving of such fear and hatred. Secular music. Mini-skirts, nose-piercings. Pagans. Meditation. Universal reconciliation. Democrats. Evolution.

Often it has turned out that the things I was taught were based on speculation, false information, or even outright bald-faced lies. Sometimes, in fact, these things have turned out to be immensely valuable to me on my spiritual journey.

In a nutshell, many christians I knew never bothered to think about why we were supposed to fear or loathe something, they just did because they were indoctrinated to.

Back to the chocolate Jesus...if you find it to be offensive, are you able to answer the question of "why" it is offensive to you? Or are you simply responding to your prior indoctrination?

I hope I have made some sense here. I'm not going to tell you what I think; I want to hear what you have to say.