I ran across a recent Gallop Poll this morning, indicating that organized religion is losing ground in America. Nearly thirty percent of Americans today find religion in general to be old fashioned and impotent to address many issues we face today. With this in mind and the holiday season now officially past peak, perhaps now is a good time to reflect on the Christmas season and the relevance of organized religion in our society.

I could go on and on about the tragic commercialization of Christmas, and how we in the modern world have abandoned the ways of our ancestors for the new church of the Consumer Economy, but you already know these things.

Many people who celebrate Christmas seem to have lost sight of the true meaning of the holiday. Both theists and humanists alike seem to forget that the true spirit of this season is one of peace and reflection on our brotherhood with all humankind, and not just an excuse to over indulge in unhealthy eating and drinking habits for several days while participating in the collective national potlatch that’s become retail America’s seasonal wet dream.

Rather than striving to live up to the social ideals put forth by the Jesus Christ, most modern forms of Christianity appear to have lost touch with his message of peace, love, and unity. Instead, most churches today have become as social clubs for the idolization of the man, Jesus Christ, supernatural actions invented by early church mythology, and recruitment centers for political ideologies. In many religious communities, belief in the divinity of Jesus is far more important to one’s “salvation” than practicing ethical living and encouraging people to live up to progressive standards like brotherly love and unconditional human compassion that Christ espoused.

I read a short blog post at Black Sun Gazette the other day which, though lacking any scholarly references, stated that there is essentially no proof the historical Jesus of Nazareth even existed. I’m not convinced that anyone ever wandered around Roman Palestine performing miracles such as healing leprosy and blindness or raising the dead; supernatural feats such as those attributed to the biblical Christ have always seemed just a bit beyond the limits of believability to me.

On the other hand, I’m pretty sure someone bearing a strong resemblance to Jesus did travel the area with his followers, telling his ideas regarding the meaning of life, universal truth, right and wrong to anyone willing to listen, and generally trying to leave the world a better place than it was when he arrived.

That this same fellow probably irritated the local establishment, caused them a lot of political and economic trouble, and eventually got himself executed for speaking his mind and undermining their authority is, to my mind, a pretty likely story. A story I could just as easily see playing out in our modern world as it did in the old Roman Empire. Some aspects of human society haven’t changed at all in the last two thousand years.

I seriously doubt that the man we know as Jesus Christ ever intended for the mythological aspects of divinity we now associate with his life and work to become his legacy. If it were possible for the soul that was Jesus of Nazareth to see the ideals he preached corrupted and misapplied as they are today, I think he’d be appalled at the things people have done in his name over the past two millennia.

Too many churches demand that their members adhere to strict dogmatic rules having nothing to do with the message Jesus Christ brought to the world. Blind faith in the virgin birth, divinity, and resurrection of Jesus – ideas many people find hard to swallow – is demanded by most churches before one can join the congregation. Failure to publicly espouse and propagate such beliefs as fact often leave the skeptic with even the purest of intentions branded a heretic and ostracized from the group. Too many people have gotten hung up on the really hard to believe aspects of the Jesus of legend and lost sight of the more important message he preached: compassion, peace, non-violence, community, and our interdependence on one another.

If more churches would behave like spiritual fellowships; being more concerned with improving the lives of their wider communities than with controlling the thoughts of those who facilitate their existence, perhaps more people would consider attending and joining churches today. It’s unfortunate that so many churches use their incredible influence to control the thinking and behavior of their members in ways so irrelevant to what Jesus stood for. Ultimately such behavior only drives away the most thoughtful, intelligent, and creative among them.

As long as organized religion in America continues to resemble a Christian version of the Taliban or a flock of mindless sheep, unwilling to question the staleness of the snake oil they’re being sold, I suppose it’s for the best that the importance of organized religion in our culture continues its long slide into obscurity and irrelevance.

Publisher’s Note:

This post was previously published in our Progressive Living section.  Please click here to add/read comments and join in the discussion already in progress.