Presbyterianism
I was at a barbecue this past Sunday at which I met a Presbyterian! This was pretty exciting for me, because I grew up across the street from Presbyterians, but I was too young to ask interesting questions of them. This person and I got on to the subject because he asked me what I do, and when I told him, he asked me if I've ever read Plato's Timaeus before. I told him I had, and so we started discussing some things out of it (perfunctorily). I asked him what he does, and he told me he's a lawyer (immigrant rights and some other stuff), and I asked, "Oh, so you just read Plato for fun?" and he replied, "Well, I'm also Presbyterian." At that point my eyes lit up, and I started grilling him.
I prefaced by letting him know I'm an ostentatious Catholic -- which is, you know, kind of true but kind of false. You never do actually shed Catholicism (or any religion) completely, I think. Anyway, here are some of the exciting things I found out (but which I probably should have known anyway):
Never at any point did the subject of God or Jesus or miracles come up. I like liberal Protestants a lot for this reason. There just would never have been any reason to talk about it or the fact that I'm an atheist who doesn't believe in God.
rachiestar and I were having a conversation yesterday along these lines about how there's more content to religion than just metaphysical propositions about whether God exists, what beliefs you should hold about reality, etc. There's an ethical content, and, to my mind, that's the most fundamental content of religion. By "ethical content" I mean that religion is an embodiment of social relations. A religious sect or cult is first and foremost a community. Belief follows in accordance with the quality of the social bonds. Therefore, the doctrine of Catholicism is a projection of the social relations embodied in Catholic practice, the doctrine of Judaism is a projection of the social relations embodied in Jewish practice, etc. And by "practice" I don't just mean chanting Hail Mary's, I mean the social context out of which the religion emerged and the function it serves in society today. A shorter way of saying this is: You can tell a people by the gods they worship.
Of course, my orientation is secular and philosophical. I believe that religion is an inadequate form of self-consciousness. The actual ethical content of religion cannot be properly grasped in religious terms (in terms of God, God's commandments, the metaphysical nature of reality, etc.) That makes a lot of sense, because God doesn't exist. So it has to be grasped in something like sociological or socio-philosophical terms. It may sound crazy, but I'm pretty sure it's true!
I prefaced by letting him know I'm an ostentatious Catholic -- which is, you know, kind of true but kind of false. You never do actually shed Catholicism (or any religion) completely, I think. Anyway, here are some of the exciting things I found out (but which I probably should have known anyway):
- He says very few people in his church (the church is in NY, by the way, which is always relevant) believe in predestination. I asked about this, because, in case you don't know, Presbyterianism is a sect of Scottish Calvinism. Calvin didn't come up with the idea of predestination, but it's a big part of his teaching. The idea is that good works can't get you into heaven, only elevation of soul. Whether your soul is going to make it into heaven was decided at the beginning of time by God. So there's nothing you can do to get into heaven nor any way to know if you're going to make it there.
- Nevertheless, it seems that most of what his congregation does revolves, ironically enough, around doing good works, just like we Catholics were told to do. The difference is that Presbyterians do them on other days of the week besides Sunday. I think his congregation runs a homeless shelter, and they also work on the immigration rights stuff which I mentioned before.
- Like good Protestants, they elect the elders of their congregation, and the elders decide who the pastor is going to be, how much he's going to be paid, which building they should use for worship, how the resources of the congregation are used, etc.
- Women are allowed to elders and pastors, though this is by no means universal throughout Presbyterian congregations. It sounds like Presbyterianism is divided in the U.S. between a "right" wing, which doesn't take a firm stand in favor of women and gays, and a more liberal wing which does.
- The "right" wing tends to identify more with I guess what we'd consider "evangelical" movements, but it's not a simple division. We got into a discussion about exactly what "evangelical" means. It's not a clearly defined term, and while it tends to be associated with the right, it doesn't necessarily belong to the right. He belongs to what sounds like a middle-class congregation in New York, so as you can imagine it's pretty liberal.
Never at any point did the subject of God or Jesus or miracles come up. I like liberal Protestants a lot for this reason. There just would never have been any reason to talk about it or the fact that I'm an atheist who doesn't believe in God.
rachiestar and I were having a conversation yesterday along these lines about how there's more content to religion than just metaphysical propositions about whether God exists, what beliefs you should hold about reality, etc. There's an ethical content, and, to my mind, that's the most fundamental content of religion. By "ethical content" I mean that religion is an embodiment of social relations. A religious sect or cult is first and foremost a community. Belief follows in accordance with the quality of the social bonds. Therefore, the doctrine of Catholicism is a projection of the social relations embodied in Catholic practice, the doctrine of Judaism is a projection of the social relations embodied in Jewish practice, etc. And by "practice" I don't just mean chanting Hail Mary's, I mean the social context out of which the religion emerged and the function it serves in society today. A shorter way of saying this is: You can tell a people by the gods they worship.
Of course, my orientation is secular and philosophical. I believe that religion is an inadequate form of self-consciousness. The actual ethical content of religion cannot be properly grasped in religious terms (in terms of God, God's commandments, the metaphysical nature of reality, etc.) That makes a lot of sense, because God doesn't exist. So it has to be grasped in something like sociological or socio-philosophical terms. It may sound crazy, but I'm pretty sure it's true!