God Save Me From Your Followers

By Keith Boykin, in spirituality
Tuesday, May 20 2003, 12:30AM

Sometimes I find inspiration in the most unlikely places. It happened again yesterday. A quiet exchange on the subway led me to question everything I've been taught about religion. I guess God does work in mysterious ways.

I took the 2 train from Harlem to Times Square yesterday afternoon. I was headed to the bus station for a trip to Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania.

I sat across from a black woman absorbed in reading and a Latina woman with a child. I know it's impolite to stare, but I could not keep my eyes off the beautiful child slurping her grape-colored drink from a clear plastic cylinder. When she finished sipping, she casually released her hold on the drink and the purple liquid swam across her shirt. She seemed unaware of the mess she had made.

When she continued drinking a few moments later, the grape liquid poured out of the container and sprayed the space between mother and child. I pointed to the leak and the mother promptly wiped it away with a napkin before it could flow down to her. When the girl and her mother unboarded at 72nd Street, the grape juice again flung out of the container and soaked the entire seat.

I pointed out the leak to the black woman still seated there. She had been reading so intently that she did not notice the scene that had taken place. When she saw the liquid, she got up, wiped herself off, and held onto the nearby pole as she stood.

A few moments later, she handed me a small pamphlet, then gave one to another black man seated nearby. Mine was a comic strip called "Gun Slinger." I quickly thumbed to the end to see what it was about. I should have guessed. It was religious material.

"Gun Slinger" tells the story of a wild west outlaw (conveniently dressed in black) who goes to church to kill a preacher. When the marshall discovers the outlaw is in town, he assembles a posse to surround the church and arrest the outlaw. The gun slinger repents in church, but the marshall arrests him anyway and later executes him. After he dies, the gun slinger goes to heaven because he had accepted Jesus, but the law-abiding marshall dies the same day and goes to hell.

In case you missed the moral of the story, the comic explains that "going to heaven is not a matter of good or bad. It's a matter of saved or lost."

I wondered why the woman gave me that pamphlet. She had given the other man a pamphlet called "Sissy Man." As I left the train, she was reading yet another pamphlet called "The Loser." I suspected they all communicated the same message — anyone can go to heaven if he or she accepts Christ. I wondered what kind of world this woman lived in that allowed her to assume that those who disagreed with her were condemned to die. I remembered how that mentality had been used for centuries to justify all manner of intolerance and inhumanity.

A few years back, I might have been receptive to that message. But now I find it troubling. As a Christian, I am deeply troubled by the notion that Christianity offers the only path to salvation. Since most people on the planet are not Christian and many who are have become so only because it is all they know, I am disturbed by the idea that a Christian god would punish people simply by accident of their birth. And I am profoundly opposed to any concept of sin that condemns people simply for being human.

I no longer believe in sin. I believe in an unconditionally loving God. That means God does not punish us if we "disobey his word." I believe in a God of love, not a god of fear.

There was a time when I would not have written those words. I would have been afraid to say that. I would have been afraid that God would strike me down or condemn me to hell for blasphemy. But I have grown in my spirituality and my understanding of who God is to me.

Perhaps that is why I am concerned by the hate mail I have begun to receive recently. They don't call it hate mail, of course. They say they are giving me the word of God. The language is usually carefully constructed in a way that sounds loving on its surface, but beneath the surface lies a message of fear: accept God as I tell you or die.

Several people have complained recently about an article I wrote last year on Donnie McClurkin, claiming that I am vilifying McClurkin, who they see as an annointed man of God. The same people express little or no concern for the innocent young men and women whose lives will be ruined as they are taught to hate themselves because of their sexuality.

One persistent writer recently complained about my article on "sex, lies and HIV/AIDS." She said I was simply trying to "legitimize promiscuity" when I wrote that promiscuity does not cause AIDS. The truth is it doesn't. HIV does. But why let facts get in the way of our religious sermonizing?

Another writer — an ex-gay preacher in the South — said he was concerned about my recent article on Sakia Gunn, the 15-year-old black lesbian who was murdered in New Jersey recently. He asked why I blamed the church for creating a culture of homophobia and made a distinction between condemning "a dangerous sexual practice without condemning the person committing it." That's the same old line I've heard before about hating the sin but loving the sinner.

As I've gotten older, I've gotten less religious. Religion, to be sure, has a valuable role in society, but it has a less valuable role in my life than it once did. In my view, each of us has to come to faith in our own way. My way is through spirituality.

I will not worship a small-minded, petty, vengeful, jealous god. I can no longer be a part of any church that teaches hatred and fear. I cannot worship in any place that does not respect me for who I am. I will not give my hard-earned money to any minister who berates me.

I believe that religion should be used as a tool for love, not as a weapon of hate. I believe that love is the highest good. And from now on, I will no longer be afraid to stand up for love.

I thank the anonymous woman on the subway for reminding me what I believe.