Is it I?

Politically, many people with whom I ostensibly share some very important values are terrible jerks.

I know, that sounds more like my religious problem, doesn't it?

There is the same issue at the root of both sides of the problem: it is easy to decide that others are wrong and bad. Just write them off and channel all of your anger there!

As I have said before, dividing people into "good" and "bad" is reductive. We all have our own flaws, and things we will be wrong about, or perhaps we will be right, but in the wrong way.

I have been thinking about this more because I have recently seen people that have left the church decrying the patriarchy of the church.

They are not wrong about that, but their complaints are focused on the church as if that is the only bastion of patriarchy around. That is clearly not true.

Patriarchy is a corrupting force in many other religious organizations, not even exclusively Christian or Judeo-Christian. It affects government, and if it is a stronger force on the Republican side, it is a problem for the Democrats, which the Progressives will complain about with far more scorn than they give Republicans, but shockingly without a trace of irony for how they uphold it.

That goes back thousands of years, though perhaps not as many as you'd think. It may be more reasonable to refer to it as dominator culture, because that gets to the heart of wanting to dominate and exert authority over those below you, thus setting up the hierarchy. 

"Patriarchy" specifically denotes that the hierarchy is male-led. That's the flavor we know, so it does matter, but the issue is the need to dominate, not who gets to dominate.

I am not saying that to criticize anyone who has left the church; those decisions often makes sense.

What I am saying is that if you then harden your own heart against everything associated with it, well, you have a hard heart. The existence of other hard hearts on the other side does not negate yours.

I have felt alienated at church, My continuing to wear a mask when it looks like I am the only one (but I am really only almost the only one) has been a big part of that. It is easy to see those unmasked faces as signs that they have rebuked science and embraced Trump. 

That is certainly true for some, but others have just gotten tired, or taken capitalist-led efforts to downplay the pandemic in good faith, or are submitting to peer pressure. All of those are things I can understand, but will stubbornly resist.

I realized I needed to focus on loving more. That means looking for the good and enjoying people and looking for ways to serve. I can do that, and it helps.

I have written before that there may be a time when my integrity requires leaving. If that happens, I will. For now my integrity requires me to stay, and to keep working on charity and humility.

That is not automatically the answer for anyone else.

My standard answer on issues of gender and sexuality is that for church doctrine, that is the province and responsibility of church leaders (who may be held back by their own bias and the readiness of the bulk of the church). However, anyone can get answers for their own life and what they need to do.

Those answers are still likely to require charity and humility.

They will require the Spirit, which will be shut out by a hard heart.

I know people who have been in much worse wards, with harsher, more dominating people. In that situation, maybe it would be right for me to leave. Or, maybe I would stubbornly stick it out, pushing back so much that I would be asked to leave.

Or maybe I would change someone's mind.

I can't tell you what to do, but I encourage you to return to that question, multiple times because it is actually multiple questions.

What am I doing now? Is this what I should be doing? Should I be doing it differently?

Do I feel the influence of the Holy Ghost? How is my relationship with God? 

How is my heart?