What they don't/won't teach you at church

I was reading through some internet articles recently and came across this one regarding the Council of Nicea.

For those who don't know (and if you grew up going to church on a regular basis and didn't know about this, I wouldn't be surprised) the Council of Nicea was the first meeting of the leaders of the then-new Christian faith in the year 325. It had several purposes, but the first and foremost was to determine the divinity of Jesus, followed by determining what day to celebrate Easter on.

What struck me as odd after I read this was the fact that I had known about the Council of Nicea for a long time, yet this was the first time I realized I NEVER learned about this kind of stuff from my church teachers.

That the leaders of the Christian church at the time had gotten so conflicted with their teachings that a meeting was needed to hammer out something such as 'How divine was Jesus?'

And why do you suppose that of all my years learning of Jesus and the tenets of my faith at the time I was never told about this Council? I can only assume it's because church leaders don't want to acknowledge that Christianity had to have some place to start if they don't have to. Oh, sure, Jesus...no Christianity without Christ, I know. But the fact that the word of Peter and the other Apostles had apparently gotten so muddled over just a few centuries that they had to reconvene and determine, "Oh, yeah...is Jesus divine? I forget..."

I think there are a few things happening in the world these days regarding religion. One of them is there is no loss of information anymore. It was brought to my attention that one of my previous posts seemed to say at one point that I thought the internet is bad, bad, bad and should not be trusted. I didn't intend for that to be the perception. I did say that one should look at all sources of information whenever possible when it comes to matters close to your heart, mind and soul. The internet can certainly be part of that. Frankly, I am grateful that the internet is around because of issues like this. It is incredibly easy to find any piece of information online. The world has never had anything so convenient for info gathering, and it is a great tool, though a tool that must be wielded carefully at times. But, yes, I know that if I want to find out anything, I can find SOMEthing online in seconds.

Back to the point. There is no loss of information online. If we want to learn the true nature of the beginnings of Christianity (or Buddhism, or Islam, or Judaism, etc.), all we have to do is type in a few words and hit Enter. Bam. There we go. It is not held back by our church leaders who previously were the easiest sources of information about our faith (via what they wished to share, at least). So society is learning more than ever before and has a desire to learn more than ever before.

The other thing regarding religion that is changing is that there are more authors than ever before writing books on religious issues, both fictional and non-fictional, that are quite accessible to the 'average guy or gal'. I love bookstores. Used to be, a bookstore was kind of hard to find. Nowadays they are all over. One would think with the prevalence of TV and DVDs that fewer people would want to read, but it seems that the opposite is true. This is great! With no shortage of authors tackling questions of faith and belief in many forms, more people are opening their eyes to the world around them and wondering "What if I'm wrong? What if I'm right, but not quite right? What if I realized some things never seemed to make sense, but I thought I was the only one who thought that way?"

I will admit, Dan Brown opened up a lot of people's eyes with a well-known work of fiction, The Da Vinci Code. I've never read that book myself, but I did see the movie (which I didn't think was all that great IMHO). I thought the story was a little hokey, but I did appreciate what it did for society -- meaning it awakened people who were unsure where their faith lay, or nudged people who were on the fence a bit. Along with the Bible it is listed by many adults as one of the most favorite and influential books they have ever read, along with Brown's follow-up work of fiction, Angels & Demons. I'll admit, the fun part of The Da Vinci Code is the conspiracy ideas, and I'm sure there are plenty of X-Files fans who ate that book up. The downside, though, is that Dan Brown's works are FICTION, and so being, can have what is called 'artistic license', meaning the author makes something up totally on his own, or twists the truth to fit the plot. The problem here is The Da Vinci Code became so popular that many people believed everything it said was real. This is unfortunate. In fact, websites have even popped up that have had to explain the truth vs. Dan Brown.

Basically the point of this post is to say this: It is disappointing that the Church doesn't want to provide the full truth to its congregations, solely for fear of losing members -- meaning losing donations and/or their power. I would have appreciated a church that would have given me all the information I wanted, and letting me decide how I wanted to handle that information. Instead, the nature of my church's leaders and teachers to skirt around the issue caused me to question more and to mistrust them.

I am grateful, though, that people do find their happiness in church if that is the path they have chosen. And if they were luckier than I was and found a church that was straightforward with them about all things Christian, then more power to them. I'm not saying that had my church done things differently I wouldn't still have become agnostic. But I do think I would have more respect for the church than I do. I don't think I'm alone in this idea.