The Bad Christian's Manifesto

Reinventing God (and other modest proposals)

Dave Tomlinson

• Publisher: Hodder Faith
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781444752267
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Teologia cristiana

Dave Tomlinson's book How to Be a Bad Christian was written for all those who want God without the guff - revealing that being a 'bad' Christian is perfectly good enough, and that it's possible to ditch religion without losing the faith. The Bad Christian's Manifesto continues the conversation, unpacking what spiritual intelligence - from an unapologetically Christian viewpoint - might look like for all the self-confessed bad Christians of the world. Join Dave as he explores how to befriend your inner sceptic, make a virtue of pleasure and find heaven in the ordinary things of life.

1. A tired old man upstairs

can I still believe in God?

Against some images of God the revolt of atheism is an act of pure religion.

Walter Wink

No one could forget Jim’s funeral – the one where the Sex Pistols showed up instead of Frank Sinatra.

Despite a rainstorm of near biblical proportions, more than three hundred people arrived at the crematorium. Those who couldn’t squeeze into the chapel peered through the open door from the entrance hall, some even stood outside in the rain listening to the service relayed from speakers.

Grief strikes hard when a person dies young, and at just thirty-five years, it felt like Jim’s life had barely begun. When six of his friends carried his coffin into the chapel, the sobs and moans were so loud I could scarcely make myself heard. But little by little, the tears and groans morphed into smiles and laughter when one speaker after another related funny and moving accounts of Jim’s short but eventful life.

The stories and tributes over, I invited the congregation to join me in commending Jim to God’s loving care.

Nothing now remained but for me to hit the button to send Jim on his way. Glancing towards the chapel attendant, I nodded for the final track to commence.

That’s when it happened. Bellowing through the speakers: the debauched, warbling sneer of Sid Vicious:

And n-o-o-o-w the end is n-e-e-e-e-ar,

And so I fa-a-a-ce the final curt-ain.

. . . Ha Ha Ha, . . .

The entire gathering stood stock-still as the contemptuous obscenity in the next line of the song reverberated around the chapel. There was a pause; an intake of breath. Then, in one gloriously anarchic moment, every single soul erupted into rapturous applause and laughter. ‘Jim, you crazy bugger!’ one man shouted above the tumult, ‘We love you!’

‘WE LOVE YOU!’ the congregation hollered back in unison, as if rehearsed.

Everybody laughed . . . and cried . . . and laughed . . . all the way to the pub.

Frank Sinatra’s ‘My way’ is probably the nation’s favourite funeral song but no one had requested the Sex Pistols’ version – until Jim. I swear I heard him giggling in the background as the congregation stood open-mouthed.

Jim was HIV-positive and died of an AIDS-related illness. We met in the hospital where he spent his final months and where I served as the chaplain. Our many conversations on the ward focused mostly on music and football. Jim was allergic to religion. Which is why it surprised me when he asked if I would take his funeral.

I find it strange and slightly disconcerting to plan someone’s funeral with the person sitting there in front of me, large as life. I never get used to that. But Jim eased the process with his dark humour and reassuring, down-to-earth manner.

When it came to discussing the final song he stuck to his guns despite a barrage of protests from his partner, Mario. ‘It’ll be a blast,’ Jim said, grinning from ear to ear. ‘I only wish I could be there to see their faces.’

‘Yeah. That’s the problem,’ Mario piped up. ‘I will be there!’

We laughed, like three mates sharing a joke in the bar after work.

Just before leaving, I reached across the bed to give Jim a hug. He recoiled sharply, exclaiming: ‘No, Dave! Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me. I’m unclean.’

‘Unclean?’ I said. ‘What on earth are you talking about, unclean?’

It turned out that in his early teens Jim attended a church with tub-thumping sermons about the ‘abomination’ of homosexuality. He knew he was gay from a young age but never told anyone until he confessed to the vicar. After that he became engulfed in weeks of so-called ‘counselling’ which was actually nothing short of emotional abuse. Week-in, week-out, the vicar attempted to ‘deliver’ Jim from a ‘spirit of homosexuality’. A confused teenager, he went along with it, trying his best to change, to become ‘normal’.

But surprise, surprise, it all came to nothing – Jim still fancied boys, not girls! So he ditched church and religion, came out to his friends and family, and got on with his life as a young gay man. Years later, after contracting the HIV virus, he met Mario. They fell madly in love and lived happily together for ten years prior to his death.

Yet despite turning his back on religion, Jim never quite managed to root out the shame embedded in his teenage psyche. And when I went to hug him, it all burst forth. ‘The last time a man of the cloth put his arm around me,’ he said, ‘it was to tell me “lovingly” that I would go to hell if I didn’t stop looking at boys.’

Jim paused. Winced. Then said, ‘But what if he was right, Dave? What if the “man upstairs” really doesn’t like gays . . . people like me? What if—’

‘Okay. Stop right there, Jim,’ I interrupted. ‘Let’s get this clear: being gay is not a sin. It’s in the same category as being left-handed, or having red hair, or being a boy instead of a girl. You can’t help it. It’s normal. No one chooses to be gay, it’s just who you are – right?’

‘Right,’ he echoed.

‘Trust me, Jim, you were misled. God loves you just as you are: a beautiful gay man. You have your flaws like the rest of us, but being gay isn’t one of them.’

We hugged – and wept. Actually, Jim turned out to be one of the best huggers I have known. We embraced many times in the weeks that followed. And yes, I did manage to convince him that ‘God likes fags’, as he cheekily enjoyed putting it; that God liked him!

I have a basically sunny disposition. I don’t rile easily. But what truly gets my goat is misery inflicted in the name of God. On the way home I pulled the car over, too angry to cry, though I wanted to. Sitting there at the side of the road in silent indignation I contemplated what sort of God makes a man feel unclean for loving another man with all the passion, tenderness and commitment I feel towards my wife? No God that I can recognise, or want anything to do with. That’s for sure!

There and then, I resolved to be an atheist in the face of any God or religion that torments the likes of Jim, or that increases rather than diminishes the sum of human misery. If God exists, she or he has to be better than this.

In my earlier days as a Christian it all seemed so straightforward. When someone asked if I believed in God, I could respond confidently. Yes, of course I believed in God. But now it feels more complicated. It really depends on which God you have in mind.

I don’t believe in an old white man with a beard, sitting in the heavens.

I don’t believe in a God who treats gay people as deviants or as unclean.

I don’t believe in a God who inspires vengeance and war, or incites bigotry and sectarianism.

I don’t believe in a God who consigns people to everlasting torment for not ‘accepting’ Jesus.

I don’t believe in a God who presides over the world like some ‘fat controller’ deciding where and when to intervene in human affairs.

I don’t believe in a God who has some absolute ‘plan’ or ‘design’ for our lives and for the world to which we are supposed to conform, or else.

So what sort of God do I believe in? This is what I hope to reveal in the rest of this book: not with philosophical and theological arguments (though there will be plenty of them tucked away in the background), or by simply quoting creeds and Christian dogma, but mostly by looking at how we experience God in our lives and in the world. And trust me, we do all experience God in some way or other, by whatever name.

Naturally, most people associate God with religion, but I have to say that if I were in charge of God’s public relations, I would definitely see this as a mixed blessing. I might even be tempted to tell the press, ‘God doesn’t do religion!’ A religious God is too small, too narrow, too sectarian. God is either the God of the entire world, of all people – religious and non-religious – or not at all. And, in fact, the experience of God is the most democratic phenomenon imaginable: as pervasive as the air about us, as universal as breathing. Yet like the air about us, like the act of breathing, we are mostly unaware of it.

What I am proposing in this book is that God is not alien to any one of us, religious or not; that there are things identifiable in the experience of all of us to which the name ‘God’ might refer.

Yet the fact remains that for some people the very word ‘God’ is so contaminated by bad experiences and negative perceptions of religion that it is no longer usable. I have a close friend who describes himself as an atheist. I’m not sure that he is, but he certainly has no stomach for religion or for the God it portrays. He is not alone. Millions of people feel alienated by religious beliefs and practices or by their experiences of churches and church people. And sadly, God gets lumped together with this.

In her intriguing song ‘Him’, the pop singer Lily Allen ponders how God may feel about the cruelty and abuse carried out in his name. Teasingly, she wonders if he’s skint or financially secure, and when it comes to election time, who he’d vote for. He certainly wouldn’t ever feel suicidal – his favourite band is Creedence Clearwater Revival. But despite her typical playfulness, the singer poignantly laments that ever since he can remember people have died in his good name.

I grew up thinking that blaspheming, ‘taking God’s name in vain’, meant shouting profanities such as ‘God almighty!’ or ‘Jesus Christ!’ I now think that many so-called profanities are in fact unintentional prayers, and that the real blasphemy is the pain we inflict on people in the name of God, or when we write off whole swathes of humanity because they don’t believe what we believe about God, or use the same religious jargon.

The great Jewish philosopher Martin Buber once proposed a freeze on the use of the word ‘God’. Not because he didn’t believe in God, but because he thought the word was often used in meaningless and even dangerous ways. A ban on ‘God’ isn’t possible, of course, but it is worth pondering the prospect. After all, ‘God’ is just a word – a word that sometimes maligns or slanders the reality to which it seeks to refer. Who knows, perhaps an abstention from God-talk could even lead to a new and better understanding of who or what God is.

Blaise Pascal famously spoke of a God-shaped hole in the human heart – a sense of longing and incompleteness that only God can fill. If that void still exists (and I am sure it does), I fear that the God of organised religion may no longer be adequate to the task. We need a different God, a different vision of God that grips the hearts and minds of people in the twenty-first century.

In a fas...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Title Page
• Imprint Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• 1. A tired old man upstairs
• 2. Bad Christian meets good atheist
• 3. ‘For one thing, she’s black’
• 4. God on the brain
• 5. God is what grabs you deep down
• 6. Did they fall, or were they pushed?
• 7. I found God!
• 8. Tea and biscuits religion
• 9. ‘Just a slob like one of us?’
• 10. What Jesus really cared about
• 11. God of dirt and passion
• 12. Cigars, chocolate and other holy sacraments
• 13. You are the dark of the world
• 14. Finding your spiritual mojo
• 15. The alchemy of community
• 16. The bad Christian’s manifesto
• Acknowledgements
• Appendix
• Footnotes
• Hodder Faith