Church and Connection to Self

Church. It is often defined as 'a public worship of God or a religious service in such a building'.

When I was a child, I thought that church was held in a building with people of like faith and demographic that one is of familiarity with. I couldn't have been more far from the truth, but I can only speak from my own experiences, and as a child your mind is not mature enough to understand that what you think, speak, and encounter may be totally different things. I would sit in church, Pleasant View Baptist, and experience the same thing Sunday after Sunday. Opening prayer, scripture readings, an offertory prayer followed by personal tithes, musical selections, Sermon and finally a call to Christian discipleship, were all that I knew of church. The same step by step dictation of the word of God was imbedded in my head, almost a brainwashing of sorts. My early days of attending church were forced upon me, by parents and grandparents, respectfully. I was made to read at four years old scripture from the Holy Bible, in front of a few hundred people in the congregation. Singing in the choir was a requirement that I had to fulfill up until the beginning of my high school days. In elementary and middle school, I followed what I was told to follow and did not question any one thing that was told to me. I agreed with what my parents and teacher's thought was correct. Seeing that I was the pupil, and coming from an environment where everyone seemingly followed the same rules of living, it didn't even cross my mind to expand and broaden myself. In my mind, there was no point to challenge what I was born believing in. Everyone around me was a practitioner of the same organized religion, and with no understanding of what this meant to my psychological being, I adhered to it. However, with age comes maturation, and with this maturation comes to fruition the creating of your own existence; to deem yourself as what you want to be deemed. Along with the want to be your own person, comes rebellion. Rebellion from the norm, rebellion from family, rebellion from everything that you thought you were. Christianity, considered a wholesome religion, is in my opinion the most intolerant. To my knowledge, it is the only religion that states that you must be a Christian to get into heaven and be sanctified in the Lord. The 'baby' of the three main organized religions of the western world, Christianity can drive a person to act in a very demeaning and disgusting way to practitioners of other faiths. Seeing this happen not only throughout the world but also in my public forum of school, work, and church, I wondered why this was and questioned the views of Christianity. In my mind, I began to believe that faith was a powerful thing, but that blind faith had been and will continue to be the downfall of many peoples. I became more and more uncomfortable attending church, reason being that I started to realize that it was all merely a lie. Now, don't get me wrong, the fundamental aspects and principles of Christianity were not to blame for my realization. The hypocrisy that Christianity teaches to swear against was the grounds for my consciousness. As a youth I was enthralled in Christianity because it was what I was conditioned to. As I grew in age and understanding, I was able to form my own opinion. Why live a lie? Why follow a faith wholesomely if the men and women around you, even down to preachers and priests do not fully follow. In my opinion, a man who is telling the word of God should not be placed upon a pedestal. Even Jesus Christ himself shunned the upper echelon of society. Now, priests and preachers are 'King-like' in their roles. The Pope rides in a bulletproof car and wears A LOT of gold while Reverend's in the western world ride Mercedes-Benz. How can a pastor of a church own a $100,000 car and expect his starving congregation to give him tithes? How can he sit idle and let members of his flock miss rent payments and pile up past due bills. Catholic priests molesting young boys and married Baptist preachers having sex with members of the church. This is a worldly problem with Christianity. Most organized religions have fallen into this fate due to them being man made. The creation of factions has been a problem to the goodwill of all human beings since the beginning of time. People with similar agendas band together in attempts to overthrow others, all the while gaining animosity for one another until they have no reason against oppressing their enemy. Organized Religions, in my opinion, were man-made weapons of mass destruction. This weapon has severely impacted the people of the world due to its unique ability to separate people and make them hate. And even within these religions are factions, separating people by lifestyle. Why are there so many different types of Christianity? Catholic, Baptist, Costic, Methodist; they all worship the same God and prophet. Maybe it was youth drove me to not be fully engaged or maybe it was my conscious. As I grew older and able to form my own opinions, I began to understand church as being something more yet something simple, but I could not quite place my hand on it. Getting older and experiencing my own sets of trials and tribulations helped to push me away from the normalcy of church, and I began to 'see' the truth.

Pleasant View Baptist Church had always been and still is a place where I can go and find love. Almost all of my family living in the Louisville area attends the church. It's been the only church that I have regularly attended since my childhood. A familiar place with familiar faces, I enjoyed church as a youngster. As high school came and went, I attended less and with college came even more time away. During this time, I did a lot of research, study, and prayer. I became encompassed in everything that had to do with religion, from Judaism to Islam to Freemasonry. Going to college brought me peace. As I learned about religion and attended class, things seemed to come together. I began to take Pan-African studies classes. These classes, along with the knowledge that I was gaining from reading up on organized religion opened my eyes and also made me want to figure the origin of organized religion. With rage and fury I began to immerse myself in learning of ancient knowledge, wisdom and secrets of the world. As time went on, I picked up philosophy classes and engaged in discussion with professors and students. I came to understand that the place of most knowledge being spread throughout the world was Egypt, where even Greek and Roman aristocrats and students came to become scholars. Ma'al, the 'land of the blacks', was a city where famous names from Socrates, Plato and even Aristotle came to learn. Have you heard of the Holy Trinity? Jesus, Mary, God or Father, Son, Holy Ghost. Egypt's trinity pre dates early Judaism, and Ancient Kamit described the same formula but in names Auser, Auset, and Heru. I was taught about the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and how Christianity was spread to the enslaved Africans, by both European and African slave traders. Hearing about pregnant women being hung upside down by their toes and getting their womb cut open and strewn around was one thing, but actually reading about the massacres that took place for 300 yrs and the systematic oppression of a people by way of an Organized religion shocked me. Brainwashed to say the least, the only African people to rebel against this were the ones who were sent to Haiti, and look at the situation that they have been in for a few hundred years. I even learned of the contradictories of the Holy Bible, such as Lillith, Adams first wife being omitted and also Muhammad, father of Islam. It is ironic that Jesus is mentioned in the Quran. Chinese people were sold into slavery as well and the same type of oppression was afforded to them as well. As I began to develop a sense of direction for my life, I examined more closely. Throughout my studies, I always found new similarities and differences in organized religion. One factor that stuck out to me was that out of the main western organized religions, none were polytheistic. All only worshipped One God; the same God. The problem was that people use a different prophet to connect with God. Why should a man be separated from other men solely through a belief in a different prophet, when the principles in teaching are the same?

Church. It is often defined as 'a public worship of God or a religious service in such a building'. I do not attend organized church regularly, only on occasion. But because of the early years I spent in the church, I have come to understand that church can be had anywhere. I have had 'church' with people of different religious denominations, background and demographic and have come to enjoy it. When I have 'church', it is not discriminatory of your views, because in the grand scheme of things, we worship the same God. Stripping the vices of organized religion down to the fundamental principles of a connection with God has bettered me as a person and led me to a higher path than I was following. Organized religion and the hypocrisy of it led me from one church to the next, and I couldn't be happier.