Posted by
J. A. Colon on Monday, July 13, 2009 3:17:35 AM
Disclaimer:
1. I am not Catholic.
2. I haven’t visited a church in some time now; so no, I am not a model Christian either.
3. Like Paul said, “…of the sinners, I am the first…”
These are my opinions. (end of disclaimer)
I just loosely read over the Newsweek article by Kathleen Kennedy were she states that Obama represents American Catholics better than the Pope.
Of the back, I can say that the statement is wrong for the simple reason of semantics. But a word play would not have annoyed me as much as the implication of the title and the article.
Philosophically speaking, it is in Democracy and in the Republican form of government where representatives of the People are elected to the highest forms of government, in order to rule and institute improvements that would benefit the people who elected them.
Religious institutions, by virtue of the fact that they are religious institutions, and yes, it looks like I am repeating myself, are not supposed to represent the people. Religious institutions are supposed to represent the canon of beliefs associated with such organization.
In Christian religions (Catholic and Protestant alike), as in Judaism, and Islam, the purpose of the Church or Synagogue or Mosque, is to represent God, and not the believer. God, Allah, or Elohim, is the Supreme Being and is not to be lobbied into changing His beliefs and Rules, because He is perfect. The purpose of the church is then, not to represent the individual, but to help the individual attain a closer relationship with God, and reflect His Image, by molding our Character to look or react, or behave, in the way the Religion’s Sacred Text indicates God, or Allah, or Elohim, Is.
I do not belief that there is anybody perfect in the world. We (wanna be spiritual people) are all here attempting to develop our character to reflect God’s glory, or His Character.
Let me quickly explain my “wanna be spiritual people” reference on the previous paragraph. Those who attend church, or Mosque, or Synagogue, in my belief are attempting to live a life as close as possible to what we belief are God’s expectations of us, we want to eventually achieve God’s perfection, but this is the endeavor of a lifetime. As such, we have not achieved it yet. That explains the misguided church members who gossip all week, the cantankerous pastor who after church goes to the local restaurant and fails to tip the server, or looks at the server as a slave who is there to fulfill his or her every need, etc. Yes, all of these and many more examples are aberrations, and are extremes that can be seeing every week in every city in the world. But they only illustrate the fact that we are misguided to belief that if you go to church, you are perfect, and if you make a mistake you are a hypocrite.
I’m stuck in a place where if I want to watch news in the morning, I have to watch Rachel Maddow, I’m sick of her calling religious people hypocrites, just because either she doesn’t understand the true purpose of religion, or she really can care less to anybody’s opinion but herself.
But that is it. People like Ms. Kennedy just cannot understand that it is the people who represent the Church, not the Church who represent the people.
As Christians, we are called to “reflect the image of God” through our life, through our actions, through our behavior; but, since we are not perfect, I know for a fact that we will fall, and mess up here and there, but, the road to perfection gets closer every time we fall, place our Faith in God, get up, and keep on going, learning the lessons extracted from our previous mistakes.
Jews are called to follow the Torah. Muslims, are called to follow the Quran. Are we all going to be perfect examples or representatives of our God? Of course not; but, as we continue on our path, and reach out to God every time asking for His guidance and strength, and Salvation, we become closer to project the image we are called to project.
So, no, Obama is not a better representative of American Catholics than the Pope is. And the reason is simple. If you are a true Catholic, you continue trying to show God through your life. And, that means that you are not looking for a lobbyist or someone to represent you in front of God, and change what God ask of us. You are trying to show God’s image to the world through your life, not the other way around; same thing with all other Christian denominations.
Surprise, surprise, surprise, our politicians and their mouthpieces are misguided. So, what else is new?
Think about it. If you are trying your best to get close to God, isn’t it time you realize that God does not need to change? That is us that need to improve?