COLUMNIST: Wit & Wisdom

One of my close friends was once a church minister, a hugely creative man, an outstanding artist and talented writer, but he saw no opportunity to express his creativity as ‘First among equals’ in the church, writes Adam Harbinson.
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As he reached his 40s he became so unhappy that we organised a weekend away on the North Antrim Coast for some ‘Blue Sky Thinking’, a complete break from his ecclesiastical chores to see if he could come up with some original thinking.

And so it was that still in his 40s, almost 30 years before he would be expected to retire, he resigned.

In one of our many conversations since, he said, ‘This religion, it’s all a game Adam, isn’t it?’

Adam Harbinson.Adam Harbinson.
Adam Harbinson.

And I have to say that to an extent I agree, but given the human frailty of religious leaders, that’s what organised religion is. However, thankfully it doesn’t end there, for as my old mother used to say, you can’t tar them all with the same brush.

In the 1980s I was a member of a quirky little church. It was a difficult decade for my family, for within a month my Downs Syndrome son was born and my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, a condition from which she has since passed away. The caring heart of that little community spontaneously sprang into life. Every day for many months, cooked meals were delivered to our door, a team would turn up once a week to scrub the house clean from top to bottom, and because neither of us was able to work - I was self employed - an envelope containing enough money to keep us afloat appeared a regular as clockwork.

Now the point is that while my first two paragraphs represented the unacceptable face of religion, the third paragraph is how it should be, how it was in those ragged edges of my life, and it’s how it often is.

James the New Testament writer, thought to be Jesus’ brother defined pure and faultless religion as looking after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

I have worked with many Christian organizations all across the world that do just that, and I’ve seen first hand the generosity and compassion shown by churches, particularly in the African countries I have visited as well as at home. Regardless of the abhorrence of fake religion that had Jesus crucified, he was able to say, ‘Father, forgive them’, so there’s our example. Let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

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