Faith, Sex and Religion

Today is a special day in my family, my niece's christening. As such, I was required to attend a service at my parent's church, the church I grew up in until around the age of sixteen. I lost my faith at the age of fourteen after some rather disturbing instances, and have not been back since my parents finally let me stop attending.

It's been about three and a half years, and today I went back for the first time. I have to say, it hasn't changed a bit since the last time. Even the carpet and the paint on the walls is the same, but I guess I have changed since then, and probably a lot. Being forced to go to church for over half my lived life probably has something to do with the dislike of the place. I mean, I'm not against religion or anything, but being told what I should believe, well I'm not fond of the people who do, let's put it that way.

In the spirit of my dislike for the place, I didn't really listen to the sermon, but the bits that I did hear seemed like propaganda to me; a room full of people being told what they should think, feel and do was slightly off putting. The fact that the preacher was also extremely patronising didn't help. I'm not three, I know the bloody definition of ascension thank you very much. And, as if that wasn't enough, he kept making really bad jokes.

All in all I ignored him mostly and, instead decided to flick through the bible (graciously provided by the church) to Song of Songs. Now, if you've never read it I wouldn't hesitate to suggest you do; this book of the bible is full of sexually explicit innuendos, whoever said that Christians shouldn't enjoy their sex was oh so wrong, and this book pretty-much proves it. Before I quote from it, I guess I should set the stage; this book is basically a conversation between a woman and man who are in love. There are also parts of the conversation filled out by older women, who discourage the sex until after marriage (at least that's how i read it). Let me give you a quote:

"Like the finest apple tree in the orchard
is my lover among other young men.
I sit in his delightful shade and taste his delicious fruit.
He escorts me to the banquet hall;
it's obvious how much he loves me.
Strengthen me with raisin cakes,
refresh me with apples,
for I am weak with love.
His left arm is under my head,
and his right arm embraces me."

Wow, talk about forbidden "fruits". If that's not a sexual innuendo I don't know what is. Still, perhaps it's just my dirty mind. My favourite line in the entire book is:

"My lover is like a sachet of myrrh
lying between my breasts"

Understandably, I suppose, I have never heard a preacher use this book in a sermon, but I'd like to. Though perhaps cringe-worthy, this discrimination against a tiny little section of the bible is not to my liking. If I knew a preacher was using this book in his sermon I would surely turn up to the service, but going into a church to find that the man stood up at the front is going to stand there and patronise me for forty-five minutes isn't really what I'd call participating in God's love, perhaps it's an experience of religion, and if it's accurate, no wonder all my friends turned away from it. Those people who sit there every week may be used to it, but I thought religion was supposed to be about welcoming the new as well.

Anyway, enough on religion. And enough for today.