Tolstoian

Chirst cannot be held responsible for the monstorous tradition that has been interwoven with his teaching and presented as Christianity.

... while preaching doctrines quite alien to Christ's teaching [church leaders] affirm that their doctrine was taught by Christ. So that according to their teaching Jesus declared that by his blood he had redeemed the human race ruined by Adam's sins; that God is three persons; that the Holy Ghost descended on the apostles and was transmitted to the priesthood by the laying on of hands; that the seven sacraments are necessary for salvation; that communion should be received in two kinds and so on. They would have us believe that all this is the teaching of Jesus whereas there is not a word of any of it in his teaching. Those false teachers should call their teaching and religion the teaching and religion of the Holy Ghost but not of Christ; for only that faith can be called Christian which recognizes the revelation of Christ reaching us in the Gospels as the final revelation. -- Tolstoy

I get caught up in the beautiy of Catholic Churches and the ideas of Catholic intellectuals like Merton, and I forget what a repressive and backwards hierarachy controls the church.

As happened when today I read this on Daily Beast:

This week, Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted of Phoenix announced the excommunication of Sister Margaret McBride for the crime of approving an abortion necessary to save a woman’s life. The patient, a 27-year-old who was 11 weeks pregnant, had pulmonary hypertension, which interferes with the functioning of the heart and lungs. Pregnancy exacerbates the condition, and doctors at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center determined that she would die without an abortion. St. Joseph’s is Catholic, so an ethics committee meeting was convened. As part of the committee, Sister McBride opted to save the patient’s life. For that, she’s been rebuked, transferred, and essentially barred from participating in Catholic life.

The bad crazyness in the Catholic Church over abortion never ceases to amaze and dismay me.

Here we have an all male power structure, headed by an 80-year-old elected monarch influencing medical decisions for young women. It's just crazy and I can't see myself being part of that despite whatever other good the church may be doing.

So I end up back with Tolstoy, who was a Christian but despised the established churches for the ways they controlled and lied to their people.

It does not seem to be possible to have a church without corruption -- paranoia, homophobia, etc. -- so it seems my best course is to be a Christian outlaw avoding any ties with any church.