Lexington Herald Leader Logo

One way to determine if your religion is healthy: Does it focus on hope or on fear? | Lexington Herald Leader

×
  • E-edition
  • Home
    • All News
    • Business
    • Communities
    • Counties
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Lexington
    • Local
    • Most Wanted
    • Nation/World
    • News Photos
    • News Videos
    • Politics
    • Searchable Databases
    • State
    • Watchdog
    • Columns
    • Tom Eblen
    • All Sports
    • UK Sports
    • College Sports
    • Next Cats Recruiting
    • High School
    • Horses
    • Kentucky Speedway
    • Lexington Legends
    • Reds
    • MLB
    • NBA
    • NASCAR
    • NFL
    • Sports Photos
    • Sports Videos
    • Columns
    • John Clay's Columns
    • Mark Story
    • Next Cats Recruiting
    • All UK Sports
    • Next Cats Recruiting
    • Baseball
    • Basketball - Men
    • Basketball - Women
    • Recruiting
    • Ex-Cats
    • Football
    • UK Photos
    • UK Videos
    • More UK Sports
    • Columns
    • John Clay's Blog
    • Mark Story
    • Politics
    • Elections
    • All Entertainment
    • Books
    • Celebrities
    • Comics
    • Puzzles & Games
    • Events Calendar
    • Horoscopes
    • Movies
    • Music
    • Restaurants
    • Stage & Dance
    • TV
    • Visual Arts
    • Entertainment Photos
    • Entertainment Videos
    • News Blogs
    • Kentucky Weather
    • Photo Archive
    • Sports Blogs
    • John Clay's Blog
    • High School
    • UK Football
    • UK Men's Basketball
    • UK Women's Basketball
    • Lexington Legends
    • Entertainment Blogs
    • Walter Tunis on Music
    • All Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Joel Pett
    • Letters to the Editor
    • National Columnists
    • Op-Ed
    • Submit a Letter
    • All Living
    • Celebrations
    • Family
    • Fashion
    • Food & Drink
    • Fru-Gal: Deb Morris
    • Health & Medicine
    • Home & Garden
    • Paul Prather
    • Religion
    • Travel
    • Readers' Choice
    • Kentucky Obituaries
    • Obituaries in the News
    • Submit an Obituary
    • Customer Service
    • Contact Us
    • About Us
    • E-edition
    • Page Reprints
    • Photo Reprints
    • RSS Feeds
    • Special Sections
    • Site Information
    • Advertise With Us
    • Archives
    • Mobile
    • Mobile Apps & eReaders
    • Newsletters
    • Social
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Instagram
    • YouTube
    • Google+
    • Today's Circulars
    • Classifieds
    • Jobs
    • Cars
    • Homes
    • Homeseller
    • Legal Notices
  • Place an Ad
  • Mobile & Apps

Paul Prather

One way to determine if your religion is healthy: Does it focus on hope or on fear?

By Paul Prather

    ORDER REPRINT →

January 11, 2018 03:41 PM

Religion has provided the world with true redemption — and about an equal amount of evil.

It’s given us soup kitchens and hospitals — and it’s given us inquisitions and terrorists.

It’s burnished some human hearts until they reflected the divine, but in other hearts it’s magnified ugliness that was already lurking there.

Some worship communities should be cherished; some should be fled.

Sign Up and Save

Get six months of free digital access to the Lexington Herald-Leader

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

#ReadLocal

Here then, in no particular order, are characteristics that distinguish healthy religion from unhealthy. If your own house of worship exhibits too many signs of bad religion, look for a different group to join. There are too many fine religious organizations out there to allow yourself to be warped or victimized by one that’s abusive.

Good religion: Encourages you. This doesn’t mean every sermon or song will be instantly edifying. You need correction and repentance; they’re part of spiritual growth. But the net effect of faith should be that it helps you feel better about God, others and yourself.

Bad religion: Beats you up rather than lifts you up. If going to church is like going to get a weekly whipping, something’s wrong.

Good religion: Worships God instead of people. Probably the central purpose of religion is to introduce us to the Lord and help us know him better. Religion should keep us in touch with the transcendent.

Bad religion: Becomes a cult of personality. People — all people — are flawed and fallen and unworthy of worship. If your faith is mainly about your charismatic, indispensable pastor, priest or imam, you’re practicing idolatry.

Good religion: Promotes humility and compassion. Pretty much every worthwhile, time-tested tradition teaches these virtues as central to its faith.

Bad religion: Promotes a sense of superiority. It suggests the members of its own little clique are intrinsically better than those who worship differently or who don’t worship at all or who are in some manner less fortunate in life.

Good religion: Builds hope. It sees God at work in the world, and it expects that God’s love will transcend most obstacles or differences with opponents.

Bad religion: Focuses on fear. It fosters paranoia. It tells you constantly that outsiders — other faiths, other ethnicities, members of a certain political party, the government, the devil — are out to persecute and destroy you. It keeps you suspicious and angry.

Good religion: Embraces outsiders. It believes it can learn from those who worship differently. It reaches out to the poor, the hungry, the dispossessed, the hard-to-love.

Bad religion: Shuns anyone who’s different. It says that if you’re not exactly like us, you’re a danger or not worth knowing or are responsible for society’s problems — or all of the above.

Good religion: Recognizes that doubt isn’t the opposite of faith. (In fact, as Anne Lamott observed, certainty is the opposite of faith). It encourages wide-ranging reading and critical thinking. It’s never afraid of facts.

Bad religion: Demands unquestioning adherence. It says you must believe — or pretend to believe — exactly what the leaders tell you, no questions asked.

Good religion: Holds you accountable in a way that’s balanced and humane. One goal of good religion is to help you become a better human. To that end, it suggests reasonable boundaries for behavior and gently guides you in your daily sojourn.

Bad religion: Holds you impossibly accountable, or else not accountable at all. It’s always out of whack. It either micromanages your life or else tells you it’s fine to do any old irrational, hedonistic, destructive thing you please.

Good religion: Asks you to contribute to the common good. It says that because you’re part of a faith community, it’s right for you to help support that community, not to mention the poor, the sick and the homeless.

Bad religion: Majors on money. It seems unable to talk about anything but your wallet. It may be obsessed with your choosing a life of poverty, or it may be obsessed with the proposition that God’s obligated to buy you a Mercedes and a mansion.

Good religion: Draws you closer to your family and loved ones. It sees your kith and kin as gifts God has given you and, in certain instances, as mission fields among whom you can live out God’s grace under difficult circumstances.

Bad religion: Tries to separate you from your family and loved ones. It sees those people as threats and urges you to cut them off in favor of the congregation only.

Paul Prather is pastor of Bethesda Church near Mount Sterling. You may email him at pratpd@yahoo.com.

  Comments  

Videos

John Calipari: We needed to get knocked in the mouth

Keldon Johnson is feeling good about a ‘big game’ Saturday

View More Video

Trending Stories

Kentucky Senate approves NRA gun bill on anniversary of Parkland school shooting

February 14, 2019 11:59 AM

Pazzo’s, Magee’s Bakery, Texas de Brazil, Sonic, Qdoba and more on probation

February 15, 2019 06:45 AM

‘A sad day for ... justice system.’ Kentucky detective sentenced for lying in gruesome case

February 14, 2019 02:56 PM

Updated list of restaurants on probation as of February: Read before you eat

February 15, 2019 07:00 AM

‘She has to come home.’ Here’s how you can help find missing Kentucky mom

February 15, 2019 03:03 PM

Read Next

‘Roma’ or ‘A Star is Born?’ May the best film win this year’s Oscar, or not.

Paul Prather

‘Roma’ or ‘A Star is Born?’ May the best film win this year’s Oscar, or not.

By Paul Prather

    ORDER REPRINT →

February 15, 2019 09:42 AM

Here’s which actors and what movies I think should win at this year’s Academy Awards.

KEEP READING

Sign Up and Save

#ReadLocal

Get six months of free digital access to the Lexington Herald-Leader

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

MORE PAUL PRATHER

The journey is the destination when pursuing a life of faith

Paul Prather

The journey is the destination when pursuing a life of faith

February 08, 2019 09:24 AM

Paul Prather

You can react spiritually in an increasingly hostile world. Here’s how.

January 31, 2019 09:28 AM
Christianity is indeed a religion for losers - and thank God for that

Paul Prather

Christianity is indeed a religion for losers - and thank God for that

January 25, 2019 09:02 AM
You aren’t the local messiah, and other truths seminaries should teach

Paul Prather

You aren’t the local messiah, and other truths seminaries should teach

January 18, 2019 08:59 AM
Our political leaders are still functional compared with Congress in the 1800s

Paul Prather

Our political leaders are still functional compared with Congress in the 1800s

January 11, 2019 09:53 AM
A ‘striking finding’ from 2018:  number of illegals has decreased over the past decade

Paul Prather

A ‘striking finding’ from 2018: number of illegals has decreased over the past decade

January 03, 2019 09:30 AM
Take Us With You

Real-time updates and all local stories you want right in the palm of your hand.

Icon for mobile apps

Lexington Herald Leader App

View Newsletters

Subscriptions
  • Start a Subscription
  • Customer Service
  • eEdition
  • Vacation Hold
  • Pay Your Bill
  • Rewards
Learn More
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletters
  • News in Education
  • Archives
Advertising
  • Contact Us
  • Place a Classified Ad
  • Local Deals
  • Digital Solutions
  • Media Kit
Copyright
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service


Back to Story