Something I intended to include in 'The Arrogance of Truth' but in my hurry to finish before Christmas, I left it out.

Again - this is not an attack, just a personal response to personal experiences.

Guilt, the gift that keeps on giving.

In my dictionary there are four definitions of guilt. The one that concerns me is the third: remorse or self reproach caused by feeling that one is responsible for a wrong or offence.

Right from the beginning of my conscious life, I was taught that Jesus died for me and because of me. For many of you that probably doesn’t sound so bad I suppose. Just take it out of the context of religion for a moment. If a young child was convinced by his parents that he was responsible for the death of another, could that be classed as emotional abuse? I was taught I was sinner, and it was because of my sin that the most important person in our house had died – and died horribly.

Guilt doesn’t come much heavier than this. Guilt entrenched at such an early age can be extremely powerful. Guilt that was strengthened everyday by the repetition of the myth exerted control over my emotional responses to events. Guilt shaped my teens and early adult life more than I realised at the time. I didn’t believe in the resurrection, and therefore was not ‘saved’ in the eyes of my family. Guilt made me feel this was my fault. Everything I’d been taught was true, only I couldn’t believe it. Go figure that paradox! When that guilt was finally cast aside, it caused years of bitterness.

Much of Christianity is based on writings that can not be verified. In fact most of the Bible has been dated (I understand) as written well after the events they describe. Far from being eyewitness accounts, they tell a story and evangelise someone’s point of view many years after the event. These writings were selected over the early years of Christianity and became the Bible. Many other writings have been rejected. The message Christians believe today has been moulded by the choices made, for whatever reasons – political, personal, theological, by people long dead. Much of the rest of Christianity is based on tradition. Tradition is created. This is my long winded way of asking, has the church deliberately notched up guilt as a means of controlling the masses? Is/was guilt just a tool employed for social and religious control?

Christ apparently extolled us to love each other. This I can relate to absolutely. However, guilt plays no part in love. Love is about giving. Guilt is about taking away emotional freedom. A friend of mine pointed out that it was guilt that stopped us doing immoral things. I think not. How can you be guilty for something you’ve not done. What stops us from doing immoral things is the desire to do the right thing. For that you need emotional maturity and freedom.

To return to the dictionary definition I started with. I’m not responsible for Christ’s death and I don’t need to feel remorse or self reproach. Christianity is not responsible for me. I don’t need a scaffold for my life made from other people’s literary choices and constructed traditions. What I need, and finally gave myself, is the emotional space to decide for myself what is right, what is wrong and what lies unexplored in between. That’s what I call living. That’s what I call experiencing the very fabric of life.