But Christianity is a communal religion and it’s hard to be one alone. Especially around Christmas and Easter. My family’s traditions are most steeped in those two holidays so it is both religious and familial connections I miss on those days. Christmas is secular enough in America that other Americans celebrate it regardless of their religious beliefs. However, those celebrations tend to be more about getting drunk and hooking up than about Jesus or even just general goodwill. Easter was spent walking alone in the dark to the Orthodox Church for midnight mass held in a language I didn’t understand then coming home. There were moments in those holidays when I felt God’s presence to be sure. I made a point of holding on to my traditions and faith with a firm grip, going as far as preparing a Christmas stocking for a friend and coloring Easter eggs with markers and having private moments with God at each occasion. But there was no fellowship.
And that’s the problem with restricting religion. You can never control what a person believes. You can’t tell what’s
inside their head. But you can keep them from fellowship. You can keep them from study. When governments prevent believers from gathering together or from acquiring literature to study, that is one of the most wretched things it can
do.
You may wonder why I’m writing about Christmas and Easter in September. First of all, I’m frequently reminded about different American things when I’m teaching clubs and the Bill of Rights led me to this. Second, I stumbled upon this post the other day. I was surprised I was able to access it, as usually things of this nature are blocked over here.
http://www.persecution.org/2011/09/07/baptist-accommodation-raided-in-turkmenistan/
This post led me to the following one which is a good read on the subject and also mentions my country of service.
http://www.persecution.org/2011/06/14/targeting-the-world%E2%80%99s-worst-religious-persecutors/
Before you think this is a Christian vs. Muslim thing, it’s not. True Muslims here are persecuted too. When they enter the military, they get the sh*t kicked out of them, I’m told. And some mosques here are downright sacrilegious with writings from former President Turkmenbashi’s book, The Ruhnama, appearing alongside passages from the Qu’ran. To help you understand the seriousness, imagine building a cathedral with quotes from G.W. Bush’s autobiography painted on the walls next to Bible scriptures. If you look up information on Turkmenistan, you’ll read that it’s a Muslim country. And many of the people might identify as Muslim, but if you asked someone from any other part of the Muslim world, they wouldn’t recognize the religion here as being Islam. There are several reasons why Islam didn’t get a real strong hold here, but one of them is that currently any religion that might steal loyalty away from the state is squashed. It’s okay if people believe in God, but not if that belief might cause them to start thinking about the equality of all people, the sinfulness of despotism, and the fallibility of human leaders.
It makes sense. Religion has always been a threat to those who aim to control others. Look at our own history.
The Great Awakening directly preceded the American Revolution and the Second Great Awakening helped pave the way for our Civil War. Once people believe there’s a God who created people in His own image, it’s difficult to discount the value of someone’s life and treat them as a second-class citizen. I’m talking about true believers now. I’m well aware that religion has also been used as an excuse for going to war, but again,those instances were really more about political and personal agendas than religious belief, so please don’t send a comment about the Crusades or Al-Qaeida.
Anyway, all of this is to say I miss home because on any given Sunday I could go to any church from any denomination I pleased, then meet an atheist friend for lunch and have this discussion in any public place without whispering or censoring ourselves and do it knowing we’d manage to be civil and no one from the government would care what we said.