What can I do to help others develop a strong and healthy relationship to the Divine? This is the most important question every spiritual guide, leader and community needs to ask themselves constantly.
However, religious institutions have this strange tendency to want to give their followers (and presumably the rest of the world) arbitrary (and often counterproductive) moral guidelines which have nothing to do with anyone's spiritual health.
A couple of weeks ago the Catholic church released a document which rejects the idea of transgenderism. It also says movable sexual identities are "often founded on nothing more than a confused concept of freedom in the realm of feelings and wants".
It's possible that a priest/rabbi/pastor/guru who knows a particular person extremely well could offer his or her opinion on how their perceived or chosen gender identity affects their spiritual health. But we also need to face this fact: no one fully and truly knows another person's heart, mind, and soul. No human being knows another human being's relationship to the Divine. If someone tried to tell me how I should define myself, to myself or to the world, I'd have to say "thanks, but it's none of your business." Any organization that sends out a similar blanket dismissal concerning a large group of people displays a lack of connection to humanity or the Divine.
Then there's the most basic guideline regarding the morality of someone's behaviour: Is this person's actions causing harm to someone else -- physically, emotionally or spiritually?
The Southern Baptist convention -- the largest Protestant group in America -- was hit with this scandal, as described by Fox News: "A bombshell investigation by the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News found that over the last 20 years, about 380 Southern Baptist church leaders and volunteers have faced credible accusations of sexual misconduct. Of those, roughly 220 were convicted of sex crimes or received plea deals, in cases involving more than 700 victims in all, the report found. Many accusers were young men and women, who allegedly experienced everything from exposure to pornography to rape and impregnation at the hands of church members."
In its reporting of the scandal, the Economist describes a watershed moment for the Southern Baptists 40 years ago: "Liberal Baptists, who had dared question the literal truth of the Genesis myth, were denied leadership positions and, in due course, driven out. “Biblical inerrancy” was the conservatives’ war-cry."
It goes on to describe the deteriorating condition of the organization today: "The convention’s membership of 15m, concentrated in the Bible belt, is its lowest in 30 years, and falling. Half of Southern Baptist children leave the faith; annual baptisms—which reached a high in the mid-1970s, when the moderates were ascendant—are at their lowest level in almost a century."
I grew up in a Southern Baptist "mission", an outpost attempting to convert heathens in the semi-tropical suburbs of Cincinnati. This was in the sixties, well before the issue of biblical inerrancy was even considered an issue, but of course back then the church was still defending slavery and segregation. I have no hard feelings, this is where I had my first contact with the Divine, but from there my journey to develop a healthy relationship with the spiritual side of life was like hacking my way through brambles or bougainvillea.
The idea that there is one set of spiritual, moral, or historical truths that we can always depend on for guidance is meretricious. In reality, the world changes, humanity grows and learns --- how can we even declare that the Divine is exactly the same throughout eternity? We need to help each other relate to the Spirit here and now, not by way of myths, legends, or institutions, but using tried and tested methods like meditation, and by seeking spiritual truths (sometimes hidden) in all our religious traditions.
