Gennaro Brooks-Church

Dino
U.S. Greek Orthodox upbringing, currently a Satanist?

My upbringing was Greek Orthodox and I was kind of prideful about God. When I was in grade school I would always think about God and look around, saying, “I’m thinking about God and no-one else is.” I was very snotty about it. I took it in very deeply. And I’ve always kept that sense of superstition longer than most kids. Like, I believed in Santa an embarrassingly long amount of time. But once I quit believing in Santa, then everything else started to unravel. I figured, “If they lied about him, then let me question God too.” So now I don’t think I have much of a relationship with God. He pretty much went out with Santa.

But still, in a very shallow way, whenever I’m concerned about my daughter’s health, my reflex is always to pray. It’s still a superstition that just pops up, ingrained in me from childhood.. Even though I think, “What am I doing?” It’s probably ridiculous to pray, but it doesn’t hurt to cover my bases.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not like a Satanist or anything. Although Satanism… From what I know, it’s not, “Believe in the devil. It’s more about believing in life, this life, and having fun in this life. It may be anti-Christianity, but it’s not “Evil is good.” I just see Satanism as a nice balance to the dogma of Christianity. I guess Satanism is free of that oppressive morality. There’s nine satanic statements, or commandments- always nine because Christianity has ten. One of these statements is, “Don’t be nice to people who don’t deserve it.” So if someone’s an asshole, you don’t turn the other cheek. You don’t cut them that slack. As a New Yorker I can relate. Also, things like sex are considered good. Now that I think about it, I guess I’d rather be a Satanist.

But I have read a lot about Christ, and the one theory that I cling closest to is that Jesus was not an all loving entity. Jews consider non-Jews heretics, and he probably felt the same way. He was just a good Jew, but he didn’t love everybody. His work was focused on reforming Judaism. At the time it had a lot of hypocrisy. The Old Testament says, “You have to be good because God will punish you.” Meanwhile so many people were not good and getting away with it. So, Jesus tried to change this by preaching more from the heart: “You should want to be good.” That’s nice.