In need of an identity

Name, date of birth, address, phone number, wife's name, occupation, Medicare number, health insurance policy number-I rattled them all off without hesitation. As I was putting my Medicare and health insurance cards back into my wallet, the hospital registration clerk caught me unprepared for the next question - "religion?"  I could not remember having been asked for my religion by any public or private agency since entering the military some 50 years earlier. I didn't know that one's religion was still a proper question for any application or registration, although it immediately dawned on me why a hospital would want this information. 

I did not anticipate a need for a hospital chaplain.   It was a routine out-patient biopsy on my prostate. However, the clerk needed a word to fill in the blank - either "none" or the name of my religion.  I struggled for a word that would allow her to get on to the next question.

 My old Marine Corps dog tags showed me as "Catholic," but I had parted ways with the Catholic Church about 40 years earlier.  Although I had occasionally attended a Unity church, I was not a member of that church and had no real religious affiliation.  In the moment of hesitation before responding to the question, thoughts rushed through my brain:  If I answer "none," I might be labeled an atheist or heathen of some kind.  I want no such label by my name. How can I possibly sum up my philosophy of living and dying in a single word? This clerk does not want to know my philosophy.  She simply wants a word to fill in the blank. 

The middle-aged clerk glanced at me from behind the computer, awaiting my response.  If it is possible to stereotype churchgoers, she appeared to me as one, perhaps a devout Baptist, maybe, based on her lack of makeup, a Seventh-Day Adventist.   My thoughts continued:  Will her pleasant demeanor turn to one of indifference, even coldness, if I answer "none" to the question?  Will it result in less than a caring attitude by nurses and others of a religious bent who have the opportunity to look at my chart?  Do I care?  It's no big deal.  Why make this difficult?

Of all the belief systems I had examined over the preceding 15 years, the two that had impressed me the most were Spiritism and Spiritualism.  Both believe in communication and interaction between the inhabitants of the material world and inhabitants of the spirit world.  Neither accepts the afterlife dichotomy of a humdrum heaven and horrific hell as espoused by orthodox religions. Both Spiritists and Spiritualists believe in an evolution of the soul through higher and higher spheres. While Spiritists fully subscribe to a belief in reincarnation as a way of evolving, Spiritualists are divided or sit on the fence on that issue.  Spiritists and Spiritualists reject the atonement doctrine of orthodox Christianity, but all Spiritists and many Spiritualists believe Jesus of Nazareth was the most superior spirit to ever incarnate on earth and that he was on a divine mission to teach all humanity universal spiritual truths, including the existence of an afterlife.  He is the role model for Spiritists and many Spiritualists.

Only a second or two had elapsed since the registration clerk had asked for my religion, but the thoughts continued to race through my mind.  If I tell her I am a Spiritist or a Christian Spiritualist, will it confuse her?  Besides, those are more belief systems or moral philosophies than they are religions, per se.  I'm not on any Spiritist or Spiritualist membership list and they would not be able to find a chaplain schooled in those belief systems or moral philosophies to administer to me should things go wrong during my procedure.  If the clerk is, in fact, a Baptist or of a fundamentalist persuasion, she may very well think me a member of some demonic cult if I tell her to put me down as a Spiritist or Spiritualist.  She may react more adversely than if I simply say "none."  Perhaps I will spend my half-day in the hospital being viewed as an agent of the devil.  God forbid!  What a quandary! 

But I needed a word to fill in the blank.  While by no means an orthodox Christian, I believe in what I see as the true teachings of Christ, even though some of those beliefs are in conflict with the teachings of orthodoxy.  What gives them exclusive right to the name Christian? I think I have a better understanding of what Christ taught than they do.  It sure makes a lot more sense.  So if I want to call myself a Christian, I'll do it. .

"Just put down ‘Christian,'" I finally replied to the clerk's question after that moment of hesitation in which my mind considered all the options.  The clerk seemed to accept the answer.  I would now have some peace of mind during my hospital visit, knowing that "good Christians" who might tend to me would view me as neither a heathen nor a demon.