Church and Aesthetics

Non-Christians get angry when I claim certain values as uniquely Christian. It goes something like this:

Me: Christianity has its problems, but it's good because it promotes love.
Non-Christian: Other religions promote love too.
Me: Okay, but Christianity values forgiveness.
Non-Christian: So does my religion.
Me: Well, Christianity won. So go fuck yourself.

Anyway, I guess my real point is that the Church gets the aesthetics right. A Christian wedding is beautiful (thought we borrowed it from the Romans, and I hope we borrow the elephant idea from the Indians at some point). Services are lovely too. The stories, the bread, the grape juice, the stained glass, the hymns. The creed is stunning. If memory serves:

I believe in God the Father Almighty,
Maker of Heaven and Earth.

And in Jesus Christ his only son our Lord,
Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
Born of the Virgin Mary,
Suffered under Pontius Pilate,
Was crucified, died, and was buried.
On the third day he rose from the dead,
He ascended into heaven,
Where he sitteth at the right hand of God the Father,
From whence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
The holy catholic* church,
The communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins,
The resurrection of the body,
And the life everlasting.
Amen.

*"catholic" means "universal"

See? Succinct but graceful.

The reason I thought of all this was that I was trying to sleep, and I was feeling depressed. More on that, later, maybe. Redemption and hope may not be uniquely Christian, but my experience of them has been most vivid in Methodism. That's what I'm feeling now, the hope that my potential remains, the assurance that the future is not yet written. My confidence probably comes from my early indoctrination, which by the way was also probably the source of one of my favorite quotations ever: "I still believe in a placed called Hope."