There are several official reasons why you can go to Cuba. For many years, the US government has decided that they did not want to support the Cuban government so they made travel and certain kinds of tourism difficult to indicate their displeasure with the Cuban regime. One of the categories of approved travel is “religious.” But in order to actually use this reason, you have to, in essence, prove your are religious, or at least, that you are visiting for religious reasons. For such an interior condition, I found it interesting how the United States government would discern a person’s religiousity.
I was travelling to Cuba with my wife Abby and my daughter Kim. Abby works as a regional leader for the Reformed Church in America and is, by demeanor and upbringing, fond of the institutional church. She has a title ("Synod Ministries Coordinator") and because of that, her travel to Cuba is recognized by the US government as religious. My daughter, Dr. Kim Levering, is a bright, free spirit who teaches Psychology at Marist College. While she has had lots of exposure to religion and tolerates church quite well, attending worship several times a year, she does not describe herself as religious, or even spiritual. Yet she was accompanying me on my sabbatical trip to Cuba, so I put down “religious” as the reason she was going when we got our plane tickets. Then I realized that we were going to have to prove that she was, or that at least her visit was, religious. Hmmm.
You can prove religious intent to the US government in some very particular ways. You can have a letter from a religious authority proclaiming her religious condition much as I might sign a certificate of baptism or church membership. So I wrote Kim a letter, declaring to the world that her trip to Cuba was religious. Ah the power of ordination. We are able to define parts of the natural world supernatural. She was assisting me and I decided that helping people be religious was also being religious. I'll let you know, dear reader, how that holds up at the tribunal.
The other way to prove that your visit to Cuba is religious appears to be to have a religious itinerary. So you would prove you are religious by the things that you do and see, being very careful not to spend any time at all being a tourist. The US government has up to 5 years to ask for proof of the religious legitimacy of your visit. And o, the penalty for illegally traveling to Cuba is $250,000 in fines and up to 10 years in prison. What, me worry? I'm not at all sure how you can look at interesting things you haven't seen before and not be a tourist, but I have not read on the internet of any instance of someone being fined for not being religious enough in Cuba.
But it is an interesting query. If you wanted to prove to someone you were, say, Christian, how would you do it? Would a proclamation be enough for them? Remember in the Spanish inquisition, they looked for proclamations of faith, but then might drown you anyway. For your own good of course. Would good works prove your faith? It reminds me of the classic evangelistic opener, "If you died tonight and went to heaven and Saint Peter asked you why he should let you in, what would you say?" The answer most people give is something to do with living a good life, but the correct(!) answer is "Because Jesus died for me and I believe in Him." Apparently this works even if you were a complete shnook and disregarded all of Jesus' teaching. Being disingenuous and disobedient does not keep you out of heaven and may, in fact, get you elected president. Sorry, but I imagined I was going to anger some conservatives anyway, so why not go all the way?
My son Ryan showed up a few days into the Cuban trip and he decided not to try to prove he was religious (since he is a Unitarian). Instead he decided to "Help the Cuban people," but was also saddled with producing an itinerary for his own peace of mind. Proving yourself to be helpful seemed an easier task than proving you are religious. I wonder if the people who designed the criteria imagined that they were mutually exclusive?