(4.5 minute read)
Usually when I start writing something I have a pretty mapped out idea of how I want the piece to end. Not so with this one. I’m kind of surprised about where I ended up.
Deconstructing[i]
Here lately I’ve been feeling a little degraceful. At a certain point when so much evil is being done in the name of “something” it seems only reasonable to question your belief in that something.
A Pastor by the name of Nadia Bolz Weber made a comment that really struck home with me. If I remember correctly, it was a story that she shared from a time when she was a Chaplain in a hospital. She offered to minister to a patient and the person informed her that they were an atheist and didn’t believe in that nonsense. Pastor Nadia told her, “Man, good for you. I wish I could pull that off.”[ii]
That’s a statement that I identify with.
Atheists live in a simpler version of the world. What we see is what we get. No hidden meanings underpin reality. People have just the one shot through life to get it right. No do overs or take backs. No well this is a bunch of crap but it’ll be better in the afterlife.
I’m going to repeat a comment that I’ve made before, that I believe the fundamental basis for most religions is that there is more than this physical universe that we live in and that there is an omniscient being in charge of it all. Different religions have different numbers of deities. The Christian faith has the one God but it’s more complicated than that since there’s a trinity involved with the father and the son being the same but different and both involved with yet another unseen force called the holy spirit. None of any of this can be proved.
Only believed.
The Book of Paul.
The bible is just chock full of stories, all contributing to the big story. The big story being Jesus, salvation and his coming back at some point. There are lot and lots of stories in the bible. This might sound like it’s going to be a piece about studying scripture but it isn’t. Religious people are always going on about the necessity of studying the bible. Sermons have all sorts of scriptural references.
Many of the New Testament (NT) books were written by the apostle Paul except they weren’t. That’s arguable. As a matter of fact, Christian and other scholars have argued about what the bible means and who were the authors of the various books for hundreds of years now. You name it and there’s an argument about it. Keep in mind also that NONE of the bible was written as firsthand accounts from people that were alive at the time and with Jesus. Yet the bible is supposed to be divinely inspired and without error. That is also argued about.
Jesus didn’t have the bible. Didn’t need one. The essence of his message was simple. Love God. Love people. Loving God meant loving him. (The trinity thing.) The “churches” of his time didn’t have bible study. You know why? There were no bibles like we have today. The bible’s New Testament is an afterthought put together by people that didn’t know him but believed what they were told about him.
The NT bible is largely about what Paul believed about Jesus.
The antis.
History has provided lots of examples of how the book of love has been used over the centuries to justify wars and all sorts of indescribable evil. Torture. Punishment. Slaughter. (Now, when I say slaughter I mean every man, woman and child kind of slaughter.) The crusades. Catholics versus Protestants. The Spanish Inquisition. The list goes on.
Now, we fast forward to today and find ourselves with Christian evangelists supporting an immoral, vulgar, hate and violence spewing convicted rapist as being the “chosen one” that we need to lead us. They use the bible to support their anti-beliefs. And OMG are they anti about lots of things. They are anti Dems, sex education, immigrants, science, masking, vaccines, queers, women as full citizens, birth control… you know, the usual triggers for MAGA Republicans seeking to impose their religious beliefs on the rest of society.
The Christian antis helped their MAGA idol cause a few hundred thousand needless deaths during the pandemic, so they are still killing men, women and children in the name of Jesus while calling themselves pro-life. They’re ready to kill even more in the name of religious freedom.
What would be called progressive, open and welcoming Christian churches don’t want to take a chance on giving up their privileged tax exempt status and have to avoid delivering a message that will awaken the anti factions in their congregations. They remain judiciously neutral.
So, I’m not a literalist when it comes to interpreting the bible. I do believe in Jesus, the man. I also believe that there is more than this from personal experience of what I’ll just call the “other” for this purpose. I also believe that Jesus the man provided a good decent message.
So, where did I end up?
[i] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/deconstruction
[ii] Pastrix by Nadia Bolz-Weber, pg 79
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please avoid name calling, personal and/or abusive language. In other words be civil. We need a lot more of that these days. Try and confine your comments to the topic of the post.