|
I came across an article this week written by one of the
mega-church pastors that said what people want to know is that
“God loves them. God forgives them.” … and in so many words,
then they can go on with their lives. My initial response was
“forgives them” for what? Are there that many people who think
they need to be forgiven for something that they fill the pews
of mega-churches across the country? And to the question as to
whether G-d loves them or not, it is simple enough to know; do
you love yourself? If you do, then G-d loves you too. If
people go around thinking that they are a bad person or a person
who does bad things, then they need to clear up their
consciousness by making amends to the people and things they can
and change their ways and in this they will find forgiveness.
There is no god that can forgive us as only we can “give up”
those things that create a negative idea about ourselves in our
mind.
I have often see the bumper-sticker “Christians
are perfect, just forgiven” and it always makes me laugh but a
little sad as well. For people to think that it takes someone
outside of their own consciousness; i.e. G-d or Jesus, or
whomever, to forgive us is foolishness. We are in the image of
G-d. G-d is not in the image of mankind. We are Spirit, Life
and Intelligence. We have the intelligence to know when we need
to “correct” something in our lives. All that is necessary is
the choice to do so and the conviction to see it through until
old negative habits are displaced by a renewed enlightenment.
The other thing I have noticed that has increased
tremendously over the past few years are the number of
Christians who state that they are being persecuted. Not in
Saudi Arabia or Iran or Muslim dominated countries, but here in
the United States. Few of these people take the time to stop
and realize that the only religion that has National recognition
of their holy days in America is Christianity. Every
non-Security government agency shuts down on Christmas no matter
what day it falls on. As do all businesses. The Stock
Exchanges are closed on Good Friday. No other religion is given
this same recognition in the U.S. And this isn’t based on
history as the first settlers in America did not celebrate
Christmas. It is through religious political power. Christians
should be glad that we have a Santa Claus and an Easter Bunny
hiding Easter Eggs, because without these I am certain that
Christmas and Easter would have faded tremendously in popularity
decades ago. And the political power of the religious
organizations would have diminished tremendously along with it.
But, for now, religion is still the main beat of
the drum and so people who really fail to evolve in their
spiritual awareness continue to attract massive numbers of
followers … and wealth. Joel Osteen is a very likeable guy and
a sincere one and to most people he is a cut-above the typical
Evangelical-type pastor. But even his messages are filled with
the “god out there somewhere” theology: From Joel Osteen’s
message “It’s All Good”:
Are you going through
a difficulty today and wondering if God is there? Life is full
of things we don’t like or understand. But God won’t allow a
difficulty unless He’s going to somehow use it for our good. In
this encouraging message, Joel is going to show you how to trust
God in all things! You see, God can see the big picture for our
lives. He promises in Romans 8:28, “All things work together for
good to those who love the Lord.” Not some things, but all
things. That means the pain, the loss, when a dream doesn’t work
out, when a loved one betrays us, even in in our darkest hour,
God has a plan. You’ll learn how to pray bold prayers and stay
focused. No man controls your destiny; God does!”
The Truth is, we control our own destiny
and it would be a capricious god that would dominate us and take
away our freedom of choice. There is no such god. Our
difficulties are not of G-d’s making but our own momentary
lapses of using our intelligence to not realize the consequences
of what we say or do. Osteen is correct that Life is full of
things that we don’t like or understand but his mistake is in
teaching that G-d allows or disallows something to happen in our
experiences. An illustration of this would be that G-d is a
Puppet Master and we are mere puppets. Everything that happens
to us is based on our choosing; what we believe, what we think,
what we say and what we do. All of these involve personal
choice.
For many people, what they think goes not further
than the imposed ideas and beliefs they appropriate from
others. And for many these imposed ideas and beliefs come from
their friends and religious affiliations. The New York Times
has an article titled “Friendship’s Dark Side: ‘We Need A Common
Enemy” written and researched by Natalie Angier. Here is an
excerpt from the article:
“…. researchers who explore the deep nature of friendship admit
the bond can have its thorns, bruise spots and pesticide traces.
Take the new evidence that people choose friends who
resemble themselves, right down to the moment-to-moment pattern
of blood flow in the brain. The tendency toward homophily,
toward flocking together with birds of your inner and outer
feather, gives rise to a harmonious sense of belonging and
shared purpose, to easy laughter and volumes of subtext
mutually, wordlessly, joyfully understood.
But homophily, researchers said, is also the basis of
tribalism, xenophobia and racism, the urge to “otherize” those
who differ from you and your beloved friends in one or more
ways.”
Interesting article. It reminds me of another article I read
several weeks ago regarding a poll of people who attend church
and the number one reason they said they attended church was to
“socialize with like-minded people.” It wasn’t for the love of
G-d or to worship G-d, although that was the second most popular
response, but to be around people like them. It reminded me of
when I visited my family in Missouri and my mother and I went to
a Christian Church, fairly large for small town Mexico, Missouri
and there were no people of color in the church audience. The
next Sunday I went to a Baptist Church with a Black congregation
and was asked to speak at the podium as at the time I was in
ministerial training with Dr. O. C. Smith in Los Angeles and the
Pastor of the church was so impressed by this that he wanted me
to speak. It took only a minute or two for the audience to
respond to my words and it was one of the best times of my
life. I was so impressed that the Pastor was willing to let
someone who he knew was “different” speak to his congregation.
This is not the norm in most churches.
This wanting to be around
people who look like us and think like us has been true
throughout history. In primitive times this created tribal
patterns. Artists realized this when they began to create
paintings of religious figures like Jesus, Moses and other
biblical persons. The same is true of those who created
paintings of Buddha, Krishna and others. This attracted those
who maintained this “tribal” consciousness. Mega churches are a
reflection of this “tribal” consciousness and have been very
successful in attracting those who desire being surrounding by
others like them. This has caused some Western Christians to
see Jesus with blonde hair and blue eyes. At some level they
know this is not true but perception is not always based on
reality.
A friend of mine sent me a video that provides a
humorous,
but truthful, illustration of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APMu32sC2nM
Finally, does G-d love you? Yes, absolutely ... just as much as
you do!
Keep the Faith!
Henry Lee Bates
(Reverend Dr.)
Please share this message on Facebook or
Twitter:
Share
Click here to join our Mailing List
Click
here for Archived Messages
|
