We've Got It All Backwards

We’ve got it all backwards. 

I thought that one role of religion was to provide a moral compass.  Now I think I was wrong.  It’s probably more accurate to say that culture is less informed by religion than religion is informed by the culture.  

After all, providing a moral compass, as Jesus did, just got him killed.  

John Shelby Spong has stated that “theistic” religion is on the way out.  The facts of science, and increasing knowledge of human makeup are driving the last nails into the coffin of second-century religious thinking.  But my fears linger on for reasons Bishop Spong doesn’t seem to consider.  Science and love are both under attack.  We’re going through a rough spell.  

I now believe that monied interests work against science, and religion follows suit for its own reasons.  Big tobacco is against the medical community.  Big petroleum is against environmentalists.  The arms industry is against human behavorial science.  Billions are being spent on bribery, pseudo-science and misinformation and distributive justice is instantly attacked.  Religion has an interest in keeping things as they are, so the two walk a common path.  We shouldn’t be having to debate evolution or global warming.    

My only hope for myself is to persist in my journey and not let my faith become the servant of the culture.  After all these years I’m finally accepting the idea that religion has become the often-violent defender of the status-quo, and not a moral challenge to evil.  Our culture, our thinking, needs to change, and religion will follow, not the other way around.  I believe that the spirit of Christ lives free of both religion and culture, and lives powerfully in loving hearts.  It moves us onto a journey that’s both fearsome and full of joy.  

If we accept this, we are set on a path to change our internal image of God and who, or what, is God.  For me, it’s a wonderful and adventurous journey to new life in spite of the struggles and the fear that the old ways will die hard and with terror.

I begin with knowing now who God is not:  a tyrant prone to anger and violence, jealous, vindictive, male, manipulative, controlling, hateful, inconsistent, one who plays favorites, limited to location, desirous of flattery, invasive of nature, unmoved by progress, unable to learn.  

Then what is God?  God is present, always present, and God is the embodiment of love, the antithesis of greed.  That’s where I begin. Maybe that is all anyone needs because the products of this kind of trust will make a world so much different from what we have now.  I believe that’s where Jesus is taking people in spite of all the inaccuracies of scripture and tradition.  

The television evangelist holding that floppy, gold-trimmed Bible, the oil billionaires, politicians, bankers, who may be doing things of which I deeply disapprove, are still my spiritual family.  I only hope that someone loves them away from greed and control and all of us into the world that Jesus preached and visioned.