A writer never writes anything good when things are going right. A good article comes when there is adversity. You want adversity? Just try discussing religion with a Mormon! You may as well be sticking your thumb up a lion’s butt. If you’re a good writer you try to fly high over the issues and figure out what’s really going on, and how does it apply to the human condition. How does this discussion fit into the big picture?
Back in the day, the day being about one hundred and fifty years ago, people went to quilting bees, political rallies, cook outs, and Church! That was because Hollywood was a stretch of desert without water. Back then the idea of going to a gathering of people, all talking the same stuff, eating brisket, square dancing, and all the rest was comforting. The preacher with his rules and collection plate didn’t bother anyone. Nobody really cared how much of their personal freedom of thought was given up because of these things, and besides, that’s what forgiveness was for, right?
Time and tears went by, and people began to understand that there just might be other things to do besides fish on Friday, and spend an entire Sunday morning listening to some old man expound hell. Now hell is a very good concept, so long as it’s someone elsegoing there, and not you! That’s how organized religion works. We’re going to heaven,they’re going to hell. Of course, all factions leave a crack in the door for people who’ll buy the concept of this prophet or that preacher.
Most people believe in some sort of creator. You simply cannot look at the world and really think it came about all because some comet crashed into Lake Tahoe one day, and Brittney Spears popped out the other side. The problem came about when people began to read the Bible for themselves and their personal concept of this creative force conflicted with the official version being sold by each of the established religions.
For a long time I was a “Hail Mary” Catholic. No, for real! I was a member of the Legion of Mary, prayed before the statues, ate fish on Friday and bought every semi-colon the Vatican put out. Unfortunately, I have a brain. I read the Bible, and figured out that Jesus was a man whose concept of God was in direct contradiction with practically everything I was being told. I began to “fall away,”and it wasn’t hard. All you have to do to confound a bunch of religious nuts is ask a common sense question. Jesus did fine until he kicked over the cash registers at the “Temple” one day. After that He didn’t last a week. Don’t go messing with them Jews without no money!
So Jesus dies, and the believers he inspired began to grow. After a very good run at the Coliseum, along came Constantine, and voila! Christianity became a sleeper hit. Now, I want you to see this for what it really was. Right now America is in trouble. Putin just made a jack-ass out of our so-called president. A street gang, calling itself ISIS is perplexing the western world with a few YouTube videos, and the Federal Reserve is telling us toilette paper is money. What do you think would happen if Donald Trump really did come along, have a short meeting in Baltimore, and suddenly everything was right again? And all we had to do was shut up, march in lock step, and do whatever “God” said, courtesy, of course, of the king of the hill, or seven hills, rather, and give up our common sense. Haaaaaaiiil MARY!
Well, it worked for a while. The Roman Empire still fell apart, but the structure of the Church remained in place for about a thousand years. It was simple, really. Everything goes to donkey poop, and all you got left is some guy in a funny hat telling you that if you eat fish on Friday it’s gonna be just fine. It helps if you burn up a few people to cement the point. The perfect “can of beans.” Somewhere in this mess is the words and ideas of Jesus, but interpretation becomes important, and only those in the “know” can do that, and even then with great peril because the “church” has lots of firewood, and lots of time.
Along come Luther. Radical new concept, nails stuff to doors, seems to break all the rules. NOT! The difference between KFC and Church’s Chicken. Same old beans, new label. Sure, you didn’t have to eat fish of Friday, but they still held the keys to the kingdom. People were still in the “go to church mode” so basically it was just a choice of buildings at that point. Also, please understand “church” as a belief set, not so much a building. Now let’s go forward to about 1830 or so and consider the American revival period. America had just been born, westward expansion was in full swing, and folks were gathering looking for “the truth.” Masses of people will buy most anything, and when you have a bunch of illiterate farmers who think you can cure cancer with Sassafras tea, well, it don’t take much.
The human mind strives to connect dots, and if the dots don’t connect the mind will either reject the pattern, or manufacture its own dots to complete the circle. There is a God. (Ok.) He reveals Himself to people. (Ok) He revealed Himself to some farm kid on a hill in New York. (Well. . . Ok) Kid found a pot of gold and wrote a book. (Well. . . I guess.) Then you construct a belief system around this premise, complete not only with churches but temples and they begin to fill up with the unwashed masses yearning for heaven. The lock step feels good. Now, bear in mind you have the Baptists, the Methodists, the Lutherans, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and all the rest, marching to their own lock step. Jesus? Oh, he caught a train for the coast because none of this was what He intended in the first place. Different cans, same old beans.
Sometime during the twentieth century a group of believers began to see the flaw. They read their bibles, the interpreted for themselves, and saw the foolishness of trying to put God into a can. These people are called “Non-Denominational.” Their only tip of the hat to the other groups was that they still met in churches. Somewhere along the line this began to wane. Churches are just like political groups. They pump numbers. They all do! The Mormons cite new temples, and converts, and the Catholics laughingly remind them that they trump those numbers with just the number of Mexicans born last week! Hear the truth, and the truth will set you free. The truth is, in spite of lip service, claiming to belong to some church, only twenty percent of Americans still physically go to church! You may swat them bees now.
Organized religion touts the “end of the age” and speculation about that is endless. I find the theories quite entertaining, but I find Star Wars entertaining, too. Fact is the end of the age did come, and the “churches” missed it. The rise of reason. If didn’t happen all at once. Luther was a start. The American revival was a bit more, but the advent of Pentecostalism was the death knell for what we know of as organized religion. Christianity became organic. Somehow, Jesus had returned, and what he really said took root in the minds of free thinkers. They began to realize that they could reject churches, and not reject God. As understanding of the words of Jesus became more and more prevalent, the clown’s parade of the “churches” became more and more apparent. The anti-organized church gave us the “Buddy Christ.” Not in disrespect, but in the full realization of the love that Jesus had for common people, and holy underwear, or fish on Friday was overshadowed by “Seventy times seven.”
You will see the churches decline. Oh, they’ll pump their numbers, but just look at the real world. Just this week it was all over the news about the Pope taking New York by storm. Hey folks, the Beatles did that! And, don’t get me wrong, I like the Pope. It’s not going to save things though. I said the churches will decline, not Christianity. Oh, you’ll still see the buildings, filled with old codgers like me with one foot in the grave, and the other on a banana peel, but the young people will largely being doing something else. Don’t think this is not without spirit. This week we saw nine young people stand up for Christ. They died for saying, “I am a Christian,” not “I am a Catholic, Mormon, or anything else.” They stood up for Christ. Young people! I am not worthy to lose their sandals.
Simple Ol' Boy From Austin
No comments:
Post a Comment