Politigous – Part IV(1,221)
Defending God’s Will
July 28th, 2011
The politigous does go to church. He or she finds great comfort in an atmosphere of worship, where the sermons are speckled with the defense of God’s will. In other words, there is some evil or injustice threatening the fabric of faith, and it is our job to construct a solid fortification against the onslaught.
The politigous approaches spiritual matters the same way he or she views the Constitution. The Bible is the Bible and must be accepted as the Bible and is either considered to be the “infallible Word of God” or the “personally interpreted rendition” of that particular politigous’ favored cause.
But as in the case of the Constitution, the Bible has been amended many times and has marched forward in the pursuit of the betterment of humankind. In fifty words or less, the Bible can be summed up as:
God created the world. The world evolved. God changed his mind. God destroyed the world. God felt bad about it, decided to work with people. People wanted religion and not God. People wanted kings; people wanted sacrifice. God hates sacrifice; came to earth as Jesus to tell them. They killed him. He turned it into salvation. Salvation was preached. God will create a new heaven and a new earth.
That was sixty-nine words. Sorry. But there you go. I see lots of revisions, don’t you?
When I read the Bible, I rejoice because it is full of human discovery of the true nature of God, filled with frailty, moving forward to an understanding of inclusion and ultimate salvation.
I have no intentions of defending God’s will. I think God does pretty well without me being His bodyguard or His henchman. The true job of any believer is to take his life to learn God’s ways. God’s will is like my will—it’s locked up deep within His heart and motives. The only way you can really evaluate me as a person is by my ways—and God’s ways are not complicated at all. It is not His will that any should perish. He loves the world. He’s not afraid of humanity and He has provided a way of escape from all temptation.
The politigous turns religion into the legalism of the Constitution because everything has to be for the “good of the nation.” So the Jesus of the New Testament has to match the God of the Old Testament, which needs to transform the United States into the “chosen people” of God’s present liking. There’s the problem—because God loves Chinese, Russians, Germans and a host of others. God, who does not look on the outward appearance, fails to recognize the flag pins on our lapels as significant to our value. He looks on the heart. And the best way to express our heart is to understand that our journey is not about defending God’s will, but instead, learning God’s ways.
As with the Constitution, the politigous believes that those who wrote the Bible are more anointed and supernaturally charged than those who live today. It is an implausible premise—because we know that God is no respecter of persons and it causes us to forget that we need prophets and messengers today to deliver the truth of God’s ways in our own language and for our own culture.
I have said it many times and I will say it again—one of the things I most admire about Jesus is that even though he lived an anointed life, he told his disciples that they would do greater things than he did. It is amazing to me that those who believe in the theory of evolution often, for some reason, cannot fathom that spirituality is also evolving from monkey business to deeper human understanding.
Life is not about defending God’s will. It is not about arguing with people about the inerrancy of the Bible. It is also not about limiting the power of miracles in the word of God to try to appear more intellectual than your backwoods brethren. It is about taking the available information from the holy constitution called the Bible, garnering as much wisdom as possible and allowing the spirit of God to amend the word to reach the hearts of people.
Am I saying there are contradictions in the Bible? I am saying there are amendments. Do I believe the Bible is the Word of God? The Bible is the Word of God at the moment it was written, waiting for others to come later to understand better—and enlighten more.
The politigous loves to have everything settled so all we have to do is fight for it. But everything isn’t settled. And what we believed, even twenty years ago, has quietly changed without people acknowledging the evolution. This is wrong.
There is nothing wrong with changing as the spirit of God teaches you to grow—as long as you’re willing to admit that transformation of the reality of truth is geared to the most effective way to save people, not the best way to defend God.
So how do you know if you have become a politigous in the matter of defending God’s will?
1. You spend more time debating the Bible than living out its better ideas.
2. You get offended when you’re scared into believing that evil is overtaking the world rather than contending that a little bit of good goes a long way.
3. You actually think that God can be forgotten instead of living the kind of life that makes it impossible for Him to disappear.
The politigous wants to defend God’s will, which he or she has defined as the traditional rendition of religion as expressed by the forefathers. It is our responsibility to realize that we are the next generation of God’s desire and therefore, we should live our lives charging the gates of hell—instead of building altars to the past.
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