Liberating God From the Minds of Men

Last night, as I lay awake in the heat, trying desperately to sleep, I began a conversation in my mind. In it were two characters: myself and an ex-pastor of mine. We have quite a history between us, but that is neither here nor there. In the short, a long time ago, we wronged one another and neither of us have had the gull to apologize to the other, and so we have since parted ways. Anyway, before I get completely off track, The Pastor and I were discussing our views about the world, mankind and the like. Needless to say there was and is a great divide in our beliefs, but as you may already know it is quite possible for two men to walk two entirely different paths, ending up at exactly the same destination. Regardless of our differences, the two of us were managing to have a fairly civil conversation, except that he kept insisting that I not use any profanity (and if you know me personally, you’ll know that is a near impossibility)

Throughout our conversation, The Pastor has relatively good points – this I’ve always known, being as I attended church regularly since I was a boy up until a few years back. The way of church, I believe, is fairly righteous, if not often a little backwards. For the most part though, the guidelines they set before their congregation are simple values in place so that the people may lead a good, wholesome life. The trouble begins when the masses become so institutionalized. Soon enough, they start using their own accepted values as a measuring stick for all man’s worthiness of God’s grace (forgetting, in fact, that no man is worthy of God.) The imposition of a single set of values upon the whole of society doesn’t end up being righteous at all, but terribly obtuse in judgment.

Literalism can be quite dangerous, especially when taken to the extreme. History shows us that Fundamentalism and the imposition of their (often extreme) set of moral codes most often results in violence against those who the institution deems unworthy, or unclean. Often it seems that the church has taken on the role of Michael, the archangel, seeking to cleanse the earth of all traces of perdition and sin; it is through these acts of ‘cleansing’ that we find the most terrible acts of atrocity: war, murder and genocide, justified because the institutionalized masses collectively decide, with surety, the will of God.

And there’s the rub.

Now, I don’t think it an impossibility to know God or His will. I think that God speaks to all of us, everyone. I know with certainty that I have felt a guiding hand in my life; I have seen His great works with my eyes, but I would not suppose that what He does in my life is a mandate issued for the earth. Of course, The Pastor comes back with the only rebuttal a Literalist can have: Scripture! Scripture! Scripture! But that’s where we have to disagree, in the interpretation of the scripture. The Pastor uses the scripture to trap God into a little box of dogmatic do’s and don’ts, and I try my damndest to let it set me free.

. . . . . .

Once upon a time, I too was quite the literalist. Some would even say that I was a fanatic. But when I became so wrapped up in my spirituality that I wanted to abandon everything this earth had endowed me, and take up my cross, and walk the earth on faith alone –everyone, the church especially, told me I was insane, a crazyman. They told me that I could not give up my life, that faith simply did not work that way. Some days I actually lament that I listened to them, but I would have missed out on so much.