A long time ago, in a piece of e-mail I sent to cartoonist Jimmy (“Arlo and Janis”) Johnson, who lives in Mississippi and attended college in Alabama, I made a crack about my being a confirmed Yankee. I don’t think Jimmy appreciated it, and I regret making the comment, because I enjoy and admire Jimmy’s work so much, and I have tremendous respect for him. Yet I have to admit that I can’t help but feel my Massachusetts mindset kicking in when I read something like this statement from Alabama’s new governor.
“Anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I’m telling you, you’re not my brother and you’re not my sister, and I want to be your brother.”
At least he’s being up front and open about his prejudice. I would be surprised if a majority of Alabamans have a problem with this, but maybe that’s just my own prejudice coming through.
An apology was certainly called for. His remarks clearly placed Christianity in a separate category (implied as superior, in accordance with fundamentalist Christian beliefs) from Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and the rest of the world’s religions. Obviously, that type of believer is blind to the arrogance inherent in his/her point of view… which only serves as a huge turn-off to more broad-minded people, who respect faith that is different from their own.
My personal point of view is that there are different religions that speak to different cultures, and they are all hopefully evolving, bit by bit as the centuries roll on, to a more enlightened point of view. Like a double helix, different faiths winding upwards, on different trajectories, but all on Paths towards the same Destination.
Sometime after I used the ABC News link for this item, the article was changed, so now it isn’t about the governor’s original comment, but his apology.
They’re POTENTIAL brothers (using that logic) so “judge not, lest ye be judged.” Better to live and let live, and let the Holy Spirit do its own work in its own timing, without so much pressure from the fundamentalist Christians. I’m using language I think they can understand; I think they need to lighten up with their conversion tactics and hellfire talk about who is saved and who is not.
One of the best things I read, theologically, poses the question of whether a Loving Father (God) would punish His children infinitely (Hell), for a FINITE number of sins, no matter what those sins are.
At this point I can hear the fundies trotting out “No man comes to the Father but by me” (meaning Jesus). Yet who is to say, if you believe in an afterlife, that the soul does not experience enlightenment after death, and chooses to align itself with that? (Choosing Jesus, to put it in fundamentalist Christian terms.) The “prodigal son”, in other words, after death. A loving Father and the Creator of Man in the first place, would turn His back on that? And who in their right mind would prefer to choose darkness, “Hell,” anyway?
We get plenty of suffering, usually, as a result of our “wicked ways,” right here on Earth. No need to carry that further into an afterlife. I think for the bad things people do, there will be plenty of repentance after death in becoming enlightened to all the potential for good that was squandered in life, the missed opportunities.
So if God wants to send me round again on the Wheel of Life until I get it right, that’s okay with me. It’s His call, and nobody else’s. I just do the best I can right now, as an earnest seeker, who hopefully will have a deeper and broader understanding of Faith next month and next year, than I do today. A lot of people let their religion do their thinking for them, which often tends to create dogma. I think Faith is a whole lot more profound than that, but it takes deliberate effort to take that Path.