Gate to church closed

Did Christians cause lower church attendance?

The headline in lead story of the Washington Post’s Acts of Faith newsletter on Easter Sunday was enticing: “One reason why churches have such a hard time getting people in the door.” The contributor, Christian writer Amy Julia Becker, quickly revealed the reason church attendance is down: Christians. She says they block others from studying the Bible, joining the faith and attending services.

Ms. Becker made this insightful discovery as she considered inviting friends to attend Bible-study. It had all the ingredients of a pleasant gathering: great food, affable attendees. But that might not be enough, she thought: Everyone doesn’t own a Bible, have a Bible app or know the books of the Bible. They might even think “studying” the Bible signals an exam at the end.

Those concerns are legitimate; but I think there might be another impediment: Her prospective guests might have read enough of the Bible to know they don’t want to spend more time with it. Even at the risk of missing out on some really good food.

Does the Bible also impact church attendance?

Studying the Bible, we see scriptures normalizing or justifying sexism, slavery, racism, domestic violence, infidelity and murder. We also discover there are more than 10 commandments. In fact, more than 50 scriptures command us to commit murder: Kill those who work on Saturdays. Kill brides who are not virgins. We are even commanded to kill those who do not share our beliefs.

No wonder Shakespeare wrote, “Even the devil can cite scripture for his purposes.” Shakespeare knows more than most. Historians say he was involved with writing King James’ immensely popular version of God’s word.

The Bible also commands us to murder those who have sexual relations with someone of the same gender. Addressing that, Ms. Becker expressed concern that Christians “condemn people outside the church for their sexual decisions.”

Is there a link between church attendance and homophobia?

It is the 21st century. Surely, people inside the church know humans aren’t the only species in which same-sex orientation appears. Other mammals don’t make sexual decisions; they do what comes naturally. Quite possibly, humans do, as well.

Same-sex orientation is not in my genetic makeup, so I would not “decide” to be sexually involved with another woman. It would be as unappealing to me as it would be for a person with same-sex orientation to be with someone of the opposite sex. It defies our nature.

While Ms. Becker is concerned that Christians who condemn different sexual orientations are negatively impacting church attendance, quite possibly, the issue is that these Christians have erected barriers between themselves and the profoundly loving and inclusive teachings of Jesus. He was no fan of organized religion, and his teachings were diametrically opposed to those in the Old Testament where these inhumane and homophobic commandments dwell.

Do the unchurched accept the church’s version of Jesus’s life story?

Ms. Becker feels those outside the church have difficulty believing “God’s existence in the form of a Jewish carpenter who died and rose again.” She’s half-right.

First, we do believe God existed in Jesus. Seven New Testament scriptures assert that God exists within everyone. Jesus was no exception. We believe he died and rose again, just as we believe the life narratives of Horus, Mithra and Dionysus, whose legends were written thousands of years before Jesus’s. Like him, they were said to be offspring of immortal gods and mortal virgins. They healed the sick and raised the dead. They were executed, and all rose on the third day. The tradition of writers appropriating popular myths for their own purposes has survived through the ages.

Another point: Christians insist upon using the word “died”—as if Jesus merely stopped breathing. Let’s be spiritually honest: Jesus reportedly was murdered; sadistically tortured to death, mocked and scorned. People inside the church have confessed to the sins that caused this gruesome execution and humiliation, and they say they are grateful it happened.

The Church’s Demonization of God

I understand why Christians euphemize this assassination. No one with a conscience or sense of decency would boast, “Jesus was tortured to death for something I did!” But I take exception to them demonizing God by shifting the blame. (The Church’s demonization of God is my personal barrier to entry.)

Christians want us to believe—and threaten us if we don’t believe—that God would not forgive the guilty unless innocent Jesus was barbarically tortured to death. Only a demon would do that!

God is good; 61 of their Bible scriptures affirm it. Another 14 scriptures say God is forgiving, and God’s grace is mentioned 318 times in the Old and New Testaments; 18 Bible verses declare that God loves us. Some clearly state God IS Love. Common sense question: Would Love voluntarily sacrifice Its one and only child to sadistic murderers?

Contrasted to religion, spirituality does not worship inhumane behavior. It builds no barriers between us and God. In spirituality, we are souls temporarily having a human experience. No one needs to give souls eternal life; we’ve always had it.

Spirituality also does not restrict the omnipresent spirit some call God to a gender or confine God to outer space, hundreds of light years away. In spirituality, God is not a hypocrite who commands us to forgive 70 times seven, but commits genocide by flood and filicide by crucifixion instead of forgiving.Do we need to be saved from anything LOVE will do to us?As I like to say, “If Love wouldn’t, God didn’t.” We believe the Divine has the compassion and capacity to forgive as unconditionally as the father in Jesus’s Parable of the Prodigal Son.

It’s no wonder the Church says God’s ways are mysterious. It is definitely a mystery that God alternately is portrayed as divine in one chapter of the book they study, and unquestionably demonic in the next. It says God is full of wrath, violent, vengeful, judgmental, murderous, genocidal and will inflict pain for all eternity unless we believe Jesus was tortured as our surrogate. We should retreat to this demonic but merciful god during times of need.

Christians can build barriers to their buildings. However, they lack the power to separate even one soul from our omnipresent, good-all-the-time God.

Is Your Consciousness Ascending?

As I watched the sunrise this Easter morning, a question popped into my mind. Perhaps you have asked yourself the same thing, but were afraid to ask it of anyone else. It’s not a simple question, and maybe you’re not ready for it; but the Loud Mouth is here to help if you get stuck. Read it slowly and repeatedly, if necessary:

Can we accurately call ourselves Christians if we believe in and try to practice the powerful teachings of Jesus, but we don’t believe that God allowed Jesus to be brutally tortured and murdered three short years into his ministry, in lieu of satanically brutalizing the rest of us throughout all eternity? 

What say you: Yes or No?

Are We Digesting Conflicted Fruit?

Today we celebrate the greatest lesson demonstrated by perhaps the greatest teacher the world has ever known, a Jew named Yeshua. What he demonstrated more than 2,000 years ago was that there is no death.
He reportedly revealed that even though the physical bodies we wear are lifeless and entombed, we are not dead. We are immortal spirit, made in the likeness and image of our Father. We are not physical bodies. What we learned from his demonstration is dramatically different.

Yeshua, whose name was mistranslated as Jesus, was a powerful teacher who was committed to sharing the Truth as it had been revealed to him. Through parables and folksy stories, he spread the word about an unconditionally loving and eternally forgiving God. It was a soul-stirring, joyful message that resonated in hearts wherever he went. But as the Bible relates, some of the questions his followers asked reveal that they were also confused by his message.

Like Yeshua, his followers had been reared in the Jewish tradition. Many had committed Jewish law to memory and were expected to live by the letter of that law. So, despite their acceptance of Yeshua’s dramatically different perception of what God is and what God does, his followers didn’t completely replace their old beliefs. Instead, they planted Yeshua’s empowering and revolutionary teachings on top of the lessons they’d learned as children. We’ve been harvesting conflicted fruit ever since.

For example, Yeshua believed that God not only is absolute (unchanging), he believed that God loves us unwaveringly and forgives us unconditionally. In his Prodigal Son parable, he portrayed God as a Father who will welcome us Home with open arms, no matter what we’ve done.

By contrast, the religious tradition of Yeshua’s family portrayed God as a violent, angry Supreme Being who demanded us to slaughter an innocent creature to atone for our errors. Today, such live sacrifices are considered barbaric and acts that are frequently associated with satanic rituals.

It begs the question: Have we digested conflicted fruit? Or do we truly share Yeshua’s belief that:
1. God is always the same and has never changed;
2. God has always been unconditionally loving and forgiving;
3. God doesn’t heinously punish an innocent for another’s wrongdoing?