Thoughts from a former fundamentalist minister...
Hi, My name is jerry of question3737@gmail.com
My dad died in may of 1998...at his funeral the minister said little
about my wonderful Dad, but talked of salvation only through Jesus. My
reaction is the following hastily written pages but they may give you a
lift.
Sincerely, Jerry
My Dad died. We buried him this last Tuesday. The preacher at the
funeral used Dad’s death as a springboard for his deluded agenda of
salvation only through Jesus. (Perhaps he knew of my background as a
former minister and was extra full of trying to offset my beliefs) But,
this pained me no end, especially, since a long time friend of his from
next door was there as Dad’s pallbearer. This good neighbor has never
been a church goer and never will be. I was embarrassed. Prior to this
and only a day or so after Dad’s death, I was surprised by the emotions
coming up--specifically anti-Jesus and anti-Church stuff. As the whole
family gathered at the funeral, I looked around and realized that all my
immediate family are very strong Christians...I am the sole heretic. I
then began writing in my journal on this subject at that time, but it
had long been on my heart and mind to begin this process. Dad’s death
just speeded up my desire to write. So it was that I began to delve into
the reasons why I had become so anti-Jesus and anti-Christian. I guess,
having felt emotionally raped by the preacher’s foolishness Jesus
tirade, I decided to sit down and write up a more formal statement about
my anti-Jesus thinking. Here is the gist of it:
Fundamental Christian religion is not very logical. I am supposed to
believe in a character who lived 2000 years ago and proclaimed himself
to be the Son of God. If I don’t--I go to hell. This is it--pure and
simple (and stupid). Don’t get me wrong, I like a lot of what Jesus said
and I love parts of the Bible. It is in my heart and will be there
forever. Having two college degrees and many years of teaching as a
professor at a Christian College and preaching in various churches on
the weekends, I can see from the words of Jesus that he was indeed a
special man...but 2000 years is a long time and a lot gets lost in the
process. I salute the deep love that Christians over the years have had
for this “Christ.” So many were even willing to die for him and their
beliefs. (I am thinking of the 30,000 Chinese Christians in history that
chose death rather than simply step on a piece of paper with the name
Jesus inscribed on it.) I agree that some things are worth dying for.
But for me Jesus is not one of them. Jesus was a prison that I escaped
from and I want to record this and show the process.
But first I want to look the present Jesus of today. He called himself
the Son of God...we have a few details...2000 years old stuff. He
convinced 12 people and a few hundred others that he was indeed the
Savior promised in the Hebrew scriptures. But this is not new. Only a
few years back David Korish had a whole compound of people convinced
that he was God and over a hundred perished with him at the Waco, Texas
compound. This (God) dummy could have saved all those people with just
a little compromise...but he had to have a bunch of people die just
because he thought he was God. I’m sure David Korish had some good stuff
in the words he spoke. He certainly inspired those fanatical folks and
reports show him to be quite a sexual stud. He was a real “copulating”
God. But, if this deluded poophead could do this in our enlightened
time, why should I believe in this historical Jesus and his 2000 year
old story?
I am surprised by the positive reaction in my heart to anything
anti-Jesus and anti-Church (Christian). I would much have preferred a
Jesus who grew old and wise like a Buddha or Mohammed. He was only 33
when he died. I didn’t even start thinking for myself until I was almost
40. I followed the Christian herd like all the rest of them until I
finally exploded from lack of sex and support from my “once a week is
more than enough” wife. I see lots of confident young men running things
now...but to really know life you have to have experience. Thirty years
is just not enough time. I resent having to believe in a young man who
was only thirty three at his death. But believe I must or I am going to
hell according to current fundamentalists beliefs. Hell is a place
where you will burn forever. Who wouldn’t want to avoid such a place? I
sure would. But Hell is not a logical or valid concept. Burning in hell
for sins committed in a brief lifetime of seventy years or so seems
grossly unfair. But, if the powers that be (or rather were) wanted to
keep the Christian herd in line, what better way than to threaten them
with a nebulous Hell-fire? I recall as a young and naive Christian
ministerial student going out on the weekends to talk to people about
Christ and to do my best to save them from this burning Hell. I also
recall a pretty young speech professor at our Christian University
giving our group of ministers a graphic reading of people walking off a
cliff and falling into the burning fires of hell. All that stood between
them and hell was us Christians who had to reach out and prevent as many
as possible from falling into hell fire. Her performance was met with a
genuine appreciation and acceptance. But that’s one heavy burden for a
young man to carry. We were the only hope for those people. We were sent
out weekends to hand out tracts to people on the street telling them how
to be saved. I never like doing this. I soon discarded it for less
dramatic ways of reaching the UNSAVED. This was the small beginning...I
followed my heart. It said I don’t like handing out tract and being a
“fool for Christ’s sake.” One of the teaching tools at that time was a
saying often repeated about a man who carried a sign saying, “I’m a
fool for Christ’s sake, whose fool are you?” Now I have enough strength
of character, to say “Let him be his own fool.” I cannot follow this
distorted Jesus. But lets go back to the Hell concept. What would be
fair? And all religions teach us (and I believe) that God is eminently
fair. But the Jesus followers say that you are going to hell if you
don’t know Jesus no matter what. If you are a murderer--off you go. This
fits even a 16 year old teenager who goes along for the ride with a kid
who is drinking; there is a wreck and he is killed...off he goes too. He
has not done much of anything wrong. He hasn’t been around long enough
to do much wrong, but off he goes--straight to Hell. Do not pass Go. Do
not collect a harp and mansion. Suppose we had a jury of a mans peers
set up to decide every man’s punishment according to all the deeds he
had done and all the thoughts he had had. Suppose God himself allowed
this special jury to exist. How many life sentences would they give to a
murderer? So, if the average life span is 70 or so...the maximum for
even the most gross life deeds would be not more than 5 x 70 or so I
would think. Even the most vile person would scarcely be given more that
70 times 70 lifetimes as the absolute maximum sentence and certainly not
to a burning hell for all those years. There is a little Biblical pun
here...70 time 70 is the term describing Jesus’ ideal of human
forgiveness. But a loving God casts them all into Hell fire forever? I
think not.
How can Christians assign people to hell so easily? Part of it is
religious arrogance (a sort of unconscious hidden pride, I think)...”we
know God and you don’t type of thing...we have the inside track on
God.” Furthermore, Christians have this “All are sinners and need
salvation” angle well covered with the Original Sin concept. It
basically says “In Adam’s Fall, we sinned all.” So we all start out as
sinners and need a savior. Enter Jesus. Oh, by the way, can I be a
Christian and not believe in the Original Sin concept? I sure can’t
handle it now. To me it is the tool the church uses to keep people in
bondage.
Now the question becomes--does the man believe in Jesus just because he
wants to escape Hell, or because he is “CHA” (covering his ass). But
hey, for the simple act of going forward in church and maybe even going
through the ritual of getting baptized, one gets an insurance policy
against Hell and with a side benefit of a ticket directly into heaven.
Not a bad investment for a CHA person. How does God count this obvious
“manipulation” of the system? Do surface Christians squeeze through the
Pearly Gates just barely?
What does it mean to “believe” in Christ? I ask this question often. My
Christian relatives and ministers I know always quote
Scripture...”Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and Thou shalt be saved.”
This is what the Apostle Paul said to the frightened jailkeeper when an
earthquake hit and all the doors flew open. And the man did too...he
took Paul and Silas and bound up their wounds and was very grateful. I
don’t blame him. Any man in his right mind would have believed and
behave the way he did in such circumstances. But how does one believe
in, on , around this Jesus? Do I have to believe in Original sin to be
saved? Do I have to believe in the Trinity to be saved? Do I have to
believe in the Apostles’ Creed? Do I have to believe in the Virgin
Birth? Can I believe that Mary fooled around and the result was Jesus?
Can I believe in a special place called Hades like the Catholics do? Can
I be a member of the Irish IRA Catholics who believe in terrorism.? Can
I be a Communist? Does God take in account a person’s environment and
parental teachings? Do I have to be baptized ? (The Church of Christ
out of Abeline, Texas believes you must be baptized in their Church in
order to be saved)? At what IQ level am I exempt from Hell? Do children
who die go to hell? (Christians have a special exemption here, but if
there is one exemption why can’t there be more?) Do I have to believe in
Pro-life? Do I have to believe in monogamy? Can I be a Mormon/Christian?
a Buddhist/Christian? Can I be a Christian/homosexual? Bi-sexual?
Lesbian? Can I be a Christian whore? (I have met some ladies of the
evening who were a lot more compassionate than many Christians I know;
moreover, didn’t Jesus associate with them?) Can I worship my ancestors
and believe in Jesus too? Can I believe also in evolution? Can I be a
Christian nudist? Can I believe in Free Love? Do I get extra credit if I
believe that Jesus was a human being that existed 2000 years ago but not
God? How about if I believe he was god with a small g? What if I believe
that he was on the level of a son of god like Buddha must have been.
What about all those folks born before Christ came? There was a bunch
of them? Will Socrates be in heaven or Hell? The Christian reply to all
the folks BC (Before Christ) is that they are under a different
“dispensation.” They didn’t know it yet, but Jesus died for them. So
people with God in their hearts and deeds got into heaven with a special
pass--under a special dispensation. Now we shift to the AD area. After
Jesus’ death all people had to get into heaven through him. He took over
the keys to the kingdom. Was there a transition period? Does the belief
in Jesus thing fit the first 200 years AD? Or does it take effect when
Constantine set up Christianity as the religion of the empire? Prior to
Columbus we had a whole half of the world that existed AD and had never
heard of Jesus. I have pinned down several old ministers on this and
they all say “If they live up to the light that is shown to them, they
will be saved.” (quoting from the Old Testament) This “Light” is a bit
of a slippery and wobbly thing. How do you define light...how much
light? Would a spark do? Does belief in the Great Spirit count? Will the
American Indians get into heaven?
I simply cannot see how a rational man can believe in a “Jesus or else”
type of religious dogma. I think Jesus would be very embarrassed to see
what his followers teach today as “Gospel.”
But lets return to the Hell thing again. If we take it that all men are
sinners...Hey I can buy that partially--we all goof plenty in our
lifetime, but I like the term mistakes better than sins. So why are all
sinners assigned to a burning Hell automatically if they don’t believe
in Jesus? Or is Jesus like David Korish who let his followers burn to
death with him because he thought he was God? My figures are rough, but
some 3/4ths of this present world is non-Christian. Lets say that 1/4 of
the world is Christian. Now of that 1/4th, about half don’t go to church
much and then quite a few of those that do, just do it out of duty. Then
we get into all the many churches believing different creeds and
doctrines? If all these churches can’t agree on doctrine, why should I
trust its ministers to show me the way to heaven? Can a man be a total
“Jackass” (murderer, etc.) and get into heaven if he believes in Jesus
on his deathbed? Why can’t we just believe that Jesus died for the sins
of the whole world...and include everybody so that there is universal
salvation for all races, creeds and colors? I could handle Jesus a lot
better if he did it once for all, for those in the past, present and
future and it was a finished thing and everybody got a piece of it. Why
is salvation so limited (according to the church)? In my years of study
for the ministry which included many college Bible courses including 3
years of Greek Bible language, I noticed that after the bachelors level
(and by the way it seems to me that most of those dogmatic dummies who
preach the “going to Hell message” barely have a bachelors degree)
...that the scholars began to be more broad in their views. The men that
really knew the Biblical languages and whose business was to study the
Scriptures diligently, became more and more broad. I recall my amazement
on reading the statement of one such famous Biblical Scholar who stated
words to the effect that there would be a lot more people in heaven than
we ever imagined.
Will a Christian who commits suicide go to heaven?
Is it possible that God could have a second Son...? Why only one?
Wouldn’t the world be better if there were many sons of God. Why should
the Creator limit himself to one. Are there other worlds besides ours
out there in Space? And If there were, would they get to heaven? Or will
they be treated on the dog and cat level of once dead and that is
it...no heaven and no hell?
“One cannot question God and God’s hidden purposes”... thus sayeth the
Church, but this is another Church baloney dogma. This is the same
Church that has proved itself to be totally wrong in the past. No
wonder they don’t like to question God. Why didn’t God wait another 2000
years now that we have satellite TV and the Internet and have Jesus come
during this age. Why do it the hard way?
My son thinks I am going to hell. He has followed his mother’s path of
fundamental Christianity and has become a fundamentalist minister much
to my regret. Perhaps he will grow out of it as I did. I was just like
him at his age. I love him. I honor where he is at. I hope he gets past
it.
Is it any wonder that I may be a little hard on this Jesus. Hey, I don’t
like the one they talk about in the Churches, but I do somewhat like the
one in the Bible without all the baloney surrounding him. Do I want him
as my savior? No thank you.
A thought I had recently--Does my prayer to God count? Are my daily
prayers for my family and other personal needs wasted because only the
people who pray to the God who is the father of Jesus Christ have their
prayers heard? This is extremeness and arrogance. Why is God so limited?
It is illogical?