I turned the TV on Tuesday morning, and a female evangelist was delivering a sermon designed for women. She would speak for about three minutes at a time, and then follow with her pitch: “Ask, and ye shall receive!” Over and over again, like some mind-altering mantra, and the crowd would shout right along with her. “Ask, and ye shall receive!”
Prayer began millennia ago as a way to sing praises to the gods and flatter them in hopes of mercy and general favor. This woman, in this show, may as well have reduced it to “Dear God, help me find my keys!” A self-righteous gumball machine.
I hit the info button on the remote to get the name of the person I planned to mock in a Facebook post. The title information given by my cable provider was, quite appropriately, “Paid Programming” I realized I was watching an infomercial for God
– this woman filling an arena-sized super church, probably somewhere in Texas.
It had all the hallmarks of a great infomercial: the tagline too simplistic, the price too high, the claims too unbelievable, the people in charge too invested, the hosts too over the top, the audience too awestruck, and the actual product…too disappointing.
Personally, I’ve always felt that Lucifer and Judas were viciously manipulated in the Bible. A literal necessary evil, if all things are done by God’s design, but a design to which they were never privy. In order for God to achieve and maintain supremacy – while claiming both design AND free will – a nemesis is an absolute requirement. If there is no bad guy, the alternative to believing in God is just…well, NOT believing in God. There’s no down side without a fall guy to blame and use as a warning.
I brought this up in an adult Sunday School class five years ago (don’t judge me – I was going through a phase) and, I wish I was kidding when I say this, I was told that THAT was a theological debate, and church was not the place to have it.
So, where exactly is the right place to question God? I’ve got some time on my hands, so…is right here ok?
When I was 14, I started to question everything in my life that didn’t make sense to me, and found some real logical inconsistencies and ethical dilemmas in my religious beliefs as a Christian (well, Methodist…so, Christian-Lite). I was told not to ask questions because you just don’t question God. Why not? He’s God, for Christ’s sake! Can He not handle one tiny little request for clarification?
I think You can, Sir. And We need to talk.
Why is it that such amazing shows of Your presence on earth occurred up until 2,000 years ago but NO such thing exists today? I don’t mean cancer goes into remission miracles. I mean full-on, inside a whale, part the waters, flood the earth, raise the dead miracles. We know You’ve got it in You, Your Omnipotence, and that’s what makes it so incredibly frustrating.
Why not help a girl out from time to time, who is struggling with wanting to believe in You, by turning my Dasani into wine? Hell, turn my wine into tap water! But why make it so difficult to believe while literally commanding that we do it anyway? That’s just unfair, and more than a bit Self-righteous, Sir.
Even if people 2,000 years ago did things You weren’t real proud of (kill Your Son, for instance), don’t you think You’ve had time to forgive us by now, as humanity, and realize that we, individually, are not the ones who pissed You off? Good God, forgive us their sins already.
Instead, You just walked out, walked away. You watch, I guess – but You do absolutely nothing. At least nothing so miraculous that it’s verifiable, or worth putting in a New New Testament. Where did that go? You quit.
You created us. Didn’t You know we would be inherently flawed? I mean, You’d have to, right? Either You knowingly made us flawed and now ask us to bow to You for redemption – which seems pathologically passive-aggressive – or You DIDN’T know we were going to be such bad little children, which nullifies the “omniscient” part of the O Trifecta – omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent – and blows the deal.
I’ve done my research on You. I’ve read books, including Thine. I’ve talked to theology professors at length. And I’ve talked to Your representatives on earth, of several faiths and denominations. But the concluding remarks to our discussions, right before the pleasantries of goodbye, fall into two basic categories. The first is something about a leap of faith – which, to me, means, “suspend your rational mind so that the greedy part of your brain can hear what it wants to hear about heaven from the magic gumball dispenser”. The second is the funeral favorite – God has a plan, we just don’t understand it – which takes me back to the whole passive-aggressive thing.
No, I certainly don’t understand it.
If You created the universe, well done. I give You all the credit for that one. But I don’t really need an absentee Father. I don’t respect them, and they’re impossible to trust when it comes to parenting. If You won’t stick around and be a Man about your responsibilities to all of us down here, then I get to be God of my own world. And You forfeit the right to tell me how to run it.
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