The following items use the word "God" in the same way they might use the word "unicorn," to refer to something that may or may not have existed in some time or at some place but is not much seen anymore, neither sought out nor worshipped by the likes of me. I write about religion on a totally "as if" basis.

A BOMB IN THE CHURCH
28 January 2002

As I was falling asleep last night an interesting idea came to me: "There's a bomb in the church."

I suppose the idea started a few years ago from "Five Easy Pieces." I think the movie is about the disastrous results that flow from highly conditional love. If the relationship between Robert and his father is not enough to make the point, there is always that little story Betty tells early in the movie:

BETTY: "When I was four, just four years old, I went to my mother, and I said, 'What's this hole in my chin?' I saw this dimple in my chin in the mirror, and I didn't know what it was.

"And my mother said — GET WHAT MY MOTHER SAYS! — 'When you're born you go on an assembly line past God, and if he likes you he says, "You cute little thing" (pinches her cheeks), and you get dimples there, but if he doesn't like you he says, 'GO AWAY!"'(Puts finger on her chin and pushes her head back cruelly).

"So about 6 months later my mother finds me saying my prayers, and I was going (she has one hand up in front of her as if to pray and the other covering her chin), 'Now I lay me down to sleep . . . '

"And my mother said (angry voice), 'What are you covering up your chin for?' And I said, 'Because if I cover up the hole maybe he'll listen to me.'"

After Betty's story everyone looks sad for about 2 seconds then they all break into hysterical laughter. And since Betty is not a main character in the film, her little story is easy to forget. But the story IS the movie, and it says that when judgment outweighs love, things turn rotten.

LOVE

In that earlier e-mail, I went on to make the observation that when we talk of "love" in glowing terms we always mean unconditional love. Our ideal and great hope for love, so it would seem, is that we can get into a relationship with someone who accepts us unconditionally.

Whether we can ever find such love is questionable, for when we deal with people we encounter their changing feelings, their limitations and their judgments, which often amount to fluctuations in love, so some people look to God for steady, unconditional love. Indeed, one of the very things that sparked the "Five Easy Pieces" e-mail was a comment from a friend that, "Billy Graham says it's ALL about unconditional love and acceptance. That's the key!"

My iconoclastic mind immediately jumped to religion, of course, and it seemed to me then — and even more so now — that each belief system is nothing more than a set of CONDITIONS that one must meet to get love and acceptance, so religion promotes a love that's highly conditional. This seems to be a major misunderstanding that religion has with itself.

BOOM

And that's the bomb in the church, which can be summed in three words: "GOD IS LOVE." And love is nondenominational.

Love knocks down walls, bursts through borders and boundaries; nothing gets it its way. If I loved the starving children Sally Struthers* talks about on TV, would I care if they knew my name or addressed me personally for my help? Would I care what religion they belonged to or whether they embraced my dogma of uncertainty? Hell, no. If I loved them completely — if I was love incarnate — I would do whatever was in my power to help them, for it would be impossible to do otherwise. And if my power was unlimited my help would be, too.

So if "God is Love" then that love disregards the accidents of time, geography, belief or unbelief. Ultimate concern would pour down on everyone and everything by the power of a love that's beyond imagining. This is a bomb in the church because while dogma is about knowledge, rules and conditions, love is about flattening them. Love blows religion to bits.

TRYING TO EARN IT

So maybe we can say that strict religious belief matters only to those people who don't know or accept that "God is Love." They don't get what it really means — or they don't understand the power of love — so they think God is Rules or God is Judgment. Sadly, they cling to conditional love and nurture the idea that being "right" somehow matters to God, that it gets them more love or more acceptance, answered prayers, salvation, whatever.

Maybe real life and "Five Easy Pieces" are a lot closer than we'd like to admit.

*Sally Struthers played Betty in "Five Easy Pieces."

And here was the follow-up e-mail:

2 MORE BOMBS IN THE CHURCH
30 January 2002

TO RECAP

Bomb 1: God is Love. This love bomb at the core of theology knocks down all church walls. The dogma of "we are special" or "we are right" is blown to dust. Please get over the idea that God shares your prejudices. Believe in love. Accept that you are accepted. (See passage below)

MOVING AHEAD

Bomb 2: Original sin. We are damaged, flawed at the very core of our being. Something's deeply and essentially wrong with us. Or so the story goes.

Bomb 3: Free will. You must choose to believe in God, who will not cause you to believe against your will. You must make a subjective, personal choice. Interesting idea.

OOPS

Bomb 2 and 3 show again that religion has huge issues with itself, massive internal questions it has yet to resolve, which is to say: If we are messed up — by original sin or anything else — we make poor choices. Nothing could be more obvious. Damaged people have strange, self-serving beliefs, of which they're inordinately proud, and they make poor choices, of which they're inordinately certain.

Yet it is our lot to make choices — even about God — using our subjective, damaged, limited and fallible choice-making machinery. Should we then assume those choices are absolutely correct? No. Doubt and skepticism become marks of wisdom, not indicators of unfaithfulness or blasphemy. Beware of that which tries to obliterate your doubts.

IRONY

The mutually contradictory nature of original sin and free will — which religion seems intent on covering up — points to sound psychological theory that our strongest beliefs often are based on our damage, even though damage can't be trusted to give us the truth.

Remember your fallibility; accept that you are excepted.

You are Accepted — Paul Tillich

   "Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual, because we have violated another life, a life which we loved, or from which we are estranged. It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying, 'You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted.' In that moment . . . reconciliation bridges the gulf of estrangement. And nothing is demanded of this experience, no religious or moral or intellectual presupposition, nothing but acceptance."

THE CONDITIONAL-LOVE PROJECT
4 March 2002

And now we return to our irregularly scheduled deprogramming.

ACCEPTANCE

It would seem that any person deeply involved in a religion is participating in a conditional-love project. But what's a better idea, that you can win acceptance if you're good enough at playing by the rules of a particular belief system or that you're already a winner, accepted out of love.

And I propose this idea without pretending to know who or what God is or what such a being would want from people or if such an entity could be personal or capable of love as we know it. I propose it as a person who stands outside traditional belief systems and secular belief systems, too, not fully accepting philosophy, psychology, science as providing final and eternal answers. I propose it as a person who would like to think he's agnostic across the board. I don't claim to be; I just hope to be. The claims I can make in regards my own agenda and motives are obviously limited and prejudiced.

IRONICALLY

Absolutism can't exist unless the church can convince people of two opposing ideas: That they are somehow flawed and in need of redemption; that they have the amazing ability to make infallible faith judgments and know the absolute truth when they see it, as long as it agrees with what the church says, of course.

The system starts to crumble as soon as people start to wonder how fallible humans can make infallible judgments about what they should or shouldn't believe. And after all, it does come down to a judgment, which some people call "free will."

FREE LUNCH

You might say in regards acceptance, "There's no such thing as a free lunch." But isn't that the "good news" of the New Testament or reform Judaism or all the mystical teachings of every belief system ... that love replaces the rule of law or that mystery always knocks knowledge on its ass?

This does not mean we're supposed to swap one set of rules for another. It means mystery erodes certainty and love trumps law and that the conditional is not the eternal. So don't get mixed up and lose your place in the scheme of things.

Wasn't that Paul's message? Or as another Paul said, "You are accepted." Accepted by that which is greater than you, even though it's something you can not name. So don't try to name it now. Don't try to accomplish something fantastic with it. Just let it sink in that you are accepted. Then you'll be free of the conditional-love game.

Instead of trying to win acceptance, just enjoy it.