Kool-aide, The People’s Temple & Jim Jones. Heaven’s Gate and the Hale-Bopp comet. Make America Great Again. Russia, elections, false Facebook accounts? “Nope, those never happened.” Or what about a few other promises and claims like, “Buy this stock now; it is the next Apple.” Or, “I never slept with that woman.”
Maybe you have seen signs hanging from buildings announcing: “Healing explosion, Friday night.” How about something like a power session with the Spirit? I met this angel, and he told me how to have happiness before the world ends. I got the inside story on this from God himself. As you read over what I have written to you, you’ll be able to see for yourselves into the mystery. None of our ancestors understood this. Only in our time has it been made clear by God’s Spirit of this new order. Does any of this sound familiar? These are real people in real life and death type situations. For 918 members of The Peoples Temple and 39 of the Heaven’s Gate cult, their beliefs carried all them all the way to mass suicide. They believed one way and acted accordingly.
Back in 1992 one of my three anatomy partners with a twinkle in his eyes said, “Hey, Lane.” “Yeah, what?” I replied. “You think I’m going to hell don’t you?” Don’t miss the twinkle. It seemed to me that he placed no malice behind that question, at least not on the outside. Another time I was talking with a Muslim resident (I think he was in a surgery residency) as he adjusted his basketball shoes; we both were keen on our spiritual vantage points. Keen, very sincere, and had some pleasant dialogue on spiritual matters. Similarly, there have been members of the Bahá’í Faith, agnostics, atheists, Mormons, people who participated in a Chinese Bible Study with me for year upon year, and many others.
So layer upon layer, year upon year come the religious and philosophical vantage points. Push, query, or ask and one will find this smorgasbord of sincerities. The three features from above that are most poignant to me are the question with a twinkle, the Bible and the sincerity of those who believe differently. Jesus self-declared as being the way, the truth and the life. Without any compunction, he proclaimed that going to heaven, knowing God, only came through him. That is what I know to be true, but I am routinely challenged by those who with varying degrees and varying approaches will say that his claim was incorrect. Sometimes they have put little to no energy into their own belief systems. Other times they are following the zeitgeist, a religious book, their family’s notions, or another religious text.
Richard Ulrich says
Our aims rise or fall on our claims; and so it is with others. Initially we are told what is “right,” but later on imagination, training, and life’s realities frame our moral and pragmatic foundation of purposeful choices. Emotional and reactive choice may well be more reflexive and less defensible in retrospect.
Charlemagne’s minister of education, Alcuin, in the 800s advocated a basic foundation of the Ten Commandments, The Lord’s Prayer, The Apostle’s Creed. I think he added the Beatitudes, too. Even illiterate individuals could memorize these as enduring, dependable rules of life.
St. Paul’s life changed when Christ became his Foundation. Whether we grow up and into that Foundation (as I did from early childhood) or whether it is dramatic as in John Newton’s life (of Amazing Grace), that is crucial to life now and to eternal life. There are many competing claims and convictions, and it is well we have a reliable core of them.