My subject line probably made you pause and read it twice. But, as you will see it means what it says. I recently read a blog somewhere with someone writing about gay rights and there were different responses to the blog. People who agreed, people who dis-agreed, people who didn’t quite know how they felt. Then it happened, KABAMM!!!!! There it was, the famous disagree and throw some bible verses at it!!! Now, I grew up with around this mentallity: "Anything you hate, God hates more" find a bible verse and there is your answer. It’s kinda like pulling the rabbit out of the hat routine. Instead, pull the bible verse out and there you have it. "God said it, I believe it and that’s it!" No pondering the question, no trying to understand the theology and digging deeper. Not even quietly sitting and listening to the still, small, voice. Well, I guess when your so angrily yelling out the bible verse it is kinda hard to hear the voice!? In all seriousness though, where do they think the great "book" came from? It just came out of a rabbit hat? out of no-where? hhhhmmmmmm.....
Now it gets a little hairy..... It was actually written by people, people just like you and me..... People who are afraid, people who have cultural rules, people who are racist, people who are homophobic, people who hear voices other than God’s. Think about it. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" My initial reaction to that is: "How?" How did God create the earth? Well, obviously if you read on it was in six days, right??? hhhmmmmm....Really??? Or did God create the earth through the natural process we call "evolution"? There are two answers to that question. TWO!!!!!! Which one is right? Or is either of them right? It doesn’t seem so easy does it? Was the person who actually wrote Genesis there? Did he actually see God do it? ....... Of course not!
An imaginative poet sat down and wrote what he thought the great Spirit did. A writing of his connection, not mine, not yours, not meant to be taken as literal. Just an expression. How is it that a religion can be formed just out of the literization of poetry? And be used to batter people, to wrongfully remove rights from other people? To hold it over their heads and not listen? Not listen the still small voice? The voice calls us to: "Love your neighbor as yourself" The voice who begs us to listen to the cries of starving children or the cries of a mother who just lost her son who was fighting in a war that has no end. Or the cries of a man who just lost his life-partner in a plane-crash and couldn’t even get an answer from the airport if the plane had actually crashed because "he wasn’t LEGALLY related!"
When will we listen? God is here and we are not listening. People want God and talk about God and talk about how great God is and God is there quietly speaking. Yet, no one listens, all that is heard is verse this and scripture that, turn here and turn there, this says that and that says this. No theology, no unsderstanding it....... It’s magic don’t you see?? A little of this, a little of that. A dab here and a dab there. Sprinkle this and sprinkle that. And there you have it!
Magic Theology!!!