A Model Prayer to God

At some point, fairly recently, I opened my eyes and began to think about the liturgy in church.  I stopped saying prayers and creeds by rote, and started thinking about what I was really saying.  For instance:

The Lord’s Prayer, Mathew 6: 9-13.  I have said this prayer almost every Sunday for as long as I can remember, though I grew up Presbyterian and said “debtors” the shift to the Methodist “trespasses” was not tough.  But as I said the words this past Sunday my brain was in gear.  I had thoughts.  That means I had problems.  Why is this the “Lord’s Prayer?”  Is this the prayer the Lord says?  Is this the prayer Jesus said?  Is this a prayer that should serve as a model for humans to address a God?  If so, shouldn’t it be called “The Model Prayer to God?”

“Our Father.”  Really?  Is God my father?  Is there a DNA or paternity test we can run?  If he is my father, than am I his son?  If so, this whole sacrifice your son to abate our sins gets really complicated for me.  Why didn't Jesus simply say, “God, my father,” or something similar?  As a father I would do anything for my kids.  Why is it that God allows such pain and cruelty among His kids?  Not sure I can call Him Father as I look at war, starvation, childhood cancer, etc.  Or is this simply another reference to God as the creator of all.  If so, God becomes father to ants, mosquitoes, snakes, etc.

“Who art in heaven.”  OK, now I am really stumped.  We do not know where heaven is, but evidently that is where God is.  Is he here on earth too, as in omnipresent?  If so, why say who art in heaven?  Why not simply say “who is everywhere”?

“Hallowed be Thy name.”  OK, so his name is sacred or holy.  Isn’t that a no-brainer?  If I am praying to some deity it seems stupid to pray to one who is not sacred or holy.  And, what’s in a name?  And which name?  There are 102 different names listed in the Bible for God.  Which one, or are all hallowed?  If one has 102 handles, sacred is not the word that comes to mind.  More like an identity crisis, or an IMDb listing for God.

“Your kingdom come.”  Is that what we really want?  The kingdom of God established on this planet?  What would that be like?  What would it be like if we take the Bible literally and deny divorce, stone women who are not virgins on their wedding night, do away with medicine and psychiatry and simply practice faith healing?  Is that what we want? 

“Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  What is Thy will?  Sounds like the question I have been asking and praying about for years.  What do you want me to do?  If you have a plan for me why do you keep it a secret?  If you have a plan for all of us, why keep it a secret?  Just tell me what you want.  After I am told I will decide whether to pray for that will to be done.  God’s will may be terrible for humanity.  As I see the worldwide bloodshed in the name of some deity I wonder if that is in fact God’s will.  If so, I want no part of it.  If heaven knows and lives God’s will, then surely we deserve a glimpse.

“Give us this day our daily bread.”  As long as we are asking God for stuff, food seems OK.  Why not ask for water?  Why not wealth and health?  Why not a great sex life?  Why not my team winning Super Bowl?  Nope, just bread.  Seems like the prayer prescribed by Jesus is woefully short on the list of things humans need most to thrive.  How do we explain all the people starving on this planet who pray this prayer?

“And forgive us our debts/trespasses.”  If God has influence in personal finance, then His forgiveness of our debts would be great.  I don’t see that happening after years and years of Christian praying.  If the term should be trespass, are we talking boundary violations, rule breaking?  OK, I’d get seeking forgiveness for that, but looks like there are a lot of people in prison who have been praying this prayer and are still in prison. 

“As we forgive our debtors/those who trespass against us.”  The economy would freak and banks would collapse if all humans forgave the debt others owe us.  Would be nice for the debtor, not so much for the lender, but I do not see it happening.  If this means something like someone owes me a favor, then I can see forgiving that.  People who have violated my boundaries, or the boundaries of my loved ones are much tougher to forgive.  If I am to simply forgive debts and trespasses by just announcing that I have done so, why doesn’t God do the same thing?  Why did He have to go through sending his only son to earth to die a terrible death?  If that is the cost of offering forgiveness, then I am not going to pray for that.

“Lead us not into temptation.”  This phrase angers me.  If I were to design and create humans in my image why would I build in temptation?  Is God tempted?  If He doesn’t want me to lust, covet, eat too much, drink too much, and gamble too much, etc., why did He build in the urges in the first place?  Seems terribly unreasonable to construct a being with temptations then tell them not to go there. 

“But deliver us from evil.”  If we pray this second phrase are we relieved of temptation?  I don’t think so.  What evil are we to be delivered from?  The evil of other religions hence all the holy wars?  The evil of physical pleasure which we are hard wired to seek?  Why would God wire us to rush to evil?  These two phrases make no sense to me.  Why not just say help us do good things and avoid doing bad things.

“For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever.”  Right back where we started.  Where is this kingdom and what is it like?  If He has all this power then why isn’t this prayer answered all the time?  If He answered it all the time, then He would likely receive more glory.  Otherwise, we have a hard time convincing others that our invisible man in the magic kingdom is very powerful and worthy of glory. 

Amen.

Superman v. God: Dawn of Reason

(Apologies to Warner Brothers and “Batman v Superman:  Dawn of Justice.”)

OK, before I get started I assume you know Superman is a fictitious character.  Right?  There is no such Kryptonian on earth named Clark Kent who has super powers and flies around in a red cape with a big S on his chest.  I also assume that for many of you, God is a fictitious character.  There is no such omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent being as God and there is no such person on earth today named Jesus walking around in robes and sandals.  Some of you may believe that one or the other of these characters is real.  That’s fine.  You can believe what you want.

I am a big fan of Superman, (a.k.a. Clark Kent and Kal-El).  He has never claimed to be all powerful.  He has never claimed to know everything.  He has never claimed to be everywhere all the time.  He has never claimed responsibility for creating anything.  And he has never, ever asked to be worshiped or adored.  If anything, he seems shy and is reluctant to reveal his true persona so he hides out as Clark Kent.  He emerges as Superman, however, whenever there is a wrong that needs righting or bad guy that needs busting.  Most of what he does from my point of view is miraculous, though he does not claim those actions to be so.  Kal-El has never claimed to be a deity.  He never claimed that his father, Jor-El, was a deity.  It is interesting to watch Kal-El struggle with human emotions and desires even though he is not of this earth.

God, on the other hand, insists that we worship Him, in fact that we worship Him first and foremost.  He claims to know everything, see everything and be everywhere at once.  He does not perform miracles in front of the press, but expects us to believe he performs miracles.  Superman’s sweetie is a reporter and much of what he does is public covered by audio, video and print media.  God’s son, Jesus, was sent to earth to die, just the opposite of Jor-El who died sending his son to earth so that his son may live.  Superman seeks to serve humans.  Jesus wants us to serve him.  In Siegel and Shuster’s gospel, Kal-El makes mistakes and fumbles, but consistently seeks to work for the better good and to save and protect humanity.  Further, no Superman comic book ever claimed to be inerrant and dogma inspiring.  In the Bible’s Gospels we read that a few disabled people were healed, water was turned into wine, fish and loaves were multiplied, fish were caught, water was walked on, storms were calmed, and a dead guy was raised.  Hard to see how those acts were anything but self-promotion rather than acts for the betterment of humankind. 

It is believed that God answers prayers.  I have no personal evidence of that, but others claim to.  Superman has super hearing.  Many times folks in trouble call out and it is Superman who physically responds and deals with the problem.  If God and Superman were both real, which one would have shown up to save the passengers on the Germanwings flight that crashed into a French mountain?  I think I know.

If you do not do what God wants you to do He will send you to a place of torture for eternity.  If you do not do what Superman wants you to do he will either lock you up for breaking the law, or allow you to be a human being and make up your own mind.  He fights for freedom.  In fact, he stands around and hears people criticizing him to his Clark Kent face.  Jesus was never so forgiving.

So, if there is a contest between Superman and God, and the winner becomes real, who would you vote for? 

Sorry God. Superman really is a better deal than you.  He is more powerful, more accessible, more forgiving, and more supportive and he arrived in modern times, not the Bronze Age.  Plus, he could not be crucified.  The nails would bend rather than penetrate, and he never would have sat still for that anyway.  Martha and John Kent raised no fool.

I vote for Superman to be our god at the dawn of reason.

Better, if I form an organization to worship Kal-El, all my property will be tax exempt, my income will be tax exempt and anyone who gives me money will have a tax deduction.  What a deal!  Plus, for such status no organization has ever been asked to prove that the deity they worship is real.

Religious Freedom = The Right to Discriminate?

(The topic of this post straddles the line between one-eyed bob and one-eyed bob on god, so I am posting on both sites.)

I am a bigot.  I am sure I am.  I must suffer from prejudice when it comes to religious affiliation or lack thereof, or race, or gender, or sexual preference, or handicapping condition, or ethnicity, or height, or weight, etc.  I cannot image any human who is totally free of prejudice.  That is not what we do.  As humans we look for differences, and we look to find folks who look like us, think like us, believe like us, and act like us.  Multiple birds with multiple feathers all seeking to nest with other birds who possess feathers like our own.  If I prefer a certain feather over some other feather then I must have prejudicial feelings about all those who do not share my favorite feather’s attributes.  Simply said, but very difficult to amend.

I am aware of a few of my prejudicial feelings based on my reaction to folks.  When I see someone with purple hair I do a double-take.  When I see someone covered in tattoos I do a double take.  When I see someone with jewelry displayed from a variety of holes punched in their skin I do a double take.  When I see someone driving slowly in the left lane I do a double take.  When I see an obese person I do a double take.  All those double takes result from my brain identifying differences between my sense of standards for humans and the human I see before me.  I discriminate.  I recognize the differences.  And I tend to judge people based on superficial characteristics.  I hate that I do, but I do.

So, if I am a bigot with tendencies to discriminate should my discriminatory behavior be protected by law under the guise that I should have the right to prejudge people?  For me, the answer is not just “no,” it is hell no.  It is very clear that we do not want the government to tell us what to think and not think, what to believe and not believe.  Our inner belief system must absolutely be protected by law.  But acting on those beliefs is an entirely different question.  If I believe young children should handle poisonous snakes I have the right to believe that.  I do not have the right to ask young children to handle poisonous snakes.  If I believe the US government should be overthrown and a new government be established be it fascist or communist, I have the absolute right to believe such a thing, but the day I take up arms against our government I have crossed over from belief to action on the belief.  Such action will be stopped.

Does that answer change if I claim that the deity I worship discriminates and I am only following what my deity says?  You have got to be kidding me.  As if we need one more example of how religious beliefs are tearing the world apart.  If you believe that Black people are inferior to white people, women are inferior to men, homosexuals are inferior to heterosexuals, Muslims are inferior to Christians, and people who watch either reality TV or the food network are inferior to everyone else then you have the right to believe all of that nonsense.  What you do not have, should not have, is the right to practice such narrow mindedness that results in other humans belittled or denied because of your limited mental capacity.

And so I sit in wonder as North Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi, Indiana, Michigan and Texas have passed or are attempting to pass “religious freedom” bills that protect groups who discriminate based on their religious beliefs.  Yes, this is the United States.  Land of the free, home of the brave, as long as you are a person like me.

Discrimination is discrimination.  If your god tells you to discriminate then I believe you should seriously consider finding another god.  If you do not want to provide services to people who are different from you then you are a bigot practicing bigotry.  Practicing bigots should never be protected by the law.  Not in this nation.  Clearly in other parts of the world lives are actually lost if one does not believe as the majority believes, but that should never happen here.  An effort to make it OK to discriminate based on your religious beliefs does not increase the freedom of humans in our nation, it dramatically reduces such freedom. 

If we decide to allow private enterprise to discriminate in the name of religious belief does not make such a decision morally right.  It is a source of damnation for such beliefs and their practices.  Religious freedom bills that pervert the notion of freedom of religion are the saddest oxymorons I know.

Judge not.  Discriminate not.

Preacher Perks

Interesting list linked on CNN’s website this morning that identifies the 15 richest preachers in the US.  Amazing.  Here are fifteen Christian multi-millionaires who own mansions, private jets, etc. 

Kenneth Copeland - $760 million

Pat Robertson - $100 million

Benny Hinn - $42 million

Joel Olsteen - $40 million

Creflo Dollar - $27 million

Billy Graham - $25 million

Rick Warren - $25 million

Bishop T.J. Dakes - $18 million

Juanita Bynum - $10 million

Joyce Meyer - $8 million

John Hagee - $5 million

Paula White - $5 million

Bishop Eddie Long - $5 million

Bishop Noel Jones - $5 million

Minister Louis Farrakhan - $3 million

Most got rich from media deals, televangelism, and some on book sales.  But, they all got rich.  All but one are non-denominational mega church types.  All are conservative.  What am I missing here?  Looks like we need to add another career for kids to think about on career day – become a preacher and make a million bucks.  Preach about mansions in heaven, not earth, giving up all and following me, harder for the rich to enter heaven than a camel through an eye of a needle, but make a million bucks.

It does not take long to recognize there are no Catholics on the list.  They take a vow of poverty.  Interesting.  And yet the Vatican is wealthy beyond knowing.  The Baptist Church is not on this list, but they are the single largest land owner in Texas other than the state of Texas.  Of course, owning that land is tax free for those who dunk rather than sprinkle and each of their churches has a built in hot tub.  Nor are there any of the thousands of mainstream Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Lutheran, Episcopalian, etc., preachers or priests on the list who serve in rural settings or major urban areas.  These rich guys are the Christian independents, those who do not belong to a denomination so they can make up their theology as well as their church polices as they go.  The more popular the message, the more they increase sales.

There is an assumption in this nation that those who make a lot of money are “successful” and those who don’t are “failures.”  We are, after all, a secular democracy, despite the efforts of folks like those above to make us a theocracy.  The hypocrisy is overwhelming.  I can make a lot of money because I am a successful preacher in a secular, free enterprise economy, but I argue that the nation really needs to be a Christian nation and follow the values I preach.  Not model.  But preach.

I’m a preacher’s kid.  As I child, I never lived in a house that we owned.  The church always furnished our housing.  We had no choice.  It was part of the deal.  We could not do any DIY projects without approval and even painting required a blessing.  That is one heck of a perk.  No rent or mortgage, no utilities, no insurance, no tax.  The price was no choice.  My dad made enough money to keep food on the table and provide one family vacation a year.  We were not in poverty but we surely were not rich.  Most denominations still provide a house, a parsonage, a manse, a rectory or whatever it is called.  Some ambitious preachers who follow God without question demand that they have choice in their own housing and get a housing allowance rather than a house.  Free enterprise strikes again.  Other perks of being a preacher’s kid was that everyone knew I was a preacher’s kid and lay in wait to see if I was sinful like other children.  School employees and Sunday school teachers could not wait to inform my dad of my shortcomings.  There really were no other perks that I recall.  That has morphed today so that male preachers actually take paternity leave, set their own office hours, etc.  I am beginning to think the Catholics may have all this right to begin with – vows of poverty and chastity.  Can a person who has made no sacrifice inspire others to do so?  If I am a preacher but the gospel pales to my drive to make money and have perks then I have no credibility.

When the pitch from the pulpit is to enrich the preacher I’m out of here.  I see preachers as servants of God, not local leaders deserving alms.  Show me a preacher where the governing lay people of the church are demanding that he or she take more time off because they live at and for the church, and I will be impressed.  School people are like that.  The very best among school people have a tough time ever going home.

It seems to me that expectations are amuck.  I became an educator and knew right up front I would not earn much money.  That was fine with me because I believed I was doing what I was “called” to do.  Happiness, excitement, fulfillment meant so much more than wealth.  Educators in effect take a vow of poverty to enter the profession.  One assumes preachers do as well.  As a superintendent if there were insufficient funds to give teachers pay raises then I would not take a pay raise.  My salary was always the first one frozen.  Why?  I was not in the business to make money.  So perhaps I should have followed in my father’s footsteps and become a millionaire in a mega church totally contrary to my beliefs, but rich.

I knew I could not be a preacher, though at an early time in my life I applied for admission to seminary.  I was accepted, but did not go.  I signed a teacher contract.  That is how it should have been.  I have no doubts about my profession and what is right and wrong.  I still cannot get over some faith questions like, why would God send his only son on a suicide mission?  Because he loves me?  I would never ask for such from anyone, much less a deity.  Nor would I be willing to sacrifice my son for someone else.  I deeply, deeply worry about the underlying ethics of such a deity.  Can it be that I love my son more than he loves his?  Or, does he just not value life much at all?  Etc.

Millionaire preachers do not need perks.  They can purchase whatever they want.  And all millionaire preachers should be listed as entertainers, not preachers; and their churches as venues, not houses of the Lord.  To call them preachers gives evangelism such a dirty name.  Does calling them Christian give free enterprise a dirty name?  At least one area of confusion is now clarified for me:  God does not need money.  Preachers do.