Evangelical and Liberal?

God is the Spirit of man, the embodiment of the Ideal.  God has no house, God doesn’t need a house.  God has no money, God doesn’t need money.  God has no need of fancy clothes, or cars, for God does not have clothes nor cars.  God doesn’t need to eat food or drink wine, God doesn’t need food or wine.  God doesn’t need fire to keep warm, or air conditioning to keep cool, God has no need of shelter or warmth or coolness. God doesn’t need a church, temple or mosque, God is. God is not a man, God is not a woman, God is both and One therefore God doesn not need the comfort of spouse, the issue of progeny.

God is the Spirit within the human soul, that works through God, with God, for all life, without boundaries or limits, with no needs or desires – God is of the Earth and the Universe.  God resides in us, a living God that we hope to listen to every day of our lives because God shares each and every person’s life from the beginning to the end. God desires that we live and work toward the Ideals that God has created, thus God is the Ideal.  In that human search for the Ideal, God nurtures us and provides for us, and has set us upon this Earth as his stewards. God enjoins us to be productive.

We, all man-woman-kind, are God’s children.  From our earliest beginnings as simple mammals, to our evolution and/or divine interpretation as we are wont to argue, God has been with us.  And from the caves of pre-history man-woman-kind has listened to God and each other,  and by doing so has risen century by century, led by Godly and Social ideals/contracts/laws, to the 21^st century – a continual ascendancy toward the Ideal.  We no longer forage and hunt, we farm and ranch.  We no longer struggle to communicate, we write and learn.  We no longer bend our back to make tools out of stone; we build robots and space ships.  We no longer wear skins of animals; we weave and wear coats and boots to protect us from the elements. We heal, rather than kill or set aside.  We are bound by communities. Consensus, Common goals, and law rather than war, self interest, and free raiding companies.  We enjoy homes that are warm in the winter and cool in the summer; we fly in planes, take trains, and drive cars to reach our destinations.  We share innovations and create new innovations.  We seek social justice and equity in opposition to despotism and oligarchy.  And in the age of information, we are learning that Mother Earth is a small community, shared with billions rather than hundred of thousands of voices, all melded into common goals, cooperation, and consensus.  Man-woman-kind hasn’t done to badly for itself, but it has a very long path to travel, an eternal path.

Modern thought manifests this simple but Godly axiom:  It is right to benefit self if what we do benefits society as well, and the two are mutual, not exclusive.  This is the inherent thought governing our societies and even our Constitution under the law of the People and God.  So when we read “trust in God” we read that the contract between self and society is a trust that God does not want us to break.  God has no wish to be President of the United States.  God does not need to be President, God is omnipotent. It is only mankind,or womankind, that seeks titles of empowerment.

Armegeddon has come and gone.  Christ’s kingdom is here, on earth, if only the believer has the eyes, the faith, and the wit to see it.  As Thomas More once remarked, “the kingdom of God starts within, within the spirit of self, then moves outward to one’s family, to one’s community, to one’s city, until all the cities are one nation – a utopia of the spirit of Christ – without looking toward destruction, or leaders, or praying for an end.  It is here and now…and it begins and ends with you…”.  In short, human elements cannot conquer the Kingdom of Heaven, the kingdom of the Ideal and the Spirit – it exists solely through God Will not human will.  To start being one with God, one must live an ideal life.  Even More knew that would be a struggle, but he believed in the righteousness of the struggle, according to the Word of Jesus.  It starts with choice, and burden of choice is heavy indeed. 

To seek an army, or crusade, to support one’s belief by force is no more than what the misguided zealots of Islam seek, or by those who do not understand or love God.  To choose to be a Christian and to live within its simple law of love for God and one another, Jesus knew would be a lifelong battle of self. Even He, God’s Son, knew that God was the Spirit when in the desert Jesus rejected the worldly temptation of armies, wealth and power.  Jesus led us toward the Light of the Spirit, out of the cave of darkness toward the Ideals that God demands that we seek and live by.  Jesus knew that if man-woman-kind worked toward the Ideal then man-woman-kind would prosper and build upon small, worthy successes, as God intended.  God gave us Free Will to choose between good and evil.  Our churches, temples, mosques are simple expression of our commitment to the Ideals of God – no more and no less.  It is when we leave those stone edifices the true spirit of Christianity is revealed..or twisted.

Evangelicalism, although having great attributes of faith, also has great weaknesses.  The Catholic endorsed Inquisition tortured and burned tens of thousands of innocent people.  Henry VIII used his evangelical rhetoric to subjugate a nation to his persuasion of thought when faced with the bankruptcy of his government in order to thieve from the Church’s coffers.  Oliver Cromwell murdered countless tens of thousands in his frenzy to establish a Christian Kingdom on earth.  Adolph Hitler and Mussolini's Evangelical message used the Christian faith, as a means to justify their evil.  History is peppered with misguided fools who sought to lead the armies of God.  None succeeded.  Why?

Because God doesn’t need armies, or swords, or guns, or even rhetoric to make His/Her Precense known.  God has already conquered life, already forgiven us, and directs us toward the good and the ideal.  God is here, always here in the Spirit from the beginning of time, to the ifinite of time.  Listen first to those that would help a lame man to cross the street, than politicians or minister who gleans gold from the faithful in a mockery of speech.

Let the people be aware that those who assume leadership of God’s ideals and commands, who speak for God, will be judged more harshly than others, for at thr forefront of their conscience and heart must be the spirit of God, the ideals of God, not the willful desire of self and self interest.  For when  Jesus pointed at the leaders of His time (and let’s not sort them as to faith, wealth, nationality, gender, etc – that is very wrong), He condemned them to bear the guilt of that generation for all time.  For all time.

Let us embrace the unknown with wisdom, courage,valor, fortitude, intelligence, curiosity, humor, exuberance, and hope. Let us trust in God who directs us, in the knowledge that the unknown is God’s territory and God has already provided for we mere mortals in the past, present, and future. This is what our Founding Fathers believed when they constructed a government based upon social contract and the contract of the faithful, this is the trust they had in God’s understanding of their attempt to form a more perfect government of the people.  This is why they separated Church from the State, the Ideal from the Law, the Spirit from the Flesh. 

The truth is God is the Spirit, God is the Ideal, and the human spirit must struggle every moment of its history to ascend to that great level of the Ideal.  It is the most exciting river or road that we humans will ever walk, will ever know, and its history is rich with success, pitted with failure, but we embrace the choice to move forward toward the great ideals set forth for us by God.  That is our destiny.  Its called Faith.

Walden III