Sunday, March 20, 2016

God on Our Side?

Many good Christians indulge in a doubt-free confidence that God specially-ordained this nation, or that he put us here as part of some Grand Plan of his. Such notions, here and elsewhere, have led to all kinds of mischief and downright evil, even in the midst of otherwise worthy human endeavors.

Material Bounty and Earthly Success  God's Blessing

American Christians now wring their hands and worry that perhaps God has removed his special blessing from this nation, but is there any evidence that we ever enjoyed his special attention? From my reading of the Bible, God will bless the righteous, but not always with earthly success and material wealth. Look at the 12 Apostles: One hanged himself, and ten more died gruesome deaths for preaching the Gospel. Did God hate them? Or did he love them?

Jews: God's Chosen, or God's Cursed?

Yes, God led his chosen people out of slavery and into the promised land, but what a long, strange trip it was. And once ensconced in the land of milk and honey, life for God's chosen was not a worry-free repose of relaxation and safety. It was just the beginning of another long struggle.

Six Million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust.  They have lived a precarious existence ever sincer God called Abram. Slavery, pogroms, ethnic cleansing, ghettos, suspicion, scapegoating and hatred have stalked them throughout history.  Are they blessed?  Or cursed?

Christians:  Blessed or Punished?

Does God hate all those Middle Eastern Christians being murdered, enslaved, raped, burned and bombed out of their homes and churches by muslim fanatics?

Does God place the overstuffed lives of gluttonous, materialistic, cock-sure American Christians over the squalid lives of the poor souls suffering in Africa? Are we better than them? Is that why we enjoy God's material bounty and they do not?

Does God hate Christianity?

Christianity is dying here in the US, practically dead in Europe, and a confident Islam is ascendant. Based upon the evidence worldwide, Muslims could claim God loves them best. They are growing, spreading, He makes them fruitful and they multiply.

It is a dangerous and conceited deception to believe we are God’s Chosen, especially when the United States is not even mentioned in the Bible. 

Politicized Christianity is a Whitewashed Sepulcher

I reject it, along with its false prophets of fake plastic Jesus Movement Conservatism.

I stand with old Honest Abe...
Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right. -- Abraham Lincoln

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Related: George Washington's Christian Faith

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