Roadkill

Don’t Eat That

Her column http://www.creators.com/liberal/connie-schultz.html yesterday struck head of spike again. In the relief of the moment we can’t help being thankful, but feeling blessed for surviving the tornado though the neighbors lost their home and a child, what about them, why weren’t they blessed? Or is my religion selfish, even obscene, or worse, my God partial? Yet our God is personal, and in Cleveland that day I truly felt blessed with all the prayers and awaking looking up at Nicholas and Tass. Moreover, being thankful is a gut reaction for us. But Connie Schultz, while others thanked God for a miracle, God is good, when three Cleveland women were rescued from a decade in hell, Schultz said of herself, “I am a deeply flawed Christian” -- instead of thanking God -- for wondering where God was the ten years the women were chained, raped, bullied and tormented by a madman. 

Religion is always dragged into the present kicking, screaming and inquisiting. With the enlightenment, Copernicus, Galileo, modern cosmology and genetics, and progressing somewhat beyond believing that the blue dome of the firmament is one half of the corpse of Tiamat* holding back the churning waters of chaos above while the other half of her corpse forms the dry land that holds back the chaotic waters below, religion continually needs enlightening: who or what is God? Lynn H., a beloved parishioner of years past, used to say as she shook my hand going out of church Sunday mornings, "You've certainly given us something to think about!" Lynn was such a kind and positive person that I always took it as a compliment. But we do need to think. Reason: an Anglican precept. We need to think and progress, not only generally, but specifically about the question: who or what is God? We must not be Christians whose God is small, whose minds are vacant or afraid, and whose religion is more evil than the tornado itself -- asserting that the tornado was God’s punishment for Jason Collins coming out. What about the innocents killed by the tornado, swept away by the tsunami, buried in the landslide? Voltaire has the answer: while God was punishing sinners, the deaths of the innocent was the work of the devil. Sarcasm is better than stupidity. And if an apocalyptic meteorite hits earth today, an ecclesiasticus of mental cripples will trace it to the Boy Scouts of America.

My coffee just now is in a new mug that says among other things, "no snake handling, we can believe in dinosaurs, you don't have to check your brain at the door." We religious must work at shriving imbedded absurdities that see the wrath of God in every storm. Theologically, metaphorically, there is evil in the very nature of things, danger is woven into the fabric of Creation, viz. the divinely created serpent. When evil is random, Rabbi Kushner has the answer: the question is not why? but when. Tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, progeria, tsunamis and floods. Avalanches, lightning strikes, brain tumors, shifting tectonic plates and volcanic eruptions, crashes beyond the control of the innocent. Random and impersonal, but we can rage. Twice when a William died I cursed the heavens, yet I am still alive, and I will shake my fist again, perhaps yet today when I go by to say hello and pray and maybe leave a flower from our Altar. Christianity, faith, religion that cannot accommodate creation, science, and observable reality is roadkill, don’t eat that, don't swallow that.

Candide has a line. “At length, while the two kings were causing Te Deums to be sung in their camps,” each side singing praises to lure God on side thus assuring victory for their cause. Are we fools? 

Progressive religion sweeps away the roadkill; but for many, perhaps for most, perhaps even for Christians of Reason, the obstacle may be unscalable, Word.A.Day says himalayan. Mark Twain said faith is believing what you know damn well ain't so. It doesn't have to be that way. Created in the likeness of God, we can think.

TW+ 

* enuma elish

Harold Kushner, When Bad Things Happen To Good People