Do You Really Want to See That Justice is Served?

It seems like there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t hear about someone “getting justice” or “escaping justice.” On May 2nd of last year, when Osama Bin Laden was shot to death by American commandos, there were more than a few headlines that read “Justice Served!” Later that summer, Casey Anthony, a Florida mother accused of murdering her own daughter was found Not Guilty on the charge, but many people were outraged at the rendering, complaining that she had “escaped justice.” And just a few days ago, we learned that, after former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour pardoned 222 convicted felons, there were all sorts of complaints that it was “unjust” to have done so.

If there are any controveries that surround those accused of a serious offense, they focus only upon whether or not they did, indeed, commit the crime in question. After that, it’s just assumed, as if it were some apriori truth permanently engraved on the sky, that the guilty are supposed “to receive justice,” a euphemism for “to be made to suffer to the same degree of suffering they caused.”

But so very little is said about what nonsense it is to think that, even were it possible to be 100% sure that every single conviction rendered is accurate, putting the convicted in a cage for the rest of their life or killing them, somehow, makes things “even.” As if to say, “All is well again, now that so-and-so is behind bars or dead.”

Oh really? Even steven? All back to balance, just like the one upheld by the ancient pagan goddess Justitia wearing a blindfold? “Even,” which is the real meaning of the word “just” and, thus, the root of the word “justice” and the name of this deity who is supposedly “served” when such revenge is carried out?

Should Followers of Jesus Serve the Deity Justitia?

Now before I go on, let me once again make a few disclaimers. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be outraged when a crime is committed, when someone is badly injured by another human being, or tortured or murdered or raped or kidnapped. Of course, anyone with any sense of decency and, I should add, with the same sense of right and wrong that Jesus taught, should be outraged at any suffering or loss caused unneccesarily. But such indignation ought not lead to getting even, getting “justice,” getting revenge!

Also, I am fully aware that there are some people who are so damaged in their minds and, at the present time anyway, there is no known way to cure or rehabilitate some people. No matter what we do or how hard we try, there are some who can only be prevented from hurting others by keeping them from roaming freely. But even if we have to permanently institutionalize some people, this should be a last resort and done so with great regret! The purpose should not be to get back at them or to make them pay for what they did. In other words, not prisons, but places of humane care.

Further, let me be clear that I fully understand that there are some situations in which, the only way to stop someone from doing something really bad, is to hurt them in some way in order to disable them. And in rarer cases, the only way to stop some people from doing mortal harm, is to take their life first.

But even then, we should not be happy about it! There shouldn’t be any glee and, certainly, no self-deceipt into thinking such these justified homocides are anything to be proud of, even when they are necessary, but only a necessary evil and, again, a last resort. There should also follow a good deal of examination in order to see how such situations can be prevented in the future.

So, not to worry, I am not advocating that violence should be tolerated. And I get do get it that the level of visceral reaction by the victims or the loved ones of victims of crimes is tremendous and can’t be helped. I’ve little doubt that were someone to bring harm to any of my loved ones, I would probably feel a deep desire to retaliate and, were I not restrained, who is to say that I would not be able to stop myself from acting out against someone in a violent manner, were I to catch someone who had violated one of my children or grandchildren.

There are very few of us who do not have the instinct to get even.

But herein lies the problem–just because the drive for revenge is a very common instinct, that doesn’t make it right! And it’s not only because, in the moment of great indignation, when our capacity to reason is suspended and the primitive part of ourselves takes over, it’s easy to take out our revenge on the wrong person. But as bad as that is, it’s still wrong even in those cases when we have the right person and his or her guilt is beyond all doubt!

The problem is that getting justice accomplishes one thing and one thing only–it doubles down on the evil committed. We end up becoming just like the person who was “the first to spill blood.” We descend into the same pit he is in. And when we get our revenge, our so-called justice, we’ve only added more abuse, more violence and more death, a cycle that never ceases and enlarges as more and more people are sucked into it like a black hole.

The fact is that as long as we tolerate the notion that it is ever OK to hurt someone as the proper response to what that someone did to hurt another, then we are only imitating that very same bad behavior! In reality, all we are doing is reinforcing what’s going on in the criminal mind! The coldest of cold-hearted murderers, when caught, tried and sentenced to death has been cheered on all along to do as he does by our Criminal Justice System, the only difference being the manner of dress or name of the group doing the killing.

A couple of millennia ago, a poor, country healer and teacher began to argue against the notion of serving any deity of revenge. Though the God of his people were, for the most part, convinced otherwise, he began to explain how the God he believed in was different, how He was not out to do unto others as they did unto Him, but just the opposite. In the end, he made his case for this revolutionary concept by offering up his own life and went to his death saying, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

How so very contradictory, then, to think for one second that the God of this same Jesus would ever want to get even with anyone! How much nuttier is it to think He would go far beyond getting even, but to get back at people in an infinitely worse way by putting anyone in Hell! No, while we humans still struggle with our tendency to strike back, we’ve been given some very Good News–that there is a much better way, the way of correction and forgiveness, that the cycle of revenge can, and we could say, has already been broken, on a hill called Calvary.

There’s No Such Thing as Justice, Not Really! (Part One)

Ever wonder why so many people just love the type of movie in which the “bad guys get what they deserve,” especially when it comes from a tainted hero who has to go around the law in some way to give it to them? Think of Dirty Harry, The Crow and, more recently, Watchmen.

Typically, we see the villain victimizing innocent people without any remorse and, often, with a cruel sense of enjoyment. And he seems to get away with his crimes, by either outsmarting or buying off the authorities. Then, finally, the hero comes along, catches up to him, and “gives him a taste of his own medicine,” often putting him to death in some painful fashion.

I have to confess that I, too, have found myself enjoying these revenge movies and telling myself it’s somehow OK to indulge. Even though, when we think about it later on, we know it would be wrong for someone to actually behave in this vengeful way, that knowledge doesn’t keep us from taking some sort of satisfaction, if not, out and out enjoyment from watching these bad guys get pummeled and killed.

Why?

Actually, it’s no secret why we find these stories entertaining–they give us a chance to, vicariously, get revenge, to get back at all the people who have wronged us and hurt us, all those who never apologized, who never realized, who never admitted what they did was wrong and who never seemed to suffer in the same manner. Unless you’ve lived your entire life on a rock all by yourself, you’ve been hurt by someone, that hurt is still there to one degree or another, and years, decades later, there’s no reasonable hope that person will ever show up at your door to say, “I’m really sorry,” or you hear that your victimizer’s behavior “caught up to him,” and he ended up getting hurt the way he hurt you. So guess what? When we’re watching some show in which we see other innocents similarly hurt, but their victimizer gets the “justice” you never got…it feels almost as if the same happened to you!

But why should we have this need to “get even”? Rationally speaking, it makes no sense. Hurting someone who hurt you doesn’t bandage your wounds, reset bones or serve as a drug to ease the pain. Only in rare cases, is it even possible to be re-paid, to have what was taken given back. Certainly, the time spent suffering is lost forever, and even if you get some sort of compensation, it’s almost always just a token.

The reality is there is no such thing as justice or getting even or getting revenge!

I think I need to repeat that, in reality, regardless of how much you may so very want to see someone “get it” for having done something really bad, either to yourself, a loved one or anyone for that matter, it’s never going to happen! Not really. Sure, sometimes people who do bad things get caught, they might experience some “karma” and suffer from the same behavior to a degree, but even when you get your revenge, and even were it to be to exact same degree (however that is measured) as what that person did, that “sweet taste of revenge,” goes sour in very little time.

So why do we want revenge or so-called “justice” so badly? Especially since none of us have ever experienced any lasting satisfaction from it in the few cases when we thought we’d obtained it?

Well, the answer is that we just can’t help it, because we’re “hard-wired” to want to get even. The desire for revenge is an instinctive feeling, actually, more of a biological drive. It comes from somewhere deep in the “lizard” part of our brain.

At some point along the path of evolution, living beings who had a tendency to strike back at other creatures who struck at them (for food, territory or mates) tended to survive better than those who were, for lack of a better term, “forgiving.” The Sabertooth who got smacked by the tusk of a large male Mammoth was not as likely to attack him again. Better to hunt for a smaller, less-aggressive female or a wounded male unable to fight back. For hundreds of millions of years, getting revenge, at least for short periods of time, made sense in terms of who was going to win the game of survival and reproductive success.

We humans inherited this tendency to want to strike back from our primitive ancestors. But when hominids began to grow larger brains, what was a mechanism of deterrance that preoccuppied the smaller brains of our forebears only for a few minutes of anger, turned into an ability (or maybe it’s better to call it a disability) to retain that feeling for a lot longer, even indefinitely.

You could almost say that one of the reasons why human existence has been characterized by war has to do with, at least in part, our inability to let bygones be bygones.

End of Part One. Part Two is coming soon.

Did Jesus Teach Us to Have Blind Faith?

Most of us are familiar with the gospel story of “Doubting Thomas,” the disciple of Jesus who, for some reason, wasn’t around when Jesus first appeared to his disciples after he rose from the dead. The 20th Chapter of the Gospel of John tells us Jesus showed them the scars on his hands and his side from when he was crucified and stabbed with a spear, and then he left. Then, in verses 25-28, Thomas shows up and we read:

“The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe. And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you. Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.”

Once Thomas sees Jesus for himself, he believes, just as the other disciples did, but it’s in the next verse (29) where Jesus says something that has been used for centuries to justify the insistence that people “blindly” believe what they’re told:

“Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.”

In fact, the expression “blind belief,” or the type of belief that relies on no evidence whatsoever, stems from this story…or I should say, from the way it’s usually presented from the pulpit.

So, did Jesus really mean to say it’s a good thing to believe what we’re told without any proof at all? Or when we hear this common interpretation, could it be that this is just another one of the hundreds of other examples of Jesus’ words having been twisted to mean something he didn’t actually intend?

Well, let’s start with a little process of elimination. Jesus could not have meant that it’s wrong to believe in him on the basis of visual evidence of a miracle, thus the biblical term “sign.” If this had been the case, then he certainly wouldn’t have done so many miracles. Jesus wouldn’t have shown his hands and side to any of the disciples. In fact, in the very next two verses (30-31), John says, “And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through His name.”

Consequently, it makes no sense at all to think the point Jesus was making in verse 29 was that there is something wrong with believing on the basis of visual evidence. So the question then becomes whether or not Jesus was saying that it’s better to believe on the basis of no evidence.

Well, once again, the answer becomes clear when we go back and re-read this famous passage without Doctrine Goggles. If so, then you should notice that Jesus did not, I repeat, did not say, “Blessed are they who don’t have any evidence whatsoever and yet believe.” No, all he said was that those who don’t rely on visual evidence to believe are blessed, that they have an advantage of some sort.

So what was he getting at, if he was not arguing in favor of what we now call blind belief?

The first clue has to do with what it is that makes visible miracles an unreliable means of determining actual truth.

Back in 1972, I met a follower of a then fairly popular, somewhat overweight teenage Indian guru named Pret Rawat, better known at the time as Maharaji Ji. The follower was quite convinced Rawat was the Messiah and that he knew this because of the miracles he had witnessed. When I asked for an example, he claimed he had personally witnessed a levitation in the air of some other believer in the name of this guru. After seeing that, he just knew all the MaharaJi Ji’s other claims must be true.

I guess you could say that, in that moment, I was not only a Doubting Thomas, but I didn’t even bother to say that I might believe too if only I could see a levitation for myself. The reason is probably because I had already seen a number of magician shows in which it was made to appear that levitations were occurring, but they were illusions.

You see, the problem with believing in anything on the basis of what we see is that, as any illusionist/magician can tell us, our eyes can be deceived! Whether it’s levitating someone off the floor or removing cancerous tissues without doing surgery, there are magicians who can do the exact same tricks, mostly by diverting our attention at just the right moment so our brain doesn’t register what’s really going on.

This isn’t to say that everything we see is an illusion. In fact, most visual perceptions are probably fairly accurate. Ironically, though, it’s this very general accuracy that tends to make us all the more susceptible to being fooled by those who know how to divert our eyes.

But there’s actually a more important issue here, even if someone were capable of performing an actual miracle—it wouldn’t necessarily mean everything else that guy says is true! Far worse than the human weakness to have our eyes deceive us is the tendency to fall prey to the faulty logic, “If A is true, then B-Z must also be true.” There was no good reason for that follower of Guru Rawat’s to assume that he was also the Messiah, just because he could levitate people off the ground. To have such an ability would only show that he could do one unusual and entertaining thing. But no one ever saw him leap over a tall building with a single bound and, clearly, he did not usher in an age of peace!

And then there’s the been-there-done-it factor. Many of the things that were thought of as miracles at one time are now thought to be common place. We fly through the air. We cook food in seconds. We talk to people on the other side of the world. When people first saw an airplane or a microwave oven or a cell phone, they seemed to be supernatural in nature (in fact, I recall when microwave ovens first came out, we called them “Magic Ovens”), but only because it’s a new experience. If ever someone were to figure out how to actually levitate, then that too will seem quite amazing…for a while. But once the science behind the process is revealed and spread about, and people then get used to it, any Messianic claims by someone floating people off the ground will be obviously ridiculous. In other words, what passes for a miraculous sign is in many if not most cases, just something that our technology has not yet allowed us to do…but give it time.

So, if visual evidence of the miraculous is iffy, what other sort of evidence could serve as a good reason to believe? What kind of evidence cannot be faked or accomplished by technology? What was the much more reliable sort of evidence that Jesus was telling Thomas about, so much so that it isn’t subject to the weaknesses of visual evidence?

How about the transformation of the human heart!

Yeah, I know, that sounds a bit mushy to the cynical ear but, really and truly, even if one day humanity acquires all the technology imagined in Star Trek (we’ve pretty much got the “Communicator” already, but just as the TV shows and subsequent movies emphasize), the challenge of getting people (or all the other intelligent life forms) to choose good over evil remains.

Jesus spoke about this in another passage (Matthew 9:2-7 and Mark 2:3-12) where, a man who was crippled was brought to him for healing, but the first thing he said was, “Be of good cheer, your sins are forgiven.” There happened to be some scribes present who began to say amongst themselves that Jesus had committed blasphemy, but he turned to them and said, “Which is easier? To tell this man his sins are forgiven or to stand up and walk?” The scribes didn’t answer, and that’s because the implication was clear–sure, it’s possible to fake a physical healing, but there is no faking it when you’ve hurt someone and they forgive you! Any time someone is slapped in the face and responds by turning the other cheek, it’s a miracle.

What is it, then, that can explain why some people, regardless of whether or not they belong to a religion or none at all, come to be fully convinced that doing good, even in response to bad, is the best way to live? How is it that, in spite of all the millions of acts of cruelty that humanity has committed for millennia, somehow, in the midst of all this evil, some people rose up to say, “This isn’t working!” and began to talk about living in accord with some wierd, invisible thing we call “charity”?

You can’t see it. You can’t study it in a lab. And there is no scientific theory of its existence on some quantum level. But there are more than a few who seem to be 100% convinced that loving thy neighbor as thyself is not only applaudable, but that it’s utterly foolish not to! That people who embrace this invisible charity thing, are not only themselves transformed for the better, but their influence is felt all around them.

Now let’s go back to the story of Doubting Thomas. Jesus didn’t have any problem with Thomas believing on the basis of what he could physically see. But he explained that the really, really, really best and most reliable evidence of God’s existence and His desire to save us, not from Himself as those who perpetuate the lie of Hell claim, but from the suffering we cause one another, is the immediate proof that results from embracing Jesus’ principle message–to do good, even to those who do bad. To love, even to those who hate. To forgive, even to those who seek revenge. When we do (as Jesus taught in Matthew 5:45), we prove to be the children of our Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

Let’s Put the Merry Back in Christmas!

I had an experience last week that, for me, sums up just how much has been lost as a result of the “War on Christmas.” I was in a religious book store in a desperate attempt to find a book of Christmas songs. I had looked all over, initially thinking every store would have a wide selection of song books with all the old favorites, from Away in the Manger to Here Comes Santa Claus. But guess what? There were none to be found!

I should back up. For years, my children and I have gathered together to celebrate Christmas. We have a number of traditions, such as burning a Yule Log with wishes for the coming year, which we always write down, store away and read the following year to see which ones came true. But this year, we wanted to add another tradition–to sing Christmas carols, though we’re not sure how many of us can carry a tune. When I mentioned it to my kids, they were very enthused, so off I went last weekend to find some songbooks. But store after store (and I mean stores that had every other immaginable Christmas product) had not one Christmas song book.

Oh, there were plenty of every other type of Christmas song books, such as ones with special music by this or that performing artist. There were scores of Christmas song CDs by all sorts of bands, choirs and pop stars. There was even a book about the history of Christmas carols at my local book store. But no simple song books.

“So,” I thought, “surely, that little Evangelical book store run by those who, these days, are so adament about putting Christ back in Christmas, will have plenty to choose from.” Though I had this uneasy feeling in my gut that I was going to face some sort of diappointment.

And sure enough, as I went through the doors of the Family Christian Bookstore and bounded up to the check out/information desk, I was greeted by an employee who said some very familar words, but the way in which he said it stopped me in my tracks–”Merry Christmas!” Yes, he greeted me with a Merry Christmas…but not in what I or what I should think most ordinary people would consider “traditional.” In other words, not Merry Christmas with a smile and some sense of happiness to it. Not Merry Christmas with any sort of joy or peace or good will. And no where near the sort of Merry Christmas Old Saint Nick would heartily bellow.

No, it was an angry Merry Christmas! It was the sort of Merry Christmas in Scrooge’s opening comments of A Christmas Carol, followed by his wish that any who said it ought to be boiled in their Christmas pudding. It was the sort of Merry Christmas that the mocking Grinch would say (before his heart was increased in size). Now that I think about it, it was very close to the kind of Merry Christmas that I heard from a popular comedian some years ago who inserted a vulgarity inbetween–”Merry F***ing Christmas!” It was the most UNmerry Christmas I’ve ever heard!

How did it come to this? While there have always been some controversies and questions raised about Christmas, it seems to me that in the past several years, the complaints about what’s happened to Christmas have gone into overdrive…and the direction has changed. Before, I recall hearing complaints (most of them quite justified) about how Christmas has become too commercialized, a materialistic orgy, and a season that leaves millions of people in too much credit card debt.

But now, it’s about something else. Now, there is a war, yeah a war on Christmas! That is, if you believe what’s coming from the Evangelicals these days and their partners on right wing TV and talk radio:

Forces of evil, inspired by Satan, himself, are motivating atheists to rob us of Christmas. These evil forces are what’s responsible for holiday cards that say, “Seasons Greetings,” instead of “Merry Christmas.” The enemies of the Church have denied children the right to celebrate Christmas at school (and according to Governor and candidate for president Rick Perry, the same enemies who made it OK for gays to serve openly in the military, yeah, like that’s a bad thing.) And, of course, the most wicked organization on earth, the ACLU, by virtue of their direct pact with Beelazub, have removed manger scene decorations from city hall lawns.

So now, they’re fighting back! Onward Christian soldiers to defend and put Christ back in Christmas, starting with a campaign to say “Merry Christmas” any time they can to whomever they can, because they’re gonna show everyone that they’re not gonna take it anymore.

Really? So, Evangelicals are just responding to decades of anti-Christmas oppression and a godless movement determined to stamp out Christianity, starting with this revered holiday? They were just minding their own business and as merry as could be with the salvation of Christ and the love of God in their hearts and didn’t feel the need to do any of this fighting back until they were “attacked”? And poor, defensely Baby Jesus, was essentially kidnapped, not just from his manger, but apparently with his manger, Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the three kings, the oxen and the donkeys? Oh, and the Star of Bethlehem, too!

Or did this war start a bit differently?

I’m gonna say, “Very differently!”

You see, this so-called War on Christmas didn’t begin with atheists or Satan worshippers…not even gays. No, this all began when someone who had a whole lot of the religion named after Christ, but who didn’t have an ounce of the Spirit of Christ decided it would be a great idea to use Christmas as an avenue to ram their politicized, tribalistic version of Jesus onto everyone in society and if they didn’t respond by joining up with the “INs,” then they would be dehumanized and labeled as the “OUTs.” In no time at all, it became clear that Evangelicals were gonna have none of the unifying spirit of Christmas that each year, for a litle while anyway, brought people together, offered a light of hope and inspired charity. Of course, the result has been a severe loss of the Merry of Christmas and, sure, this Christmas-become-a-proselytizing-tool has scared a lot of non Evangelical believers, some of whom, now feel they have to do all they can to reinforce the wall of separation between Church and State.

And I can’t help but feel that was just the response they were hoping for! Having pushed those who don’t believe as they do to push back–just like the bullies at school used to do when I was young–now they can claim whatever they do is justified because “they started it.”

But what the Evangelicals don’t get is that almost all the athiests and non Evangelicals out there used to be very tolerant of (and I bet would be quite tolerant again) the Christmas holiday season, if not actively happy to participate in it! I dare say many long for the time when Christmas was just about, well, Christmas! And there’s a growing sadness for how Christmas has become bitterly politicized!

What to do? Well, I know where I’m going to start–I’m going to do what I can to revive the Merry of Christmas.

Getting back to my songbook story, not even the religious book store had any regular Christmas song books. I’m still not sure why. I’d like to think there are so many families hoping to sing together that they had already bought up all the song books, and it’s too close to Christmas for the stores to back order them. Or it could be that people just aren’t singing carols that much any more…but I was still determined.

So I finally just went on the Internet, found a website that had about 20 Christmas songs, printed them out, made copies and made my own little song booklets. When my kids and grandkids come over to celebrate Christmas, we’re gonna sing them as best we can, but however it sounds, we’ll do so with joy. On Christmas Eve, I even hope to go out and do some caroling. And, yes, in case you didn’t catch it, we’re going to sing, not just the Baby Jesus songs, but the Santa Claus ones too.

In spite of all the efforts of those who have done all they can to subvert the Good News of Jesus, twisting him and God the Father into the most hateful and cruel beings in the universe, I don’t think it’s an accident that the Spirit of the real Christ continues to find ways to break through all the distortion, even in the form of a jolly, loving and giving grandfather figure who, joyfully, wished Merry Christmas to all!

I’ve come to the conclusion that we were all a whole lot better off back when there was no particular conflict between Baby Jesus and Santa or, at least, no acute problem. There was a peaceful coexistence–Rudolf, Frosty and Santa’s elves got along just fine with Mary, Joseph, the 3 Wise Men and the shepherds. Jingle Bells had the effect of arousing the joy of Christmas, and when anyone said, “Merry Christmas!” they were actually doing so with merriment.

In other words, we don’t have to and no one should co-opt the birthday of Jesus and use it as a platform to convert people. It’s missing the point of the whole reason Christ came in the first place to use Christmas greetings as a type of secret hand-shake to determine who is with us and who is against us. The War on Christmas is an oxymoran. To wage war, even in “defense” of Christmas is to repudiate the message of the angels who proclaimed, “Peace on earth and good will to [all] men!”

So, I will be wishing people a Merry Christmas. Why? Simply because Christ the Savior is Born and Santa Claus is coming to town!

More Questions About Heaven and the Kingdom of God

One of my new readers asked me a few questions after reading my book Hell? No! that perhaps many of you have also wondered about. So I thought I would quote them here and do my best to answer each one:

Question 1: “I understand that everyone will go to heaven, but you say there will be followers and leaders. The followers are the ones who were the major sinners. Does that mean that followers can never do anything in heaven to become leaders?”

Answer 1: Let’s start with who goes to Heaven–according to Jesus, no one! OK, not to worry, this doesn’t mean everyone is going to Hell. What Jesus actually taught was that, when this age concludes, it will be followed by another one that will begin when the Messiah returns to set up the Kingdom of God right here on earth. He never said “the kingdom of God” meant the same thing as “Heaven.” But it’s often confused as such, in part, because devout Jews of his day often used the term “Heaven” as synonymous with “God” or “Yahweh,” with the thought that His name was too holy to say out loud or in writing. It may very well be that when the Church became almost exclusively a Gentile religion toward the end of the first century, the non-Jewish believers mistook these references to mean the the kingdom would actually be in some other dimension, and the idea has stuck ever since.

However, the original Jewish believers didn’t think ordinary humans could ever come directly into the presense of God who is in Heaven. God is so great that it would be impossible to actually see Him face to face. The only way to encounter God at all would be for Him to become one of us. So, the kingdom of God won’t actually be where we would see God the Father in all His glory, but He will be present through his Son, Jesus.

Now, why does the location matter? Well, it matters because all the commonly held perceptions of Heaven as some ethereal, mystical and spiritual realm would be completely foreign to what Jesus, his disciples and most Jews of their day envisioned. For them, the coming kingdom was going to be a very concrete reality! It was going to be a real kingdom that would replace the empire of Rome. The tables were going to be turned! Instead of pagan Romans running the world, it would be the faithful Jews running the world. Instead of the Jews getting stuck with all the lowly positions in society, the Romans would have to take all the “suck jobs,” if I may use today’s vernacular.

When the disciples wanted to know which of them would be the “greatest” in the kingdom, they weren’t talking about having a brighter halo. By the “greatest” or by “sitting on the right or left hand of the throne,” they were talking about getting the best appointments in a new empire, serving as the King’s prime ministers. This is important to understand because there will be a lot of things to do–destruction to be cleared away, building to be done, people to reach out to. Quite unlike the “beatific vision” which is, if you think about it, not a lot different from just a bunch of people getting high for eternity, the kingdom of God that Jesus spoke of is going to be dynamic, vibrant and full of ever new things to create, discover and build upon.

Question 2: “You say the people who were the major sinners on earth won’t receive rewards in heaven, but isn’t being in heaven, a big enough reward itself? Along with this, you say we will understand why the sinners on earth were the way they were, ex. chemical imbalance, subject to abuse, etc. Would these people be the followers and receive nothing, bc and that wouldn’t seem fair bc they couldn’t help or control their own actions?”

Answer 2: Once more, we need to rid ourselves of all the propaganda that is constantly diseminated about what will happen upon the coming of the Messiah to set up his kingdom. For one thing, it’s not, I repeat, not going to be “the end of the world.” Jesus spoke of the next age as a new beginning! It’s not as if every thing and every one will be frozen in place, once the Judgment Day is over. The purpose of the Judgment is to allow for everyone to see clearly, to understand their own hearts and those of others.

But because we now only “see through a glass darkly,” it’s not always very clear who is really going about their Father’s business and who is only going through the motions of religious activity. Jesus often warned the Pharisees that, in spite of all their overt appearances of righteousness, that they could very well end up being the last to enter the kingdom.

This warning tells us a lot. For one, it is assuring to know that, while the next age will begin with some people, maybe the last we would ever expect, maybe people who we would have, in this age, thought of us “vile sinners,” will be the “first” to “enter,” meaning, the first to become full-fledged citizens, and those who only talked the talk, but didn’t walk the walk will be the “last,” at least they will, eventually, “get in.” So, sure, they will not be condemned for eternity. But the self-righteous will have to spend some time (how much is unclear) outside the gates of the New Jerusalem, not in Hell, but in humbling service, not as a retaliation, but as a lesson so they, too, upon learning their lesson, can eventually “come in” (become citizens) as well.

Question 3: Do you speak about the subject anywhere?

Answer 3: My schedule is pretty packed, but I am available to guest teach or speak at churches’, bible studies, home groups, etc.

Question 4: Are you a pastor?

Answer 4: No, I thought it about it at one time, and I suppose I should never say never, but at this time I feel my calling is to teach, through my writings and, when practical, in person.

Hell Comes From Religious Idiocrasy

One of my favorite movies is Idiocracy (directed by Mike Judge and starring Luke Wilson and Maya Rudolph), a satire about a future United States in which everyone has become stupid, thanks in large part to the long-term effects of corporate advertising. The main character (Wilson) wakes up in the year 2505 after a secret military hibernation experiment that was supposed to last one year goes awry. Although he was chosen for the test because he was so average, in this future world, he’s the smartest man on the planet. However, he keeps running into trouble because he tries again and again to reason with people. Finally, he figures out that he has to get down to their low intellectual level just to survive and prevent a nation-wide famine caused by a deeply held belief that plants need only a sport drink called “Brawndo” in order to grow, in spite of the fact that all the crops are failing. After hearing people regurgitate the tag line of the company that makes Brawndo over and over again, “Brawndo’s got what plants crave; it’s got electrolytes!” he resorts to claiming he can talk to plants, and they say they want plain water instead. In the end, he saves the nation and is made the President!

One reason I like this movie so much is that it strikes me as a fitting metaphor of what it must have been like (and continues to be like) for God to communicate with humanity. While it sure would have been nice if, thousands of years ago, He could have just revealed Himself completely, just as He was, and reasoned with people about why they should stop doing so many destructive things to each other, it would have gotten Him nowhere. There was so much revenge and terror and oppression going on, so much cruelty and needless suffering, that they were just completely incapable of getting what God really wanted to tell them.

What was He to do? Perhaps He could have just said, “Forget them! Humanity is a lost cause!” But He didn’t. Instead, He began to reach down to the pits that Man had sunk to and spoke in ways that they could understand, though it must have hurt His heart to do so. Little by little, He began to introduce ideas of change, in small steps, however much could be done to lift humanity out of the gutter of sin. In time, He felt like He could go ahead and reveal Himself fully, by coming to us in person and laying out what He really wanted from us and what He really wanted to do for us. In a nutshell, this is what the “Good News” of Christianity is all about.

Very sad to say, though, a lot of modern Christians still don’t get Him! Many look at the things that are in the Bible which were only meant to serve as stop-gap measures as if they were God’s final and full message, especially when it comes to the Old Testament. They just don’t understand that much of what was said back then were baby-step commands, given only to curb the very worst of what was going on until people could get to a place where they could understand the fullness of God’s desire.

Jesus ran into the same thing. The religious of his day had mistaken so much of Moses Law and the prophets for a ton of rules and regulations that only weighed people down. Jesus explained that God had resorted to issuing a lot of commands strictly because of the hardness of Man’s heart.

This is what he was getting at when he gave his famous Sermon on the Mount. By standing on a big hill just as Moses once did when he received the Ten Commandments, Jesus had chosen a symbol that was unmistakable to the Jews of his day, especially when he, then, began to contrast what Moses had said to what he was now revealing. For example, he took what Moses had said about revenge, “Thou shalt take [only] an eye for an eye and [only] a tooth for a tooth,” a rule that was actually meant only to curb vengeful Man from taking dozens of eyes and teeth for the loss of only one, and he took it to a whole new level, the one God had been hoping to bring us to all along, when he then said, “But I say to you, if someone slaps you on the cheek, turn to him the other.” In other words, the full message of God was that it’s never OK to return evil for evil, even if it’s in equal amounts (or “just” amounts, where the word “justice” comes from). He went on to explain that God doesn’t actually punish people, but that He only returns good for evil, love for hate and forgiveness for sin, therefore, He calls all who believe in Him to do the same.

Of course, the message of Jesus has been greatly obscured, almost no sooner than the original 12 disciples were either martyred or passed away. Not only has the religious leadership of today managed to keep millions of believers from understanding what God really wants, but they’ve made it even worse by making Him out to be so full of vengeance, that He not only wants to get even, but supposedly intends to torture most of humanity for all eternity! Talk about religious idiocrasy!

But here’s the good news—they haven’t stomped out the truth completely! Even though there is a massive delusion going on, the Good News is still available. One can find it even in the worst translations of the Bible.

That said and given all the religious idiocrasy out there, it might difficult to grasp. This is why I wrote my book “Hell? No!” No, I’m not going so far as to pretend I can talk to plants, but I can relate to Wilson’s character when I hear someone who says they believe in Jesus but can turn right around and say he is going to inflict more suffering on people than all that people have ever done to each other because there is some part of him that is “just,” which is just as idiotic as thinking plants will grow and thrive on sport drinks because they have electrolytes.

God is Not a Witchdoctor

I have a recollection from my childhood about when I was first exposed to the idea that someone under a magical curse could be delivered from the evil spell by transferring it to an animal. I was watching a TV sitcom in which the show’s two main characters had dressed themselves up as “witchdoctors” and proceeded to dance about and chant in order to transfer the evil. I don’t specifically recall how the episode ended, but I believe the attempt failed because they finally figured out there really wasn’t a curse in the first place.

This method of trying to help people who had experienced an unusual amount of bad luck is very ancient. It goes back to the earliest days of human existence when there was very little understanding of what really caused bad things to happen. Most people back then thought spirits and demons and gods were causing most of the events around them and, in time, they came to rely very heavily on anyone who seemed to be an expert on how to drive out demons, appease angry gods and remove evil curses—shamans or the less respectful term “witchdoctors.”

Now, imagine for a moment what it must have been like for the type of God that Jesus of Nazareth told us about Who, for thousands of years, was trying to get through all this superstitious nonsense in order to help people understand that it was people or natural events that caused bad things to happen, not Him or any false gods or demons or evil spells. If God can be frustrated, He sure must have been, not only way back then, but even now!

Sad to say, this superstitious idea continues to grip millions of people who have been indoctrinated with the crazy idea that God is so angry with humanity, He’s just gotta torture them all forever, but He’ll let some people off the hook because, when Jesus died on the cross, God was acting just like some sort of cosmic witchdoctor who magically transfered all the sins of humanity onto Jesus and, then, punished him instead!

I wish it were needless to say, but this belief is wrong in several ways. Where to begin! Well, let’s start with Jesus having informed us that God has no need at all to “get even” with people when they do something wrong, much less to get back at people infinitely more than what would be “even” or “just” (which is where the word “justice” comes from). But even if He did, transferring the blame onto Jesus and, then, punishing him (well, setting him up to be tortured and killed by the Jews and Romans), admittedly, in a very horrific manner that lasted for roughly one day, is no where near the cumulative amount of suffering billions of people would endure while being burned alive for all eternity! But even if we go with the idea that Jesus’ suffering was equal to that of all who would go to Hell then, surely, all the sins of every person that ever lived or will live would have been paid for 100%, right? No one would have to suffer any punishment at all because, we’re told, Jesus took all the punishment people deserved upon himself, correct?

Well, appparantly not! Because then we’re told that this payment is only good for those who believe in just the right way (or get baptized in the right church or live a certain way, etc.). In other words, a lot of Jesus’ suffering and bloodshed will go to waste! Somehow, not only did this Cosmic Witchdoctor magically transfer all of humanity’s sins onto Jesus but, somehow, he’s going to magically reverse the process for a bunch of people and send them to Hell after all!

Sorry, but this belief, popular though it may still be, is totally bogus!

What then, is the real meaning behind Jesus’ death on the cross if not to serve as a human sacrifice? Good question! To find the answer, though, we have to realize just how much trouble some religious people have gone to in order to make the Scriptures conform to their superstitious beliefs.

One of the best examples is found in Isaiah 53:5f, a passage in the Old Testament that is widely accepted by Christian theologians as a prophesy of Jesus’ death on the cross. First, let’s look at how it reads in the King James Bible–”he was wounded for [emphasis mine] our transgressions.” Almost every sermon given on this passage takes the word “for” and slips in the idea “in place of us” before it. But if you’ll look carefully, it says no such thing! But they get away with it because it’s rare nowadays to use the word “for” as a synonym for “because of,” which is what the original Hebrew means.

Notice, then, the humongous difference in the meaning when rendered more accurately in today’s English, “he was wounded because of our transgressions.” (Disappointingly, very few modern English bible translations have this better rendering, largely because of the fear that the publishers would be widely condemned by ultra conservatives for “changing the Bible,” though all they would really be doing is presenting a much more accurate translation of the original wording.) In other words, Jesus was not some sort of scapegoat in the sense of having been injected with the sins of all humanity by God who had providentially arranged for the Romans to serve as His torturers and executioners but, on the contrary, his wounds were caused directly by sinful Man.

When we say Jesus “took” our sins on the cross, it’s completely wrong to think this means the guilt of all our sins was tranferred to him. No, what it means is that he endured the needless suffering humanity inflicts. (In case you didn’t know, the definition of “transgression” or “sin” is when we do something that makes others or ourselves suffer for no good reason.) His passion was The Demonstration of God’s patience and love. He didn’t have to do it, but Jesus chose to just take it! To allow Man to inflict suffering and shame and death upon him and, yet, respond with nothing but forgiveness and love. Though he could have summoned 12 legions of angels to rescue him and, in theory anyway, retaliate against everyone who had done him wrong, he chose instead to say, “Father forgive them, because they don’t know what they’re doing.”

Therefore, the cross should be the greatest assurance ever that God has no intention of hurting us, but wants to rescue us from the many ways we hurt each other, to forgive us for the hurts (sins) we’ve done, and to aid us in doing what we can to spreading healing instead.

Pouring the New Wine Into Old Wineskins Leads to Hell

Whenever we read the Old Testament, it’s very important to realize why it’s called old–because it’s been superceded by a new one! No dah, right? Well, sad to say, there are a lot of Christian believers who have been fed a lot of confusion on this point, so please allow me to explain further.

But first, I want to make sure that I don’t mean to sound offensive to any of the Jewish faith. I’m only pointing out the fact that anyone who believes Jesus is the Messiah should automatically believe the Jewish Bible was incomplete, that it was not the final and full revelation of what God really wants. (Of course, if one is religiously Jewish, then what Christians call the Old Testament is The Bible.) Otherwise, there never would have come a need for a New Covenant. This is why Jesus said he had come to fulfill the Law (of Moses). Clearly, he meant the Old Testament was missing some things, thus, the need to fill it up.

So just what was the purpose of the Old Testament if it was not the final and full revelation of what God really wants? Well, Jesus explained this in a number of ways, but the one that, in my view, answers this question the best was when he was confronted by some Mosaic legalists who were trying to ensnare him in an argument about when it was “OK” under the Law of Moses to abandon a female sex slave on the street (Deuteronomy 24:1), a practice known as “putting away.” His answer–”Moses gave you that law because of the hardness of your hearts.” He went on to explain that what God really wanted was for their to be no sexual slavery at all, but for men and women to fall in love naturally and form sexual relationships of their own free will.

Then he did something very interesting by giving his own version of a “hardness of heart” command as a way of underscoring his point–that if one is going to insist on buying and owning another human being for sexual purposes, then one is obligated to never abandon her (which almost always resulted in her either becoming a beggar or a prostitute), but to take care of her for all her life. He was not endorsing sexual slavery, but pointing out how ludicrous it was to buy and sell women like cattle in the first place. (And just to be clear, all those modern Bible translations that equate “putting away” to modern “divorce” are way off! It is no more correct to equate ancient laws governing the female sex slave trade to modern marriage than to equate ancient laws governing slave labor to modern worker rights and responsibilities.)

So why did God, speaking through Moses, give a command that seemingly allowed for sexual slavery? The answer is that it was a stop-gap measure, a way of capping off the worst effects of wicked, human behavior until it could be stopped altogether. In other words, as bad as women were being treated in Jesus’ day, before the Law of Moses came along, they were being treated even worse! When God saw what the Israelites were doing to women, much as He would have liked to give them the full message of His Good News, which included the liberation of women by means of His unconditional love for them as much as anyone else, He knew men were just not ready. Their hearts were too hard, i.e., uncaring, unempathic and unloving.

On the other hand, had He waited until Man was ready to hear what He really wanted before He said anything would have allowed for a great deal of suffering in the meantime and, besides, how was Man to ever get to that place from such a debased position? So He reached down to where sinful Man was with a command designed to put some limits on his selfish behavior (By the way, the fancy theological name for this is Progressive Revelation).

Deuteronomy 24:1 accomplished this baby step toward the fullness of what God really wants by telling men who had purchased a female sex slave that they had better think twice before they throw her out (like during a fit of anger) because, after that, they can’t have her back and, when they do, they had to put it in writing and give her a sealed copy so she was legally free to be taken in by another man.

From our modern perspective, these limited protections don’t seem like much of an improvement. But we have to bear in mind that one of the big reasons why women are treated more as equals to men today is thanks to those first small steps in right direction given by Moses and, ultimately, to the teachings of Jesus which laid a groundwork for lifting women out of the slavery they once had to universally endure.

However, there are more than a few people today who don’t really want to give up their wicked ways, whether it’s to mistreat women and push them back in the direction of sexual slavery or to violate the many other ways in which Jesus told us and showed us what God really wants of us. Sadly, there are a lot of Evangelical leaders who don’t really want to embrace the Good News. They prefer, instead, to do as those Mosaic legalists, to take the Law of Moses and twist it all around to suit their selfish and vindictive ways.

This is why we often hear them perpetuate the lie of Hell on the basis of Old Testament stop-gap measures as if they were the end and be all of God’s truth. Rather than interpret the Law and the Prophets in the light of what Jesus said and did, they put the progressive revelation of God in reverse!

Interestingly, Jesus saw this coming! He predicted that people would take, as he put it, the “new wine” of the New Covenant and try to rework it into the Old, or “pour it into an old wineskin,” with the result that it “bursts open and all the wine spills out!”

We can see today how the New Wine is being spilled out, as it were, because of all those who misuse the Old Testament to justify their wicked intentions. They’ve turned the unconditionally loving God of Jesus into a vindictive, vengeful and angry deity who plans on torturing most people for all eternity. They’ve twisted the best news that humanity has ever heard into the worst news ever.

But that doesn’t mean the Good News is stamped out! While there is a great delusion that has fallen upon so many, this doesn’t mean the truth has changed. For any who are willing to pull off the doctrine goggles men have strapped over the eyes of unsuspecting believers and take a fresh look at what Jesus actually taught and demonstrated, they can and will see the real Good News about a God who does not condemn, but forgives and loves us all.

Why Do Many Who Believe in Hell…Wish They Didn’t Have To!

Not long ago, I was told by an Evangelical that believing there is no Hell is “wishful thinking.” This was a very interesting statement, because those two little words provide us a window into a very strange phenomenon–that there should be people who say they are convinced there is a Hell, but who also admit they wish it were not so!

How is it that they can be so conflicted? After all, they claim God’s plan to torture billions for eternity will be a completely and utterly righteous thing to do, in that God is perfect and can only do good. So it must be a wonderfully good thing that God plans to do, that making people suffer in the worst possible way, without end, is somehow going to be the biggest blessing ever.

Now, these are the same people who also say they believe Jesus was not just a good teacher or a prophet, but the actual Son of God, the Word of God, the final and full Expression of God in human form. So it should stand to reason that God’s intention to torture billions with fire is in perfect keeping with everything Jesus taught and the way he acted. Surely, all his teachings and all his actions were 100% consistent with the notion that even the teeniest, tinyist sin so violates God’s sense of justice, that He can only respond by hurting that sinner in the worst way for all eternity.

Well, hopefully a good number of you have already figured out why it should be difficult for believers to have a problem with the idea of being oh so happy to know God is going to do such a very “good” thing–because the idea of getting back at people to any degree is diametrically opposed to what Jesus taught and how he behaved, because he went about healing and taking away the pain of those who were suffering, and because no matter what people did to him, he always responded with forgiveness, not revenge!

In other words, the reason some believers, thank God, struggle with the notion of Hell is because, in spite of all the indoctrination they receive that makes them feel like they have to believe it, they have learned enough about what Jesus said and how he demonstrated what God was like, that somewhere deep inside their minds and hearts they know the doctrine of Hell completely contradicts the Good News he brought!

In fact, these conflicted believers also sense very strongly that there is something seriously wrong with those believers who are anything but conflicted! In case it’s not clear who I’m talking about, these would be those very scary believers who seem to be looking forward to watching people get tossed into Hell’s flames! It’s as if they can’t wait to sit on the walls of the New Jerusalem with bags of popcorn, to take great delight in watching the lost convulse in utter agony! They’re often the type who, when trying to get someone converted, but meeting resistance, start leveling threats like, “You’ll see I’m right when the flames of Hell start burning you alive!”

But don’t these people just make ya sick? And don’t those of you who feel like you have to believe in Hell get a feeling way down deep in the gut that says, “There’s something very wrong with that attitude.” (I’ll give you a little hint–that feeling in your gut is the Holy Spirit trying to tell you something!)

Allow me to point out another strange thing about these conflicted believers in Hell–they never envision Jesus casting people into Hell. Even though they believe he IS God, that he is ONE with the Father, that he was the actual incarnation, the Word or Expression of God, the only way they can picture anyone sending people to Hell is to mentally shove that job over to a distorted image of God the Father–that grey haired, long bearded, angry, Old Testament type God…and even then, He delegates the task to some angels! But if they were to seriously accept the diety of Christ, then Jesus would have to be directly involved in making sure that billions of people suffer for eternity.

Well, of course, it’s ridiculous to think Jesus would toss anyone in Hell, keep them there and make sure to keep Hell’s thermostat on “infinitely hot”! If this were true then he would, for sure, not be the same, today, yesterday and forever! And since he is one with the Father, it’s just as crazy to think He would do the same (else He would not be God the Father, but a cosmic “Godfather!”).

The reason is simple, Jesus actually did bring Good News about God, that He is truly a good and loving Father, that He is not some sort of cosmic torturer, but a loving parent who is patiently calling to every one of his children (and that would be everybody) to respond to his unconditional love.

Volunteers Needed to Help the Suffering…Just in Case There is a Tribulation

If you’ve spent any time at all around Evangelicals, then you’ve probably heard a lot about the belief that Jesus is coming again soon, well, again and once more after that! We’ve been told that he will first come about half way in order to rapture (which is similar to the way people were “beamed up” on Star Trek) all of us believers to Heaven, so he can then start sending all sorts of plagues, wars and disasters upon the earth, spreading death and suffering to all of humanity left behind (Yeah, just like in all those books).

But the truth is that Jesus never said he would come a second and a third time, but just one more time. Also, he never taught us to hope to be raptured away from people who are suffering, but that we should go to them, to do whatever we can to help them, just like Jesus showed us when he was here.

He actually rejected the notion that God causes suffering, that He hurts people, that He has some crazy need to get back at them, to “get even” (Pssst, in case ya didn’t know, “justice” is just another way of saying “getting even,” so all this propaganda about God being “just,” therefore, He has to make people suffer, is total balownee!) No, instead he told us that God is in the Forgiving and Loving business, not the Getting Vendettas business. He is God the Father; not the Godfather!

So, if we really and truly believe in Jesus, and want to follow him, i.e., live the way he lived, what would Jesus do were it true that a Tribulation were about to begin? Of course, he would say, “I have come to help the suffering, to heal the sick, to comfort those who have lost loved ones.” So, as a follower of Jesus, I want to say it right now, as a prayer, “Lord, if it’s true that humanity is on the verge of a great tribulation, that people are going to unleash wars and plagues upon one another, and many millions will suffer as a result, please do NOT rapture me, because I would want to be here to help out all those who are going to need help more than ever and to show them your love.” Amen! Now, who is going to volunteer with me?