Did God Really Say?
A “re-post” of what I posted Feb 22 2009
Just thinking “out loud” here… Why is it that so many Christians have been “trained” not to ask questions? That somehow, asking questions automatically is the start of our slide down a slippery slope?
I have had several conversations with people over the past couple of weeks about what it means to follow Jesus, about what Jesus asked us to really do, and about some of the things that Christians seem to be obsessed about that Jesus didn’t even mention.
One conversation was on-line, on a message board where people were discussing “the afterlife”. I dropped in to read what people had written, and found that a young man from our church was supporting the “Christian” viewpoint on the board. So were a number of other people.
The disturbing thing to me was that there was an atheist on there who came across as sounding far more coherent and logical than many of the others, including his valid criticisms of Christianity. He was simply posting some true comments about the history of the Bible, and about some of the terrible things done in the name of Christianity through history, and how Christianity (including the beliefs) have dramatically changed over time. So what do we believe now? What really is true, and what isn’t? It was a good question.
The Christians were simply re-iterating (over and over) the same lines of belief, saying a prayer, going to church, all to avoid hell and end up in Heaven. Numerous scripture references were posted out of context to support their arguments.
I posted a few scriptures (see my earlier post about this) to show what Jesus actually said about who was “in” and who was “out”. I also commented that, as followers of Jesus, it wasn’t our job to decide who was a Christian and who wasn’t (since many on the board were trying to define that…).
The reply from one of the Christians? They used the same line I have heard many times before… a reference to Genesis 3:1…
Their response was “Does the line “Did God really say?” seem familiar?”
Somehow, this line is used to instill fear in Christians, because it is inferred that if you ever question a commonly held “Christian” belief, if you ever ask the question “Did God really say?”, you are now following the path of the serpent.
As a Christian, we never want to follow the path of the serpent. Or the path of Satan as it is then modified to mean (although Genesis doesn’t actually say the serpent was Satan).
So, we are always taught never to ask the question “Did God really say?”.
My response on the board? Yes, it does seem familiar. And yes, I am asking the question “Did God really say?” because I want to know that what I am doing, or believing, is something that God, or Jesus, really did say, and not just something invented by church or religion.
Another of my conversations was with a person from the church we have been attending. He stopped by to talk about other things, and somehow the conversation drifted towards some of the popular “evangelistic” messages and tools used in many churches, and how it just wasn’t working. This person already had reservations about the effectiveness of these methods (the typical “scare them out of hell so they want to go to heaven” methods), so I just added a bit of “fuel to the fire” by asking a few questions about what it was that Jesus really taught – about Hell, about following Jesus, about the “rapture” – and suggested he take another close look at the Bible.
He did admit that, for the past couple of years, he has “felt uncomfortable” with the current church situation, but also knew that simply going to a different church wouldn’t fix anything. He mentioned that, in some way, it felt like he was simply “putting in time” at the church until he could figure out what he needed to do.
He also mentioned that he knew a number of other people, at other churches, going through the same thing. Why?
These people want to follow Jesus. They are “still there” at the church. The problem is that they know their questions will not be deemed appropriate, and instead of actually addressing the questions, they will be told that they are wrong, that they need to “flee the enemy”, that they need to conform to the beliefs of the church.
They are not allowed to ask the question “Did God really say?” They don’t want to be associated with serpents.
Asking the question, “Did God really say?” is not really the problem.
The problem is when we know what God said and don’t listen!
We’ve managed to get it backwards – again.