FELLOW CHRISTIANS, FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST, STOP STEPPING ALL OVER OUR MOST POWERFUL MESSAGE!

By Edwin Cooney

As many of you are aware, this June will mark the beginning of the tenth year I’ve been writing these columns.  Much of the time I’m familiar enough with a topic to not only cogently present it, but also to analyze and interpret its various significances.  Now, I’m stuck and I need your help.  Why do Christians invariably belittle God’s greatest creation, God’s people?

Earlier this very day, a dedicated Christian gentleman sent me a story which I’ll briefly relay:

A homeless child, cold and hungry, asks a policeman to tell him where he can find a warm place to sleep as the box he’s been living in is so cold these winter nights.  The policeman advises the youngster to go to a nearby house which he promptly points to, and to knock on the door.  When the lady answers all he has to say is “John 3:16” and he’ll have a warm place to sleep.  The boy does as the policeman suggests and before he knows it, he has not only been welcomed, seated by a fire, but fed.  When this lady admits him, when she invites him to sit by the fire and when she feeds, bathes and puts him to bed he says to himself: “Wow! John 3:16, I don’t understand it, but it really works.”

The following morning after breakfast the nice lady explains that John 3:16 tells how God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son so that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life and that God sacrificed His son’s life for the sake of you and me.  Again, the lad feels the force of that news and although he doesn’t understand it, because he’s already experienced its force, he thereby dedicates his life to Jesus Christ.

Okay, fair enough.  John 3:16 is perhaps the most powerful and meaningful passage in Holy writ, perhaps even the best news that one could possibly receive.  The idea that God, the mightiest force in all being, loves you and me enough to drag His own son through hell for our sake is incredible.  Wow! What news that is!  (Exactly why God would consider it necessary to maim and kill His own son is something I’ll never grasp, but God’s standards are ultimately God’s business and way beyond my ken!)

Then, suddenly, the Christian teller of this story proceeds to destroy, at least for me, the whole message.

If you’re not ashamed, says this evangelizing storyteller, pass this around.  In other words, if you don’t choose to tell this wonderful story, it’s because you’re ashamed.  That assumption is nothing less than an insult if you ask me. I have no doubt about the existence of God or that Jesus Christ came to earth as the Son of God and died according to God’s standards for the sake of my soul.  I’d feel utterly lonesome if I didn’t believe such is the case.  I’m not in the least ashamed of what I believe.  However, as I see it, the major flaw in the entire Christian message is the invariable belittling of God’s people.

Here we are, the highest order of God’s creation – greater than the bees, birds, animals, oceans, land masses, air, water, the earth and even the Milky Way and much of the Christian message is how unworthy we are.  Christians aren’t alone in this; many other religions are as bad or even worse -- as are some modern atheists who have made atheism a religion.  Atheists, who criticize Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists for their lack of realism, like their co-religionists, have lately adopted ridicule in defense of their own convictions.  I suppose ridicule is invariably everyone’s weapon including, on occasion, this budding columnist.

Here’s the bottom line as I see it.  The “news” the New Testament brings us is wonderful.  I love warm and fuzzies – the idea that God is out there as a Force of both strong and gentle eternal love which will enfold us once existence on this planet has come to an end.  I even accept the idea that God expects you and me to love one another, as sister and brother, as a reflection of our love for God.  In fact, I suggest that the real way we curse God isn’t via the use of profanity, but when we express disdain for each other.  We, after all, are God’s most brilliant creation, magnificent as is the rest of God’s domain.

My distress is with the Christian message.  The news is wonderful, but the strategy of distributing shame is soul-destroying.  As I see it, when an evangelist shames you, he or she steps on the message.  What’s beyond me is how Christians find power in shame.

When Christians speak, write, compose, sing, pray and celebrate God’s inevitable love, their message is consistent with “the good news” they seek to convey.  However, when they use shame and guilt to belittle someone, they step all over their holy message.

Of course I’m ashamed, as I ought to be, of some things I’ve thought, said, and done – but I’m not even close to being ashamed of anything, of absolutely anything in which I’ve believed.

Hence I say to my fellow co-Christian religionists, send me, by all means, on the swiftest wings possible, the good news of God’s love, but keep your message of guilt and shame to yourselves.

My fellow Christians, for the love of Christ, stop stepping all over our most powerful message!

As for my beliefs, I’m shameless.  Let’s see now –- I’ve believed in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the tooth fairy, Elvis Presley, Billy Martin, the Yankees and Richard Nixon!  This may shock you, but I don’t apologize for believing in any of them either!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY