Many people let themselves “go with the flow”; they take the path that requires the least amount of effort. Parents and other adults offer advice, suggestions, instructions, or orders to children and young adults making this process easy for the young. Society requires more decision-making by people as they grow up. Some believe that God speaks to them, telling them what to do. Society, in general, accepts this as a valid process. No one challenges a political candidate when they claim that God told them to run for office. Those same people would scoff if a candidate claimed space aliens told them to seek office.
In the November 28, 2011, Sioux Falls Argus Leader, a reader asks Billy Graham how to know if something is God’s will? The reader says, “How can I tell if God is telling me to do something, or if I'm just imagining it must be OK with God, but it isn't? I want to do what's right, but sometimes I think God told me to do something, but later I realize He probably didn't.” You can read all of Billy’s answer here.
Billy starts with his standard “God loves you,” but then wanders off into the minefield of lies. Billy says God wants to show us His will. If that is the case, why is there so much confusion over what God wants us to do? Starting almost immediately after the death of Jesus, there were conflicting views about what it meant to be a Jesus follower. There was no clear direction from God about Christianity. The various groups competed for followers and forged books to support their position over the position of others. Read Bart D. Ehrman’s Forged to see how the religion claiming to be the true religion is based on lies and forgeries.
Each Christian denomination is headed by a person, generally a man, or in a few cases a committee, generally men, who make the decisions for the group. Just to pick a few people, let’s take Roman Catholicism’s Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Presiding Bishop of the ECLA, and the President of the LDS Church. If God speaks to anyone, it should be to these church leaders. There is no common theme from these leaders; what one says is contradicted by the others.
It might be logical to believe that God wants humans to unite and worship Him in a single religion. However, we do not see very much movement toward bringing those churches together. They believe and practice in different and sometimes contradictory ways. If God is speaking unity, He is not being heard. Is God speaking a different message to each of these leaders? What sense does that make?
After this whopper about God showing humans His will, Billy goes off on a different path. Billy had said that people should listen to God and do what God wills. Still confused? Billy then tells you what God’s will is! Billy is God’s mouthpiece. Billy says God wants you to ask Christ to come into your life. Muslims, who believe Allah directs their lives, would be very confused at this point. So would Hindus, Buddhists, and Shintoists.
Finally, Billy misses a big part of the reader’s bewilderment. The reader says, “… sometimes I think God told me to do something, but later I realize He probably didn't.” Billy could have sent a powerful message by telling the reader that God probably would not want the reader to do something that is illegal or harmful to another person. Far too many people have heard God telling them to kill or injure someone. We don’t need more crazies shooting up the town and claiming they had divine guidance to do it.
What would it have cost Billy to tell the reader to judge the validity of the voice in his head by comparing the command to what is socially acceptable? Would a God that seems to anti-abortion tell a mother to kill her children?
The problem is that this kind of judgment requires rationality and for a person who believes God is speaking to him the rationality train has left the station.
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