Each family has a unique structure like a fingerprint: no two are alike. Some families are close; some are remote. Some families are restricted to blood relatives, most include people where the connection is by marriage or just friendship. All families have some conflict and some are better than others in dealing with that strife.
Many Christian churches stress what they call ‘family values’ even when those values split some families asunder and deny the legal recognition of family to others.
Billy addresses an issue of family strife in the January 16, 2012 Sioux Falls Argus Leader. Billy’s reader asks, “No matter how well I do at something, my Dad tells me I should have done better. Just once I'd like to hear him compliment me, but he never does. Sometimes I wonder if he even loves me. Is God like this?” You can read all of Billy’s answer here.
Billy responds with the usual list of Christian lies. First, Billy says God loves us, “and He has done everything possible to make this a reality.”
Why is this a lie? I don’t know if God loves us or not, but God’s way of showing His love is strange. The world that God created is full of pain and suffering. Not just for humans who may or may not have committed some sin against God, but for every living creature. The life of most animals is brief and ends with being eaten by something else. The world is filled with wonderful gifts from God such as smallpox, which affects only humans, Ebola, HIV, influenza, malaria, polio, river blindness, and thousands of other afflictions.
Then, there is the way that God showed His love for people in the past. After the death of Jesus, God allowed the “Good News” to travel from place to place, in the civilized world, slower than a man could walk. You could only be saved if you accepted the ideas of Christianity, but you could only learn those ideas if some person personally told you about them. If you had the misfortune of living in North or South America or anywhere on an island in the one of the Oceans, including Australia, before about 1500 CE, you were not on the list of people God loved.
The second lie Billy tells is about how great is the love that God has for us. If God loves us, He must want us to be a part of a family and share those ‘family values’.
In Matthew 10:35-36, Jesus talks about His family values: “For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law - a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.” Jesus did have a high regard for family.
Finally Billy tells the biggest lie. Billy says God sent His only Son to die on the cross for our sins. This is what Tim Tebow has written in the rouge under his eye. Consider the multiple lies embedded in this idea.
“God sent His only Son.” God is all-powerful and can do anything. If He wanted more sons, He could just create them. He may have done this since Genesis 6:2 and 6:4 mention the ‘sons of God’.
“… to die on the cross for our sins.” Again, God is said to be all-powerful and can do anything. He did not have to kill Jesus. If He loved us and wanted to save us, all He had to do was say, “I forgive you your sins,” just as He allows priests to do in the confessional.
Some preachers argue that God had no choice; that the sin required a blood sacrifice. Who made that rule? Is there someone more powerful than God who decides what God must do? Either God is all-powerful and can do anything or God is limited and if God is limited, He is not God.
---
If you find my articles interesting, you can subscribe to receive an email when I publish a new article. Thank you.
Read all my articles at my main Examiner site.
Please comment under [Add a new comment] above or scroll down below the article. You can share this article with others by clicking on the icons below my profile picture at the top of this page. Thanks for sharing!
Comments