Liberal Christianity

Lesson 6: Ethics and Morality

Pleasing God, God’s Approval and Authorization

In a fundamentalist sense, life must be a microcosm of the macro-assumption that God is a monarch, rules by edict and an extortive factor that is supposed to be both loving and harsh, simultaneously merciful and judgmental. So long as we view our world as something strictly ruled by God it will never be a world managed or loved by God in the purest sense of love and parenting.

The God of compassion does not need to come and judge, for as we learn, understand and appreciate compassion, we become our own harshest judges. For when we “sin” - a word that does not denote an evil act in its original non-English meaning -we have missed of the mark. Our sense of missing the mark and not measuring up to standards we ought to have internalized will be more spiritually grounded than the idea of accountability to a clipboard full of evil behavior.

The strongest contemporary congregations are not those that preach sinfulness, guilt and shame. Find any congregation that is thriving and you'll find a congregation that is self-driven, motivated perhaps by wise preaching that emphasizes thoughtful and practical application of Christian concepts in working on resolution to contemporary and personal issues. You'll not find such a congregation driven by insistence on blind faith in traditional orthodoxy and dogmatic labels.

You will find congregations organized among themselves into self-supporting systems guided but not dominated by authority or charisma focused at the presiding levels of leadership. Healthy and growing congregations with spiritual and material prosperity are not doing so in urban cultural and intellectual environments because of a reliance on old-time evangelism, fire-and-brimstone oratory and appeals to blind faith.

These congregations are congregations of actions, often sub-divided into like-minded mini-groups who share similar life circumstances, for example, young married couples building young families. They pray together and play together. When adversity comes, they rally around each other in prayer, sustaining and actual material support. They do not keep score nor assume some sense of orthodoxy in worthiness. For the most part, especially with each other they are or try to be non-judgmental and supportive.

Sermons on righteousness must not be sermons on self-righteousness. Sermons on judgment day should not be given in such a way as to incite thoughts of how righteous it feels to be judgmental. Goodness should be taught as something desired rather than something by which salvation is earned.

Exercises:

1. Someone recently wrote to me saying, “Only those who propagate such are those who only want to reinvent their own personal God, yet doing so with no authority.”

I had expressed the idea that whether one admits it or not, one's relationship with God is totally and entirely personal.

a. If the statement is true and mine wrong, what authority might be needed before such a relationship is established?

b. Reconcile the idea of a God who delegates "authority" and dispenses different doses of wisdom to each individual with the God in scripture who is no respecter of persons and who causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust.

c. Is it true that God will talk to a priest before God will talk to a parishioner? Why or why not?

d. Some sort of worthiness status must be achieved before one can receive the Word personally. Agree or disagree and why?

e. God will curse the person who does not believe men who claim to be God's chosen mouthpieces. Agree or disagree and why?

2. “Arthur, God has not asked your opinion, nor mine as we can only react to what is given to us through His chosen men.”

a. Does that mean that we have a patriarchal God who talks only through male prophets? “ Agree or disagree and why?

b. What logic is there to the idea that the mind and will of God cannot be received for mankind through a woman?

3. Actual parenting taught me more about what it might be like to wear God’s shoes than any scripture, sermon or church ritual. What do I want for my children to have become after they’ve grown to adulthood? I personally want for them to have become self-sufficient, self- reliant, loving, honest and just people.

a. What do you think God ultimately desires in terms for humanity?

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