Call me skeptical but please remember to call a heap a heap.  It will surely elicit raised brows and kangaroo court shenanigans.  The only place that can be guaranteed to be safe from misinformation and indoctrination is the grade school classroom.  Once a week church school is a shallow pool where the millions drown and we act as if we do not notice.  The popular sages have a slogan for every thing, and whether the slogan is God and country or mein kampf or our country it is guaranteed to be something other than meaningful for everyone.

Religious people have a lot of empty slogans

Here are a few popular mantras.  They persist despite the complete uselessness of creation as an instigator of faith, despite the audacity of dividing the world into us and them, despite the unqualified goodness of God, and despite the unique identity and endowments of each individual.

• Him who created. Before God was creator he was saviour. Moses interpreted the weekly sabbath as a memorial of release from bondage (Deu. 5:15)
• Of all the earth. The only barrier that prevents God is the absence of faith.  God’s name is excellent in all the earth.
• God is good ALL THE TIME. What else can he be? What does time have to do with God’s essential attributes
• What he’s done for others he will do for you.  How dare any of us want to be treated like someone else? Is God not capable of having gifts tailored to our individual composition?

Reflections on creeds and manifestos

On sober reevaluation, not even the grade school classroom is safe.  The murder of children in their classrooms, the exclusion of girls from the grade school classroom, the segregation and the marginalization of girls in the classroom are grave threats to the effectiveness of the common maxims and a huge boost to the meaningless mantras of established and long-lived religions.   I think if Augustine could have see the age of colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade he may well have scrapped his City of God.  The daring of 21st century believers and Muslims to try to sell religious government is twin up rank ignorance.  The noble record of the Torah and commentary on it have not even a hint that  any slogan has approximated a sustainable lifestyle, much less a legacy.

Two disappointing confessions

• “I’m not perfect” denies the readily available status as mature and no longer juvenile, settling for the schizophrenic sinful/sinless seesaw s
• “I can do all things” is as blasphemous as unproductive “Christians” can get.

One of the most extreme commands Yeshua uttered was “Y’all must be perfect , as the heavenly Father is”.  To a man, Christians explain away the call to maturity so they can soak in the puddles of their tradition.  If we checked that box alone we would find ourselves in the company of Christ, the only genuine representation of divinity.  Sadly, Christians are preparing to dump Yeshua so they can regress into Mosaic shadows and cyclical culture.

The capacity to do all things is exclusively a “God” thing.  What madness ensues when Christians allow themselves to follow a weak translation of Philippians 4:13.  “I am strong for all things” is not “I can do all things”.  πάντα ισχύω is a long way from δυναμαι ποιείν πάντα.

When did God ever ask a human being to do all things?  All the things we need are locked up in Yahweh’s vault and treasury. The day we are able to do all things is the day God throws in the towel. Slogans are sometimes innocent dreaming, but they can also be deadly landslides that block the way to humility, the kindness, and justice.

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? Mic 6:8