A bit at a time

This entry was the victim of a time crunch when I first wrote it. I've added a little bit to it that I had wanted in the original.


I've decided to take on the subject of a previous post a little at a time. I was talking about my feelings that we may be going too far over the edge in making the step into a life in faith easy. There are some hard choices (Yes even if you're a liberal Christian!) And there's some stuff that I think is non-negotiable. But most of that is heavy stuff and I don't want to do an incredibly LOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNGGGGG post to deal with them all. So let's take them on one at a time.

Which led me to the question of what's bedrock? What's the absolute bottom of the pile that has to be there? And the answer came back : God exists. If you're a person of faith in any of the three Abrahamic faiths (Christianity, Judaism and Islam) this is the foundation of it all. If you don't buy this one then the rest fall down. If you don't buy this one you may be a lot of things but you can't be a Christian. (I'll let Jewish and Islamic bloggers take it from here on their branches of the family) And I'm not buying the God as "The Force" kind of thing that some theologians (including a very well known Episcopal bishop) seem to be peddling. God is an entity that is capable of interacting with his creation (can we hold off on the gender neutral language debate? I will simply say that I don't believe that God is an anatomically correct male). In fact large portions of the stories of our faith are about those interactions.
But then something else dawned on me. It doesn't matter if I believe that God exists. And it doesn't matter if you (or someone) DOESN'T believe that God exists. Neither point of view changes a single damn thing about God. It doesn't matter if a Harvard professor declares God dead. It doesn't matter how much I pray, how little or what kind of music we play at worship. God is what God is. I don't think we're even capable of understanding what that last sentence really means. I'm also not sure that it matters too awful much. Remember when Moses was up on the mountain and asked God what he should tell the people? God didn't give a big bio, no divine CV of miracles and creation. As much as we like to fluff up the description, adding the beard and the flowing robes and the good looks (at least if you're into old white guys) what was sent back down that mountain was pretty simple...

He said - I am.

Works for me.
Peace