The God Brokers
Let’s get one thing straight, right from the outset. Religion is not intrinsically a bad thing. It can be a powerful force for good, provided it’s done right.
In the Hebrew Bible, the prophet Micah gives it to us straight. “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”
The Apostle James says, “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”
Jesus himself tells us bluntly, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
The problem is not with religion, it’s what we do with it. As the wise theologian Ronnie Hawkins put it, “I have no problem with the Almighty. It’s the ground crew I have a problem with”. He’s quite correct, most religions are fine in concept, not so much in the execution.
There are two keys to understanding why religion is far more often a force for evil than a force for good. They relate respectively to the leaders, and to the followers.
Religious authority brings with it power, and as Lord Acton observed, “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Let’s say I can convince you I have an inside track with the deity of your choice and I can get the deity to bless you or curse you. Do you think that might give me some leverage? If I can convince you that I am the sole authoritative interpreter of the ancient scripts, I will have your rapt attention, and if I can get you to believe that doing as I say has a direct bearing on your eternal bliss or eternal damnation, well, I’d have power over peasant and potentate alike. Seen this way, a priesthood becomes little more than a spiritual protection racket.
But it’s a two-way street. To have leaders, you need followers. If as a follower I don’t demand much or question much, then not much is required of my leaders. If I ignore plain evidence and accept stuff which is patent nonsense, and have neither the courage nor the interest to question anything I’m told, then I deserve to pay the price of gullibility, which is the surrender of my dignity and autonomy.
Patriarch Kirill of Moscow tells Russian teenagers that God hates Ukraine, and if those kids die in battle, their souls will be saved and their sins forgiven. The ayatollahs tell their kids the same thing, just different enemies. Either way the state gets all the cannon fodder it needs, and mothers get the cold comfort of knowing their sacrificed sons are in heaven.
Robert Jeffress preaches to his 14,000 strong First Baptist Church that a corrupt narcissist who cheats, lies, and fornicates, is anointed of God. Numerous televangelists have told their viewers that God spoke to them in a dream and God would bless any viewer who gave sacrificially to help buy them a new jet plane. Jonestown and the Waco shootout weren’t aberrations, they were just everyday cults that got out of hand. Decent people died because they were gullible.
Whether you surrender your life, your fortune, or just your pride, the common denominator is a suspension of common sense. Whether it’s the Easter Bunny or a major deity, you have to do better than follow the words of Dubya, “I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe – I believe what I believe is right.”
The Apostle James gave us this insight “… shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.” It’s not the words, it’s the deeds.
And thus endeth the lesson.