The Global Conversation

Author: Neale Donald Walsch

  • Survival is not the
    ‘basic instinct’ of humans

    You may have already known that the Agenda of the Soul is something to which you should be paying attention, but it might not have been made clear to you just how important it is to your personal, earthly well-being.

    Yes, not just to your spiritual well-being, but to your physical, psychological, emotional, social, and even financial well-being as well. There is nothing else in Life that can bring you security, health, prosperity, happiness, and inner peace faster or more abundantly than the achieving of Completion. This is, of course, the opposite of what you have been told. There are, you have been advised, many other things to which you must pay attention.

    You have been told that to be happy in Life you need to get the guy, get the girl, get the car, get the job, get the house, get the spouse, get the kids, get the better job, get the better house, get the promotion, get the grandkids, get the gray hair, get the office in the corner, get the retirement watch, get the illness, get the burial plot, and then get out.

    You have been told that you need to obey God’s commands, do God’s will, follow God’s law, spread God’s word, and fear God’s wrath, for when you face God’s judgment you will be begging for God’s mercy—and, depending on your offenses, you may not get it, but rather, may find yourself condemned to everlasting and unbearable torture in the fires of hell.

    You have been told about the Survival of the Fittest and that To the Victor Go the Spoils, that Nice Guys Finish Last and that The One with the Most Toys Wins, that It’s Every Man for Himself and that The End Justifies the Means, that Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees and that You’re to Be Seen and Not Heard and that You Are Not to Color Outside the Lines and that You Made Your Bed and Now You Have to Lie in It.

    You have been told that There Is Only One Way to Heaven and You’d Better Get It Right, that It’s Us Against Them, and that You Can’t Fight City Hall; that you should Never Raise Your Head Above the Crowd, that You Can’t Have Your Cake and Eat It, and that you should Never Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch.

    Your Mind has been filled with many, many others messages that have created a day-to-day reality so far removed from your real reason for being on the Earth that it is a wonder you find any joy or excitement in life at all.

    * * *

    Now you are being told that the only thing that matters doesn’t have to do with any of this. The missing puzzle piece revolves around how you reach Completion on The Sacred Journey of the Soul. Can this be true?

    It can, and it is.

    But don’t worry; going where your Soul seeks to go will not deny you the Good Life. Completion of the Agenda of the Soul will get you everything that your Body and your Mind signal to you that they desire to enjoy.

    This is not about giving up one aspect of Life for another. Trust that. Pay attention to the Soul’s Agenda, and to what it takes to complete it, and the rest of Life—not only what you desire, but all that you may imagine that you need—will take care of itself. It will take care of itself by itself.

    Or, to paraphrase a far more eloquent statement:

     

    Don’t go around asking,
    “What are we to eat?” “What are we to drink?”
    “Wherewithal shall we clothe ourselves?”
    Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven,
    and all else shall be added unto you.

     

    The “Kingdom of Heaven” and “Completion of The Sacred Journey” refer to the same experience. The problem with both phrases is that no one has lately (if ever) explained or described to you what this experience is, and how to achieve it.

    * * *

    The Kingdom of Heaven is not a physical location, it is a State of Being. It is, in fact, the state of being “Complete.” And so it is perfect that the two phrases are used here interchangeably.

    It is literally “heaven” for humans to find themselves in a state in which there is nothing left to be, do, or have in any given Moment in order to experience inner peace, total love, and absolute bliss, because All That Is and all that one could ever desire is fully present, fully expressed, and fully experienced Right Here, Right Now.

    You are Complete.

    The Agenda of the Soul is to bring The Totality of You to this very State, so that the aspect of Life that is called “you” may express, experience, reflect, demonstrate, and personify the aspect of Life that is called Divinity.

    This is your Basic Instinct.

    * * *

    Survival is the Basic Instinct of most chemical or biological life forms. It is what makes flowers turn toward the sun. It is what makes birds fly to warmer climates. It is what makes turtles recede into their shells. It is what makes lions roar and rattlesnakes shake their rattle.

    Survival is not, however, the Basic Instinct of human beings—nor of any sentient creatures in the cosmos who have evolved into Self Consciousness. For such beings, the Basic Instinct is Divinity.

    If your Basic Instinct were survival, you would run away from the flames of the burning house. But you run into the flames, because you’ve heard a baby cry. In that Moment your survival is not the issue.

    If your Basic Instinct were survival, you would turn away from the man with the gun. But you stand between the man and the person he is assaulting. In that Moment your survival is not the issue.

    Something deep inside of you, something you cannot describe or name, calls to you in such Moments to demonstrate at the highest level Who You Really Are.

    People who have done this, when interviewed by the newspapers later, never put it that way, of course. They say they simply acted on instinct.

    But it surely could not have been survival instinct, for their actions defied survival. Yet they had no fear—not even a thought of fear—at the time, because Who They Really Are knows that survival is not the issue. It knows that their survival is guaranteed. There are no questions about whether they will survive, the only questions are: How? In what form? Why? And for what purpose?

    These become, in moments of self-realization, Life’s Only Inquiries. And in moments of self-realization, the Mind and the Soul answer as One.

    Instantly.

    * * *

    As a human, your Basic Instinct is on display when the Complete Being that is you is Completely Remembered, Recreated, Reintegrated, and Reunited with Divinity.

    Even as the tiniest cell within you is a member of your Body, so is every element of physical Life a member of the Body of God. When the Mind’s Experience and the Soul’s Knowledge combine to produce elevated Consciousness, human beings choose to experience themselves once again as members of the Body of God. They are thus said to have Re-Membered.

    ====================================================
    The above excerpt is from The Only Thing That Matters, which the author, Neale Donald Walsch, has described as the most important writing he has been inspired to produce since Conversations with God-Book One

  • President Obama has decided to commit the U.S. to sending small arms to the rebels fighting a revolutionary war in Syria. Do you agree with this decision? What do you believe The New Spirituality would teach about this choice — and about the Syrian uprising itself?

  • WHISTLEBLOWERS MOVE ‘TRANSPARENCY’
    TO TOP OF PUBLIC AGENDA

    The world will one day move to a model of Total Transparency. All highly evolved societies do. We are told this in Conversations with God. The question is how, and when?

    There are those who say that transparency will never work unless and until all elements, all segments, of society are operating on the same model. I agree that this would be the most effective implementation of the idea. Yet it is clear to me that waiting for all cultures, organizations, institutions, governments, corporations, and individuals on our planet to embrace this notion simultaneously would be a waste of time. Such a shift in global consciousness is never going to happen all at once, with the snap of a finger. How, then, will it be produced? By people, organizations, and governments demonstrating leadership through showing the way.

    This will take great courage. Masses of people do not like individual people who show the way to a new lifestyle. We like followers, not leaders.

    We accuse leaders of making us “wrong,” of putting down our current way of being, of tearing apart our society with their “new ideas” and their “new rules,” and with their exposing of our foibles and of the non-beneficial outcomes of our present behaviors.

    My favorite (and saddest) story about this is the account of Ignaz Semmelweis, described in Wikipedia as a Hungarian physician of German extraction and now known as an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures.

    According to the Wikipedia article, Dr. Semmelweis “discovered that the incidence of puerperal fever could be drastically cut by the use of hand disinfection in obstetrical clinics. Puerperal fever was common in mid-19th-century hospitals and often fatal, with mortality at 10%–35%. Semmelweis postulated the theory of washing with chlorinated lime solutions in 1847 while working in Vienna General Hospital’s First Obstetrical Clinic, where doctors’ wards had three times the mortality of midwives’ wards. He published a book of his findings in Etiology, Concept and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever.

    “Despite various publications of results where hand-washing reduced mortality to below 1%, Semmelweis’s observations conflicted with the established scientific and medical opinions of the time and his ideas were rejected by the medical community. Some doctors were offended at the suggestion that they should wash their hands and Semmelweis could offer no acceptable scientific explanation for his findings.

    “Semmelweis’s practice earned widespread acceptance only years after his death, when Louis Pasteur confirmed the germ theory and Joseph Lister, acting on the French micropbiologissst’s research, practiced and operated, using hygienic methods, with great success. In 1865, Semmelweis was committed to an asylum,  where he died at age 47 after being beaten by the guards as he tried to escape, only 14 days after he was committed.”

    Four of the latest people to show us our foibles and the non-beneficial outcomes of our behaviors have been Julian Assange, the Australian Internet activist who is created with having created WikiLeaks; Bradley Manning, a United States Army soldier arrested in May 2010 in Iraq on suspicion of having passed diplomatic cables and other classified material to WikiLeaks — much of which is said by some to have generated many of the uprisings of what has come to be called the Arab Spring; William Binney, described by Wikipedia as “a former highly placed intelligence official with the United States National Security Agency turned whistleblower,” who has repeatedly claimed that the NSA regularly engages in warrantless eavesdropping, including surveillance of email, phone records, and other data; and Edward J. Snowden, the latest whistleblower, who recently unveiled information about U.S. Government surveillance of phone records and other data from millions of Americans.

    All are considered by many to be traitors and criminals, who some believe should be punished by death or by life imprisonment for revealing the military, diplomatic, and security secrets of governments (chiefly, the U.S. Government) to the world.

    Whether these men are “traitors” or “heroes” is a matter for history to decide. But they certainly do illustrate the danger of some people practicing transparency while others do not. Lives can be at stake — as those who argue for severe punishment of these men point out. Yet it has also been argued by others that many lives have been saved as a result of their whistleblowing.

    Whatever the outcome of their cases and of their lives, there is no question that they and others have placed high on the public agenda the topic of just how open human society should be and can be. And the invitation in Conversations with God is for all of us, on an individual level, to practice complete and utter transparency in our daily lives, personal and business interactions, and intimate relationships — whether or not others are doing so also.

    In this, as in all things that produce revolutionary and evolutionary shifts in our global society, somebody has to go first.

  • Introducing your child to the concept and the reality of God – Part III

    We have been talking here at length about introducing children to the idea of God. In our last post we said…”Let’s say that your daughter has heard at her friend’s house that God punishes us if we don’t do what He wants us to do. She’s heard that if we are not careful we could wind up going to “hell.” Now what do you say? “Sweetheart, that’s not true.” OR…“I certainly hope that’s not true. Let’s cross our fingers.”

    Yes…these questions about how to proceed are not small questions. So let’s back up right here and start at the beginning. The first thing you need to do as you explore how to introduce your child to the concept and the reality of God is to get clear about what YOU think about the concept and reality of God.

    So let’s take a little survey of your own thoughts and ideas…

    Let’s find out what you think about God

    Here is a little Multiple Choice quiz for you. Complete the following statements. You may select one or more than one answer from the choices given…or offer you own answer.

    1. The existence of God is:
    A. Pure myth and fiction and untrue
    B. Something I’m not sure about
    C. Not doubted by me for a moment

    ==========================================================PLEASE NOTE: IF YOU CHOSE “A” OR “B” ABOVE THERE IS NO POINT IN YOUR FINISHING THE READING OF THIS ENTRY. IT HAS NOT BEEN PREPARED FOR PARENTS WHO DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD AND ARE SIMPLY LOOKING FOR STRATEGIES TO USE WHEN ASKED ABOUT THE SUBJECT BY THEIR CHILDREN.

    THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN PREPARED FOR PARENTS WHO HAVE READ CONVERSATIONS WITH GOD, WHO AGREE IN THE MAIN WITH ITS CONTENTS, AND WHO WISH TO SHARE ITS MESSAGE WITH THEIR CHILDREN.

    (As parents who have read these books know, CWG does not indicate that there is only one way to think about God, nor that its own message is the inviolable truth about God. Quite to the contrary, the most striking point made in the dialogue is that no outside authority should ever replace one’s own inner experience regarding who and what God is, what God wants, and God’s role (if any) in our lives. However, a belief in some kind of God or Divine Essence or Universal Energy would be required for the rest of this post to make sense.)  ==========================================================
    2. My description of God is:
    A. A big man in the sky, sitting on a throne
    B. A Super Version of a human, with the ability to be angered, saddened, upset, frustrated or disappointed just like humans, and the intention to punish any human being who disobeys Him
    C. A Super Being who looks like a human male, but who is kind, caring, compassionate, forgiving, and loving, and who would never hurt or harm anybody, much less punish them for their sins
    D. A Super Being who looks like a human female, but who is kind, caring, compassionate, forgiving, and loving, and who would never hurt or harm anybody, much less punish them for their sins
    E. A Super Being who has no gender, but who is kind, caring, compassionate, forgiving, and loving, and who would never hurt or harm anybody, much less punish them for their sins
    F. A Super Being who looks nothing like a human, but who has all of the other qualities of C, D, and E above.
    G. Not a Super Being at all, in the human sense, but rather, an Essence or an Energy that can assume any shape or form It desires, or no particular form at all.
    H. An Essence or Energy that exists in Absolute Wholeness (that is, nothing in existence is separate from It, or is “other than” It), and that embodies Unconditional Love, Supreme Intelligence, Sublime Awareness, Endless Wisdom, and Unlimited Power.
    I. None of the above, but my own answer, which is: (type your answer below)
    J. None of the above; I do not know and wouldn’t hazard a guess

    3. God’s relationship to Life is:
    A. God created life as we know it, but exists apart and separate from it and has no control over it now that it has been created.
    B. God created life as we know it, exists apart and separate from it, and has total control over it now that it has been created.
    C. God created life as we know it, but exists apart and separate from it and exerts control over it when certain people ask God to, in a certain way.
    D. God created life as we know it, but exists apart and separate from it and has the ability to exert complete control over it now that it has been created, but nevertheless chooses not to intervene in daily life, leaving humans to their own devices.
    E. God created life as we know it, but exists apart and separate from it and has the ability to exert complete control over it now that it has been created, but nevertheless chooses not to intervene directly in daily life, preferring to give humans the power to co-create their outcomes with their fellow humans, using the power that God gave them.
    F. God created life as we know it, exists in unity with and as part of all that lives, and has the ability to exert complete control over life now that it has been created, yet nevertheless chooses not to intervene directly in daily life, preferring to give humans the ability to co-create their outcomes with their fellow humans, using the power that God gives them.
    G. None of the above, but my own answer, which is: (type your answer below)
    H. None of the above; I do not know and wouldn’t hazard a guess

    4. God’s purpose in creating life is:
    A. To give God something to do
    B. To put in place a system of Justice and Fairness in the Universe, so that all souls which separated themselves from God would have a chance to come back to God and live with God forever if they wanted to
    C. To experience Itself in every possible way, and thus to Know Itself in Its Own Experience, through the expression of Its Essence and Its Energy in every physical form
    D. None of the above, but my own answer, which is: (type your answer below)
    E. None of the above; I do not know and wouldn’t hazard a guess

    5. God’s function in life is:
    A. To sit around and watch things that are going on, but do nothing
    B. To sit around and watch things that are going on, and give us help when we need it.
    C. To answer our prayers
    D. To watch us closely and pass judgment on us when we die, deciding whether we go to Heaven or to Hell based on how we have lived our lives
    E. To create
    F. To express Divinity in all its aspects through the process we call Life, using as its tools of expression All Physical Things
    G. To make Its Essence and Its Energy available to us to use whenever, wherever, and however we wish
    H. None of the above, but my own answer, which is: (type your answer below)
    I. None of the above; I do not know and wouldn’t hazard a guess

    6. God’s relationship to us is:
    A. A mystery
    B. God is our Father, who loves us and is there is help us in every difficulty
    C. God is our Creator, who made us in His image and likeness
    D. God is with us always, even unto the end of time
    E. God is the Source of our creative power, our strength, our wisdom, and our love
    F. God is One with us, united with us, the same as us, identical to us, not separate in any way from us, who lives in us, as us, through us; God is US, and we are God, in individualized expression
    G. None of the above, but my own answer, which is: (type your answer below)
    H. None of the above; I do not know and wouldn’t hazard a guess

    7. What God wants and requires of us is:
    A. To obey His commandments, abide by His laws, do His Will, behold His righteousness, fear His judgment, pay homage to His divinity and praise His glory forever and ever
    B. To do our best in every situation, be kind to others, and not hurt anybody on purpose
    C. Nothing at all
    D. None of the above, but my own answer, which is: (type your answer below)
    E. None of the above; I do not know and wouldn’t hazard a guess

    8. The way to interact with God is:
    A. With fear and trepidation
    B. With faith and gratitude
    C. As you would with a kind and gentle father
    D. As you would with a just and powerful monarch
    E. As you would with your best friend
    F. As you would with someone you fear
    G. As you would with someone you love
    H. As you would with someone you need
    I.  As you would with someone you do not need
    J. As you would with someone who you know is always there
    K. As you would with someone who you hope is there
    L. None of the above, but my own answer, which is: (type your answer below)
    M. None of the above; I do not know and wouldn’t hazard a guess

    9. Life Itself is:
    A. Something that we are all living, through no choice of our own, but getting through as best as can
    B. A time of travail; a trial and a test, which has no apparent purpose or outcome.
    C. A time of travail; a trial and a test, which, if we pass, allows us to return to God, and if we fail, sends us to the everlasting fires of hell
    D. A school, with lessons to learn and a test at the end, which, if we pass, allows us to return to God, and if we fail, sends us to the everlasting fires of hell
    E. A school, with lessons to learn, but no pass/fail test at the end; simply a process of learning and growth
    F. Not a school, but a place and a way in which we are invited to demonstrate what we already know and completely understand regarding who we are, and now simply wish to express and experience
    G. A process by which a biological creature moves from birth to death, having no reality of itself before birth or after death; the simple outcome of a chemical process involving the fundamental essence and energy of life, playing itself out with neither purpose nor design, reason nor function, objective nor outcome other than the movement through the Cycle of Life Itself in its many physical forms.
    H. A journey of the soul from birth to death, with reason, purpose, and function
    I. A process by which God expresses and experiences Its Divinity
    J. None of the above, but my own answer, which is: (type your answer below)
    K. None of the above; I do not know and wouldn’t hazard a guess

    10. The purpose of Life is:
    A. It has no purpose. It just is.
    B. If it has a purpose, it is something none of us know; it is beyond our ability to determine.
    C. Evolution; the evolution of Life Itself through the ever-expanding expression and manifestation of its many forms
    D. The evolution of the soul, through the ever-expanding expression and manifestation of its many aspects
    E. To announce and declare, express and fulfill, know and experience Who You Really Are
    F. To recreate yourself anew, in each golden moment of Now, in the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever you held about Who You Are
    G. To provide human beings with a vehicle and a means by which they might find salvation and return to God in heaven, whence they came
    H. To provide God with a vehicle and a means by which It might know Itself experientially, and not simply conceptually
    I. None of the above, but my own answer, which is: (type your answer below)
    J. None of the above; I do not know and wouldn’t hazard a guess

    11. Who and what I am is:
    A. God’s creation
    B. A biological entity; a physical life form, not unlike other life forms on the earth, except in complexity
    C. A spiritual being having a physical body and a mind
    D. A child of God
    E. A part of God
    F. A unique and unduplicated expression of God
    G. An individualization of God
    H. Divinity Itself in physical form
    I. None of the above, but my own answer, which is: (type your answer below)
    J. None of the above; I do not know and wouldn’t hazard a guess

    These are the questions faced by parents every day—and there will be more. Life will place more questions before you if you are thinking about life’s greater aspects in any way at all. And your children will certainly place these and other questions before you, if only because of what they are hearing out there in the larger world around them, as mentioned before.

    So it is important that you come to your own conclusions and awareness about God, even if these change across the time span of your child’s upbringing. Indeed, especially if they do.

    And we will continue this series of articles in our next entry here. Do join us.

  • With the Santa Monica shooting added to the list, do you think Americans are ready to have a serious discussion about ending easy access to guns — especially semi-automatic assault-style weapons, one of which was again used in this latest murderous rampage?

  • TOTAL TRANSPARENCY:
    WOULD IT BE SO BAD?

    Conversations with God spoke many years ago of humans living life in total transparency, and it said that this would be the chosen and preferred lifestyle of every truly evolved society.

    There is, among people who are living at the highest level of integrity, among those who are moving through their days and nights and in accordance with the purpose and agenda of their soul, no reason for any secrets to be kept from anyone.

    Not a telephone record, not a purchase receipt, not list of books ordered online or a credit card statement or a bank account balance or a tax filing or any data about us whatsoever need be kept from the public eye — nor would anyone want it to be unavailable to anyone else.

    There is no reason for everyone not to know everything about us, unless we have something to hide.

    The reason that giant corporations, major institutions, and governments hate it when things like WikiLeaks press releases happen, or revelations like the Guardian newspaper stories about telephone records occur, is that they all have something to hide.

    Recently, news reports all over the Internet have been telling of a top secret court order that allegedly required the giant Verizon telephone service provider to release the private phone records of Americans to the U.S. Government’s National Security Agency every day until the 19th of July.

    Politicians have been scrambling to take sides in the aftermath of the revelation, which has been the source of much commentary (such as this one) on blogs and talk radio and television news networks like CNN, which began one of its online reports with this lead paragraph…

    “Frightening government overreach or valuable law enforcement tool? That’s the question politicians in Washington, and millions of citizens around the United States, asked on Thursday thanks to an explosive report suggesting that the government has been collecting millions of Americans’ phone records.”

    U.S. President Obama sought to soothe the nerves of his nation’s electorate by saying at a press conference that no one’s personal phone calls had been listened to, and that only records of numbers called, the time logs of when numbers were called, the length of conversations and the like were among the data gathered.

    A number of U.S. lawmakers, including U.S. Senators and members of Congress, rose to say that such data gathering had saved their country from at least one major terrorist attack that they know of — and could avert many more, if only by making it more difficult for persons around the world to use major U.S. calling networks as a communication means by which to lay plans for their assaults.

    Others have loudly protested the data gathering as a Big Brother Is Watching You intrusion in private lives. Yet this raises an interesting question: Why does one need a private life? What information is so secret, or would be so embarrassing, that we have a need to keep it private? What if everyone knew everything about everyone? What would happen?

    One thing that would happen is that we would find out that we are all not so very different from each other. The other thing we would discover is that most people are pretty accepting of others — and that those who aren’t would soon, in a completely transparent society, find themselves among the tiniest minority…and have a hard time explaining what they are doing there. The third thing we would find out is that Total Transparency does not work unless everyone is playing by the same rules. That includes government, corporations, organizations, and every individual.

    Can or will that day ever come? It seems a long way off. And yet, we are told in Conversations with God that this is the most wonderful and mutually beneficial way to live — and that human society will, indeed, one day move to this model. How to get everyone to embrace the model simultaneously…that is the question.

    More on the world’s “move to transparency” in the days ahead. Your comments below invited. We will in the days ahead also be continuing with Part III of our series of News Analysis articles on eruptions of violence in our society. We invite you to return to this location on the Internet for ongoing and lively discussion.

  • ARE SOUTHERN BAPTISTS
    ‘BUFFET BIBLE BELIEVERS’?

    I don’t mind when people use the Bible as their Source and Authority on matters of spiritual consequence, but I do have a problem with people who use the Bible “buffet style,” choosing only those verses that suit their purpose or personal opinion, then ignoring anything and everything that does not—or that they think might make them, as staunch believers in the Bible, “look bad.”

    The Rev. Tim Reed, pastor of First Baptist Church of Gravel Ridge in Jacksonville, Arkansas may not be a Buffet Bible Believer, but I would like to ask him some questions, just to make sure.

    Rev. Reed was quoted in a news story the other day as saying that his church has no choice but to terminate its charter with Boy Scout Troop 542 because the Boy Scouts of America has lifted its ban on openly gay youths. Reed told one of the major television news networks that “it’s not a hate thing.” He said it is a “moral stance we must take as a Southern Baptist Church.”

    The Christian minister was quoted by the network as saying: “God’s word explicitly says homosexuality is a choice, a sin.” Others likewise use “God’s word” as their authority in this matter, most often pointing to the Bible’s book of Leviticus at Chapter 18, Verse 22. As found in the King James Version that verse says: “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.”

    Many Buffet Bible Believers also cite Leviticus 20:13, which offers this: “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”

    And still others often point to 1 Corinthians 6:9, which says, “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind…”

    Using the Bible in this way may seem to provide righteous authority to some Southern Baptist churches, most of which are predicted to end their charters with Scouting in the weeks ahead. That could amount to nearly 4,000 Boy Scout troops soon without a sponsor. Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptists’ Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, was quoted in the news story mentioned above as saying that “Southern Baptists are going to be leaving the Boy Scouts en masse.”

    Okay. Now. Fair Question time. Which verses of the Bible should be operative in our lives if we are to live up to its moral injunctions, as the Southern Baptists feel that are doing in response to the Boy Scouts’ decision to admit gay youths?

    Do you suppose it might be the verse in the Book of Deuteronomy where it says that if a man marries a woman and finds that she is not a virgin, and if her family cannot prove that she was a virgin before her marriage, “she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death”? Or perhaps it would be the verse that says that if found to be in an adulterous relationship, both the man and the woman are to be taken to the city gates and also stoned to death. (Before deciding, please keep in mind that if this were to be applied, some churches would have to stone to death their own ministers.)

    Or perhaps it’s the verse that says that only certain people are welcome in God’s house of worship. If you happen to be a child born out of wedlock, or the great-great-great-grandchild of a person born out of wedlock, God says you may not set foot inside a church. The Bible makes this very clear. It says that no illegitimate child, “nor any of his descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord, even down to the tenth generation.”

    And, did you know this? If a certain part of a man’s body happens to be injured in an accident or as a result of war, he may likewise not join with other worshippers of God in a House of the Lord. The Bible says: “If a man’s testicles are crushed or his penis is cut off, he may not be included in the assembly of the Lord.”

    Yes, these are words right out of the Bible. Turn to Deuteronomy 23:1-2, New Living Translation. “Oh,” you might say, “one of those modern Bibles.” Yes. The King James Version has it this way: “He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord,” but it means the same thing.

    And the Bible has some startling news for women who take some of those self-defense classes that are offered these days. They can find themselves in a lot of trouble because of some of what they might learn in those classes. The Bible says: “If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity.”

    God’s Word also provides us clear guidance on what to do about children who don’t obey their parents. These are probably not thoughts that many mothers would have—maybe even not Southern Baptist mothers, but we have no choice but to obey. As Rev. Reed would say, “God’s word explicitly tells us” how we are to respond. And what does God’s Word instruct us to do with rebellious children?

    Kill them.

    Now you might not believe that, but it’s right there, plain as day, and you can’t deny God’s Word: “If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you.”

    I guess that would do it, all right…

    So with respect, I ask you to excuse me, Pastor Reed, if I am not totally convinced that humanity’s infallible answers will be found in the Bible. You may not agree with all of the above verses, either. But if we are going to be Buffet Bible Believers, rather than a Literal Word of God Believer, then might you please tell us which verses of the Bible we are advised to ignore, and which we should apply to the letter?

    Thank you, sir. That would be very helpful. We would not want to be called hypocrites for citing some verses of God’s Word when they support our personal prejudices, and ignoring others when they do not, now would we…?

  • What is going on in Oklahoma? 17 more tornados, just days after the Big One? If you lived in Oklahoma, would you move? From a New Spirituality perspective, what would you say to the people of Oklahoma right now?

  • Introducing your child to the concept and the reality of God – Part II

    While we would imagine that most parents do not want their children to simply adopt the parents’ point of view on everything—and particularly their point of view on something as important as God—the challenge becomes one of providing the child with a free mental space within which to come to their own conclusions while at the same time offering firm and sure guidance, which every child deserves.

    Children don’t want parents who are wishy-washy—and they don’t deserve them. They want and deserve more.

    If a child is afraid of the policeman on the corner, do we tell her: “Oh, sweetheart, the policeman is our friend. There’s no need to be afraid of him. He’s here to protect us and to help us.”

    OR…do we tell her: “Oh, sweetheart, I think the policeman is our friend. I hope there’s no need to be afraid of him. I wish that he were here to protect us and to help us. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.”

    If your son is afraid to go into his room at night because he imagines there’s a monster under the bed, do you say, “Son, there’s nothing to be afraid of. Come on, I’ll go in there with you and show you.”

    OR…do you say, “Well, son, I sure hope there’s nothing to be afraid of. Come on, I’ll go in with you and I’m going to wish with all my might that I’m right about this. But let’s keep the door open in case we have to get out of there in a hurry.”

    Of course you offer the former, not the latter. You know that what your child looks to you for is certainty.

    In all matters.

    So the challenge becomes one of how to help your children feel certain about things, without robbing them of the opportunity (and the skill) of becoming certain themselves through the reaching of their own conclusions.

    This is not an easy thing to do, and it can require us to sometimes walk a very thin line.

    Self-discovery is the pathway to certainty

    In nearly every situation in our children’s lives it seems to me we do our best job of parenting when we help them find things out for themselves.

    Yet how can children find out for themselves about something as hypothetical (and that sometimes seems even to us to be hypothetical) as God?

    And the problem here is that many other people talk about God in very definitive terms. So what your child is hearing on the playground, or in the home of friends, can sound very certain. Then, when your child comes to you for clarity, what do you say? That you don’t know? That you can’t be sure? That you have your own ideas, but it’s anybody’s guess? That we should all keep our fingers crossed?

    Suppose your child comes to you and says he is afraid of God. Do you say, “Oh, sweetheart, God is our friend. There’s no need to be afraid of God. God’s here to protect us and to help us.”

    OR…do you say: “Well, son, I think God is our friend. I don’t believe there’s a reason to be afraid of God. My own thought is that God is here to protect us. I hope there’s no reason to be afraid of him. Let’s hope I’m right.”

    Let’s say that your daughter has heard at her friend’s house that God punishes us if we don’t do what He wants us to do. She’s heard that if we are not careful we could wind up going to “hell.” Now what do you say? “Sweetheart, that’s not true.” OR…“I certainly hope that’s not true. Let’s cross our fingers.”

    Yes…these questions about how to proceed are not small questions. And we will begin to explore them as we continue with this series of articles in our next post. I hope you’ll join us for it.

  • LET’S DISCUSS IT: What do you know about the new virus, Middle East respiratory symptom coronavirus, or MERS-CoV — called by the World Health Organization “a threat to the entire world”?