I often wonder what God thinks about the fight over Him we got going on in the world.
There is a long line of religions stretching back centuries, and no doubt continuing into the future, that think they have the truth, that think they have some special revelation from God, that think they have some special relationship with God.
And when you think that way, you are bound to be fighting with others who think differently … I don’t care how much ecumenical dialogue you participate in.
This will never change … there will never be one, universal religion, with a universally accepted doctrine.
We’ll just keep fighting over God.
He’s ours! No, he’s ours! You people are antichrists, he’s ours!
God’s not a he, God’s a she! There are many gods! We are all God!
Sometimes the fight is as simple as an argument, and other times the fight means decapitating someone who thinks differently. All in the name of devotion, and all for the sake of defending relationship with God.
For some strange reason I have never felt comfortable believing that my religion is the one, true, religion. It’s strange because it seems so unlike most people who are religious … the norm is to remain comfortable in your religion, to hold fast to your dogma. Oh, I realize that there is a lot of religious movement these days, but the norm remains to stick with what is comfortable and known to you.
But I have always been a strange bird in this regard. I used to play Little League baseball for our church team against other church teams of different denominations. As a small boy, I remember very clearly after a game asking a family member about the religion of the other team. The response was something like this, “Oh, you don’t want to know about them, they are not a member of our one, true, religion.” I don’t remember how old I was, maybe 9 or 10, but I distinctly remember thinking, “That does not sound right.”
I spent many years searching for the one, true, religion … only to discover that it does not exist.
Nonetheless, I do want to be a vessel through whom God works to bless others. Perhaps, the most effective agents of God are the ones serving devoid of all dogma.