YeKengalé

I’ve invested quite a bit of intellectual capital attempting to establish what I considered was an unrealized truism – that religion was essentially about values not beliefs…as is popularly accepted. I thought (and still think) I have good reason to continue down that path (even Jesus said ‘know them by their fruits’… i.e. values not doctrines), but today, allow me to bow to peer pressure and concede…..one’s religion is in fact defined by one’s beliefs.

That makes it easier to discuss the otherwise confounded reality of how it is that perhaps the most corrupt power on earth has the (claimed) explicit support of a supposedly moral God. I remember writing some time ago that the character of a  god (any) is defined by His/Her/Its worshipers, which makes it incumbent upon any religious group that would claim to offer enlightenment to defend by word and deed the reputation, character and name of their god. Should the name of god be tarnished, then none of his worshipers could rise beyond that. God is ultimately man’s ideal. His name and character must represent integrity.

There is a reason Jesus taught all his disciples, ancient and modern to begin to relate to God with a formulaic prayer that begins with “Hallowed be Thy Name”. But religious beliefs, in their present form at any rate, are deeply entrenched in human society and don’t seem to be susceptible to change any time soon (though with God, all things are possible). Earth’s 2.2 billion Christians, 1.8 billion Muslims, 1 billion Hindus, 1 billion non religious (otherwise called secularists) and 1 billion assorted other religious sects seem bound to continue to  identify with their chosen creeds and life-ways. The only significant change that seems sure is their relative influence.

Islam is poised to become the dominant world religion within another decade or two. The rapidly increasing Mosques and declining churches in Europe, Canada and the US are a pattern that seems set and that story need not be rehearsed here again. Whether or not the prognostication of the demographic experts that France will be the first European nation to fall to Islam within 30 years or so proves correct, the trends seem pretty clear. (Although with God all things are possible). But although secularism (a form of religion … if religion is defined as beliefs about God) like Islam is growing stridently; unlike Islam, and Christianity, where conversion and propagation generally result from overt or covert proselyting, atheism and agnosticism often arise in the absence of creedal conviction.  

Islam has a lot going for it. I have commented elsewhere about the power of their grand unifying rituals – that even with their factions augurs well for them….and in a way that fractious Christianity, being what it is today, seems utterly incapable of matching. (But with God all things are possible.) And they are serious about the Name of their God.

But my attention at present is on the west and in particular on the American church, gatekeepers for the Trump administration – something that was unthinkable ten years ago, and now that it has happened and in the manner that it has, seems incredulous to some, and even outrageous in the most vulgar way that the fervor of religious faith should defend such naked moral reprobation.

The only way for me to  talk sensibly about the phenomenon is in fact to concede that religion, holding the power of collective mindset via established belief system is and has always been that phenomenon power uses to establish itself. For any regime to be successful, it must find away to either appease, co-opt or control religious belief.   

Facts are not as powerful as beliefs. Humans are creatures of sentiment before they are creatures of reason. Jay Sekulow seems to have understood this well. Long before his whimsical … and successful defense of President Trump; his defense of other ‘christian’ causes, like something named ‘creation science’ – a set of ideas as devoid of fact and reason, as populated by preposterous but very deliberate misrepresentations of truth, was as effective if not persuasive as was his arguments against impeachment. It is irrelevant that the genetic code can factually establish  the age of the homo sapiens species, that the fossil record can reliably date the times of the dinosaurs etc etc. but for the cause of God, and the assorted beliefs associated with Him, (however fantastic) any kind of hocus pocus ideas can be taught to children if that is what their parents elect for them to learn.

And like James Ussher before him, he will get away with it as long as he can. After all, with God all things are possible.

I call upon everyone who names the Name of Christ – every generation of the church has had both to enunciate and defend their conception of Christianity. A Christianity based on subterfuge and the suppression of that which is true cannot have integrity nor can it (nor should it) stand. A god resembling or resorting to a Trump is worthy of repudiation. The only christ and god that has true value is One with power to transform (not dishonorably use and certainly not glorify) such an infant in conscience and character.