I have undoubtedly upset or am getting ready to upset fellow Christians. I’m using this term mainly because the alliteration writing tool seems to work here, and most faiths have their counterfeits. Briefly, I’ll list them and a brief reason I include them.
I believe every faith has them to one degree or another. They have the self-righteous bullies to raise to leadership financially comfortable or power through the perversion of the original message to humanity and is barely visible as time and memory moves and fades from the original message intended to be conveyed or lived by.
Perhaps my Jewish Rabbi friend put it best in his definition of Truth – “Fidelity to the original.” I know very little of the world religions (I’ve read The World’s Religions by Huston Smith to get more understanding.) I barely comprehend my faith that is Christianity. I have a Hindu temple next door to me that espouses humbleness and respect for others. Still, I have to dodge rich kids driving their BMWs at 50 miles an hour out a very lavish temple, nearly running over anyone in their path after they feint worshiping a platoon of various gods to appease their wealthy parents. Muslims who say they are in the name of peace while being founded by a very militant prophet and many refusing to condemn modern terrorists who do things in the name of their faith and allow them to defame the principles of tolerance they once had as a young religion. Taoists who lost control of the Chinese culture and peaceful faith of meditation in favor of brutal atheistic communism and persecution of others etc. Shinto by the Japanese to worship a human emperor instead of the higher calling. Allowed WW2 to happen German Christians to let the Nazis redirect their Martin Luther values into hate for the Jews and other “inferior” humankind. And the list could go on and on.
It is primarily counterfeiting noble and true values from a misconstrued concept of who God is. My faith puts strong and exclusive reliance on trust and belief that God controls the universe. That He loves his creation and came to earth much later to illustrate his love. He let himself suffer an unimaginable death by human hands that refused to believe that Jesus (His human self) came to redeem all the hatred and suffering and show us all a better way.
We still don’t listen even when he gives us one way to quit making the world be our religion and counterfeiting them when we humans can’t lift ourselves to heaven by our thought and spirit but let God come to us. We continue to counterfeit, like our government, printing fake spiritual currency and using it as the real thing, expecting long-term salvation or prosperity. When the original is not backed by genuine faith value of our founders, and for us Christians, not printed sometimes compromised, TV or financially protected, wealthy pastors that preach the Word of God from a worldly safe place. That is a lot more comfortable than the early apostles who died and sacrificed for their preaching and teaching. Leadership, sometimes in the church, is measured by statistics on how many souls got saved this week, how big our programs and buildings are, or how big our TV or social media platform is.
I’d rather listen to the Word from a local pastor in a little country church who lived among the regular folks, who fixed cars on the side to feed his family. Then a high-powered, overpaid mega-church or TV evangelist. It’s authentic rather than one of these guys that live in a comfortable, sometimes multimillion-dollar house. As an illustration, our company did sitework for a considerable extension of a church in a growing town made up of local movers and shakers mixed with common agricultural folks and local contractors. I had chats with the pastor in the afternoon under a shade tree. We just talked, maybe because I was just a contractor from out of town. He needed to talk; he mentioned that he was taking medication for his stress and clinical depression. I went to one of his services and was impressed by his delivery of message and production, including a large choir, praise band, and liturgical dancing. He told me in that candid moment, “you know Rick, I yearn to go back to that 18 member congregation that we started. I could preach the Word, know everyone by first and last name. Grab a chain saw and help one of my parishioners’ clear brush for a garden he wanted to plant. Or go over on a Saturday afternoon to help pick up and hold a new starter for a guy tighten the bolts because he couldn’t afford to have someone else fix it.” He closed and said, “oh, I miss being broke in that little church and doing that kind of “mission” work.” He has since retired from that large church, probably on a nice pension, and probably still finds happiness in chopping some wood and showing what Jesus meant when he said the last shall be first shall be last.
Just as aside, if your church is asking for more tithes or thinks the pastor should get a raise, remember that their salary (except for FICA tax) is tax-free along with the income the church brings in. The tithers, in large part, don’t have that luxury). Don’t get me wrong here that being a pastor has to be one of the most challenging jobs in the world. They spend countless hours meditating on the Word to touch hearts and souls every Sunday and presiding over funerals and weddings and knowing that many of them will fail or started without Jesus in the middle (no matter how the pastor counsels). Sometimes, having people come to Christ on multiple occasions, only to fail in that commitment, counseling countless people going through soul-wrenching times feeling all that pain. There is not enough money anywhere to compensate for that, my friend. Also, don’t get me wrong, I have been counterfeit in my life in two out of three marriages. The last one is far from always genuine, but a three-way deal with Christ is in the middle.
I was a worship leader, and the authentic part was the basic music (when I wasn’t counterfeiting it with showmanship) and prayer that was genuine and personal touched the congregation. I built the two large concrete crosses to last and last (it’s hard to counterfeit three mixer loads of concrete).
To close, I remember when I was a kid. The US Government was and is just printing counterfeit money to fake productivity. There was still circulating currency that looked and spent just like regular currency, except it was printed as a Silver Certificate. The certificate was redeemable by the US Treasury in hard silver. They were pulled from circulation and no longer redeemable in silver, and not that long ago. So that we only have “the full faith of the US Government to back our currency. So I can’t help but wonder, my fellow Christians, are the old apostles and smaller growing congregations over the years still redeemable by the real treasures in heaven? Or are we just trading in counterfeit currency?”
Cut and paste and edited and electronically enhanced gospel to fast forward us into worldly pseudo-Christianity controlled by artful intelligence (I don’t mean the quantum computer kind, but human as well) or faith-full simple followers of the original. My dear old Rabi friend and I rest our case.
Tales from Depression and Dealing with it. 