A Perspective on Authority
Sunday, June 16, 2013
THE POLITICS OF GOD By Francis William Bessler Laramie, Wyoming 6/16/2013 Note: Happy Father’s Day, Everyone! Hey, we guys are all fathers on this day - just like we are all brothers. I am “your father” and you are mine in that we all come from one another; and since we are all the same in our origins, we are also all brothers - and sisters - and mothers. A little late on that one, but Happy Mother’s Day too! Now on with today’s “Father’s Day article.” Enjoy it as you will. The Politics of God! I could also call it “The Excuse of God” - but essentially, it is the same thing. I think people who want to rule others almost always first decide it is right for them to rule others - and then claim God as their authority - as if God is the “excuse” they use to establish and justify their claimed “authority.” We all know the argument: obey me and you will be obeying God; disobey me and you will be disobeying God. In truth, however, the true entity called God is probably not part of the real picture at all. The real God exists not as an Outside Person for the sake of personal appeal, but as an Inside Presence for the sake of Creation; and therefore no one can really claim that he or she “represents God” - a God that is inside of all and needs no further representation - in some attempted claim for authority. But how often have we heard it - and how often do we hear it? It is constantly claimed - AS GOD IS MY WITNESS, I STAND FOR GOD! And, of course, if anyone should defy my claim, that one is also defying God for whom I stand. Right? I think most people who claim God as their witness are very sincere in doing so, but I think it is really their “conscience” they are upholding. People sincerely believe something to be right - or wrong - and then they rationalize that God is the reason for their belief. Hey, we all do it - or at least have done it, including me. As a kid - like many kids - I used to pray for God to assist me in one thing or other. Well, part of belief is that in praying to God and asking for some assistance, one believes that assistance will be delivered; and when some action that can be interpreted as “assistance” is delivered, one naturally concludes that the assistance came as the result of an initial prayer. Thus, even if the REAL GOD was never part of the picture in reality, in surreality, God always gets the credit for “answering a prayer.” Thus, if part of my prayer is to “ask for authority,” then if I get my desired authority, it is God who gave it to me in the first place - just like if I pray to God to let me win over some competition or other - and I win - then it is God who helped me win. Now, transfer that practice to a “representative of God.” I was very guilty of that too - before coming to realize that the person to whom I was praying was not really the “representative of God” I first thought him to be. I am talking about my friend, Jesus. Before I came in life to realize that “God needs no representative” because God is really already in everything, I believed that Jesus represented the Personal God of a former belief. Thus, there was a time when I prayed to Jesus that I actually believed that I needed a “representative of God” who could hear my prayer. Call my friend, Jesus, “God’s substitute,” if you like. Hey, if I wanted to “talk to my Personal God,” then it stood to reason that if I talked to “God’s representative,” then God would hear me. In a way, I could “bypass God” by seeking to talk to an “intermediary for God.” Know what I mean? Be honest now, if you are a fellow Christian. Haven’t you done that too? Haven’t you “appealed to Jesus” for something in the light of also “appealing to God” through Jesus? I would be very surprised if you have not done that very thing. It just comes with the territory of believing in Jesus if you also believe that “God needs a mediary (or intermediary)” in the first place. It is often thought that God really needs a mediary - or substitute - and that substitute is a Jesus - or a Peter (as a “sub” of Jesus) - or a Moses - or a Mohammed - or a whomever. Earlier in life, I really believed I needed a Jesus or a Peter or a Moses or a Mohammed to represent me before God; and thus, it was easy for me to call on my Jesus to help me out. I needed a Jesus to appeal to my Great and Loving God for favors. Jesus was his “special son” - and therefore, it just stood to reason that my Great and Loving God would hear me if I called on his special son. Sure made a lot of sense to me. But I was not alone, was I? History is full of people looking for favors from God by calling on God’s special son to hear them out. Right? Personally, I have come to believe that the REAL JESUS opposed any notion of a “special son” of God - or the need for one (and in other writings of the past, I hope I have made that clear) - but any who think that God could use a “special son” also stand to believe that Jesus could have been a special son. Right? It just goes with the territory of believing in the need of special sons in the first place. If one is needed, then presto, eventually one must come along. Why not Jesus? In truth, however, why would God have any need for a “special son”? I have asked that question - and in answering that question for myself, I have concluded that the only way God could need a special son is that God can need anything in the first place. My idea of God is now, however, that whatever God is, God must be INFINITE. Infinity declares that which is INFINITE is also FULL. Accordingly, if One is really Full, then that one can have no need for anything at all - including a “special son.” If God does not really need anything - or anyone - what does that do for a “true Christian”? Realistically, a special son status of God must go away. Because God cannot need a “special son” - or anything or anyone at all - then no one should believe in Jesus in that light. But people see what they want to see. Don’t they? - Including such a preposterous notion that Jesus was a “special son of God.” Why do they want to see such? Because their politics requires it. Their need for authority requires justification; and thus, a Jesus or a Peter or a Moses or a Mohammed become a way - a way of authority. And in the end, it all comes down to God - or how they can “use God.” Doesn’t it? So, regardless of whether I am calling on a Moses or a Mohammed or a Jesus or a Peter as a “substitute for God,” God is listening - and to obey one of them is to obey God and to disobey one of them is to disobey God. Does your God need a substitute, however? Mine does not. My God is an INFINITE GOD that resides in all things because of that INFINITY - and my God needs no one or no thing to serve in Its Place. God is not a “political entity” for me which I can use to establish authority over another. In fact, I have no need for authority because I have no need to rule anyone - anymore that the REAL JESUS had any need for authority. Realizing it might sound a bit absurd, think about it! Would you need authority over anyone if you feel you are complete unto yourself? If I have need to rule you, it is only because I lack a sense of fulfillment in myself. I will rule you to complete in me what I am not able to complete unto myself - or in or by myself. Thus, if I have a sense of self-fulfillment in terms of believing I am a perfect created being, then I would have no need to rule another. Would I? But I live in a different time than those of the ancient past. I think it is good to know that and to take all that into perspective in making any judgments about the past. We know so much more today than we knew when Peter and Paul lived. I know that God is Inside of me and therefore I am perfect as a being “full of God.” How can I not be “full of God” if God is everywhere; and how can God not be everywhere if God is limitless? It just takes thinking about it to know about it. But it does take thinking about it - and I doubt that Peter and Paul ever took the time to think about it. For sure, “Brother Paul” had a different vision of God than I do. In one of his epistles, he offered that “all fall short of the glory of God.” I do not agree with that assessment at all because I do not see God in the same light as “Brother Paul.” Paul believed in a god that is outside of him - and that is why he saw his god as “unreachable.” Of course, for one standing outside of his god, his god would seem to be unreachable. It is simply a matter of perspective. If my god were extending outside of me, I would also “fall short of the glory of my god,” but if My God is inside of me - as I believe the REAL GOD is - then there is no way I can fall short of the glory of my God. How can I fall short of something inside of me? I know, too, that when I stand on the Earth today, there is no below the Earth or above the Earth - looking at the Earth from outer space. There is only an “out from the Earth.” I know the Earth is “suspended in space,” not some “flat foundation” at the “bottom” of the world. I know that when I stand on the Earth today, the Sun is not going around the Earth - or rising and setting upon the Earth. The Earth is going around the Sun. It is the Earth that is bound to the Sun - not the Sun to the Earth. Peter and Paul certainly did not know that, though, did they? Occasionally when I bring up a notion like Peter probably was unaware that the Earth is like a round ball suspended in space, someone will say - so what? What does it matter that Peter probably believed he was standing on a ground to be found at what seemed like the “bottom of the world”? So what? Should it not be relevant that I see myself as standing on a flat Earth looking up - or a round Earth looking out? I think it makes all the difference in the world because it allows me to see me as a created being in a proper picture. Am I one standing on a flat Earth looking “up” to perhaps see some desired Heaven up above - or am I one standing on a round Earth looking out because from the perspective of a round obstacle suspended in space, there can be no “up.” Therefore, there can be no Heaven “up there” anymore than there can be a Hell “down here.” If the Earth is a round ball suspended in space, it should become clear that Heaven must be where you find it because it makes no sense that there can be a Heaven “out there” in space some place. That should tell me that those who have believed that Heaven is “up” some place have been wrong all along. If there has never been an “up,” how could any of the ancients have been right in believing that when they died, they would “go up to Heaven”? That’s to say I should find Heaven Now - right where I am - and to stop looking up as if “up” has anymore Divinity than where I am. So, Yes, it does make a huge difference if the Earth is really flat or round. I know, too, that it is unlikely that there is an end to the physical universe. I doubt very much that Peter and Paul even gave it any thought at all - let alone considered the ramifications of a limited world perspective. What is the main consideration of a limitless universe? It says that the universe cannot be divided - with one side good and the other side evil. How can something without ends be divided? A limitless universe cannot allow for division - and therefore, cannot be divided into the proverbial good and evil segments of the past. If there can be no division of reality into good and evil, then only Good can exist. That is the main consideration of a limitless universe; and I doubt very much that either Peter or Paul - or anyone in the time of Jesus - gave it any thought. How about you? Have you given it any thought? For Peter and Paul, God was here, but not there. For Peter and Paul, God could be summoned to come when He was called. For me, God is not someone to be summoned, but SOMETHING THAT IS PRESENT EVERYWHERE. Different views of God are going to translate into different conducts in life. I cannot blame Peter and Paul for not knowing about a REAL GOD because they were so much tied to an unreal God - a god they saw as being capable of serving one people and being the enemy of another. That is not MY GOD. My God cannot favor Jews over Egyptians - or Egyptians over Jews - or you over me or me over you. My God is not their god; and that is why their god is a “god of politics” whereas My God has no need for politics - or being served at all. How about you?
Thanks! (FWB)