So, what God do you worship?

Isn’t that a strange question when the subject is “intolerance”?

Whatever gives meaning to your life, the “god” that makes your life better, will lead you in a direction. We can value something, and possibly it may be wrong for us, and in the end that thing can lead us into bad places.

Have you heard about the man who read the Bible, in Seattle? It is important to know that he read out loud, at a protest event. Apparently, he started reading the Bible Book of John, chapter one and verse one, and he did not comment directly on the topic of the protest.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1: 1 to 5)

The protest event gave a street preacher a large audience:

Things got ugly, quickly. The pastor was arrested and charged; but now, after about two years, an honest judge let the pastor go free, with a settlement for damages.

I was not there, but I think the main topic of the protest was abortion rights. The U.S. Supreme Court had made a decision that could affect those rights, and protesters had a loud event in the streets. Similar Bible readings have occurred at Pride events, where the issue was more sexual orientation, rather than abortion or racism. There are many …isms, like racism, sexism, ageism and the list goes on.

Human belief systems come in many forms.

One form of intolerance is religious persecution. Humans can be very cruel to people who believe something different from them. We could ask the obvious question: How can people be so intolerant when they are protesting intolerance?

So, back to that God question: what will make your life successful? What makes it work for you? What is your God?

I believe that our Western culture, especially in North America, is seriously infected by the Hollywood virus. Movies and entertainment can be interesting, but they always focus on the dramatic and usually violent conclusion. That’s how movie makers sell entertainment. They don’t usually analyze the roots of human behavior; they just show the gunfight at the end. Movies are not made by analytical psychologists.

The problem with final-gunfight thinking is, we need a better way to live. Entertainment is not a good guide for life.

So, is there any way to reconcile protesting for our beliefs, or against any intolerance, and on the opposite side, reading the Bible out loud at a protest event? Do street preachers have something to tell us?

I suggest we climb the ladder from the bottom, and we should not start at the dramatic conclusion:

1) What is your God?

What makes you proud and successful? Possibly money and the things it can buy. Imagine having that house, and that car, and maybe being married to that movie star. We also have options like education and our family history. This can be a long list.

2) What is your reward?

A value system tells you when you are successful, when you have reached your point of happiness and success. Don’t you feel good when … happens?

3) Who are the losers?

If I am proud and successful, then some other people are failures, by the standards of my God. If I am successful and they are not, I am superior and they are inferior.

That progression is happening all around us, and in our own lives.

Imagine deciding what is the important truth for you, your deity, and following your beliefs to success, by those rules. That would justify a loud protest in the streets. And then imagine a street preacher who tells you about going back and climbing the ladder from the beginning. That preacher would be an enemy. He told people to find the right God, and then start moving forward from that new beginning.

How dare he?

That is a poke in the eye with a spiritual stick. The protesters tore the pages our of the preacher’s Bible, assaulted him, and stole one of his shoes. After that, the police arrested and charged him.

People didn’t want to be corrected right back to the beginning, to the first rung on the ladder. We all want to stay on the path that our chosen God has given us. That is the conceit in our modern culture.

I am writing as a Christian, and I am often surprised that I have no reason to be proud. I can never be better than people who are different from me. I am not a successful climber, I am a forgiven failure. That humility is the only way I can know God.

That preacher had a radical message. If he was allowed to continue, he would have read these words about a proud social climber:

Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

(John 3: 1 to 8)