By smcintos

Are you religious? Probably, if you are reading this, but feel free to be who you are. 

I think everyone in the world should ask themselves two questions: What am I? and … How did that happen?

There are forces in the world that want to control religion, and they want to force us all to believe what they believe. They want the world to follow what they chose because they are convinced that their “truth” is what we all need. We will be in a better place, even if their beliefs are imposed on us, and we don’t get to choose.

In Germany, for example, there are large numbers of immigrants and refugee claimants from Muslim areas, and some are calling for a “Caliphate,” a government by Muslims, that will put the rules of their religion on the nation. The recent struggle between Israel and Hamas in Gaza has provoked some strong reactions from that community. There have been large public demonstrations, in Germany.

In December, in a city called Magdeburg, someone drove a car into a crowd, at a Christmas festival. Several people were killed, and many others injured. Probably the strangest part of this story is that the person arrested for the attack, is a refugee from Saudi Arabia, who is apposed to Islam; he is called an anti-Islamist. Apparently he is in a struggle with a religion that came from another place.

The story is getting complicated:

There are other religions, in the world, and imagine if other groups became militant and forceful, with supporters and opponents locked in violent struggles.

We should all ask those two questions: What am I? and … How did that happen?

Religion is a belief in God, or many gods, and it is supposed to bring goodness into the world. That is the general idea. There are religious issues and struggles in this world, and I believe that secular western societies are not ready for strong ideas from other places. People at a Christmas festival in Germany died, and the root cause seems to be a dispute in a religion brought to the country recently, by immigrants.

Belief is a powerful thing.

I am writing as a Christian. One of the greatest struggles of my life was to believe for myself, instead of just accepting the traditions of my family. I am the product of personal decisions that I have made, but I understand people who want us all to be in their religious family. I went through that phase.

The “Caliphate” concept, and anger at the state of Israel come from the same religious ideas. After more than a thousand years of rule by one religion, the Jews of Israel took their land back and now they govern themselves, with their own religion.

Looking into the future, the world may have many more religious struggles, and even wars. Brace yourself.

I heard a Christian preacher talk about this recently. He told us that everyone, everywhere is trying to build the truth. Our personal religion is an effort to make things right, and to please God. The preacher gave us an interesting picture. He reminded us that most churches have a cross symbol on the building, and that is not a picture of our religious struggle. Someone died on a cross, and we only need to accept what is given to us. That is completely different from struggling, and building a community that follows the rules, and earns their salvation.

Someone else paid the price, and we only have to accept the gift. For myself, for example, I believe that I will never earn God’s approval. I have a gift that I don’t deserve, and I can only be grateful.

What we are and how that happened drives our behavior. It is useful to apply some theology to politics. We need to see the drivers of our behavior and the struggles that we will have.

The followers of Jesus have a starting point, and a new direction:

But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even though we were dead in offenses, made us alive together with Christ; by grace you are saved! And he raised us up together with him and seated us together with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, to demonstrate in the coming ages the surpassing wealth of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so that no one can boast. For we are his creative work, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand so we can do them. (Ephesians 2: 4 to 10)

And apparently, this song was played on a commercial break, during the Superbowl: