“I am only one, but still I am one.
I cannot do everything, but still I can do something.
And because I cannot do everything,
I will not refuse to do the something I can do.”

Edward Everett Hale

Friday 1 February 2013

Final Warning

A member of my congregation was handed a little note in the street. It read:

Beware!
This may be your
FINAL WARNING
 
Your final destination is of imperative
importance - it's either
HEAVEN OR HELL
There's no "in between"
You are either saved or lost for eternity.
If Jesus Christ is your Saviour and Lord then
Heaven is your home forever.
If you reject him on day (sic.)
HE WILL REJECT YOU
 
 
This was followed by a series of quotes from the Gospel of John. There were no contact details, no indication of where to go for help, nothing.
 
I am bemused. What is the point of handing out messages like this on the street? Do some Christians really believe that people have to be terrified into converting? What happened to brotherly / sisterly love? What happened to compassion?
 
 
 
I cannot help thinking of Karen Armstrong's reflection in her autobiography The Spiral Staircase:
She writes: "The one and only test of a valid religious idea, doctrinal statement, spiritual experience, or devotional practice was that it must lead directly to practical compassion. If your understanding of the divine made you kinder, more empathetic, and impelled you to express this sympathy in concrete acts of loving-kindness, this was good theology. But if your notion of God made you unkind, belligerent, cruel, or self-righteous, or if it led you to kill in God's name, it was bad theology."
 
Yes, yes, and yes. It is what we do in this life that matters, not what we believe.



1 comment:

  1. Although I might add that when I believed in nothing I did very little...so in my experience coming to believe in something more than nothing was vital to me beginning to do something..

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