The
State-Sponsored Religion of the Republic of BooklandThe Church of What's Happenin' Now
Sin is caused by disease.
No, we're not Christian Scientists, this is new.
We at the Church of What's Happenin' Now believe that hubris is like gingivitis, it's a disease that just about everyone has. No,
make that everyone. Except maybe Rose Phillips.
Much has been learned about this dread disease in recent years, yet there is much more to be learned. And you can help that
process of discovery. To see how you can become involved in the American Hubris Association Strut-athon, click here
"I'm an enemy of what I call 'computer theology.' There's a class conflict out there.
There's a techno-elite that lives in a different world."
Everyone is susceptible to the impulse to build and maintain power over others. We all want power. When dealing with the desire
for power it is politic to be polite. "Empowerment" is the polite, positive-sounding term for the process of gaining power. Being
polite and politic about power means not mentioning the fact that having power means having power over others, which means
grabbing some of their empowerment to empower oneself. A practical necessity in that process is typically the formation or joining
of an elite.
In some small or large
part, we are all wannabe tyrants. It's up to
us to stop ourselves and our neighbors from being carried away
by that
impulse and becoming real tyrants over some domain: home, school,
nation. The first step is to control another impulse,
which is to
categorize wannabe tyrants as good or bad. We are all both.
We do not have creeds in the Church of What's Happenin' Now.
Creeds, being products
of committees, that is, political bodies, almost always produce bad
results. First, the creed itself will have
bad stuff such as
the blatant sin that is recited every Sunday by millions of users of
the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. As we
drone on
about what we believe about Jesus, we intone:
"He was crucified under Pontius Pilate..."
So here it is. Right in a Christian creed, we find a need to play the blame game. Is this not the most un-Christian kind of activity?
But the worst part is how the game is played. We know that of
all those present at the kangaroo court that
condemned Jesus to
death, the most reluctant to do so was Pontius
Pilate. Basically his verdict was "not guilty but if that's what the
community wants
then I wash my hands of this matter and turn
him over to you."
The fact is that over the years Christians, and particularly
hubris-infested creed-writing councils,
have found it uncomfortable to
acknowledge that their ancestors were responsible for
the crucifixion. Thus these august, spiritually corrupt
bodies have chosen
to find a convenient scapegoat upon whom to
pin the blame. At their behest, millions of sheep are led astray every Sunday
to
repeat the sin.
The sin of scripture interpretation
Anyone who purports to understand all of scripture, or even
the bulk of scripture, is infested
with hubris and as a result will end up
committing sin.