Discipleship and Responsibility

When John the Baptist is arrested for saying some unkind things about the king, Jesus takes over for him as local preacher and sect leader. Of course, some of John's disciples most likely keep his group, maintaining his ideas and ministry under new leadership. Jesus seems to use John's message as a springboard for his own ministry in the gospel stories, which may indicate that there was some rivalry between competing sects. In the gospel of Mark, we see just a couple of sentences about the thrust of Jesus' message, which the author of Matthew elaborates on in terms of geography. Luke and John both contain parallel statements about the beginning of Jesus' public ministry, although they do not tie it with an end to John the Baptist's sect. In all of these brief passages, however, it is easy to see subtle hints about why Jesus' message may have been a threat to people in positions of authority. Speaking of a new kingdom would have been a potential political threat against Roman authority, and baptizing a bunch of disciples would have been a threat to the religious status quo of Jewish culture. While all of that is fascinating, it is more a matter of history (or at least the background of the story) than of any present usefulness, aside from the truth that the conservation of power is inherently threatened by new ideas.

The ideas presented in the gospel stories would never have gained traction if one man went around spreading them without convincing anyone. In every narrative, disciples who agree with Jesus' ideas are called early and become active partners in creation. Mark presents a fairly straightforward depiction of Jesus telling a few guys to quit their jobs and follow him around for awhile, which they do without hesitation. To be fair, the idea of "fishing for men" is a clever play on words and probably seemed a bit intriguing, but most people would have required a bit more explanation about what they were signing up for. The author of Matthew copies the story verbatim, and Luke writes his own versions later on of how the disciples all met Jesus. In the gospel of John, however, there is a bit more of a story, in which John the Baptist seems to commend a couple of his disciples to Jesus. Beyond just giving people an excuse to shirk their fishing careers, Jesus says a few more impressive things in the John version of the story, suggesting that he has some superhuman knowledge.

It bears mentioning in relation to the John narrative that not all early Christian church documents consider Cephas and Peter to be the same person, and there is an Aramaic name "Petros" which means "first born" and has nothing to do with rocks. But we will return to the character of Peter in greater detail at a later time. For now, it is the concept of discipleship that holds incredible value for twenty-first century society.

We are disciples of various people in our lives as well, although most of them do not encourage us to leave our jobs and become vagabonds. Typically, we become disciples of people who seem to be more knowledgeable, wise, or experienced than we are, and we expect (or at least hope) that following these people will yield some benefit in our own lives --  that we will gain some measure of their knowledge and wisdom. For the sake of having a label for these people, let us borrow the term "guru." Some gurus tell us which books to read, some tell us how to invest our money, some tell us how to make money in the first place. We listen to people who give us insight about politics, how we should vote, and whom we should call to complain about this or that piece of legislation. We listen to child rearing gurus, health gurus, relationship gurus, and of course, religion gurus. Everywhere we turn, it seems that there are people who know more about everything in our lives than we could possibly know ourselves. And some of them do.

With a multitude of voices, however, if can be difficult to tell which guru has real valuable wisdom to offer us and which ones are loud-mouthed charlatans. Psychological research has shown that we are most inclined to follow the guru who agrees with us. Did you catch that? We are most inclined to listen to people who validate our own views. They may challenge us a little bit in one direction or another, but they get there by speaking to what we already believe about ourselves, other people, and the world. One question we must ask ourselves is whether our gurus are speaking to what we know or what we fear. The last thing we need is some purportedly wise person validating the lies and fears we have accumulated.

Sometimes, we will expect to see some modern day equivalents of signs and wonders, like Jesus telling Nathanael where he had been. A guru may have to jump through a few hoops before we commit ourselves as disciples. Multilevel marketing gurus have emotion-based presentations that demonstrate how easy it is to make money with their particular brand of snake oil. Political gurus will have the sound bites and supporting testimony from other experts to illustrate the accuracy and insight of  their righteous indignation. Churches have appealing music and a welcoming attitude to convince you that their brand of religion is better than the rest. But not all gurus are out to fool us. Some people are honestly more knowledgeable about particular matters. Many of us need to trust experts with some facets of our lives that we are ill-equipped to handle, but the concept of discipleship takes things a bit further than mere trust of a more experienced person. We sometimes become disciples of a particular person's ideas in a way that we would never devote ourselves to a mechanic or a drug store pharmacist. In becoming disciples of a concept or an individual, we run the risk of forgetting to think for ourselves; we are sometimes content to parrot what we have heard without even considering whether it makes any sense or is based on accurate data. And certain gurus will even tell us how wise we are for accepting what they say without putting too much thought into it. Discipleship is a dangerous proposition unless we continue to be responsible for our own beliefs and actions.

Given that we are so inclined to devote ourselves to people who validate our own opinions, it may seem unnecessary to question our personal gurus. After all, if we already know that they agree with us on basic principles, we can safely assume that all the details that follow are logically in line with what we already believe, right? Not necessarily. The Jesus of the gospels had a high-minded mission in which he sought collaboration. Many gurus of our day have a different sort of agenda, and in order for us to recognize that agenda, we must keep thinking. For this reason, it is valuable to listen to a multitude of perspectives, especially from people we don't revere. If we are willing to consider alternative ways of seeing the world and we still walk away with our original ideas intact, then our convictions will be the stronger for it. If we hear something that challenges our perspective however, we may have an opportunity to refine our beliefs, to sharpen what we believe so that we are better able to act in a meaningful way to create a more desirable reality in partnership with others.

Experts are not bad. We count on reliable experts in many areas of our lives. Being a disciple of an expert -- or several experts -- is not necessarily a bad thing either. The important piece is continue to weigh what our gurus tell us against reality and our own ability to think and reason. We know that people matter, and so we know that when some idea we believe or hear devalues people, there is something off target about that idea. In order for our actions to best represent us, our minds must be engaged in what we accept and reject. At our core, we know what we need to know about deep truths, and we can recognize irrational fear when we want to. If we find the concept of discipleship appealing, why not devote ourselves to those people who better equip us to dismantle our irrational fears, treat one another with respect, recognize the beauty and wonder in the real world around us, and tap into our ability to connect creatively with one another to build something meaningful in the world? We are already experts at feeding our lies and fears. We don't honestly need any help with that lesson.

Creationism and Morality (and the fact that there is no link between the two)

Yesterday, I heard a reiteration of the creationism vs. evolution argument in which a Christian stated that the existence of morality proved the existence of God.  The assertion was that there has to be a creator because people know right from wrong, and since morality and ethics are not traits that could evolve naturally, our understanding of what is moral and ethical must come from a higher source.  There are a few problems with this argument, as you’ll see.  If anyone wants to believe in either creationism or evolution as a matter of personal faith, there is nothing that anyone can say to sway that belief.  When people propose “proofs” for their point of view, those proofs warrant scrutiny.

The most obvious flaw with this particular argument is the idea that morality and ethics are not “survival traits” for humanity.  There is some confusion between the idea of “survival of the fittest” and the concept of “might makes right.”  The theory of evolution doesn’t place value on what is best for one individual creature in the moment, it places value on what is best for the survival of a species over time.  While there are people who engage in immoral or unethical behavior, humanity cannot thrive on those principals.  Without developing some principles of how to treat one another, human beings could never have created anything in cooperation with one another.  The concept of every man for himself would not have gotten our species very far.  Survival of the species requires sacrifice on the part of the individual.

This concept bears itself out in nature as well.  There are animals who do things that are not so healthy for the individual creature, but are necessary for the survival of future generations.  The insect world is full of examples of seemingly instinctual behavior that is detrimental to a single creature and yet beneficial to a multitude.  If creatures instinctively did only what was best for a single animal, there wouldn’t be any animals left.  Nature does not reward selfishness.

Historically, human civilization has also demonstrated the necessity of moral and ethical behavior.  When oppressed by an immoral or unethical minority, the multitudes have consistently revolted and punished the oppressors.  It may seem that people in the present are getting away with horrific crimes, committing atrocities without consequence, but historically speaking, societies have only tolerated that kind of behavior for so long.  When people openly behave immorally or unethically, their society eventually punishes them.  So, even for the individual, it’s a bit of a gamble to operate outside the accepted bounds of morality and ethics.  

Not only is there nothing in the development of morality and ethics that requires the existence of a supreme being, the belief in a supreme being has historically been used to condone immorality.  It is rather convenient to be able to defer to a presumably perfect authority who just happens to agree with your world view.  Throughout history, doing what a particular god wants has often overridden the accepted rules of behavior.  We all know that killing people is immoral, except perhaps when we are killing in the name of something greater than ourselves.  Belief in God allows for “justified” exceptions to the accepted moral and ethical boundaries of a society.

If morality and ethics were dependent upon belief in God, one would think that there would be a clear dividing line between believers and non-believers.  Yet there are believers  who behave immorally and unethically, and there are non-believers who behave morally and ethically.  Not all the time, mind you, like some two-dimensional B-movie character, but often enough that one could not reliably distinguish a Creationist from an Evolutionist based merely on how their behavior stacked up against the moral and ethical standards of their society.  This shouldn’t be the case if belief in a creator was necessary for morality, although it makes perfect sense if our sense of morality and ethics (and our willingness to try to push those boundaries) was in a broader sense evolutionary.  We are all human beings, after all, even though our beliefs differ.

The bottom line is that belief in a creator has nothing to do with one’s capacity for moral and ethical behavior.  Religion is simply a great tool for enforcing moral and ethical behavior among people who are unwilling to accept personal responsibility for their own actions.  If God says to be moral and ethical, and if God will punish immoral and unethical people, then it makes sense for someone who believes in God to be moral and ethical.  Such behavior is often thoughtless, because no one has the authority to question what God wants.  It can also be selfish, because the threat of punishment often receives greater emphasis than the value of the behavior itself.

Morality and ethics make it more possible for humanity to thrive as a species.  People should respect one another because people are worthy of respect.  People lose a piece of their own humanity when they behave in a way that dehumanizes other people.  Moral and ethical behavior ultimately benefits everyone.  Claiming that a higher power has to be involved creates the illusion that the benefits of moral and ethical behavior aren’t enough in and of themselves.  When we are willing to discard the illusion, perhaps we will be better able to see the intrinsic value of relating to one another in a moral and ethical manner.  Until then, the concept of morality really has no impact on the creationism vs. evolution debate.

Numbers 1-4: Counting People and Organizing a Society

Thus far, we've looked at the first three books of the protestant Christian Bible, which are traditionally attributed to Moses, although scholars have determined that the books were authored by several different contributors over a long period of time.  Thus far, the books have largely been about the preservation of Israelite culture, primarily through belief in an external divine being who favors the Jewish people somewhat arbitrarily.  Part of the establishment of this religiously rigorous culture involved elaborate sacrifices for various things, essentially giving up something personal to make amends when one acts contrary to the culture's policies.  A special group of people were assigned to oversee the religious life of the Jewish people, and these were the Levites, those men descended from Levi, Jacob's third son.  More about the Levites in a moment.

Rather than accept the culture-specific deity suggested in the Old Testament, most Christians primarily rely on the story of Jesus and the teachings of the New Testament to bridge the gap.  Essentially this reflects the belief that over time, as culture changed and developed, spiritual truth evolved as well.  It is no longer necessary to offer elaborate animal sacrifices whenever a person does something wrong, because Jesus eliminated that requirement.  It is no longer necessary to adhere to strict dietary guidelines, because Peter had a holy vision.  And in some cases, people just assume that the Bible's earlier teachings are invalid because we have grown in our understanding of how the world works.  We don't hang twisted sticks by a water trough in order to make livestock be born with curly hair because we know that biology doesn't work that way, and we don't worry about whether a person is "clean" or "unclean" because hygienic and medical practices have become more robust in the thousands of years since these laws were written.  What's odd is that many people seem to be just fine with the idea that some "laws" can change with the culture, while other laws are immutable, even though they are all declared with the same authority in the biblical text.

In my own language, I have been suggesting a redefinition of the divine as something within us rather than something apart from us.  Rather than eliminating the idea of what people consider divine, to a certain extent I am merely repositioning those qualities in our cosmology.  I believe that there is no external intelligence watching, guiding, punishing, and rewarding humanity.  The guidance and punishment and reward comes from within us, from a part of ourselves of which we aren't always aware.  Psychologists have given different names to this piece of our psyches, but it carries the characteristics of the divine.  This part of us does not fear, and therefore it does not deceive.  It is the part of us that sees the deep truth about ourselves and the people around us, the vast similarities that lie under the superficial differences.  It is the part of us that understands the beauty and value of who we are and seeks to discover that beauty in other people and in the natural world.  It is the part of us that creates, whether it is creating works of art, practical solutions to problems, or connections with other people.  The divine is within us and it is us, and when we are in tune with it, we realize how little we actually have to do to be at peace with ourselves.

Being at peace with ourselves is important, because all of our experience hinges on whether we are accepting and loving toward ourselves.  The beginning of the book of Numbers reflects how the Israelites expected to interact with the people around them.  Their god, through Moses, had proclaimed that other nations would fall before them.  Other nations were essentially infidels, although the translators of the Christian Bible don't often choose to use that term.  The preservation of a pure Israelite culture required the prevention of intermingling, so anyone who wasn't an Israelite was an enemy of the Israelites and their god.  Thus when the first census is taken among the Israelite community, they count only the men at least twenty years old who could serve in the army.  They didn't need to know how many women or children were in each tribe because the warriors were the ones who would be driving away the non-Israelites.  At the time, women and children were essentially property, not fully recognized people.

It's interesting to note that when a command in the Bible is attributed to God, he often seems to adopt the worldview of the people through which he's speaking.  Since the men of the day saw women and children as property, God saw no point in counting women and children in the census.  There are also plenty of other examples in the previous books and in the books that follow.  Wouldn't it have made more sense for God to maintain a sense of the value of all human life, even when the people to whom he was speaking didn't?  This is the problem with relying upon any person's declaration of what God wants.

Moses meant well.  After all, he wanted to preserve his people and their culture.  The authors who wrote the Old Testament meant well.  They were striving to keep their culture sacred.  They probably actually believed the righteousness of their words.  But when a person sets out to control other people's behavior, it is usually more from an inward fear than from any sense of what is true.  Moses tapped into some divine guidance from within and sought to impose order on a people who hadn't reached any measure of spiritual awareness.  And instead of training people to look within themselves and discover the truth about how to live with one another in a productive and healthy society, Moses and the early Israelite leaders attempted to lock the culture down.  Only a select few were allowed to be in touch with the divine, and all the rest – hundreds of thousands of men, plus their women and children – were supposed to be good followers and do what the religious leaders told them to do.

These religious leaders, at the beginning of the book of Numbers and beyond, were the Levites.  The Levites were counted differently from the rest of the Israelites, because the Levites were not going to be fighting in any battles.  Instead of counting every male of twenty years and older, the Levite census included every male of one month and older.  One month out in the world was when a male Levite became a legitimate person according to God.  Not at birth.  Not at conception.  Not at some age of reckoning.  One month.  Inerrantists and militantly religious anti-abortionists, take note.

We know more now than the Israelites knew.  We know more about the natural world, we know more about how individuals behave and why, and we know more about how societies and subcultures function.  When someone tells us something intended to sound factual, we know how to check our sources and verify the truth of what we're told.  And when someone tells us something spiritual, we know how to test that within ourselves.  We are not incapable of thought.  We don't need someone else to think for us, but that often seems easier than digging into ourselves and discovering something of value.  When you allow someone else to think for you, though, you give up personal power and you make yourself vulnerable to whatever ulterior motives another person may have.  Don't just drift along on other people's assertions.  At least be aware of your own beliefs.  Think for yourself.

The Israelite leaders may have wanted what they thought was best for their society, but that doesn't mean they had the only solution.  Many people today are willing to go to war against all manner of things in order to do what they think is best for society, and many people simply want to preserve power.  It isn't always easy to tell the difference, but fortunately we don't have to.  Here is something few people realize: You cannot be at peace with yourself and at war with other people.  When you are at war with other people, you must vigilantly defend yourself against them.  And when you are vigilantly defending yourself, you are not really aware of that deep sense of truth, beauty, and creativity.  Your focus is outward, at what threats may be coming.  When you are peace with yourself, you are aware of the truth, beauty, and creativity within you and you are simultaneously able to recognize those qualities in the people around you.  This is the most powerful spiritual position a person can assume.

Exodus 4-13: The Exodus Model of Spiritual Leadership and the Dangers of Blind Obedience

The tale of the ten plagues visited upon Egypt is famous.  When the Israelites were under the heavy burden of Egyptian slavery, Moses compelled the Egyptian pharaoh to release them by proclaiming a series of increasingly costly events, enacted by God upon the Egyptians.  The Israelites were spared the direct cost of the plagues, and eventually left with stolen goods from Egyptian households with Egyptian soldiers in pursuit.  The story of the plagues culminates in the ritual of Passover, a significant piece of Jewish culture that reminds participants of God’s favoritism toward his chosen people and his promise of redemption.

There is considerable doubt in the archaeological community that the Israelites were ever slaves in Egypt, much less that they proclaimed and were spared from an epic series of plagues upon the Egyptian people. Some suggest that the assumed timeline of Egyptian history is incorrect, and at least one researcher has offered that significant volcanic activity could account for almost all of the plagues.  However, to take the story as pure documentation of historical events misses its point.  The three essential messages of the story are (1) Our god is better than your god, (2) God chooses spiritual leaders whom the multitudes must follow, and (3) Ritual has meaning.

While it seems silly to put the first message in terms of a grade-school taunt, there are plenty of people in the world today for whom that simple statement is the summation of their faith.  “My god is better than your god, and therefore you are less worthy as a human being.”  Less worthy of respect, less worthy of societal rights, even less worthy of life in some cases.  It’s a central problem to the concept of an external deity, especially when certain people believe that they can understand that deity’s character and intentions better than anyone else.  It must be incredibly frustrating for believers to hear such a cacophony of voices all proclaiming to know what God wants and rarely agreeing on anything.  Responsible believers would do well to research their own scriptures and decide for themselves what spiritual truths lie therein, but the message “people need leaders to guide them into spiritual understanding” often stands in the way.

When we started looking at Exodus, I mentioned that we would do best to identify with Moses rather than the masses of Israelite “victims” in the tale.  That isn’t implicit in the text, though.  The story clearly suggests that there is a vast gulf between the chosen spiritual leaders and the masses they lead.  The role of the masses is to be obedient to the leader, because the leader is proclaiming the will of God.  To be obedient to the spiritual leader is to be obedient to God.  And if you aren’t obedient, you will suffer – perhaps even the death of a child.  Blind obedience is a fine way to maintain cultural integrity.  Not so much for developing personal spirituality.

The problem, of course, is that people eventually abuse that spiritual authority.  It would almost be a respectable system if those leaders cared first and foremost about the spiritual well-being of their flocks, but when a spiritual leader develops a personal agenda, it becomes a personal crusade.  People with the authority of a pulpit or a microphone speak for God and proclaim who should be persecuted, who should be defended, who people should fall in love with, what people should legally be allowed to do with their bodies, who should be elected to office, what country the United States should bomb, what movies to watch or avoid…  They strive to influence all manner of beliefs, behaviors, and decisions.  And within the context of a religious culture teaching people that obedience to spiritual leaders is equivalent to obedience to God, people sometimes fail to use their own personal discernment in the face of messages from these authorities.

Then there is the matter of backlash in the face of disillusionment.  Some people, upon recognizing that a spiritual leader has in some way failed them or led them astray, decide to take charge themselves.  Religious institutions are filled with people on a quest for personal power, sometimes with a sense of righteous purpose, but almost always fueled by a measure of vindictiveness toward a person or group that didn’t quite fill out the role of spiritual leader satisfactorily.  In many cases, these selfish campaigns for personal power ignore the impact on the broader spiritual community, and the negative ripples may spread further than the crusader even realizes.

It’s probably fortunate for some people that there is not an intelligent divine being looking on to the chaos caused by those who claim to be his mouthpieces.  It’s dangerous to believe that you have a corner on the market of understanding what a god wants from his followers.  Prophets and their devotees spend more time and energy arguing with one another than they spend on actually living spiritually meaningful lives.  Unless, of course, arguing incessantly has some spiritual merit in a person’s belief system.  I suppose that’s possible.  I believe that there is a more satisfying way to live.

Leaders are important.  I don’t mean to suggest otherwise.  Innovators, visionaries, and mobilizers are necessary to propel a system forward, whether it’s an organization or a nation or a world.  The key is for people to realize that these human beings are just that.  Leaders are not granted divine immunity from fault or criticism.  There are a lot of people who speak for particular beliefs or causes, but there is no one who speaks for God.  Anyone in leadership benefits from people who are willing to think for themselves and evaluate the direction in which they are being led.

Which is where the third point of the Exodus story comes into play.  Ritual is powerful.  The Passover probably began as a bit of witchcraft, smearing lamb’s blood on a doorframe to keep evil spirits away.  It evolved into a colorful story about a people’s relationship with their god and a practice that preserved a culture.  The ritual embodies what is held to be spiritual truth, and it is a powerful symbol that touches the deepest parts of the human psyche.  The Passover ritual also becomes translated into Christian communion, the church having converted the ritual into a new spiritual context, as organized religion so often does.  Without the ritual, people may understand a set of beliefs intellectually, but the ritual reaches into places that the intellect doesn’t tread.

People have created rituals for a very long time.  Rituals were initially ways to connect people with the natural world around them.  Some of our contemporary celebrations (religious and otherwise) have been adapted from rituals honoring the natural occurrences of solstice and equinox.  The key is to recognize what beliefs a ritual is establishing for you.  Don’t take part in rituals that are not in alignment with what you truly believe.  If you want to become more deeply in touch with the divine, be a part of or create your own rituals that speak to that truth.  That goes for any belief system.  If the rituals you participate in have become habitual and empty, find a way to revitalize the practice.  When you are more deeply aware of who you are, you are more apt to see that value in others.  This goes for people who believe that they are forgiven children of God as well as people who believe that the divine is something they embody within themselves.

When we are honest about the deep and undeniable truth, beauty, and creativity within us, we are able to inspire that awareness in others and we are able to guide progress in a direction that truly honors our connection to ourselves, the rest of humanity, and the natural world.  In those moments of clarity when we set aside fears and personal agendas in order to consider the truths that run deeper than doctrines, then we stand a chance of speaking for the divine.  And in those moments of clarity, it doesn’t matter who we convince. Truth does not need a bullhorn.  Truth does not need to attack anything.  Truth does not need defending.  Truth does not need anyone to agree with it.  Truth is simply and undeniably true.

The Morality of Being Willing to Kill a Child Doesn't Change Just Because You Think God Told You to Do It

Continuing with the narrative of the Old Testament story, Abraham and Abimilech make peace, the elderly Sarah gives birth to Isaac and promptly becomes too jealous of Hagar to bear having her around, and Abraham sends Hagar and Ishmael (Abraham’s firstborn) out on their own into the wilderness, with God’s blessing. Which brings us to Genesis 22, in which Abraham takes his son Isaac to a mountaintop with the intention of sacrificing him to God. He reportedly does this because God told him to, and thus Abraham is willing to go through with it. At the last minute, a ram caught in a nearby bush (seen to be provided by God) is substituted for the boy, and God makes a promise about the future of Abraham’s bloodline.

Supposedly, the promise God makes to Abraham at the end of this horrifying story is the seventh promise God has made to him, but the promises are all strikingly similar: God grants Abraham a stretch of land (although he doesn’t provide any legal documentation that anyone else would honor), he promises Abraham lots of “children”, and he makes promises about how mighty and prosperous those children are going to be. Since the Jewish people are the ones who scribed all of this after passing it down through word of mouth for generations, one would expect them to be the heroes of the story. The promise by God is obviously intended to be indisputable, except that this story calls into question God’s morality and trustworthiness.

First of all, why did God find this test to be necessary? Abraham had already made a pact with God involving sacrificing animals, and then he made a further pact with God requiring physical mutilation, for which Abraham and his descendents really didn’t get anything further from God for the additional requirements. It is as if an insurance company decided to add an enormous fee onto the premium while offering no additional benefits, simply because they don’t quite trust their customers. Even though Abraham is faithful with the requirements of previous agreements, God decides he needs to be tested. The primary reasons to test people are either because you want to verify they know the material or because you don’t trust them. Abraham obviously knew the content and requirements of the previous arrangements, because he did what God had requested of him. So, this test can only be about God not trusting Abraham, which seems remarkably insecure for an all-powerful deity, but there it is.

Readers of this story may see spiritual lessons about trusting God in difficult times or about God providing what one needs or about God honoring the faithful. Such lessons are much easier to accept if one doesn’t think too much about the motivations of God in the matter. It’s one thing to think of a being as all-powerful and deserving of respect, but the all-powerful being’s behavior in this story is petty and manipulative. Who challenges someone to see if he will kill his own son, just to prove a point about divine might? Later on, Christians would see this story as a mirror of God’s own sacrifice of his son, which is an obvious narrative parallel, except that the God of this story in Genesis seems to have some psychological issues, not the least of which is a profound insecurity that leads him to require further evidence of Abraham’s faithfulness, just so God can renew a promise that wasn’t made with an expiration date.

So, apparently to satisfy his own ego, God commands something immoral, confirms that Abraham is willing to do this immoral thing without question, and then steps in and saves the day. Say what you will about God’s provision or trustworthiness, but the entire situation wouldn’t have existed unless God had contrived it and the sacrifice wouldn’t have needed to be provided if God hadn’t required it. Certainly, there were other gods worshiped in the area at the time, and there are reports of other people sacrificing children. The archaeological evidence of any widespread culture of child sacrifice in the area is scarce, but the Jews certainly accused some neighboring peoples of the practice. To the casual observer, the willingness to sacrifice one’s child is evidence of equal moral depravity, whether a ram gets substituted in the end or not.

It comes down to a matter of blind obedience. Trust without thought can be dangerous, even dangerous enough to put people’s lives at risk. If one believes in a Creator, then surely one must assume that the Creator provided human beings with brains for a purpose. Not to use those brains for rational thought seems like an insult. Beyond that, trusting in an external source to provide a way out of difficult situations abdicates personal responsibility. If one knows that killing a child is wrong, it is ludicrous to lose one’s moral compass for the sake of trusting something outside of oneself. The concept of an omnipotent and all-loving external divine being opens the door for people to stop reasoning for themselves. And if they can pin any horrific behavior on that omnipotent and all-loving divine being, then the mindless faithful and the god are both beyond reproach.

The entire concept of trusting God, even when what he asks seems suspect, opens the door to rampant justification for bad behavior. On top of that, people often wind up with different ideas about what God wants. How does one determine who is right? It would makes sense for believers to rely on their own internal awareness of what interpretation respects other people and acknowledges the innate beauty and value of every human being. Instead, the deciding factor is often which interpretation is expressed with the greatest amount of outrage and conviction. Plenty of horrific acts throughout the course of humanity have been pinned on God, because no one can legitimately argue against God. The truly horrific part is that God did not swoop down and stop any of those actions with a ram caught in a bush. Nor will he. The conclusions believers choose to draw from that observation are likely to be different from the conclusions I come to, but the fact remains that God does not intervene when people do immoral things in his name.

Reading or hearing the story of Abraham being willing to sacrifice Isaac may convince you of God’s trustworthiness and the value of faithfulness, but the God of this story behaves in such a petty, manipulative, and insecure manner that I would find him difficult to trust if I believed in him. But where do we turn in the absence of an all-loving, omnipotent divine being? Some people are happy to believe in an external divine being, even one which displays symptoms of severe psychosis, just because there seems to be such a void without such a belief. I would suggest that human beings have value, and that we all possess the means to acknowledge and respect that value, should we choose to be thoughtful and aware. I have written these words before, but they bear repeating: Every person embodies an innate truth, beauty, and creativity, and every functional adult is capable of taking personal responsibility for honoring and respecting that innate truth, beauty, and creativity. That is the divine nature. It is not outside of us, driving us to do immoral things so that it can swoop in and save the day and gain our eternal gratitude and adoration. The divine is that truth and beauty and creativity within us, and we have the power to acknowledge it in ourselves and in every other person.