The religious in America as still largely hungover from the early Puritans religious binges of the 1600"s. We"re still cutting the ends off of the "proverbial hams" and we don"t know why. Most importantly we haven"t yet figured out that we don"t need to cut the ends off the ham. We need to be delivered from some of America"s religious base that"s not only not valid, but harmful to our spiritual growth.
Puritans came to America not so much to escape religious oppression, Catholicism, and Anglicanism, but to create a new Eden here in America: to embrace a virgin continent. Ah, such grandiose metaphors this new community of Adam"s could be!
Puritans deemed themselves to be the ELECT!
So of the puritanical pollutions that"s been handed down to us today are-
>An emphasis on who is IN and who is OUT- predestination!
>An extreme focus on the WRATH of God.
>An inordinate FEAR of God"s retribution with LOVE taking a back seat.
>A heavy doctrinal teaching on HELL and damnation.
>A Satanic presence nearly equal in power as God.
>A harsh intolerance for sin and cultural depravity.
This is a God of love? Now you know where the fundamentalists got their upbringing.
And when they came into power in 1642, they tried to set up a despotic theocracy (and we have many teleavangelists trying to do the same today) by passing a law for example that said, "In order to appease and avert the wrath of God....public stage plays shall cease and be forborne". Laws were passed aganst swearing. Oh damn!
Karen Armstrong put it this way, "God did not seem to imbue the Puritans with either happiness or compassion. Their journals and autobiographies show that they were obsessed with predestination and terror that they would not be saved. Conversion became a central preoccupation." Majoring on trivialities!
Hello! Does any of this seem familiar? How many friends or neighbors do you know who fit this mold? Probably too many, unless you be one. :-)
So, while we"re into GO GREEN, why don"t we also clear out some of the puritanical pollution as well!