I discovered a kindred spirit in an Interview on This American Life. Click on the Real Player icon next to “Heretics” 12/16 episode 308. It is worth the hour it takes to listen, well worth it. Here’s a description of it:

The story of Reverend Carlton Pearson, a renowned evangelical pastor in Tulsa, Oklahoma, who cast aside the idea of hell, and with it, everything he’d worked for over his entire life.
Prologue. Carlton Pearson’s church, Higher Dimensions, was once one of the biggest in the city, drawing crowds of 5,000 people every Sunday. But several years ago, scandal engulfed the Reverend. He didn’t have an affair. He didn’t embezzle lots of money. His sin was something that to a lot of people is far worse … he stopped believing in hell. (2 minutes)
Act One. Rise. Reporter Russell Cobb takes us through the remarkable and meteoric rise of Carlton Pearson from a young man to a Pentecostal Bishop: from the moment he first cast the devil out of his seventeen-year-old girlfriend, to the days when he had a close, personal relationship with Oral Roberts and had appearances on TV and at the White House. Just as Reverend Pearson’s career peaked, with more than 5,000 members of his congregation coming every week, he started to think about hell, wondering if a loving God would really condemn most of the human race to burn and writhe in the fire of hell for eternity. (30 minutes)
Act Two. Fall. Once he starts preaching his own revelation, Carlton Pearson’s church falls apart. After all, when there’s no hell (as the logic goes), you don’t really need to believe in Jesus to be saved from it. What follows are the swift departures of his pastors, and an exodus from his congregation – which quickly dwindled to a few hundred people. Donations drop off too, but just as things start looking bleakest, new kinds of people, curious, start showing up on Sunday mornings. (23 minutes)
Song: “Let the Church Roll On,” Mahalia Jackson

I keep finding business cards that I’ve collected over the years – a few stuffed in a rarely used drawer. a few more tucked in this book or that. This one had a saying on the back: “Forgiveness is giving up all hope for a better yesterday.” I thought it was profound when I heard it and it is even more profound now. Fascinating to me that it was written on a business card of someone whom I needed to forgive. Sometimes it is easy to forgive and other times, it takes sacrifice and effort. In fact, I think forgiveness is so central to practicing the Way of Christ that I’m dedicating a permanent page to it. See the link in the upper right hand corner of this site.

It is rather humbling and occasionally humiliating to realize how many problems I have caused myself. At this middle-aged point of life, I can also see that the simple daily actions of taking responsibility for myself have also led to wonderful things. Things like eating and drinking the right things most of the time usually leads to good health. Paying bills on time, getting an education by sacrificing other things, putting money away every week…..these things make for a better life in the physical realm. Usually.

Life has also taught me that what I’ve written above is true on one level but the illusion of cause and effect being a way to control life is just that: an illusion. We can better our odds but there are no guarantees. We can however control our attitudes. Buddha (which literally means “I am awake”) first two Noble Truths go something like this: 1) Life is out of whack and it’s easier when we realize this fact. 2) The reason life is out of whack is because of our individual selfish desires. He, of course, goes on to provide hope through changing attitudes and behaviors.

For myself, I have found that I suffer most when I expect other people to be different that they really are. Even after all these years, I somehow expect people to be better than they are. I expect those in power to be trust-worthy and to do what is best for the whole. How naive is that??? I expect that when I do the right thing for other people that they will do the right thing for me. Doesn’t always happen and I become so disappointed. I remember a octogenarian once telling me, “People are rotten to the core, myself included. I wish I had your optimism about people but I don’t. And if God accepts me when I die, it will be purely by grace.” I thought the world of this man and found him kind, thoughtful and loving. But I think he knew something about human nature that I’d rather not see.

Buddha also talked about the importance of the people one chooses to be with. Jesus chose to be with the people who knew they were sinners and wanted to be more. Good advice.

This world is so confusing. I try to understand why cartoons in one country cause people in another to react with violence. I wonder if it really has anything to do with genuine faith or if it is primarily a political act of aggression. I have read and researched, talked and listened, been respectful and inquiring of the Islamic faiths (there are many forms of it just as there are of every religion). I have grown in my respect for many of these forms but also am dismayed and fearful of others. This is very disturbing to me.
At the same time, there is the news about prison riots here in the USA. The riots are racially based. Interviews with inmates reveal that if they don’t act with hatred and violence toward those of another race, they will be punished by those of their own race. Seems to me like a microcosm of the world-wide violence. Perhaps the same sort of pressures apply to those of Muslim faith who are currently rioting.
One of the most helpful courses I studied in college concerned large social movements. 35 years later, I still remember the central point of the course: human beings are so malleable that in large groups individuals will do horrific acts in total contrast to their stated beliefs. I haven’t been put in that position as far as I know. I pray I would be more like Deitrich Bonhoeffer or Mahatma Ghandi but I fear I might be more like Peter during the trial of Jesus and try to just blend into the background or run away.
I wonder if this is why I tend to be suspicious of any large group event. I watched the Super Bowl to see the commercials but I can’t imagine getting all excited about any sports team. Perhaps I’m just ornery and don’t want to be one of the crowd. I’m suspicious of mega-churches for the same reasons. They remind me of rock concerts and hero worship. Basically, if everyone is doing something, I think there must be something wrong with it. Makes living in this world a little challenging. But then, it seems that’s largely the point of Christ’s teaching – we are made in God’s image and all of life is a struggle to fulfill that promise. The crowds won’t show us the way.

With thanks to Sojourners Magazine this is a transcript of a speech made to the National Prayer Breakfast by the rock star, Bono:

If you’re wondering what I’m doing here, at a prayer breakfast, well, so am I. I’m certainly not here as a man of the cloth, unless that cloth is leather. It’s certainly not because I’m a rock star. Which leaves one possible explanation: I’m here because I’ve got a messianic complex.

Yes, it’s true. And for anyone who knows me, it’s hardly a revelation.

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