October 13, 2005

• GOD TOLD ME TO WRITE THIS BLOG
  (Or at least that’s the story I’m telling)
  
  I’m sure most of you have either read the story below (which appeared in the Guardian) or have heard about it. Read on….
  
  George Bush has claimed he was on a mission from God when he launched the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a senior Palestinian politician in an interview to be broadcast by the BBC later this month.
  
  Mr Bush revealed the extent of his religious fervor when he met a Palestinian delegation during the Israeli-Palestinian summit at the Egpytian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, four months after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
  
  One of the delegates, Nabil Shaath, who was Palestinian foreign minister at the time, said: “President Bush said to all of us: ‘I am driven with a mission from God’. God would tell me, ‘George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan’. And I did. And then God would tell me ‘George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq’. And I did.”
  
  Mr Bush went on: “And now, again, I feel God’s words coming to me, ‘Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East’. And, by God, I’m gonna do it.”
  
  I grew up in a culture where people talked like that all of the time. It was not only acceptable; it was considered a display of the depth of your spirituality. No one thought you were crazy. In fact, if your behavior was motivated by something other than a word from God, you were highly suspect.
  
  The truth is…I used to talk like that.
  
  I stood up in front of my church when I was a Jr. in High School and told the congregation that God had told me to go into the ministry. I truly believed it and I was wildly applauded for it. If you had ask me if God had told me that out loud I would have looked at you like you were crazy and told you, “of course not, it was God’s still, small voice.” Many of you reading this know exactly what I’m talking about.
  
  As I look back on that time in my life now, I can be more honest about what my motivations really were than I was even with myself at the time. I know I believed that is what God wanted me to do but I also know that it was expected of me at the time and I that I received a great deal of approval because of that decision at a time in my life when I really needed approval.
  
  Then, a funny thing happened on my way to the pulpit. When I actually got into the ministry my idealism began to be shattered pretty quickly. Whenever someone came into my office, sat down across from me, and began a sentence with “God told me to…”, 95% of time it meant I was about to get screwed over. Slowly I began to realize that people would use the “God told me to” excuse to justify all sorts of personal agendas and contemptuous behaviors. I actually cringe now at the naivety of my youth.
  
  These days I believe that there are ways that God would like me to behave. Whether or not you believe that scripture has any validity, most folks would agree that if you could live according to the general principles of the Sermon on the Mount that you would be behaving as a decent human being. The same could be said of living by the principles in the Koran or the teachings of Buddha, etc. That is how “God speaks to me” these days. When it comes to the decisions I make in life, I take responsibility for my own actions. I don’t blame them on a higher power.
  
  I have a hard time actually believing that Dubya thinks God told him to invade Iraq. If it’s true, God has really screwed the pooch over there. I think it’s what George thought people wanted to hear, just like I thought it was what people wanted to hear when I stood in front of my congregation back in High School.
  
  I’ll admit that despite my cynicism, I still have a very soft place in my heart for the beliefs on which I was raised. If you believe that God speaks to you in that “still, small voice” I’m not going to say he doesn’t. I’m just asking that you never use it as an excuse to be an asshole.
  

  • 1:09 pm
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