December 29, 2014

Two or Three

I continue to visit all the churches in town and write about the experience. Right before Christmas I attended a New Age church that had a smattering of Christian elements mixed with pantheism — an Advent candle, revised verses of the children’s classic “This Little Light of Mine,” a song sheet with wishes for a joyous Christmas. During various meditative segments of the service the lights were turned off and the room glowed by candlelight. I searched for signs of the Lord’s presence, but unfortunately the room wasn’t the only thing dark. The worship service was for mother earth and it was obvious Jesus wasn’t invited. “For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them” (Matt 18:20 NIV).

1 comment:

Steve Corey said...

Gail;

-----For almost everything that can be said about something there is at least one exception. This makes it important to attach limiters like “almost” to superlatives, but it doesn’t destroy the sense of what can be said. So, excepting the exceptions, emotions are a big part of worship, whether the worship be in the form of praise, celebration, reverence, or the proper combination of the three. In fact, though they should not be, emotions are used in forming a big part of understanding. And by observing decades of musical, theatrical, and documentary pabulum and scrutinizing the arts and entertainment over the centuries, the greater verification of ideas and reasons for their acceptance apparently rest in the mixing torrents of people’s emotional makeup more than their careful, detailed scrutiny of facts and logics. So, turn the lights off, light some candles, introduce some appropriate mood music and a few well chosen, seemingly insightful mutterings, and you can lead a portion of people to worship even a bowl of chili. And the more unscrupulous, intellectual sounding claims are made around various public places about that bowl of chili, the more ignorant folks are going to come and worship it, basically because emotions are not intelligent. This is how Al Gore got so plump off emotional earth-worshippers in spite of all those indoor swimming pools and gyms at his well lit, well heated, sprawling mansion.

Love you all,
Steve Corey