God is a Big Boy and can take care of Himself

There is a Christian song that reads "there's room at the cross for you,...though many may come, there is still room for one, there's room at the cross for you."

As wonderful and open as the author intended it, the point of Christianity is that you MUST come to the cross in order to be allowed Heaven. Meaning that there are millions upon millions of people of other religions and faiths who, because of this, must be doomed to hell. I have a real problem believing God is like that. 

Today, Franklin Graham, minister, and son of Billy Graham, one of the greatest men of faith to have ever lived (in my humble opinion), really drew a line between Christianity and other faiths. He has stated in the past that Islam is an evil religion and for that was "dis-invited" from a National Day of Prayer event. Today, Graham told Newsmax,   

"We certainly love the Muslim people. But that is not the faith of this country. And that is not the religion that built this nation. The people of the Christian faith and the Jewish faith are the ones who built America, and it is not Islam."

He also seriously disrespected Hinduism, stating,

   

"No elephant with 100 arms can do anything for me. None of their 9,000 gods is going to lead me to salvation. We are fooling ourselves if we think we can have some big kumbaya service and all hold hands and it's all going to get better in this world. It's not going to get better."

Is he serious? First the original religion of this country was the one practiced by the Native Americans. That only changed when the white "Christians" sailed the ocean blue and whipped out the native population. The founding fathers' intention was to establish a country where there was absolutely NO government establishment of religion because they were tired of being ordered what they should believe.

Secondly, insulting other religions is not the way to win people to your own faith. I'm sorry, but the story of Jonah surviving 3 days inside the gastric juices of a whale at the whim of a bully God is just as ridiculous as believing in a God symbolized by an "elephant with 100 arms". It is a symbol, a parable, an example. It is man's attempt to understand the workings of a God whose essence is far beyond what we can comprehend. 

It is BECAUSE God is so big and so amazing that I have a hard time believing that he confines "himself" to ONE faith. The only proof most faiths have that they are the only way to Heaven, is because they say they are. The same can be said of Christianity. The accepted books of the Bible were determined by men through the centuries. Even the great Martin Luther attempted to change the accepted books by removing Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation. The issue of Jesus' divinity was up for debate until the first Council of Nicea when it was put up to a VOTE (a vote!) whether or not Jesus was God's literal son or a figurative son as the other "sons of God" mentioned in scripture. It was not even considered by many early Christians to even think of Jesus as anything other than a great prophet. 

It is amazing to me to think that Jesus, who, (as we were taught) knew he was the Son of God, would not take the time to write down his own Gospel. Why be so cryptic? Why do we have to guess which book is divinely inspired and which is not? Why are the gospels as found in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Library not included? Is it because they do not assume that Jesus was God made flesh?

With all this said, I am not an enemy of God, nor am I an atheist. Far from it. I absolutely believe there is a God. However, I refuse to limit God and demand that "he" only speak to me. I will not tell "him" who he is allowed to speak to or speak through. I will not act like a spoiled child who demands that only Daddy love me, and not my brothers and sisters. I will let God be God. I will leave it up to him. I will trust him to lead people to him in his way and in his time. Just as I trust my human father and mother to make good decisions in relation to me, so too, do I trust him. I do not have to be his defender. 

He is a big God, and I will respect that.