My experiences in life, in my work, in church,
and all that I have read. led me to wonder about the role of God and the Church in guiding people on how to conduct their
lives on this planet.
I see that there is a trend where many people are not going to church, especially the 'young' generation,
not allowing themselves to have that influence in their lives, and making it less likely in the
lives of their children. It appears to me and to many others that this fact is harmful to each person and to society
as well. There is much value to our lives in relating to our Creator and endeavoring to live our lives according to the highest
principles that we have for eons gotten almost exclusively from the Church, or from what was perceived over the eons as our
God-given sense of right and wrong . . . something IN us.
The loss is real. What are the reasons for so many
people turning away from incorporating the Church in their lives? Well, there ARE reasons, and I can even understand them
and identify with them myself. Yet I don't tune out my creator in my life, but instead I chose to find new ways to relate
to God even as I felt the inadequacy of the organized religions.
While there is enormous value in many of the rituals and
traditions offered by the organized religions, there is something wrong with how they relate to modern people and how they
fail to attract larger flocks, and failing to keep the youngest generation of their existing flocks.
One can have many criticisms
of the major religions in this regard, and one that fascinates me is that they are simply OLD and outdated. The foundations
and beliefs of all the major religions were written 'in stone' eons ago. Many hundreds or even thousands of years ago. By
people who lived many hundreds or thousands of years ago. They did well for what they knew back then, and then they
'locked it in', presumably for all time. How can that possibly work for people far into the future whose cultures have evolved
far, far beyond the imaginations of those long-ago people who provided the foundations for 'religion'.
Judaism developed
the Old Testament, the rules for life and the foundation for two major religions. It was written over many centuries and was
pure genius in it's time. It got 'locked in' and has remained pretty much the same since then.
Those Galilean reformers, their
followers . . . and those who followed them and morphed their belief system, took a new direction, (to say the least) and
evolved, and wound up constructing the Gospels and the New Testament, some seventeen hundred to two thousand
years ago; and then it was 'locked in', presumably for all time. It worked, more or less, for nearly two thousand years. But
in all honesty it isn't attracting or keeping many new followers now. The flock is looking for something that the very old
New Testament doesn't provide. It is just stagnant. It didn't evolve with the cultures on the planet today. The sophistication
of societies today, in their literacy and general learning, in their technology, their view of the universe we live in, so
many things have changed the people on this planet from their ancestors two thousand years ago . . . they need something else.
Something born of OUR time. Helping us to relate to our Creator in the Third Millennium . . . it's got to be a better fit
to us than what those long-ago people could construct at the beginning of the First Millennium!
I think we need a newer
Testament . . . literally. The First Testament of the Third Millennium. From The Old Testament to that old
New Testament, to the New Testament of the Third Millennium. I wonder how many are ready to open up their Christian Bible
to testaments from our time? Testaments from our world that will be valid in our lives. Testaments
that will once again guide the lives of God's children.