Along my journey, I am reading a constant stream of books on faith by various contemporary writers. This week, I’m reading The Gospel of Inclusion by Bishop Carlton Pearson, published in 2008 by Atria.
In the second half of his book, The Gospel of Inclusion, Bishop Carlton Pearson alludes to a strong challenge to the monotheism of Christianity: that Christians have turned the Devil into a deity to rival God.
Pearson says that Christians are often obsessed with sins and wrongs to the point that it overcomes their ability to act out the goodwill that God intended. Essentially, turning one’s attention solely to the evil on Earth, even is one does not act evilly, can be a form of idol worship, for it makes God a partisan in a battle for souls. This is in direct defiance of the commandment to worship no gods other than God, Pearson says.
By acting in this judgmental, narrow-minded manner, Christians make religion their God, he contends. Check out this quote:
“But why would God banish the devil to the same earth where he would later place mankind, as the Christian Bible says? … We know that God would not betray us, nor is He sadistic, so He must have had something in mind other than eternal damnation for those seduced by his powerful adversary. What if the ‘accuser of the brethren’ is not some supernatural invisible entity with power second only to God Himself, but is instead the law or religious legalism itself, not a man in a red suit with a pitchfork?” (233)
By being so obsessed with the law of religion and the belief in Christ, adherents lose the spirit of the faith. This makes Christians like the Pharisees that persecuted Jesus, says Pearson. Also, he contends that establishing a saving litmus test of belief in Jesus was not what he came to the world to establish, and subverts his message.
“If you put Christ in the middle of a religion, you have placed Him exactly where He was once crucified. It was the religious spirit that despised Christ, not the people. Christ was a threat to earthly power. Therefore, to force Christ to be a religious ‘icon,’ we deny ourselves the very freedoms He came to give us. We confine Him to the very walls He dies to release the world from. To confine Jesus to and define him by and exclusive religious box is to betray Him all over again.” (238)
What I find most striking about Pearson’s arguments is that he plots out evangelism’s focus on belief in Christ turn into one of its greatest weaknesses. Pearson feels that Christians are shielding themselves too much from general society, often in home schooling, that they can no longer communicate with it. They only judge it from the outside, which makes no one want to accept Christ’s teachings.
“Are we preparing the next generation to be irrelevant in our culture? Are we breeding a generation of ignorant, superstitious bigots? Why is knowledge the enemy of Christianity?” (254)
He contrasts this outward judgmental perspective with a renovation of being born again. Too much focus has been placed on the end of days, Pearson says, that atrocities such as environmental degradation, violence and prejudice abound. He says this can be overcome by real introspection, being born again in the spiritual sense as a constant reminder of the true Christian path.
“Conceptually, being born again happened once for the entire world — through the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. However, getting born again is something we need to do daily as we discover more of our own souls with each new life encounter. For the true Christian, evangelizing should begin with oneself, being born again with each new day, conveying the message of hope, and re-creating this world as a place of love, compassion, preservation of beauty, respect for nature, and peace — peace and love above all else.” (260)
This is Pearson’s most charged and powerful statement. That essentially, Christians lose their greater purpose through obsession over religious distractions. Through this, they create a world that is anathema to Christ teachings, one of hate, ego and excommunication. It’s easy to see why he was rejected by so many of his contemporaries.
But Pearson hits an essential truth – you can’t be good in the world if you think you’re better than it. That, above all, is a message that should resonate.
“I will no longer conform to a doctrine that holds so many in blind, unreasoning fear of social and cultural reprisal. That is totalitarianism. Do I miss my old life? You bet I do! … But I would not go back. Because much of what I had was built on half-truths and deception — the lies that millions of Christians tell themselves every day.” (273-274)
