A RELIGION FOR THE NEW CENTURY
(Rev. D. Mitchell Modisett)

During these days, we stand at the beginning of a new century and a new millennium. It is important that we reflect on the events we have observed and on the histories we have read, and try to imagine the future, remembering the words of that great philosopher Yogi Berra, "Prediction is very hard, especially when it's about the future."

Alfred Lord Tennyson was in a similar reflective frame of mind when he wrote these lines from his famous elegy, "In Memoriam." He was listening to the church bells sounding at midnight in celebration of the New Year. He wrote:

Ring out a slowly dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife;

Ring in the nobler modes of life,

With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,

The civic slander and the spite;

Ring in the love of truth and right,

Ring in the common love of good

This morning I propose to think with you about the religion, or life-stance, or philosophy for the coming century and perhaps the coming millennium. I am going to suggest that we should "Ring Out" certain aspects of religion in the past, and then 'Ring In' a new perspective better suited to the future.

We think that everyone is a pilgrim going on a religious and philosophical journey, which is his or her life. We don't all take the same path, and we don't have tothink alike. You don't have to agree with me; even my wife, Katherine, doesn't have to agree with me.

This morning I want to talk, from the perspective of my own humanism, -about what can be done to improve religion. We come from various backgrounds, -religious and educational, -and nearly all of us have found something wrong with traditional, orthodox religion. Each person looks back at his or her past; and where traditional, orthodox religion has failed to function properly, each tries to fix his or her past religion. The popular proverb goes, "If it 'ain't' broke, don't fix it." But the corollary to this aphorism is, 'If it is broke, then fix it." I know we have a multitude of ideas about how to fix religion properly; but I am, nevertheless, going to tell you my way. I'll fix religion my way, and you can always fix it your way.

Considering the limitations of our time, I will discuss only one element of traditional and orthodox religion to ring out, and one new element to ring in. What to Ring Out

I believe that abstract philosophical and theological ideas can often be understood best when seen working in actual practice. So this morning I will start with an event that happened twenty years ago in Oklahoma.

For those of you who were not born then, a little background information may be helpful. There was this revival preacher and faith healer named Oral Roberts. And the Reverend Oral Roberts was not squeamish about asking for money. He called it "Seed Faith." Give it to Jesus, mail it to Oral Roberts and expect a miracle. "Whatever you can conceive, and believe, you can do!" When the monthly bills come in, pay Jesus first. Apparently enough people sent money to Jesus to make Oral Roberts rich. But of course all this is common place. TV preachers normally make money selling salvation and tickets to heaven.

The part of the Oral Robert's story that is not common place is that God told Oral Roberts to start a hospital and a medical school. Now, that is strange. Why would a miracle-worker, a "come-to-Jesus", "saved-by-the-blood", TV preacher and faith-healer be told by God to start a hospital and medical school? Was one a back-up for the other? Was faith healing needed to cure those for whom modern medicine failed, or was the hospital a back-up system for patients with insufficient faith? Perhaps God thought the world needed physicians more than it needed an increase of faith-healers.

A nurse from that area told me that Tulsa hospitals already had too many empty beds. But perhaps Oral Roberts knew something about Armageddon that you and I don't know.

Now we come to the heart of the matter, to the famous and controversial vision that occurred in 1980. It occurred at a time when Oral Roberts had been having trouble raising seed-faith-money for Jesus for the medical complex. Oral Roberts saw Jesus! Oral saw Jesus standing beside a Tulsa water tower and thus could estimate his height. Rev. Roberts estimated that Jesus was 900 feet tall. The Jesus Christ figure, Roberts reported, stooped and lifted the unfinished buildings of the City of Faith medical center, declaring, "See how easy it is for me to lift it."

Rev. Roberts took the vision to be an affirmation from the deity that the medical center, strapped at that time for lack of construction money, would be completed.

Rev. Roberts spoke to another man nearby, but that man saw nothing unusual.

Apparently many people in Oklahoma took the vision to be a joke. I am sure that all of us have seen highway signs which read "Deer Crossing." These warning signs have a figure of a deer with antlers and beneath a big "X" followed by "ing;" Deer Crossing. Suddenly posters appeared all over the streets of Tulsa showing the City of Faith medical center in the background, and in the foreground a highway sign warning of a "900 ft. Jesus X-ing."

Since that time Rev. Roberts has fallen on hard times. Perhaps Jesus could raise the medical center, but Oral Roberts could not, not even by modifying his own life style. He had to sell his four Mercedes-Benz automobiles, his three vacation homes in California, valued at more than $4 million, his Tulsa home, his son's home and three other homes owned by the Roberts organization. Rev. Roberts had other visions, but they did not seem to help. Eventually the last patient was discharged and the City of Faith medical complex was closed in 1987, $25 million in debt.

I see myself somewhat like the man near Oral Roberts who did not see Jesus. My point is that if God wants me to turn into a traditional, orthodox believer, He can show me a 900 foot tall vision. He knows where to find me. Actually, he could turn us all into true believers. Just let everybody see this 900 foot tall splendor. And after Jesus shows himself to all the people in Tulsa, and the evening TV news, he could walk over to Oklahoma City and down to Dallas. It's easy if you are 900 feet tall. But unfortunately only Rev. Roberts saw this vision, and he was already a believer. What a waste of a divine vision. God could turn all skeptics into Trinitarians, just show us the Father, Son and Holy Ghost each one 900 feet tall.
If I encounter someone who is hallucinating and hearing voices, I would tell him to get back on his medication. Here is my point. I don't think you or I should be required to believe someone else's vision or revelation. For our future religion, let us Ring Out the requirement that we need to believe other people's visions. Do you agree?

But I am of the opinion that much of contemporary religion is based on the visions and revelations of other people. What happens when people are asked to read and believe the holy scriptures? Are the pastor and Sunday School teacher asking people to believe someone else's visions?

The church leaders long ago told us that the writings about Jesus were based on eye-witness accounts, that the gospels were written by people who were actively participating in the events about which they wrote. We were told that Matthew and John were disciples of Jesus, that Mark was Peter's Greek interpreter, and that Luke was Paul's physician. This information was reported by Eusebius in his history written in the Fourth Century. Eusebius admitted that his information was third and four-hand hearsay, and today we know his information was wrong.

We know that Matthew and Luke copied from Mark and incorporated Mark's outline, which described only 35 days. By counting Greek words Bible professors have found that about 95% of Mark is "paralleled" in either Matthew or Luke or both. Only 32 verses of Mark are left out of both Matthew and Luke. All four of the canonical gospels were written after the fall of the siege of Jerusalem in the year 70 C.E. John's gospel is usually dated at or after the year 100 and contains not a single parable. None of the canonical gospels were written by eye witnesses; all the stories about Jesus are apparently based on 2nd, 3rd and 4th hand information. The original origin of each story is unknown. When we read the scriptures, we may be asking ourselves to believe someone else's vision.

Consider the stories of the first Christmas. The gospels of Mark and John report nothing about the actual birth or childhood of Jesus. Luke's unknown sources led him to report that several shepherds saw a choir of angels up in the air and heard them singing. Matthew's sources, also unknown to us, reported that there was a bright star that hovered over a single building and led the wise men to the baby Jesus. Matthew knew nothing of the choir of angels, and Luke knew nothing of the guiding star. I think we have two different visions here. I wonder if the choir of angels and the guiding star were 900 feet up in the air. I think you and I should not be expected to believe someone else's visions.

For the new year, the new century and the new millennium I propose that we ring out religiously required gullibility.

What to Ring In

Moving along to Point Two, what are we going to Ring In? What new idea or neglected emphasis should be added? I propose we ring in a way of life appropriate for the whole planet Earth. You may think that I am proposing an old idea, but I am not. You may recall that the Christian Church has always and everywhere wanted to spread itself over the entire earth. This was the ideal of the Christian Church up to the present time. I can remember reading and studying as a teen-ager the final words of Jesus:

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

These words seemed to me to be a dramatic and glorious climax for the earthly life of Jesus. However, when the followers of Jesus have tried to follow this ideal in later centuries, the results have not been glorious.

A second reading of this passage reveals that it includes the idea of the Trinity, --Father, Son and Holy Ghost. The Trinity is an idea which only arose many decades after the death of Jesus. Many Bible scholars do not think that Jesus said this, and I think that putting words in someone else's mouth
is unsanitary.
Notice that the passage is directed, not in individual men and women, but to nations. "Baptize all nations." Baptize all nations and teach them to obey. But suppose a nation doesn't want to be baptized into the Christian fold. Or suppose that even if the king or ruler or president or dictator decides that the nation will be Christian, but there are individual people in the nation that do not want to become Christians. What then? Historically, these questions have been decided by force and violence, by war and by inquisition. Take all obstinate pagans, Jews, heretics and witches and burn them at the stake. In actual practice the words of Jesus have been often interpreted as baptize all the nations and teach everyone to obey, using force and violence whenever the use of reason, intimidation and threats are ineffective.

In 1054 the Great Schism between Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches occurred. The Patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandrea, Antioch and Jerusalem were unwilling to recognize the Pope (the Bishop or Patriarch of Rome) as their boss, --as the only Christian leader with universal supremacy. Now this disagreement has widened even further, because the papacy, in 1870, has claimed infallibility. Now the supreme universal ruler is infallible. In 1517 Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on the church door at Wittenberg, and started the Protestant Reformation. Now Christianity is thoroughly divided. Today when we read the command to baptize all nations, we have to decide which organization of Christianity to baptize the nations and the people into.

When I propose a new way of life appropriate for the entire planet Earth, this baptize-and-obey business is not what I have in mind. I think our religion for the future, if this way of life is really a religion, is one that regards every person on Earth as important and as entitled to respect and dignity. I want a religion for the whole planet, a new religion that does not divide people into warring societies that yell at each saying, "My religion is better than your religion, my scriptures are more inerrant than your scriptures, and I am going to heaven while you are going to hell. My vision of Jesus, or the Virgin Mary, or Elvis Presley is taller than your vision." Gimeabreak.

I propose a philosophy for the future that is not concerned with trying to get into heaven, but a life stance that is concerned with trying to improve the quality of life here on Earth. Today there are thousands of different religions, each one with a different set of arbitrary requirements to get into Heaven or Paradise or Nirvana. And nearly every religious group wants to convert each one of the Earth's 6 billion people to its way of believing. This will never work. When divine visions conflict, there is no legitimate way to settle the conflict reasonably. One religious group will never be able to persuade the other groups that its visions are superior.

I propose a religion for the future that has cleansed itself of all supernatural visions, miracles and divine revelations, and is only concerned with human happiness. Any future miracle or revelation will need to be recorded on tape for the news media in order to be convincing.

I think that the American system, following the U. S. Constitution and Thomas Jefferson, is the right course to follow, -the separation of Church and State. I look forward to the time when all nations should become secular and religiously neutral. I know that the Christian Coalition would like to change our nation into a Christian theocracy, and that they would like to then be on hand to explain to us how God wants them to run the country. But that would be a step backward, many steps backward. I repudiate the religious right's Christian theocracy. The United Nations is now and should continue to be religiously neutral, and the same is true for the world court.

As I understand the religion of the future, not everyone has to be just like everyone else. If you like Jesus, then read the gospels in the New Testament and beyond, and other books, conservative and liberal about Jesus. If you like Buddha, then study Buddha, or read Confucius, or Socrates or Voltaire or John Dewey. If you like Buddha and your neighbor likes Plato, you two can still get along together. Would you fight over whether lemon pie is better than chocolate?

In the future as communication and transportation improve, the planet Earth will seem to shrink. As information increases, verified miracles decrease. Large corporations will do business in many countries. Science and technology are already spreading easily throughout the planet. Those countries we used to call "undeveloped" are now classified as "developing countries." During the Ancient and Medieval periods of history, western civilization determined its understanding of the real world by so-called divine revelations. According to these revelations and visions, the surface of the Earth was generally flat (bumpy, but not a sphere), and the Earth was stationary. Heaven was up, and Hell was down. Theologians speculated about Hell, its location, population, and probable temperature.

Now our ideas of the planet and the universe are shaped by science. Science is better than theology because science has the power to correct itself. In religion, however, in which the Holy Bible is inerrant and the papacy is infallible, once a private vision is stuck in our religious heritage, it may be there forever, --like a ladder long enough to reach to heaven (Gen. 28:12) or an iron axe-head floating on command (II Kings 6:1-6). Science and technology are good at solving natural problems encountered by people on earth. But human beings still have to learn to get along together, to be nice and stop fighting. For the religion of the future perhaps improving the quality of life on Earth is enough; that is enough to keep us busy. We will worry about the next world when we get there. But if Heaven turns out to be floating around on a cloud and singing in an angelic chorus for a thousand years, we should bring along a good book.

I propose for the religion of this new century, we ring out private visions and revelations and other forms of required religious gullibility. I propose we ring in a way of life that embraces verifiable concepts; a set of ideas which that the whole planet can accept willingly; an earthly religion that is only concerned with universal human happiness.