Is that all you get for your money?

I thought you'd enjoy some thoughts an earnest individual shared with me over the last week or so. When someone approaches me and it becomes clear they have fallen into a pit, I want to walk away from that conversation knowing I have said and done everything humanly and spiritually possible in service to Christ. But time is a precious gift and it takes prayerful discernment to know when it has doctrinally exhausted itself. It took time, maturity, wisdom to develop the discipline not to be attached to seeing a light go on in somebody's head. Sometimes, I realize that the person is too entrenched to intellectually process doctrine without turning it into a little,human parable that touches them personally. I go a little beyond overboard and watch for repetition of their error after explaining before I am satisfied I have given my all for Christ.

This conversation began with this poor soul telling me he left the Catholic Church because he couldn't get a conversation going about taking care of the poor with liberation theology.

I explained to him that liberation theology isn't theology at all, it is a political science that incorporates demoralization of souls. I explained why the Catholic Church could never involve itself in a political science that demoralized souls. I called his bluff on his phony indignation that Catholics don't serve the poor by pointing out apostolates and statistics on our 2000 year history on serving the poor and tried to get to the bottom of which teachings he rejected so we could restore him to truth, get him to acknowledge the reason why he abandoned God.

He was never able to have that honest discussion and below are citations from how he danced around it. I should say for the record that it is impossible to love your neighbor as yourself if you bait them into immortality and sin.

Here we go:

I do not think that god is in the litmus test business, if anything, He is completely
open to anyone coming to Him by any path. The God I know is a very
relaxed and open being. His position is "what ever works for you. works
for Me, as long as you love your neighbor as you love yourself. That
is, as long as you are good to your neighbor and yourself...

He hates war, and killing of any kind, and cheating and oppression of any kind and rivalry. And in some cases, He
hates the trappings of organized religion. This latter piece you can
find in Isaiah. The God I know is open and not dogmatic....

Many writers have debunked the Adam and Eve story within the writings of Genesis itself. In the best light, it places God in the position of insecure jester. There was no need to test Adam and Eve. It served no purpose since God made them both and Satan and He knew what was to happen or did He? The writers attack this point with logic and reason, not religion. The issue of sin is not at issue since it is God Himself that appears to be committing the first sin by tempting all three of his creations with power. The brilliant psychoanalyst and philosopher Jung writes a very compelling essay on this point in his "Answer to Job." There Jung argues that God allows the bet with Satan to make up for His insecurity about His role and that of Man. Jung also points out that God loses to Job since Job retains his humanity in spite of the meanness and cruelty of god and Satan. Job in this sense is the first messiah. Humanity wins over the gods. One can go further and argue that tempting Satan and Adam and Eve with power is also about God's insecurities about Himself...

I like you and respect your strength and intellect but I am pained by your insistence that your beliefs are supported by reason. They are not. They are supported by your personal experiences with God beliefs and the comfort that brings you. I respect that and you make room for me without the dogmatism or the litmus test. I, like Job, am human and will resist that thundering hoofs of gods with things to prove to themselves...


I reject the Catholic Church as an institution of greed and deception and racism and sexism...

You are not interested in seeing ideas... This troubles me for you. The Christ was
not dogmatic. He entertained ideas and sought discussion within a people beset by Roman and Orthodox Jewish oppression. The Christ was
political...

*****

And it seems such a waste of time.
If that's what you're all about.
Honey, good luck moving up cuz I'm ........moving out.