Not Gonna Happen

My religion will never explode into popularity.

Let’s pretend for a moment that my religious teachings took off, that somehow this stuff caught on and folks began flocking to Christian Mysticism. What would it look like?

I’d first have to spend a lot of time fighting the false instincts of folks seeking to make an idol of me. Western Civilization is a sickness and a primary symptom is the Myth of the Great Man. I’d have to fight folks who want to make me into another Joel Osteen, Max Lucado or Billy Graham. I’m not the fount of truth here, folks, just one sign pointing to it. Just as the Israelites made an idol of the Brazen Serpent, so I would be ever forced to fight that. Everybody wants another Messiah, but nobody wants the Cross, neither for their idols nor themselves.

Worst of all, I’d have to fight it in myself. Who doesn’t long to be taken seriously by large numbers of friends, family and strangers? Fortunately, I’m already uncomfortable with that sort of attention, and I hope I never lose that discomfort. I hope I never lose my despite for this world.

Still, there aren’t many others working this body of teaching in any significant way. I stumble across bits and pieces of it, but I have yet to see any significant writing that attacks Western Civilization at all written in Western tongues, much less from a genuine biblical viewpoint. If there are, I’d love to know about it. This mission is pretty lonely.

The second biggest problem is someone else trying to become a living idol. Part of what created the fundamental problem that is Western Christianity was that it was hijacked in the minds of most people by Constantine. I’m quite certain there would be any number of wannabe politicians grabbing anything that might be amenable to creating a new empire or enabling any number of takeovers. How hard would it be to leave out the one critical truth that this has nothing to do with human political activity? When communications moved slowly in ancient times, it took nearly a century before the gospel was politicized and mainstreamed into the ambient social structures of the day. Today it takes far less time; it wouldn’t wait until I died.

To the degree we get past those issues, this thing probably wouldn’t take off at all. That’s the whole point, folks: This was never meant to be mainstream. It never quite made it into the mainstream when a whole nation was built on the truth. Israel wasn’t even half-way to the Promised Land when folks were trying to hijack the whole thing. A critical truth is that this thing is inherently a minority view that pulls away from anything typical of human behavior. Truth is paradoxical; we were designed for this teaching and can’t stand it.

But if we pretend for a moment there was a broader acceptance for some miraculous reason, the whole point would be avoiding a focal point on this earth. Nothing on this plane of existence is worthy; there is no peg on which to hang this thing. It requires a breadth and depth of awareness that obviates such a focal point in our consciousness. It requires a fairly high intellectual awareness to dismiss mere intellect. While it surely holds the greatest possible blessing for those who lack such intellectual talent, by it’s nature there must be shepherds who bear this truth among the sheeple. One becomes a shepherd by first dismissing the focal point.

That’s why popular notice hasn’t happened, and is wholly unlikely to be ever happen.