Beyond Religion
"Wouldn’t it be ironic if we ourselves were excluded from God’s approval only to find that some ordinary Joe whose life had broken down and had come to God in a state of desperation was actually more acceptable to God than we were? Wouldn’t that be ironic?"
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Just listened to "Beyond Religion" and was struck by your description of "group-think" and it's similarity with one of the negative aspects of "brotherhood" (incorrectly interpreted, of course) that I read about recently. This is from E.B. White (yes, the author of Charlotte's Web). It is a keen observation of that phenomenon of "group-think" that is so treacherously attractive to Christadephians of the mindset you described. He wrote:
“Clubs, fraternities, nations—these are the beloved barriers in the way of a workable world, these will have to surrender some of their rights and some of their ribs. A ‘fraternity’ is the antithesis of fraternity. The first (that is, the order or organization) is predicated on the idea of exclusion; the second (that is, the abstract thing) is based on a feeling of total equality. Anyone who remembers back to his fraternity days at college recalls the enthusiasts in his group, the rabid members, both young and old, who were obsessed with the mystical charm of membership in their particular order. They were usually men who were incapable of genuine brotherhood, or at least unaware of its implications. Fraternity begins when the exclusion formula is found to be distasteful. The effect of any organization of a social and brotherly nature is to strengthen rather than diminish the lines which divide people into classes; the effects of states and nations is the same, and eventually these lines will have to be softened, these powers will have to be generalized.”
― E.B. White, One Man's Meat
I love this phrase -- "the beloved barriers in the way of a workable world." (There are so many!) We love being "right," don't we? Being doctrinally sound, but unmerciful and unjust, is the wrong way to be right.
eternally fraternally,
JM, USA
Thank you JM,
Indeed, and how much more dishonest are religious men, who erect barriers in the name of God, when they are nothing more than cultural and political beliefs?
God bless & lots of love,
Karam
