LRC, Houston - the weekends-free church in Houston, Texas

Bernard Haisch wrote one of the more insightful (even scientifically) books last year, entitled The God Theory. Ah, but there’s not just one theory, there are many, many theories. We have theories about theories. And unfortunately that’s where too much thinking about God winds upon- on the egoic theoretical pile of ideas “about God”, while few know God! Remember the wisdom saying, “A man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with a theory”.

One of the worst God theories here in America is that Christians are good people going to heaven and non-Christians are bad people going to hell. GOOD NEWS becomes BAD NEWS. The GOOD NEWS that God loves me is now BAD NEWS because you’re a Hindu (as an example). So, using that example that means that Mahatma Gandhi is going to burn in hell and George Bush is going to have a Texas-sized mansion in heaven. Right?

WRONG!

A good and realistic estimate is that by the time George W. Bush leaves office he will have been responsible for the killing of near 1,000,000 Iraqi, Afghans, and others (via our military which he is the commander in chief). Ghandi on the other hand was a pacifist and a lover of all mankind. In fact, Gandhi was imprisoned in 1922, 1930, 1933 and in 1942 for advocating non-violence and passive resistance.

Say what?

Gandhi preached passive resistance, believing that acts of violence against the British only provoked a negative reaction whereas passive resistance provoked the British into doing something which invariably pushed more people into supporting the Indian National Congress movement. And of course in the end it worked!

Ghandi loved everyone and every religious practice that resulted in love was God. Love is the only true freedom.

He realised that the religious issues of India were too deep for any remedy to work. So, he collaborated with Mountbatten and Wavell in the build up to independence in 1947. This association with the break-up of India was to cost him his life. There had been one assassination attempt on Gandhi on January 20th 1948 - it had failed. Just ten days later on the 30th January, he was assassinated by a Hindu fanatic who could not forgive Gandhi for his belief that Muslims had equal value to Hindus and no-one was better than anybody else.

We still kill people for their non-exclusive ideas- literally and figuratively.

Ghandi never acknowledged Jesus as his savior, but he did follow Jesus in the WAY that He commanded us to live. In his own words, Ghandi said, “I believe in God. not as a theory, but as a fact more real than that of life itself.” And yet many well-meaning fundamentalist (and others) Christians believe Ghandi is burning in hell- eternally, forever, and ever. I’m afraid we reason too dimly.

It’s a God theory I simply can’t embrace!