Easter In The Park
A commentary by William G. Roberts
Main Editorial Published by Ojai Valley News March 1997
The pageantry of the Easter play, performed by the congregation of the Church of the living Christ during Easter weekend, was a wonderful example of how unifying the power of spirit can be. The artistry was magnificent, the costumes were first class, the sound system was superb, the acting was effective, the lighting was dynamic, the music was first class, and the script was intriguing. But the most extraordinary thing for me was how this group, totaling not less than 100 people, found the finances and time to produce this one and a half hour drama and perform it three nights in a row! In a world where the majority of people carry huge credit card debts and don’t have the time to balance their check book this aspect of the Easter play demonstrates a compelling example of spiritual conviction and Godly inspiration.
What is disturbing however is the obligatory message of exclusivity that inevitably gets packaged along with anything based on fundamental Christian doctrine. It is inspiring how God empowers the pious heart, but it’s also very depressing to be reminded again how intolerant Christian theology is of any other process of God realization. Instead of actually “Judging a tree (person) by it’s fruit” (Luke 6. 43-45) we are threatened that “Only by the blood of Christ” can one enter the spiritual world. One would think that the followers of Lord Christ would adopt a more mature understanding of their own religion especially after destroying the homes of the American Indians, taking their land, and imprisoning them on reservations in a life of poverty. In retrospect is should be evident to anyone with even a cursory understanding of the Native Americans that they were far more pious and prayerful then the so-called Christians who were hell bent on saving them! It may be partially explainable how, due to the gross religious ignorance of those days such travesties were committed in His name, but how can a educated man seeking God today settle for the same imperialistic theology that Christianity continues to propound? To perpetuate spiritual exclusivity contradicts what Lord Christ really meant when he said “Love thy neighbor as thyself” Are we to believe that the only way a Christian can love someone is by converting them to think and believe exactly like they do?
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Two thousand years ago the dessert people of the Middle East knew little about the religious traditions that thrived in India and the Orient. Today we are not so ignorant. It only requires a little common sense to see how God has provided spiritual guidance to all his children in all corners of the earth ever since the beginning of time. Those who are spiritually astute accept this without reservation and in doing so it frees them to evaluate a man by the more important qualities of his character and behavior then by the particular religious tradition he learned it from.
God does not condemn anyone to burn in hell forever because they don’t raise their hand when an evangelistic minister requests a role call for the pearly gates. No human parent would ever curse their own wayward child so cruelly so how can a ration man accept that this would be done by the deity of love personified? To preach such nonsense in the name of religion is the sin of the priestly class and to support it is a mistake that only a spiritually uninformed person can make. Fortunately not all religions teach spiritual segregation based on such shallow criteria and the future belongs to those Brahmins who teach, like Jesus did, that all of us should measure a man by his deeds and purity of heart, not by the cover of the book he reads.
It is particularly critical that all Christians understand the urgency of this matter if the teaching of Lord Christ are to survive in the future. The forces of evil are a common threat to the pious people of all lands, traditions and spiritual heritage’s. To spend time bickering over fundamentalist doctrine is one of the most subtle and effective ways Satan will succeed in undermining mans greater objective. If the pastors who teach religiosity insist on spiritual exclusivity then the only way Christianity can ever succeed is to continue perpetrating the tradition that virtually destroyed the American Indian on a global scale. The religious zealot may use euphemisms to portray this objective less controversially, but a prudent man can understand that the very need to do so demonstrates a serious misunderstanding of what the Prince of Peace lived to teach and died to establish on this special day we call Easter.