Author's note: I ran out of time during lunch yesterday, so I wrapped it up this morning.
What price do we pay for being a theologically illiterate people? For one thing, our ignorance blinds us to the presence of evil incarnate in our midst. For fundamentalists to recognize evil, it apparently has to be in the form of a horned creature with a pointy tail. It’s a pity that Bush and Cheney’s telltale signs are not so obvious, because they are, as I have said before, representative of the anti-Christ. Karl Rove is keenly aware that all he needs to do is to portray King George as a folksy, born-again Christian, and the so-called faithful will follow like so many sheep gone astray.
The pseudo-intellectuals fare no better in their unstudied rejection of fundamentalism. To not accept a literally concrete description of the devil as real does not justify denying the reality of evil, anymore than the rejection of God as “the old man upstairs” denies the reality of that Higher Power. Just because one doesn’t buy into the irrational ideology that is being put forth as popular Christianity does not excuse one’s own theological ignorance. If, as I believe, the mind is the means of connecting with the Eternal, then it is incumbent upon the most intelligent of our species to counter radical fanaticism with profound Truth.
We are witnessing firsthand on a daily basis the tragic truth that violence begets only more violence. The insane race to dominate by force ultimately results in destruction, and that is fundamentally antithetical to the creative impetus of the Cosmos. We may well destroy ourselves, but it is folly to believe that we will take the universe with us. It is time for the flat-earth forecast of Armageddon to be laid permanently to rest, and the only real hope for accomplishing that is to take seriously our theological development and maturation. We have been blessed with minds. For God’s sake, let’s start using them.
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