Maybe I am stupid.

Maybe I am stupid.

I have a problem with overthinking. Not with doing it but with others who do it. (see previous post “Shut up and listen.”) I’m stupid. Or maybe stubborn. Or maybe I’m too busy to spend countless hours sinking in a morass of theology. Probably I’m just lazy. It is true that I consider myself a “thinker” but I still want something simple and straight-forward to live by. Religious people everywhere make their religion or faith so complicated and convoluted nobody understands any of it. Religionists of all ilks overthink the subject and then demand “followers” just follow without thinking.

But thinking is what I do. I just can’t “follow.” When I look at theology from any angle I always see flaws in the theologian’s logic. Always. Theologians are horribly adept at overthinking. It clouds their judgment and screws up their conclusions. It’s just so obvious to me. I am not one of those who believe the human race is, as a rule, merely sheep. I believe sheepness (is that a word?) in humans is a choice, not a genetic trait. It’s a choice of convenience. It’s a choice most people make because idiot religious people over complicate every aspect of faith and religion and then through fear and/or intimidation and/or manipulation convince others that theirs is the only true path and not to follow it will spell their doom.

People have choices. A lot of people just don’t make them. First, they have to accept or reject the great learnedness (is that a word too?) of overthinkers. When a person has been raised in a culture that says particular overthinkers are God Inspired it’s hard to easily dismiss their words. So, somewhat forced by their culture to accept the God Inpiredness of Great and Wise overthinkers that dominate their culture they are then confronted with the overthinkers’ words. But the words are confusing, accusatory, sometimes frightening. Often hard to understand. Overthinkers write book after book. Ordinary folk write little more than a few letters during their lifetime. They’re too busy living life. No time to analyze it.

They (those called sheep by the cynical overthinkers) pick up on the simple stuff and incorporate it into their lives and hope that’s enough. Such is the greatest tragedy of American Evangelical Christianity. Evangelical Overthinkers blather away with book after book that flies over the head of most church people but they always boil their words down to a few pat phrases. “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and Thou Shalt Be Saved.” (Hear those words echo off the cathedral ceiling?) This phrase never has been sufficient but it works to help people define themselves as Christians. “I believe.” It becomes the hook that Evangelical overthinkers use to reel in assorted evangelical “sheep” to their own way of doing things.

Using books, tapes, seminars, websites, sermons and etc., Evangelical overthinkers “reach out” to “believers” and convince them of all kinds of ridiculous ideas. People let themselves be indoctrinated in overthink because it is easier than taking the time to consider the words logically. The overthinkers always say they know best, they know the right thing, they say “listen to me” and “God told me to say this” and “one dark stormy night Jesus came to me” and/or “the Bible says…..” Bunk. Most of it is bunk. But since people choose not to think or don’t have time or are afraid that their brain is not as big as those overthinker brains they must take the Great Evangelical overthinker’s words. Sad. Very sad.

The truth is that the most common phrase among overthinkers, “the Bible says,” is the least reliable and almost never true. It’s least reliable because “The Bible” rarely does say what they claim it says and almost without exception the phrases gleaned from Biblical verses are taken entirely out of context.

An aside: I am not saying the Bible is unreliable or that it is not worthy of great respect, admiration, or even reverence in some way. The Bible is a great resource. But it is not God and it did not fall from the sky intact like Evangelicals imply it did. They will never, ever tell you the truth about the Bible itself. But the Bible isn’t the object of this lesson, overthinking on its contents is.

Evangelical overthinkers rarely use the Bible as their only source. They go right to the Spirit. They claim God told them, they were inspired, the Spirit moved on them. How can one argue with that? Well, I can, but then I’m stubborn. I’m a Thomas. I think a spirit might have moved on them but the spirit that did does not deserve a capitol “s.” Unlike most who suck up the words of overthinkers as if they’re gospel I refuse to accept their words without corroboration from other sources. I’m just stubborn that way. Or stupid?

But I have begun to overthink myself, haven’t I? The point of this ramble is that I don’t want to have to analyze religion or learn a book from cover to cover or keep abreast of every new idea in Christian Overthink or even memorize the Bible from Genesis to Revelations just to know how I should live. I don’t want to be stuck with pat phrases like “just believe” either. I don’t want to know WHAT to do, I want to know HOW and WHY. Overthinkers fill up bookshelves with explanations. I don’t want bookshelves. I want a one-page brochure.

Of course there’s no way to make a fine living by publishing a single page. Books make money. The greater the Overthinker the more money he makes from books, tapes, CD’s, DVD’s, and all that stuff. The Bible might be given away freely by some but all the volumes that tell people how to “interpret” it cost a fortune. One must pay nineteen-ninety-five for a hard-bound volume (usually several to choose from) conveniently available on a table outside the auditorium where the Great Overthinker is speaking and earning considerably more than twenty bucks for the effort. If I sound cynical it’s only because I am.

Cloistered monks wrote volumes few ever read and lived in poverty because they didn’t have the option of dropping their manuscript onto the desk of a mega-publisher who spends mega-bucks marketing mega-bull. Evangelical Overthinkers, however, are not monks. They don’t hide their words under a bushel. Not at all, they market them to death. Here I sit at a home-made computer desk tapping away in the backwoods doing much the same as the monks. My words are not colored by my self-righteousness nor published in high-dollar volumes so I can feed my greed. These are unkind words. Hey, I call’s them like I see’s them. But I digress.

I want something simple. There is no doubt that this universe is a complicated place. It’s confusing. It’s contradictory. There’s no way we can ever know or understand it all or even very much of it while we live in this finite existence. Some, like me, will forever wonder about it, study it, try to figure things out. Most people, though, don’t have the time nor the desire. They, more than I, want something simple. But they want something that makes sense and is practical in the real world. They don’t want pat phrases and absurd statements that are obviously not true. In a world where everything is extremely complicated they, and I, want simple. Give me simple!

Jesus saves. Sounds good but what does it mean? God loves me. Sounds good but what does it mean? God always answers prayer. Sounds good but in my experience it is not true. Jesus died for our sins and those who accept him shall be saved. I keep hearing that but what is “sins” and what does it mean by “accept?” And what about people who live lives that are better, more moral, more righteous than any Christian but who have not heard of Jesus or who are of another religion? Evangelical Overthinkers say simple minded things but the slightest bit of analysis will reveal that their simplistic statements don’t make sense and often don’t hold water.

What happens if we recognize the fallacy of their words? They tell us not to question. They tell us the “sin” is questioning. Since most don’t have the time, the training, or the courage to contradict the Great Overthinkers they just go along, bang their head on the proverbial wall a bit when confronted with a contradiction, and struggle. Some just toss the baby and the bath water out the window. They reject Jesus instead of rejecting the Talking Head Overthinkers who are telling them ridiculous stuff. This is the saddest thing of all.

I want simple. There is simple. Of course, it won’t make anybody a fortune. I’ll give it to you. The Simple Way, in the words of one of the few learned overthinkers in the past that I admire (Charles Finney), is “the Law of Benevolence.” Finney was a thinker. It was his curse. He managed to crawl out of his Calvinistic theology long enough to recognize that Jesus gave us the way to live in the simplest of terms. Jesus said, “Love God with all your heart/mind/soul, and love others instead of yourself.” Do that and you will, by default, live precisely as God intends for you to live. Period.

One point. Bible translations interpret the word between “others” and “of yourself” to be “as.” I believe and some translations of the Greek word will agree that the word should be “instead of.” “As” means an equal measure. “Instead of” is far more in alignment with the way Jesus taught and lived. But this is a bit of my own overthinking so I move on.

Think about it. If we love God with our whole heart we will not ever do anything we know he is unlikely to disapprove of. We won’t do it not because the doing of a thing is a “sin” but because we do not want to hurt or offend. Likewise, if we love others above and beyond or “instead of” ourselves we will never mistreat, lie to, or disrespect others not because hurting, lying or disrespecting are “sins” but because we care about the other one and choose not to do them harm. Simple. Effective. Functional.

The Law of Benevolence, or Law of Love if you please, makes everything clear. Jesus gave himself for us. He said he did, we accept his word because we love him as we do every other person. And we love him as God’s son. We accept not out of fear that denying will send us to hell but because we love and believe him. It does not matter if it seems to us God does not answer every prayer. In fact, most prayers are prayed for selfish reasons and God has good reasons to keep silent. If we’re living according to the two commandments of Love God and Love others we will not even ask for selfish stuff. I could go on but you get the point.

So maybe I am stupid. I’m just stupid enough to believe that Jesus’ words mean more in all their simplicity than anything any Talking Head Wise and Wonderful Overthinker could ever write in their many over-priced hard-back books. I’m stupid enough to believe God does love me but not really worry about that because I love God. I’m stupid enough to believe that in loving others I will fulfill “the law and the prophets” in spite of the fact that there’s not a Jewish gene in my body. I’m stupid enough to make the choice of placing myself last and others first. I just take Jesus at his word. Stupid, huh?