July 6 2022.
THE AMERICAN RELIGION.
The USA has its own religion. No other country can claim such a feat. There is simply no such a thing as a German, or French or Asian Religion! Only America has its very own God-centered enterprise.
What happened?
When Dietrich Bonhoeffer left the USA in 1939, returning to Hitler Germany and certain death, in his parting words he said that America has had some great preachers, but, unlike Europe, it had not experienced a Reformation: that’s why its basic religious beliefs go back thousands of years.
So, what are they?
In my study bible, in the introduction to John’s three short letters, the editors thought it wise to remind their readers that John wrote his epistles to warn them of Gnosticism. Here are their words:
Gnosticism’ central teaching is that spirit is entirely good and matter is entire evil. … The Human body, which is matter, is therefore evil…. Salvation is the escape from the body, achieved not by faith in Christ, but by special knowledge (gnosis) hence GNOSTICISM.
Dr. Harold Bloom, world-famous Shakespeare expert and Hebrew Bible translator, is the author of THE AMERICAN RELIGION. He writes,
“We are, alas, the most religious of countries….. and the American Religion seems to me irretrievable gnostic…..The emblems of it are the flag and the fetus…..The fetus must not be aborted, but whether the infant starves or not seems a very secondary matter.
Bloom argues in his book that the American Religion, masks itself as Christianity, yet has ceased to be Christian. Why? The American Religion is a direct descendent from pagan Greek thinking, which separates spirit from matter: heaven is in; earth is out.
The Supreme Court.
The Supreme court of the USA has become an excellent example of The American Religion. The majority of its judges are fanatic adherents of the American Religion, and their unfiltered devotion is not to justice, but to their ‘religion’, which was in full display this past week.
In a move that will seriously hinder America’s ability to stave off disastrous
Climate Change, the US Supreme Court has sided with Republican-led states that demands the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) be limited in how it regulates planet-heating gases from the energy sector.
A closer look at the composition of the Supreme Court, reveals that the six judges who voted to destroy God’s Creation even more, are devoted “Christians”. I cite that word Christians in quotation marks, because their stance to further allow the cosmos to be mortally damaged, reveals their gnostic faith that has ceased to be Christian and has fully converted to that antique Greek dualism, promoted by Plato and Socrates.
There you have it: the earth, being matter, is evil, destroying it is purely permissible, even advisable, under The American Religion.
Today’s greatest danger.
By now we know that, in an era of crises, global heating increasingly stands out as the single greatest emergency humanity faces. Global heating is going extreme, causing drought and flooding in the US and around the world. It’s driving wildfires and ecosystem collapse, and is already contributing to famine and warfare. Crucially, this is all worsening day by day, and it will continue to deteriorate until we end the fossil fuel industry, which will never happen, of course, because we can’t do without it.
Just imagine: The court’s conservative majority voted 6-3 in favor of leading coal producer West Virginia, in a lawsuit with challenges originally brought by 20 other Republican attorneys general, who sued for the EPA to have less regulatory power over existing power plants without express authorization from Congress under the Clean Air Act. Coal: The most polluting black substance there is!
The essence of Christianity.
The essence of Christianity is found in John 3: 16: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
The word ‘world’ in that text is ‘cosmos’, encompassing not only our globe and all it contains, but all extra-terrestrial matter as well.
Jesus came to us for a single purpose: I have come that they may have life, and
have it to the full.” John 10:10. That ‘life’ is symbiotic, is totally involved with creation in loving relationship.
And Religion?
Jesus, very openly, acted against the stipulations enacted by the Pharisees and Scribes who regulated the Jewish religion. Since he had a great following, the religious authorities were afraid that his teaching would threaten their status: so, they killed him.
His last miracle coincided with his death: the parting of the heavy temple curtain separating the Holy from the Holy of Holies, effectively erasing formal religion.
If we call ‘The America Religion’ “Christian”, then the term “Christianity” has to be redefined. “Earth-centered? Creation Regained?