Fearing God

Hello Pastor James,

I've been meaning to write for some time. Firstly I want to say thank you for your leadership of NFMB. I'm quite pleased by the message the church presents and am optimistic about how the leadership encourages its members to witness the Christian message. You see, I've become quite turned off by the church on a generally grand scale in recent times because of the divisive language and exclusionary, self-serving nature many churches have perpetuated. It is quite sad to watch such a beautiful message become distorted, mangled and otherwise abused for the empowerment of certain leaders; essentially being abusive of their followers by leading them away from the message of love and caring for all and becoming fixated on one interpretation that is generally crafted in hate or fear disguised as unquestionably, inerrantly right.

To me, the very idea that Christian's are a fearful bunch is a danger to affecting greater positive changes for this world in this time of need. Of course that begs the question: will there ever not be a time of need? I believe this is where religion comes into the picture. I certainly hope to be part of creating a future with less suffering, as I believe most everyone else does too, from Atheist to Christian, from Muslim to Jew and Taoist to Buddhist. I find it appalling that the way we disagree on how leads to wars and bloodshed. It's heartbreaking to witness the atrocities mankind is willing to trespass against itself. I'm getting a little off topic here (as tends to happen now and then).

I'm writing today as a response to this past Sunday's sermon and challenge: to consider fearing the Lord to be a tenet of and seed for wisdom. You can probably tell from my above statements that I consider fear to be an inadequate, if not dangerous, motivator -- in particular as a foundational element of a belief system. Fear causes much ills in our society today and is one of the most exploited devices used to control well-meaning people. Fear makes the hatred and division of countries possible. Fear closes minds and all-too-often causes people to lash out at others in most violent, abusive ways. Fear is a great enabler of actions with nearly invariably negative outcomes: wars, ignorance, division, exclusion, justification for wrongdoing, etc... I'm not saying fear is the only mitigating factor, but it certainly plays a large part.

What is the opposite of fear? To the best of my understanding fear and love are opposites. While some may argue that hate is the opposite of love, I'd implore those individuals to dig a bit deeper into the motivation behind the act of hating. Of course language is difficult to convey such personalized meanings of words, and we often fall short of truly conveying our intended message, but language is our foundation for communicating. Art, music, film, images, etc... often do a better job communicating feelings than language no matter how masterfully the language is employed. Generally words fail to speak as directly as other mediums when it comes to emotion.

So now we enter the realm of semantics. I'm more than willing to concede that Fear of God is a bit different than fear applied as I've already described. However, considering we're called to both Love God and Fear God, isn't that a mixed message? How can we both Fear and Love something when those concepts are so opposite?

I'm quite uneasy with the idea of Fearing God. I can't see how approaching all that is and all that every will be from a fear-based mindset especially when fear has shown itself to have such negative outcomes. When we juxtapose fear and love, we see a stark contrast. As Jesus so beautifully demonstrated through story and more importantly, through his very example of how he lived his life, love is what we are called to do. Aren't we called to forgive and to embrace all, friend and foe alike? Aren't these the most important acts we can perform? To include all? To love all? Wasn't that the message behind His sacrifice? Forgiveness for all who choose to accept it? Was that not the ultimate act of love for all time? Isn't it such a beautiful concept to accept that you are forgiven? Isn't that a way of saying: keep seeking and don't get bogged down by your past failures, shortcomings and sins?

Coming back to the idea of Fearing God, doesn't this very fear imply that you do not accept the forgiveness Jesus granted to man through his sacrifice? There certainly seems to be something to not just recognizing Jesus' offering of forgiveness, but to actually personally accepting it. If we truly accept this offering, what do we have to fear? Also, if we accept this offering, are we not similarly called to love and forgive our fellow man?

I think it's clear where I stand on these issues. I know I fail everyday, and everyday I attempt to go about my life in love as I believe I'm called to do. As some of my Buddhist-inclined friends oft say: It's a good day to practice.

Given that language can be inadequate, it logically gets even worse when we translate/transcribe from one to another. How much is lost in translation? What meaning has gone missing? What history and implied emotion is suddenly void in the translated version? I wonder about the translation from the source and have heard murmurings of Fear being a rough translation at best. I find Reverence of God much more agreeable in intent and consider it to be far less dangerous. Reverence implies an entirely different mindset, one that is compatible with love with a heavy implication of respect and connotation of adoration and awe.

It seems that Love has far more benefits than Fear. Approaching everything with love doesn't mean we must accept all ills. Love is not nearly that simple. There is still right and wrong, yet it's quite often difficult to discern. And the question of how is one that certainly can be up for debate with merits on both sides of an act. Is it loving to help a junky buy drugs? Is it loving to turn him into the police or other agency to help him get clean? There are infinite questions about what is the most loving approach. Is it loving to maintain the status-quo or to rock the boat? How is incredibly difficult and unclear, but certainly actions based out of fear or hate are not the way.

We are told that it will not be easy; that it will be the difficult and narrow path. Turning the other cheek is far more difficult than fighting back. Yet, this is ultimately the way to change hearts and minds for the benefit of all.

I'm putting away my soapbox now and will step down to hear your thoughts on the matter. I do want to thank you for your service. I know that NFMB isn't to be lumped in with many churches that are attempting to hold onto a tattered mythological version of a beautiful religion, but recognize that some ideas I present may be challenging if not in all-out conflict with some or at least may be perceived as such.

Mark

Reverence for All,
For All is God