Christian Conundrums

            Although it will seem like what I'm sharing here is just for Christians, my message is actually for all religions to consider. There is a classic story of several men standing in a dark room trying to describe an elephant that is with them. Each one can only understand the part that they can touch. They all have come to different conclusions, and yet the elephant remains seemingly unknowable.

             God has allowed me a few instances of being able to see in the dark.

             If I had to label my family anything relating to religion, I'd label them Grumbling Atheists or flat out extensions of Lucifer, for although they will enter a church if the occasion requires them to attend a funeral or a wedding, like cats in a room full of rocking chairs, they'll probably sit in the back and make sure that there's easy access to the exits.

             I was the only one in the family who attended church regularly, which got me the occasional comment like, "Goody two-shoes" from my mother, and "fish-boy" from my younger brother, who would often try to punctuate his comment with a slap to the back of my head.

            For many years I described myself as a born-again Baptist and I sang in the choir of the relatively small Baptist church at the end of my street. Even as I tried to accept everything that was being shared with me from the pulpit, I realized that there were several aspects of Christianity that made little or no sense to me. Over the years these conundrums grew until I finally left the church in February of 1989, right after my beloved pastor inexplicably hanged himself in his church office.

             Yes, you heard me correctly my Baptist pastor hanged himself.

            By experiencing periods of enlightenment, which is the ability to see through God's eyes, and through personal visions provided by the Holy Spirit, I can tell you that he's doing fine now, but his journey is a discussion best left for another time.

            There are many places in the New Testament where Jesus declared that the path to spiritual salvation is specifically through him, which causes Christians to conclude that all who are not declared Christians are heretics, idolaters, and doomed, which seems like a rather confrontational thing for one third of the world to say to the remaining two-thirds.

             John 5:22-23

            22 For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son.

            23 That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him.

             John 14:6

             6 I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

             John 14:11-14

            11 Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake.

             12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.

            13 And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

             14 If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.

             Christianity believes that a person has only one lifetime and that they must find and commit specifically to Jesus during that one lifetime.

            Anyone not proclaiming to be a Christian before they die will be judged and thrown into hell at the End of Times.

            My dead pastor tried to teach me that these things are so, and yet how does this belief align with the actions of a loving God? There have been untold millions of souls who could NEVER have met these simple requirements.

 Christian Conundrum #1

            What happens to souls who die who are too young to consciously choose Jesus as their personal savior, like premature babies?

 Christian Conundrum #2

            What happens to those who are mentally challenged who cannot possibly comprehend the concept of Jesus or spiritual salvation?

 Christian Conundrum #3

             What does God do with the soul that has never heard about Jesus in their entire life and has no chance to be saved, like an aboriginal person in the wild backlands of Australia?

 Christian Conundrum #4

            What about people who are admirable in thought and deed, but who choose not to have any type of religious affiliation because they feel they have been betrayed by their religious leaders? Shall the actions of evil masquerading as good have the spiritual authority to ultimately condemn an injured soul?

 Christian Conundrum #5

            What will God do about all of the people who lived before Jesus? How can they possibly be saved? What will happen to their souls? How were Adam and Eve judged?

             "No Jesus, no salvation" seems to be Christianity's cold rote response in this bumper sticker mentality world.

             Some might say the there was a special covenant between Jehovah and the Jews through Moses and Abraham, but there still is no denying the fact that the Jews never knew of Jesus, and so, by a strict and literal interpretation of the New Testament, cannot be saved. But even if Jewish souls of the Old Testament were treated in a manner outside the commonly understood mandates of the New Testament, what happened to the souls of the Gentiles of ancient times?

            Those untold millions and billions of heartlessly doomed souls would represent the biggest Christian conundrum of all.

             In my experience, Christianity has a habit of not asking itself exactly what happened to all of these souls. When I was young and foolish enough to ask questions of those more scholarly than myself, the non-answers I got were all basically the same, "It's just another of God's mysteries that we are not meant to know at this time."

             These answers never made sense to me.

             The God I knew would have a plan in place where everyone would be given an equal and fair chance of finding their way back home to Heaven. However, in order for that assumption to be true, spiritual salvation must've been equally available to Adam and Eve, the ancient gentiles, the ancient Jews, and every soul who was ever born in ANY physical or mental condition in ANY place on the planet at ANY time.

             In addition, since I know Jesus personally and I accept what the Bible has to say about him as truth, somehow Jesus must also be inextricably tied to this eternal plan of spiritual salvation, even though the world hasn't realized it as yet. For, as I suggested earlier, logically, there can only be one reality.