In the Company of Christians

"I sing because I'm happy,
I sing because I'm free.
His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches me." - Civilla Martin

God, in the form of the born again, religious right, has entered my workplace. When marketing questions arise, we are advised to pray, when issues of procedure or policy are raised, we are advised to look to God. We are told only true and repentant Christians will ever achieve or succeed or be invited into heaven. We are warned of the perils of alternative lifestyles and righteously told that we are being prayed for. We are expected to embrace this newly found strategy and work within it, revere "the anointed ones" and ask no questions. We are subtly threatened with expulsion if we refuse and the promise of hell if we don't acquiesce. We are encouraged to find the right road, travel it in the company of Christians only, and gratefully accept all we are told as the only correct way to live.

I have never trusted or had much use for those people who claim there is only path to anything, let alone God. My faith is a matter between myself and my God, it's private and intimate. I don't share it unsolicited and don't expect everyone to respect or believe in it - I feel no need to convert or preach to prove it, no need to recruit for it, no need to exclude those who do not share it. I don't accept that God sees, recognizes or loves only Christians or that He will close his kingdom to anyone with a different belief system. If there were only one path to God, it would be so crowded that no one would get in.

There is no room in this recent religious conversion for mistakes, for doubt, for tolerance or for non-believers. Books about finding God arrive, sent with all the speed Fedex can muster and signed "Love in Christ", emails that begin and end with prayer fly through cyber space, memos about forgiveness (for Christians only) are written and distributed. This path to God is narrow and inflexible, it curves and winds around charity, around free will, around forgiveness. A misstep on the path will send you into the arms of the devil himself and, we are told, endangers our souls, our lives, and our financial well being. It all feels suspiciously like a carefully cloaked-in-God version of blackmail, well meant, perhaps, but more likely a marketing ploy, born of the need to increase the bottom line for those in charge and prop up our faltering industry through the use of Jesus. It doesn't make me proud.

Those that put salvation out of reach for so many may gain the kingdom of heaven but it will be a lonely place if you don't have to sin to get there.