GOD-centric :

A life centered on the pursuit of a good and fair God of love

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Ch. 9 The GOD-Centric Conversation (continued)

Conversation with the Non GOD-centric

  Being GOD-centric is the key to fruitful inter-religious dialogue. Only when our good and fair God of love is placed first in our priorities, before religious dogma, can we let down our defenses and seek to understand and grow rather than to prevail. If all parties in a religious dialogue were not GOD-centric, here is how I imagine the conversation unfolding especially with those from the Abrahamic traditions:

  GOD-centric: I love God.

  Non GOD-centric: I love God too!

  GOD-centric: Great! I would like to learn more about your relationship with God and tell you more about mine.

  Non GOD-centric: Let me just tell you about my path since it is the only true path to God through Jesus or Allah or adhering to the Bible or the Qur'an or I'd like to talk with you but you are untouchable or not among God's chosen.

  GOD-centric: I believe in a good and fair God of love. For God to be fair, it would not be possible for there to be only one path that could not be equally available to all people in all locations and all time periods. I believe that God loves all of us equally and that none of us are untouchable or chosen above others.

  Non GOD-centric: I believe that God loves us so much that He sent this one great prophet and inspired this one great book but if you don't believe me and convert to my religion, God will make you burn in hell forever.

  GOD-centric: How can you reconcile a loving, good, and fair God with what you are suggesting to be true about God?

  Non GOD-centric: God's ways are unknowable to man.

  GOD-centric: So, you don't believe that God is loving, good, and fair?

  Non GOD-centric: I believe that God is loving, good, and fair but we cannot understand God's ways so God gave us a holy book to follow.

  GOD-centric: I have read your holy book and it contains many beautiful passages about God's love for us and God's desire for us to love one another; however, this same holy book also contains many passages that suggest that God is vain, spiteful, inconsistent, violent, and unfair. How can both sets of passages be true?

  Non GOD-centric: There are special experts who can help you understand the holy book.

  GOD-centric: Why would God inspire a holy book that only experts can understand?

  Non GOD-centric: We cannot understand the ways of God.

  GOD-centric: Why would God not allow us to understand the ways of God? How can we really love God if we do not understand God?

  Non GOD-centric: All you need to understand is that there is one true path to God that you need to follow to go to heaven rather than hell when you die.

  GOD-centric: So, you cannot really understand God or make sense of the contradictions in your holy book, but you believe in God because you want to go to heaven rather than to hell?

  Non GOD-centric: No, I really love God!

  GOD-centric: I do not understand how you can love a God that you do not understand especially when your holy book suggests so many unloving, unjust, and mean-spirited things about God.

  Non GOD-centric: That is faith. If I understood, then I would not need to have faith.

  GOD-centric: So, faith for you is believing that God is loving, good, and fair even though you cannot understand God's ways and your holy book contains many examples of God's not being loving, good, and fair. For me, faith is choosing to experience my life through the more vivid light of God's love and living out God's love, goodness, and fairness in creation.

  Non GOD-centric: I am concerned for you because you risk going to hell unless you believe what I am telling you.

  GOD-centric: I appreciate that you are concerned for me but you have not described the God that I love. I love a good and fair God who loves all of us equally. I believe that God's ways are the movement of love and there is no reason for God to hide this truth from us. I believe that any religious doctrine or holy book verse that suggests that God is not loving, good, or fair is wrong. I believe that God's greatness is a challenge for us to understand but God desires our pursuing this understanding so we can better live out God's love.

  Non GOD-centric: But my holy book states that my one special prophet is the only way to God and that if you do not believe this to be true, you will go to hell.

  GOD-centric: I believe your holy book is wrong on this matter.

  Non GOD-centric: I believe that my holy book is right always.

  And that, gentle readers, is how you reach an inter-religious dialogue impasse. There are religious people who are quite comfortable believing in a God that is not always loving, good, or fair, especially to “others.” Many more religious people do want to believe that their God is always loving, good, and fair but this lovingness, goodness, and fairness cannot always be understood because it sometimes looks like spitefulness, badness, and unfairness when described in their holy books or by their religious doctrine. These good-hearted people are left trying to defend the indefensible by saying God's ways cannot be known to man and building fortresses around a holy book that sometimes disparages our loving God. Let's invite them to come out from behind their walls to join us in loving and pursuing our one good and fair God of love.