GOD-centric Preface
Theme Song: Day by Day - Godspell
"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."
~ Martin Luther King, Jr., Speech in St. Louis on March 22, 1964
Welcome to my book! This book has been haunting me for many years as the one something I was intended to do yet how vain of me to undertake such a writing and who in the world would read it? Well, I hope you will read it. Are you a person who loves God deeply and strongly intuits God's goodness and fairness but has questions about religious portrayals of God? I invite you into the big tent of the GOD-centric. Are you a person who has been turned off by religion but still wonders about those "more than" experiences that sometimes happen when lost gazing in the heavens or transported by music or loving your child so much that it hurts? I invite you into the big tent of the GOD-centric. Are you an atheist or agnostic with a big heart who loves broadly and pursues truth passionately? I invite you into the big tent of the GOD-centric. Are you a religious traditionalist or conservative with secret, perhaps very secret, doubts which you cannot discuss with anyone in your social world so you read this book alone seeking a community of questioners who also love God? I invite you into the big tent of the GOD-centric.
What is GOD-centric? To be GOD-centric means that you live a life centered on the God-level concerns of love, goodness, and fairness and concerns about God expressed in raw dialogue with God and gentle dialogue with each other. There is only one dogma for the GOD-centric: God is loving, good, and fair. I will present other ideas associated with GOD-centric but God's being loving, good, and fair is the only one from which I would not budge. Being GOD-centric means that God comes first, even before religion if religion contradicts God's lovingness, goodness, or fairness. You do not need to leave your religious tradition to be GOD-centric and, in fact, the beauty and wisdom of your tradition is very welcome as we help each other grow towards God. You may need to re-envision your tradition through the loving-good-fair lens to filter out or reframe those aspects which do not do justice to our good and fair God of love.
What is the purpose of a GOD-centric orientation? I think that the majority of people from every religion share the belief that God is loving, good, and fair and just need a common language to bring clarity to their own tradition and to engage in fruitful dialogue with people from other traditions. I think it is possible that GOD-centric people from different religions share more in common with each other than they do with militant or fundamentalist members from their own religion. I believe that we are bound more tightly and meaningfully by the shared attributes that we recognize in God than by shared names for God or shared religious terminology. Private and public religious and social life would benefit from more people's agreeing on a GOD-centric orientation which places a good and fair God of love or goodness and fairness expressed through love first in our priorities. If God is first, then differences in religious terminology, metaphysics, texts, and practices would be rightly perceived not as insurmountable obstacles but rather as invitations to more fully understanding the one good and fair God that we all love and seek. A GOD-centric orientation would allow us to see each other as opportunities rather than adversaries. Once God is placed first, lesser distractions recede and love blooms.
Why did I write GOD-centric now? I felt like I had to. When I was growing up in the 1970s and heard someone say God or Jesus or Christianity, my body would immediately soften since I knew the person speaking was going to be loving and open and eager to help me or any other neighbor they encountered. Now, when I hear someone say God or Jesus or Christianity, my body immediately tenses as I brace myself for attack by someone angry and judgmental who wants to blame me rather than help me or any "other" neighbor they encounter. Sadly, I imagine people from other faith traditions have similar experiences to my own. Where did God's love go? Religion deserves better. God deserves better. We should do better. My hope is that the GOD-centric orientation will help the majority of religious people who center themselves in God's movement of love, goodness, and fairness reclaim the religious narrative. Let's do better by God.
This book will outline in honest and heartfelt fashion my journey to GOD-centric through my fervent yet very private youthful bond with God to my dark night of doubt and questioning to my development of the GOD-centric orientation and culminating in my hope for further personal and communal transformation in the future.
I invite you into the big tent of the GOD-centric...
