What Would Jesus Do?

I see that question posited on bumper stickers and mouthed by platitude spewing liberals (and to be fair, conservatives) all the time, and it makes me wonder at the colossal arrogance of these people.

The simple fact is this, we don't know what He would do. To say that we would, is akin to saying we know the mind of God, which is impossible for us to know. True, there is the Bible, however that is just a a book, written by men, and translated by men, and read by men. Who were/are all flawed, not only in their perceptions, but also in their beliefs. How is it possible that we live in a world were Jerry Falwell's interpretation of Scripture can be superior to my own?

To know the mind of God is, to my thinking, to commit an act approaching heresy. For to say we know God's mind is to place us on the same level as God himself, and did not God cast down Lucifier for that? Only one person who has ever lived can say He knew the mind of God, but that is because he was the Almighty Incarnate. Returned to the Earth to reconcile the faith with humanity. He died for us, so that all of us can come to know our Lord. So to ask the question, What Would Jesus Do? Is to make the attempt to substitute our judgment for His.

I have battled with my religious convictions all my life, and now, finally, I can say I have reconciled them with the actions I have taken in my life. I am a former alcoholic, and I was finally able to beat the demon of the bottle through a direct intervention of God's Grace, nothing else I ever tried worked. Simply put I was on the road to complete and utter ruin, until one night I got down on my knees and prayed, I mean really prayed. And the only explantion I can arrive at is that God gave me the strength to finally just walk away from booze. Say what you will, but it happened to me, not you, I was there, you weren't. It was something I cannot really honestly describe, perhaps someone reading this will understand the feeling, but perhaps they will not. I really honestly do not care.

In the end one must make their own decisions, it was this paradox which lead to my battle with my religious convictions over the years, when I finally realized I cannot substitute my judgment, even when it was grounded in Scripture, for the judgment of God I began to see the mess I had made of my life, and how skewed those like Falwell and Robertson views really are. To view the world simply through the prism of the Bible is, while commendable, a mistake. To close one's mind off, simply because the Bible might have a certain prohibition on something, so to deny the greatest gift God gave each and everyone of us. The ability to reason, to ask questions. Yes, even of the Almighty Himself. That is the conclusion I have reached; God wants us, His creations, to ask him questions, for He wants us learn, to grow, to realize our full potential. Which is something we cannot do when we adhere to dogma.

No, I am not talking about moral relativism, that is evil, for that is substituting man's judgment for the judgment of God. But, rather, to come to understand that God does indeed have a plan, even if that plan is hidden from us, and is a plan whose completeness we may never know, until we come to the Father himself. I am probably not explaining it correctly, as I have much to learn still, but to get the over-all idea of what I am trying to say, read this column by Dennis Prager and you will know where I am coming from.

In any objective analysis I am left to conclude that God wants us to think for ourselves, for did not God Himself give us the ability? And when we close off our minds and just engage in groupthink, are we not committing a sin by doing so?