After reading excerpts of his speech, I was left with the feeling that the Pope actually believes religion is being marginalized in society, and that the cause is culture, social and political liberalism.  And, by implication, people.  Regular folk like you and me.

This much I can agree with. The Pope is right that religion is rapidly becoming a marginalized relic in public life and discourse.  Larger and larger numbers of people, according to the recent American Religious Identification Survey, do not take organized religion very seriously anymore.

But, who’s really to blame for this?

My own sense is this: It is not culture, society, or, by implication, people who have marginalized religion.  Religion has successfully marginalized itself.

How so?

While all religions share the same essential purpose, virtually every religion is failing miserably, and none more notable to westerners than Christianity itself.  And, it isn’t so much that Christianity is failing, it is the church itself in its varied complexity.

Today, for example, there are over 20,000 groups or denominations within the larger Christian Church. Each believes its understanding of truth is a little more “right” than the 19,999 others.  It is not that there is anything abnormal about this variety or phenomenon of diversity.  In Hinduism, for example, there is a diversity that would make this seem slight by comparison. And, what would explain this?  The longer a religion is around, the more diverse it seems to become.

Diversity, however, isn’t the cause of “marginalization of religion.”  It is, instead, what accompanies the diversity—an insanity that assumes “We’re right,” “You’re wrong,” “We’re in, you’re out,” “We’re the chosen ones, you’re not.”  It is this madness that divides people.  It is from this madness within most expressions of religion that multitudes are moving.

Religions start out well-meaning. But, it isn’t long before they seem to become obsessed with matters of lesser importance. For example, instead of being a bridge to a unified self or a sense of the divine (which is the principal purpose of virtually all faith traditions), religion too often becomes a barrier; instead of freeing people of their burdens, religion itself is a burden; instead of divine approval and acceptance, religion gets preoccupied with guilt, failure, and the depiction of the deity as displeased despot whose pissed off about virtually everything and everyone.

And as we have seen with the recent Koran burnings that gained media attention on the 9/11 Anniversary – and here I am talking about the radical Christian groups who led the charge – instead of bringing unity to humanity, religion is often the cause of great disunity.  It is madness and it must end or the future of humanity is at stake.

There are many Christians who are just as radical as Islamic radicals. But the way they typically express their displeasure with the world, and the fact that their evangelical efforts at converting the world have failed, is to look and earnestly pray for the end of the world.  They call it the “Rapture,” or the return of Jesus for his elect, which of course means them.  This too is madness and a menacing threat to the future of the human family.  These Christians would love to influence America’s foreign policy so as to speed up what they believe to be the ultimate showdown in the Middle East.  They may be succeeding.

What many of these Christians want is the return of Jesus to secretly zap them from Earth and whisk them off to a peaceful never-never land.  Never mind the fact that Jesus himself said no one could predict the end of the world or his return, whatever that may mean, but that one thing is certain: it would be when people “least expect it.”  Since these Christians are expecting it, even longing for it, it has perhaps not occurred to them that they are most likely responsible for his delay.

I’m pretty sure there are many other explanations for the “marginalization of religion” today.  But, if the Pope, and indeed all religious people, are serious about restoring the place of religion in public life and in people’s personal lives, the way to do so is clear from Jesus’ own words: “He who would save his life will lose it, but he who gives his life will find it.”

In other words, here are three simple suggestions:

1. Give up the notion that there’s only one way to know God. Instead, make room for each peaceful faith expression. The religions are here to stay. They’re all needed, but the insanity that they easily become is not.  Whatever the divine is, he’s big enough to embrace all faith traditions.  She’s only small when someone wants to limit her abundant grace to one group of people, or to one way of believing or thinking.

2. Second, give up the notion of “saving the world,” which means, converting everybody to Christianity, or to Islam, or to whatever religion. It isn’t going to happen.  No religion has ever succeeded in getting everyone within it to agree on all things.  And, this is a good thing because those that do succeed usually end up like the infamous Jonestown.  So, have your missionaries leave their “Have you been Born Again?” tracks at home.  Instead, send them armed with knowledge as to farming, water purification, and the like.  Send them with supplies and equipment, with medicine and medical and financial resources.  In other words, give away your compassion and see what happens.

3. What the world needs now is love, sweet love. Trite, but true. I’m pretty sure that’s about all this world has ever needed.  St. Augustine say, “Love and do what you will,” which is just another way of saying “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Until religious leaders know this however, as well as practice it, I suspect Pope Benedict and others will continue to blame the marginalization of religion on culture, ideas, conflicting movements, and ordinary people like you and me.  And, that will lead nowhere, except to greater marginalization.  What you seek to save, you lose. Or, as the easterners put it, “What you resist persists; what you fight survives.”

1.  What do you believe?

Personally, I prefer to use the word “perspectives” instead of “beliefs.”  It feels to me as if the word is more fluid and open to change while the word “belief” feels rigid, superior, and resistant to change.  I make it my practice to be open to everything and attached to nothing.  A belief is an assumption you make about life. It’s an idea, a doctrine, or a structure of thought that helps you articulate your human experience. But, this is all that a belief is. Therefore, no belief is infallible or superior to the beliefs of others. This is why I prefer to call my beliefs, perspectives.  A perspective is dynamic, ever-expanding, respective of others, and open to all.

2.  Do you believe in God?

Yes. But, can I prove he exists? No. Can anyone prove she does not? No, again.  While I call God, God, I hesitate to say much more than this. Anything more I might say, no matter how accurate it is, seems too definitive and limiting, as if to place boundaries around the Divine or to squeeze God into some conceptual box.  How do you define what is indefinable, limit what is limitless, or explain what is inexplicable?

3.  What do you believe about Jesus?

Jesus was a human being and just as much flesh and blood, mind and emotions as anyone else.  What distinguished Jesus from virtually everyone else is that he lived at perhaps the highest possible level of Divine consciousness.  That is to say, he lived most fully a God-realized life, a life of oneness with the Divine. In fact, he did so to such an amazing degree that many people regarded him as Divine, even God-Incarnate.  I do as well, but not in any sense that Jesus—and only Jesus—was capable of divinity, oneness with, or inseparability from God. I am too. So are you.  Why else would Jesus say, “The things you have seen me do, greater things you will do…” (John 14:12).  For years, I mistakenly believed that, when Saint John said, “…God gave his only begotten Son…” (John 3:16) that he meant that Jesus was God’s one-and-only Son.  Now, my perspective is slightly different.  Instead of translating the Greek word “begotten” as “one and only,” which, of course, many Christians have, I understand John to mean “unique.”  Jesus was indeed unique.  Given his impact on human history, no intelligent person would argue that. But, does that mean he was some kind of “Superman” in human flesh? I think not.  I regard Jesus as God’s Son, indeed unique in how he lived, the way he died, the example he left for his followers, and the intimacy he enjoyed with the Creator herself.  But I regard myself, just as I do you, to be children of God, too.  By following Jesus, and so living as he lived, I, and you, too, may know the same intimacy with God and so live and die in the joyful Presence of knowing, as Saint Paul so eloquently put it, “Nothing shall separate us from the love of God” (Romans 8:31).  When you know this truth, instead of trying to explain it or defend a position, belief, or idea taught you by your religious tradition, then, and only then, are you truly free to enjoy the indecipherable richness that being one of God’s sons or daughters implies.

4.  Do you believe everyone can know God as Jesus knew God?

Yes. Why else would Jesus say over and over again, “Follow me?” It is in following Jesus you make the wonderful discovery of God’s indescribable Presence in your life.  You become God-aware.  As you practice following the sacred path of Jesus, you grow in Divine awareness.  It is important to remember that following Jesus is infinitely more than simply believing in Jesus.  When Saint John said, “…whoever believes in him (Jesus)…shall have eternal life” (John 3:16), what does he mean by “believe”?  What is there to believe?  That Jesus lived and died? No one denies this.  That Jesus is the Divine Savior?  Many believe this but they continue to live in darkness and do not pattern their lives after Jesus.  In truth, real faith in Jesus is actually the opposite of belief in Jesus.  Faith is a way of life. Since we have no verb in the English language for “faith,” we are forced to substitute in our translations of the Bible the word, “believe.”  This oddity in our language has been the source of much confusion.  People have confused “faithing” or “believing” with beliefs, but believing has little do to with content. It has infinitely more to do with conduct, though not in some morally superior way.  It’s not what you know that produces an inner transformation.  It’s Who you know and, as a consequence, how you go about living your life and patterning it after that of Jesus himself that produces inner change in your thoughts and attitudes and outer change in your conduct in the world.  Again, the real followers of Jesus are those who pattern their life after his. When you make it your daily spiritual practice to think as he may have thought, to live as he lived, and to practice showing compassion to yourself, to others, and toward God, then you ARE a follower of Jesus.

5.  Do you believe Jesus is the only way to God?

Jesus is my way to God. To be a “disciple” of Jesus means to be a learner of his way of thinking, living, and behaving.  It is to follow his path, one that inevitably leads those who do into a life-changing awareness of the Divine presence.  There may be other pathways of knowing Universal Intelligence, however. Practitioners of the Baha’i faith, for example, speak of “One Light, Many Lamps.”  God is the Light of all and gives light to all. It seems most probable, as well as logical, that God may be seen and known through the light of many different lamps.  It would be arrogant of me to either presume or to assert that God can only be known in one way.  Besides, how could I ever be sure of such a presumptuous assumption?

6.  Do not the perspectives you hold undermine the uniqueness of Jesus and the authority of the Bible?

They do not for me.  Do they for you?  If so, then you will likely disagree with my perspective(s), cling to some other perspective, and perhaps feel the need to vigorously defend it.  But, this is not necessary unless your sense of self is attached to your beliefs or perspectives. In that case, you will react to not only my perspectives but to any different perspective as if it were a personal attack against you.  Attachment to anything, including a belief system, will cause you to suffer, or so instructed the Buddha.  For me, I have found it much more liberating to “be open to everything and attached to nothing.”  Only when you feel the need to insist your perspective is “right” and other perspectives are wrong that you create an “us” and “them” world, which is the principle cause of virtually all conflicts.  This may be a small planet but it is large enough to sustain a variety of perspectives, provided humans are mature enough to tolerate polarity, ambiguity, even contradiction.  Branches on a tree don’t have to all look alike to draw nourishment from the same vine.  Native Americans say, “No tree has branches so foolish as to fight among themselves.”  My perspective is to stay open, be reflective, and keep seeking.  Or, as the philosopher Andre’ Gide put it, “Believe those who seek the truth; doubt those who have found it.”  Jesus said, “Seek and you will find…” (Matt. 7:7) and, in another place, he said, “You will know the truth and it will make you free” (John 8:32).

7.  What do you believe about the Bible?

The Bible is my primary source of Divine inspiration, spiritual insight, and practical wisdom.  It is not a book of magic, however.  It didn’t fall out of the sky bound in leather and in the language of King James.  Instead, it is a collection of sacred stories and spiritual teachings that span several hundred centuries of Jewish and Christian history.  As a consequence, no passage could possibly contain absolute truth.  Rather, each must be read and understood in its cultural context and social milieu.  For example, Leviticus says that adulterers should be stoned to death.  It’s a good thing that’s no longer practiced or about half of any congregation would have to kill the other half (probably an exaggeration, but you get the point).  The psalmist spoke of the four corners of the earth (Psalm 78:5).  Until well after the Middle Ages, most people mistakenly believed the world was flat with four corners. Of course, we know better today.  The Bible is the story of the Jewish/Christian quest to know God. It isn’t the only sacred record of the human quest for the Divine. Other peoples and cultures have their own sacred writings.  All of these sacred texts, however, point toward the same spiritual quest. Virtually every branch of the Christian church has debated, disagreed, and eventually divided over what it was going to “say” about the Bible.  Most conflicts have swirled around such words and concepts as “authoritative,” “inerrant,” “infallible,” and so forth.  But, my own perspective is this: the Bible is infinitely more than anything I, or anyone else, could ever say about it? In fact, if what I “say” about the Bible is more important than what the Bible says to me, what could be more insane than this?

8.  What denomination are you?

I grew up a Baptist and, more specifically, a Southern Baptist.  I didn’t know it at the time but there are as many Baptists as there are flavors of Baskin-Robbins ice cream.  Today, I regard myself as the product of many Christian traditions, as well as many non-Christian ones, too.  For example, I recently joined the Roman Catholic Church. I did not, however, abandon my Baptist faith or my membership in a local Baptist church. So, today, I hold membership in two churches. Someone said to me, “But, you can’t?” Says who?  I have.  Who knows, perhaps before I leave this planet, I may just join the Methodists, too, as well as the Presbyterians, Episcopalians, the Unity Church, and the Snake-Handling Pentecostals in the hills of eastern Kentucky.  I’m drawn to the Buddhist teachings, too, as well as the meditative practices within Hinduism.  Having consulted with virtually every branch of the Christian church, I have come to find much affinity in all of them.  What’s infinitely more important is that I am a follower of Christ. But, I have no interest in debating the supremacy of my faith tradition over another.  My choice to be a Christ-follower has been shaped by my background, as well as my ever-expanding perspectives. So, when I am asked, I tell people I’m a Christ-follower by choice, a multi-denominationalist with ties even to Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, as well as Sufism within the Muslim tradition. As a Christ-follower, I’m a Baptist by heritage and a Roman Catholic by choice. But, I also love the Methodist for their emphasis on the sacredness of our religious traditions, the Episcopalians for their emphasis on the equality of all persons and for the few Episcopalians who actually practice acceptance of alternative lifestyles, the Presbyterians for their emphasis on Divine providence, the Pentecostals for their emphasis on joy in the Spirit, and the Evangelicals for having broken out of the box and who practice “doing” church and worship in alternative ways.  Frankly, however, labels mean little to me.  My desire is to simply walk with God…to master this sacred art that was once described by the ancient Catholic mystic, Brother Lawrence, as “the practice of the presence of God.”  In the final analysis, isn’t walking with God, like Enoch did in the Old Testament, really all that matters?  What could be more important than this?

9.  Then, what do you believe?

Not much, I suppose.  For example, when someone says, “I believe in God,” I wonder what they mean by that.  Does it mean they believe in the existence of God?  Well, so do I and, if surveys are accurate, so do most Americans.  But, I feel no need to try to “prove” God exists.  It can’t be done anyway.  I find it far more fulfilling to spend my time getting to know this God whom I to exist.   I have long suspected that the real reason religious people try to “prove” God exists is because they’re secretly afraid she doesn’t.  You only ever “believe” or “defend” those things about which you are uncertain.  If you knew God, what would there be to either prove or defend?  I wish only to cultivate God’s ineffable presence within my consciousness and so remain in that Presence continually.  It is there I am at peace.  It is there I experience the joy that is, as Saint Paul put it, “unspeakable.” It is there I find my thinking changes, my living takes on meaning, and my fear of death dissolves.  If this is not what the New Testament mean by “salvation,” and what the Easterners mean “enlightenment,” then what is it?

10.  What do you mean by the words “post-Christian world?”

When I was young, all of my neighbors were Christian. Even those who were not regular churchgoers regarded themselves as Christian nonetheless.  Furthermore, virtually everyone thought of America as a “Christian” nation.  Today, however, the little world in which I grew up has changed.  Your neighbor now might just as likely be a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Hindu, or even an atheist.  Near our house in Louisville, Kentucky, for example, there is a service station where I regularly fill my car with gasoline.  Recently, I made a stop there and discovered there were new owners, an Indian man and his daughter.  As we got acquainted, I observed the tilaka on his forehead, the round, red dot that symbolizes the “third eye,” associated with meditation and enlightenment. I asked if they were Hindu.  “He is,” answered his daughter, as she gestured toward him.  “But, I’m a Muslim.” I remember thinking to myself, “This is the world in which we live.”  If humanity is to survive, religious people must actually start practicing the very things their faith professes – love, peace, and acceptance of all, those like you, those different from you, and even your enemies.  While virtually every conflict throughout history, down to and including the present, has been religiously inspired, this insanity must end if humanity is to survive.  In this regard, the Dalai Lama was right when he said, “When there’s peace among the religions, there will be peace in the world.”

11.  What do you believe is wrong with Christianity?

G. K. Chesterton purportedly said, “There’s nothing wrong with Christianity; there’s everything wrong with Christians.”  It is the Christians within Christianity who have been the source of much human division, destruction, and human and planetary suffering. Throughout history, for example, Christians have repeatedly labeled, judged, and sought to destroy their perceived enemies.  Furthermore, they have even acted this way toward those within their own faith tradition.  It is insanity and it must end.  There is room enough for everyone on this planet.  But, until Christians actually live as Jesus lived, treat others, but especially their enemies with openness and respect, and make room even for those who choose to have no religious affiliation, the conflict will not only continue, it will escalate.  All labeling and judging must stop. All this nonsense of believing, “We’re right, others are wrong!” “We’re God’s chosen, others are not!” must cease.  There will always be many different religions, even many subsets within the same religion.  Or, to put it another way, there will never be just one way of understanding or knowing Eternal Truth I call God. If the present divisions within Christianity alone have not made it abundantly clear to you that humans are incapable of subscribing to the same religion, even to the same beliefs within the same religion, then there isn’t much I, or anyone else, could teach you.  So, there’s nothing wrong with Christianity.  There’s everything wrong with those of us who call ourselves Christians.  We must change but change can only occur within.  And no inner change will ever take place until each Christian makes the decision to “follow” Christ—really follow Christ.  Make this your ambition.  Not only will you change, but your world will change, too.

The Law of Attraction has its roots in quantum physics. Simply put, the law states that your thoughts dictate your reality. Like everything else, thoughts are made up energy waves that attract like energies in return. Positive thoughts, for example, operate at higher energy or vibrational frequencies. So, when you think positive thoughts, you both broadcast and receive, or attract, positive results. Conversely, negative thoughts vibrate at lower energy frequencies. When your thoughts are charged with negativity, you get negative results.

Essentially, Saint Paul pointed to the same spiritual law in his Letter to the Philippians. Although he knew nothing of either quantum physics or the Law of Attraction per se, he wrote:

“I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.”[1]

In other words, today’s thoughts manifest tomorrow’s realities. The Buddha himself said, “All that we are is the result of all that we have thought.”

The Law of Attraction operates in this world with as much reliability as the Law of Gravity. The former is a spiritual law, the latter a physical. While neither can be seen with the naked eye, their effects are witnessed and even somewhat predictable.  For example, the Law of Gravity makes it possible to predict with uncanny certainty what will happen if you leap from the fifty-fourth floor of high-rise in Manhattan. The Law of Attraction makes it possible to predict the kind of life you will live by the kind of thoughts you think.

If you think angry thoughts, for example, it shouldn’t surprise you to frequently find yourself in volatile, even hostile situations.  You’ve heard of “road rage?” Angry motorists triggering or, you might say, attracting a similar rage in other drivers.

Take another example. If you think your life is not going to work out for you, why would you be surprised when it doesn’t? What you expect, you experience.  When you begin to realize that this is how life works, you’ll get real cautious about the kinds of thoughts you think. Why? Because, as Wayne Dyer puts it, “You’ll get what you think about whether you want it or not.”

The Law of Gravity makes possible life on this planet. But, it’s also the law that brings down a plane whenever there’s a loss of power. There’s an equally unattractive side to the Law of Attraction, at least where the ego is involved. Some practitioners of this law, for example, make the mistake of believing it guarantees that, whatever they want and are willing to give their undivided attention, they will get.  They believe, if they hold the thought of what they want in their minds with resoluteness and have no doubt whatsoever, what they want is on its way.

Just as no Christian can use Jesus’ name to get anything he or she wants, you cannot use the Law of Attraction to land a career, the house of your dreams, the career position, the income you desire, and so on. While there’s nothing wrong with wanting to improve your life or your life situation, whenever ambition is driven by ego, then the desires usually become self-serving, self-centered and self-obsessed. Neither God nor God’s laws can be so manipulated.

“What is ego?” you ask.

The ego is a little monster who resides within the psyche of every person. No one is without one.  It is problematic and dysfunctional—problematic because it is the principal cause of human unhappiness and discontent; and, it is dysfunctional because it is only interested in its-self.  In its more extreme forms, ego manifests as insanity.

It was not that many years ago when religious people were prone to label persons who had very dysfunctional egos as either insane, even demon-possessed.  Since they had no other way of explaining strange and aberrant behavior, they assumed these people were under the control of an evil power they called Satan, or the Devil.  We know now, however, that Satan is really a kind of alter ego or the dark side of one’s personality.

This alter-ego, or the Devil, has many other names, too.  In Islam, for example, it is called Iblis.  It was Mara over whom Siddhârtha Gautama finally prevailed at his spiritual awakening under the Bodhi Tree.   Because he successfully triumphed over his own alter-ego, The Buddha, which means Enlightened One, has been the source of spiritual inspiration to millions of people.  What many believing people in my own religious tradition do not know is that they, too, have an alter-ego, a little demon inside each of them, and it is dysfunctional, too, even insane. The difference is only in the degree of insanity.

So, here’s the bottom line.  Whether it’s something you “wish to attract” as a pseudo-religious person or “pray to receive” as a person of faith, whenever your ego is present, and it is present more often than it is not, the Law of Attraction is interrupted.  That is, it is corrupted and the law ceases to operate as you might desire.  The same happens to the efficacy of prayer when those who pray do so in an attempt to manipulate reality.

James, author of a New Testament book that bears his name, understood this. While he did not know to use the words ego or Law of Attraction, he was well acquainted with the realities beneath and beyond those terms. He wrote, “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives.[2] He might have put it this way: “When you want something and believe you’ll get it, either through prayer or focused thinking, but you do not receive it, there’s a simple reason why: it is because your wanting and craving is only for yourself.”

“Then, how can I know when ego is present?” you ask.

This and a host of other questions related to the ego, I’ll answer very soon.

[2] James 4:3, NIV

One day, the rabbi took Jacob aside and said, “Jacob, why do you suppose Christians make it a habit to tap the side of the saltshaker while Jews always tap the bottom?”

Certain the rabbi was going to join him in ridicule of Christians, Jacob was more than ready to play along. “No, Rabbi, I do not know. Why do Jews tap the bottom of the saltshaker while Christians tap the side?”

“To get the salt out!” answered the rabbi.

There are many ways to tap the shaker, but the purpose is the same—to dispense salt.

Ask the followers of almost any religion what is the purpose of their religion and they will say the purpose is to guide them to know God. They may use different words or ideas to say this, but it is essentially the same purpose. Even in religions like Buddhism, where there is no belief in a Higher Power per se, they still speak sometimes of the “Universal Mind.” What is that, if it is not the same Reality toward which the words and names that others use point, too?

Similarly, a spiritual seeker in Christianity is really no different than a spiritual seeker in Islam, Taoism, or Hinduism. All want to know God, the higher self, or to reach what Hindus call Samadhi, which is “bliss consciousness,” what Christians may call, “salvation,” or “God-realization.” In other words, everyone wants to be complete, to be happy, and to alleviate human suffering, which The Buddha showed us is mostly self-induced anyway. In other words, we all seek the same thing. We just know it in different ways, based on our cultural, social, ethnic, and religious conditioning.  Since everyone is seeking God-consciousness, sometimes confused with “happiness,” then you can understand that every religion has evolved to help facilitate this purpose.

Yet, throughout the history of humanity, religion has been the prime cause of most human division and human and planetary destruction. If this is not mad, what is it?  Throughout the history of my own tradition, for example, Christianity has been either a Divine blessing or a demonic curse. Embarrassing to admit, it has been the latter far too often. If the human species is going to survive, it is imperative we make room on this little planet for everyone—that we have respect for all religions, as well as those who choose to have no religion.

Even as I say all of this, however, I realize, until a person wakes up, this will likely be more than they can accept. Until they experience a shift in consciousness, making it possible for them to see everyone and everything through lenses clear of conditioned thinking, then they will resist virtually everything I written so far. This is true whether they be a Christian, Muslim, or atheist.

If I have learned anything over the years, it is that every religion, in its own unique way, has something important to teach us about Ultimate Reality, or what I like to call the sacred art of knowing God. Even those who profess no religion at all may be able to teach the rest of us something about this Universal Intelligence, Consciousness, Being Itself or, as I am accustomed to saying, God.

I love the story I read of a Frenchman who approached the Dalai Lama after he had given a lecture in a city in France.  He said, “Your Holiness, I loved your words and I’ve decided I want to convert to Buddhism.”

In great wisdom, however, the Dalai Lama answered, “Why Buddhism?  Why would you wish to convert to this religious tradition?  You are in France.  In France, you have Christianity.  There’s nothing wrong with Christianity!”[1]

There isn’t, is there?  No more so than there’s anything wrong with the myriad of other paths one might follow toward the evolution of Divine consciousness.  It’s time humanity stops the insanity of thinking “We’re right, you’re wrong!” “We’re in, you’re out!” “We’re the chosen ones, you’re not!”

Just as is everyone,

You were born to walk with God;

So, why would you walk alone?