In many past posts, I have lamented how Jesus’ church has split into over 35,000 versions. For this post, I am going to look at that from a different viewpoint.

The first split happened almost immediately in that Saul/Paul who never sat as Jesus’ feet started deciding what this new Jewish sect should be all about. Paul was a Jewish Pharisee, so his job for much of his life was to teach others how to observe strict traditions and laws. From his many letters that seem to dominate the New Testament, he went about doing just that, He was my no means the only one, literally thousands followed him in this practice in the centuries since.

It wasn’t until 400 years after Jesus’ death that an enclave assembled by a Roman emperor named Constantine went about deciding which of all the writings of the time this group agreed with. They then went on to physically burn all those they didn’t. What was left, after the burning, is what we now call the Bible. Anyway, I think you get the story, so let’s move on to the core of this post.

Quickly after Jesus’ death, people started deciding which version of God they felt most comfortable with. One after another put his spin on a new version of religion, and they continued doing that even today. 35,000 versions of Christianity just don’t seem to be enough.

Let me give you my version of God. She/he/it is infinitely beyond human understanding. Everything we think we know is simply fabrications and speculation. In other words, God is God and no further explanation is warranted or necessary, at least for me. I likely set myself apart with these thoughts, Maybe I am the 35,001 version?

• The radical fundamentalists today are set on the idea of a vengeful God who hates all the things that they hate.
• Then there are those who simply kidnap the name of God for their own selfish and self-centered purposes.
• Finally, there are those of us who call ourselves followers of the teachings of Jesus, we cling to the God of love that he taught us about.

It seems everyone has their own idea of just who, or what, God is. Whose fault is it that we have so many different versions of God? Since this has been going on for centuries, how are we supposed to discern what if any of them are correct, or even remotely correct?

How can we make a choice between 35,000 versions? If you see none of them as correct, it is certainly your right to choose “none of the above”, that is the choice many are making today.

With this dilemma, I think everyone should just pick which version of God they feel comfortable with, and go from there. The theologians, past and present, are no help in this matter. Since churches are, for the most part, social organizations like country clubs, that just makes the most sense to belong to a club you feel most comfortable with, or to not belong to any at all.

Where we have gotten into infinite trouble is when we try to force our version of God onto others. That has accounted to one degree or another for most of the wars in our existence.

Proudly on the back of my car.