Jack Pelham

Let us observe that
the tall husband―
who can get things
down for you―
may also,
from time to time,
put them
up too high.

How is it, O man,
That after all this time,
Knowing all these people,
You still do not know
What people are like?

Christians are all over the place when it comes to their understanding of what God requires of man before he will grant him eternal life in that Holy City. I think that naturally, one could consider the idea that “God requires nothing”, as a possibility to be covered in due diligence, but that once he sets one toe over that line of zero requirement, he steps out onto a slippery slope that will whisk a great many people away to a conclusion that do not find agreeable.

And the question, of course, is whether God finds that conclusion agreeable―whether it is the right and true conclusion, whether we might tend to think so or not. So this article examines that slippery slope, and what seems to be on each end of it, and how most people tend to reason their way up and down that slope, avoiding the landings at both the top and the bottom, preferring instead, the frantic life of trying to live somewhere along the slope itself.

I’ve made a rough list below of example positions below. It is surely imperfect in several ways, yet useful (I hope) in sketching out the gist of the quandary that plagues so many, and the various ways they dispute the particulars.

Books and books could be written about why I believe what follows, but I have forced myself to keep it very brief. And if you want to understand my reasons (beyond the tidbits of reason that are interspersed with my predictions below), you’ll need to contact me privately, or get busy reading my writings on such things. (Almost no one ever does.)

He wants to feel good about himself.

He wants others to feel good about him,
Which helps him to feel good about himself.

I struggle to understand the scriptures.

I can’t tell you that I struggle enough, mind you, but I struggle.

I have spent countless hours (though God will know the count), reading and pondering and discussing them. And surely, I have written and rewritten many thousands of pages, trying to make sense of the Bible, and of its various parts. I’ve written about things like:

He will tell you,
Just as certainly as he tells himself,
That he has set out on a righteous quest of principle
To right the wrongs that plague us all.
And he sets his sights on politics
Or religion―or perhaps on both.

They whom He did not appoint
Appoint themselves His representatives―
Or have their churches do it for them,
Which makes it seem all the more official.

I’m not sure they’re much interested in
Having as their King anyone other than
The baby Jesus, of whom they can readily
Make what they will in that quaint manger.

Is the man’s religion what the man thinks it is,
Or does God have a say in the matter?