There is this metaphor called “The Boiling Frog Syndrome.”  Apparently if you were to take a frog and throw him in a vat of boiling water, he will jump out and do his damndest to escape. Well, wouldn’t you?  However, they say that if you place the frog in a vat of room temperature water and then slowly turn the heat up (very gradually), he will swim around comfortably, and then rather uncomfortably until he eventually dies, being cooked to death by the eventual boil. Sometimes I think this has been how my exposure to Christianity has been over the years.  When I first came to Jesus it was all about hugs and kisses, love and friendship, and butterflies.  But the more I progressed, the more they taught me about God, the things I “needed” to know. It all started off with, how I would never be lonely again, and that Jesus lifts my burdens and takes them on and such.  Then we learned that there is this place called Heaven that all you have to do to get there is believe in Jesus, say “The Prayer” and you were certain to go.  It was awesome.  I was so happy back then (circa 1982). Then I was told the “Good News,” that if I did not choose Jesus, or I chose some other religion or I had no religion, I was going to go to Hell when I died.  Remarkably, I did not just walk out right then, but the water was being turned up gradually.  Hell was a terrible place that was eternal and forever punishment for not choosing God over other things.  I was not worried about this for myself since I had already “chosen” God.  However, I was terrified.  I was terrified that my parents would not be there in Heaven since I could never recall them having said “The Prayer.” That terror turned into dogmatic determination that no one would “go to Hell” on my watch.  At some point the ends justified the means in getting people to Heaven.  It just seemed stupid not to say "The Prayer."  I could not imagine why anyone would say no to Jesus if it meant their eternal salvation from Hell.  At some point in my boiling Kingdom of Jesus, I determined that those people were just stupid, or evildoers, heathen, secular.  I don’t know how it happened, it just made sense and my Christian friends agreed with me.  The aggressive ones loudly agreed, while the more mild mannered ones would just wink and smile agreeing-like as if shaking their heads to the outright idiocy of the rest of the planet. This opinion of the rest of the world -- this “us against them” attitude -- gave me license to say whatever I wanted to say in the name of Jesus, and to treat people terribly in the name of Jesus and to annoy the shit out of everyone around me in the name of Jesus.  Deep down, I thought I was being loving. I “learned” things in Jesus school (church) that today seem to have very little to do with Jesus by the time you actually get down to it and try to apply the scriptures, but since it was a slow, progressive turning up of the heat, I really did not question things much back then. At some point I became a good Republican, because well it only made sense to be a Republican, since Democrats were basically “so open-minded that their brains fell out.”  Those Democrats let their minds and bleeding hearts over-ride their sense of morality and decency.  Republicans however were all about morality.  We were against abortion and were willing to stand up for the rights of the unborn, shunning and blasting their heathen parents.  We deep-down believed that abortion doctors were of the devil and if one of them died by the hands of some psycho, well maybe God sort of worked that out for “the good.” All those Democrats and ACLU members would jump to the aid of one Planned Parenthood doctor, but did not seem to give one flip about the unborn.  Who was there to stand for their rights?  The water was getting hotter and hotter and this religion of love seemed more and more arrogant, but it was a righteous arrogance, was it not? I mean, Jesus got mad and struck down a fig tree that was not producing fruit, we had the right to get angry and stay that way.  America was going downhill fast and we needed to stand up for the rights and freedoms of our citizens – even the so-called citizens that seemed to not want those rights and freedoms. Next up was the outright attack on our Biblical view of marriage.  We had to fight or no one else would.  The homosexuals were on the warpath as well, weren't they?  We were told that they were recruiting our young boys.  So we fought and fought hard. Before long I had meshed my faith with all sorts of other things.  Nationalism was one of them.  Republicanism was another.  Moral-ism was another.  Power was one more.  The water was boiling and boiling and I did not seem to notice just how distorted, how arrogant, and how impractical my Jesus had become.  By the time the water got to really boiling I had become a person that was more full of anger and resentment than love for my enemies.  I had become a person of warfare with those who would oppose me and of course Jesus.  Funny thing is, my perceived enemies, were never Jesus’ enemies. The true Jesus – the one found in scripture would have nothing to do with the things I had affiliated myself with by that point.  Jesus did fight in the Bible, and he did push back and he did take a stand and he did represent, don’t get me wrong.  He was steadfastly against the role that religion had played up until then in marginalizing the people of the day.  He was sick of religion excluding the poor, the sick, the hungry and the forgotten.  He spoke out against it and did what he could to include others. Jesus was not for using power to gain allegiance.  He was about being there, touching folks, talking to people, healing them.  He did not ask for their religious credentials first.  He just did those things.  At some point in my life, I just stopped. I stopped going to church, and stopped subscribing to Talk Radio and stopped rallying for Republicans and stopped even thinking about God.  It was like someone had pulled me out of the boiling water right before I was about to die and in a sense, I was “Saved.”  I feel like Jesus really saved me here.  And it was such a relief.  My anxiety levels went down exponentially. I took a two year break from Church and just settled into my family and focused on my marriage and work and friendships and personal God-studies.  When I came back to church, I decided that it would be on God’s terms, not someone else’s. That was back in 2003.  For me that was when everything began to change.  I decided to really read the Bible and really try to understand just who Jesus was and is today.  I realized that there was so much affiliated with my Christianity back in the day, that there was really no room for Jesus. That earlier period of time was not all bad.  There were some good shiny moments to be proud of, but for the most part I am done with all of that.  I want to be like Jesus, and in order to do that it means I have to deny all of those other voices a chance to put me in that vat and slowly begin turning up the heat. In the comic strip above, you see a father and his son in the stadium of old, doing what father and sons do, apparently.  Just like at a ball game when there is a ball hit into the stands, dad lifts his son up to catch it.  Later the boy mounts the ball on a trophy and proudly displays it in his room.  Instead, this is actually a human head, because at their stadium they play different sorts of games than we do currently.  This kid in the comic strip is so grossly ingrained in his culture (since birth) that he doesn’t even realize just how gruesome a trophy he has.  He doesn’t think twice about proudly displaying it to all. This of course is an exaggeration, but it demands that we ask ourselves some questions in regards to the churches and organizations we most identify with.  This requires a certain amount of unplugging yourself from the matrix.  But, I trust you can do it.  Just honestly ask yourself. Have you been raised into a religion that is more about being right, than being loving?  Are you arrogant?  Do you have an “us against them” attitude?  Because the truth is, it really is only “us.”  There is no “them.” Are you angry?  Do you feel like our country is going to Hell, quickly?  Do you feel as if there is only one real political party that a Christian ought to participate in if he or she is a true Christian?  Have you ever used force, threats, fear, coercion, guilt and the like to get someone to “See the truth?”  Have you ever said things like “The Bible says there will ALWAYS be poor people?”  Have you ever used the excuse of having a “righteous indignation” in order to dismiss the guilt of treating another person poorly?  Do you feel that in regards to “salvation,” the ends justify the means?  Are you proudly displaying your human-head trophy for all to see? Look around friend.  You may be sitting in that vat I spoke of earlier, and the water is hotter than you think.  It is actually deadly.  There is something better that starts with reconnecting with the real Jesus from the Bible.  For me, my “salvation” began when I started to really read the Gospels starting in Matthew.