I am fascinated by the 'new-age' versions of Christianity that reinterpret scripture to fit modern humanist thought. This new thinking claims that standard interpretations of the Bible misrepresent the mind of the Maker. Some of the new interpretations lead to the belief that aspiring for great wealth cannot stand in your way as a follower of Christ because, they claim, Christ would want His followers to live well!

Not for them, the idea of 'blessed are the poor', or the difficulty the rich tend to have in reaching God's Kingdom. They state that homosexuality is a natural state and so could not be sinful. To maintain many of these ideas, they ignore or reinterpret what many mainstream Christians believe are fundamental tenets of the religion. In one version, we hear that Christ will not return 'like a thief in the night' but he will ride through the clouds with thousands of angels and men with silver beards!

In programmes like 'Religious Hardtalk' one is bombarded with contradicting interpretations of the Bible and each is defended with equal intellectual rigour and equal displays of religious certitude. It seems to me that there are what can be seen as inconsistencies and even contradictions in the Bible.

Eternal damnation

When I discuss these with priests in my church, what I am told satisfies me and my faith is not jolted. But my conservative Pentecostal friends warn me that I risk eternal damnation for even harbouring these thoughts.

Many Christians seem to be strident in their insistence that every word in the Bible is divinely inspired and so to question anything, or to 'bend it to your comfort level', is to invite the devil in. I remember meeting a sixth-form student of mine in the mall in Spanish Town who spent over half an hour regaling me with all the arguments he could muster in an effort to convince me that I should rethink my [Anglican] position on the issue of the Sabbath. I later discovered that his mother had been waiting on him all this while and that they had an important appointment for which they were then very late. When I asked her why had she not stepped in and stopped us she declared that, although the appointment was urgent, it could never be as important as her son's attempt to "save" my "immortal soul". She believed that those who had heard their arguments and did not convert were doomed to an afterlife in hell!

What kind of God is this? Maybe this is why persons convert to the more humanist and less Bible-bound denominations that come out of the United States!

I also shock some of my Pentecostal acquaintances when I say that although I have grown to accept and be comforted by my own beliefs, I cannot completely reject the idea that God Almighty may have revealed himself to others differently. Maybe it is because I grew up in Trinidad where Christians live side by side with Muslim, Hindu and Orisha worshippers, and where there seems to be less proselytising and more acceptance of religious differences.

Mind-boggling

It was mind-boggling to a Jamaican acquaintance of mine when I spoke to her about a National Prayer ceremony in Trinidad which included prominent Anglican, Roman Catholic, and other Christian clerics and pastors, Moslems, led by an Imam, Hindus with priests from leading Vishnu Mandir, Orisha worshippers and Jews.

No one protested and one Anglican cleric said to me that he found the ceremony 'moving' and that he was aware of the presence of God at one point when they all prayed together silently. I think that he would have been surprised if I had told him that an occasion like that would have been frowned upon by many Christians in Jamaica and his statement deemed heretical by some.

Another irony is that, for us in Jamaica, although we think them wrong, we may shruggingly accept that these world religions must be respected. All but Orisha worship, which is based on the Yoruba beliefs of West Africa. This we see as too close to obeah and necromancy and, therefore, as 'devil worship'. Our colonial masters really did a number on us!

Keith Noel is a retired educator and former principal of St Jago High School in Spanish Town, St Catherine. Send your comments to columns@gleanerjm.com