If religion is mankind worshipping God, then we may be sure that sin and weakness will be part of the mix. If religion then has obvious excesses or failings, should we deny God because we cannot tolerate religion? Should we also just give up on religion itself?
Religion’s oh-so confident stance
Can come across as sheer arrogance.
What kind of mind can press the trigger,
That sparks his death-primed waistband,
To rip through flesh and innocent blood,
As some grotesque god-ordained hand?
What kind of heart can hope for reward,
By cowardly mingling with their peers,
Tearing limb and family and future,
To sow a vicious harvest of tears?
Religion’s oh-so confident stance
Can come across as pure arrogance.
Religion’s excesses are history’s audit;
Rank resume of righteous rancour;
Legions of ill-educated lackeys,
Parroting their mumbo jumbo scripture.
Fronting multinational secret clans,
Self-perpetuating their tribal bile,
Too zealous for public opinion’s hold,
Shady clerics never brought to trial.
Religion’s oh-so confident stance
Can come across as vile arrogance.
Did you start all this my sweet Lord?
Surely you knew the propensity well?
The human tendency to pedestal itself,
As centre of life, earth, heaven and hell?
How slow to learn the truths of science
That we are all perched on a tiny orb,
A pale blue dot in the cosmic vastness,
Way too humbling for saints to absorb.
Religion’s oh-so confident stance
Can come across as rank arrogance.
Religion takes the Spirit’s warm breath,
And bottles it – in more ways than one –
Placing it high up out of our reach,
Labelled ‘sacred’ – beyond all discussion.
And so we reverence the reverends,
And pay our tithes, and stand in line,
Keeping the rumour of god alive, while
Proud of a Church in freefall decline.
Religion’s oh-so confident stance
Can come across as cold arrogance.
Divine revelation’s a precious gift,
Knowing the name of God, a holy boon,
But a direct line to the Almighty? Christ,
The infallible bloke’s a social goon.
I love you Lord and I love my Church,
But let me not fall into that old trap,
To see no truth and worth in other’s ways,
And peddle my faith as the only map.
Religion’s oh-so confident stance
Can come across as stark arrogance.
How to be passionate yet temperate?
How to keep faith while walking abreast?
How to witness without being ‘preachy’?
How to live humbly as one of the ‘blest’?
So tempting to lapse from any practice;
Witness those who’ve voted with their feet;
Some might be lax, looking for the out,
But many cannot bide with such conceit.
Religion’s oh-so confident stance
Can come across as bald arrogance.
Longevity brings problems aplenty:
Tradition-rich and tradition-laden;
Barnacled with centuries’ flotsam,
Montrous hulks ever needing renovation.
The Church, guilty, caught in the act,
Flung down at world’s end, adulterous;
Humanity gathered, expectant, gawping,
Stones ready – what will be your Word to us?
Religion’s oh-so confident stance
Can come across as crass arrogance.