Mar. 5^th, 2025

 

Here’s what I found myself thinking about during my prayer and meditation time today. Having been raised southern Baptist, I grew up with a lot of guilt. I ended up leaving the Baptist Church as I was drawn into the Jesus movement in the 70s. What attracted me, was this hippie Jesus that was presented as more inclusive and less about guilt and more about forgiveness.

But then, somewhere along the way, my involvement with the non-denominational, charismatic, evangelical movement seem to be pointing me towards a philosophy that said, “if I do the right thing, then God will bless me, and I will gain, even wealth.

Something did not feel right with either of these approaches. Today, reading Margaret Silf’s book, I realize that both of these approaches to Christianity are based in a transactional theology. This sort of transactional approach to God, and to life leaves us little freedom to choose as children of God.

For instance, how many of us choose to do even good deeds, out of a fear of not looking good, or disappointing a friend or a pastor or God  and losing their favor? The extreme of this in religious circles would be, behaving a certain way out of a fear of hell. The other side of the coin is when we choose to do something out of a hope of gaining something or being rewarded, or even out of a fear of not being rewarded.

All of this is a transactional way of living. We see this very clearly in Washington. Silf wrote, “ how many legislative decisions are made free of the fear of losing votes or the hope of gaining influence?”

 When that same approach enters into our faith life, it becomes very crippling. Silf raises the question, what if that inner voice, or some may call it the Holy Spirit, spoke, saying, “ I won’t love you anymore than I already do if you say yes, or any less if you say no.” 

We may not recognize the freedom in that initially, because we are so conditioned to expect brownie points for doing good things, and we expect the people who are not as good as us to be punished or at least not do as well as us. Silf insists that a transactional Christianity would violate our freedom. 

Think how freeing it would be to serve a God, whom we knew without a doubt would not love us anymore, or any less, regardless of the decisions we make. With that knowledge and deep understanding, would we not choose love, compassion, gratitude, forgiveness, and mercy more often, and choose it freely, not out of some duty or obligation or hope to gain favor.

Silf calls that acting from our true center, which leads us to the peace that passes all understanding, and the reality of who we are meant to be that satisfies our deepest desire.

If, as Silf writes,  the journey of our heart home to God is not about the hope of some future heaven or fear of dark oblivion, then we are free to live in the simple joy of each present moment lived fully in the freedom of being a child of God.

Right now we have a government that has become even more transactional, by their own words. Granted, as human beings, it is almost impossible to live a life, free of transactional, thinking, and being, but that is what we strive for if we are focused on something bigger than ourselves. A government that is completely transactional, loses its moral compass , will only engage with friends and foes if there is something reciprocal, and often it has to come in the form of material wealth. This approach leaves no room for compassion, or generosity of spirit. 

In a transactional world, the only voices being heard are the ones with the most power, wealth, and fame. They are the ones with a platform and a voice,  and if those voices do not recognize something bigger than themselves and are trying to make God in their image, then rather than America being a bright city on a hill, we end up erecting golden statues  to ourselves and building vacation resorts on the blood and tears of widows and orphans, and a broken people. This will be our legacy.

The sad thing is, this kind of transactional way of being actually leads to less freedom, both in the secular world, and in the religious world.  While all the while, we are being told the opposite.

 May God bless us and keep us and deliver us!