Has God forsaken us? by Carol Wolman

HAS GOD FORSAKEN US?  by Carol Wolman

 

Nietzsche proclaimed in the late 19th century that God is dead.  Using the character of a madman in The Gay Science, he wrote:   "Where has God gone?" he cried. "I shall tell you. We have killed him - you and I.  We are his murderers. 

 

Around the same time, Karl Marx proclaimed that religion is the opiate of the masses.  Both these writers sought ways to empower humanity, and felt that belief in a remote deity was disempowering.

 

These attitudes carried over into the 20th century.  The world wars convinced many that God never existed, or if He did, He has withdrawn His attention from this planet.  Yeats summed it up in his poem "The Second Coming": 

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

 

As we survey the scene in the 21st century, we see religious fanatics, intent on killing and conquest, in control of the most powerful nation on earth.  They invoke God's name and refer to Biblical prophecy to justify their plundering and pollution of the fragile biosphere.  It seems as if they have killed the God of love and justice, and replaced Him with Moloch, or whoever they worship at the Bohemian Grove and the Skull and Bones rites- a fierce vengeful deity whose blood lust knows no bounds.  Still, they use Christianity as the opiate of the masses, to lull the people into accepting their vicious crimes against humanity.

 

Where is the true God who loves us and wants us to choose life?  Has He forsaken us?  Should we give up and enjoy what commodities we can still afford, while we wait for the rapture, or armageddon, suffocation, nuclear holocaust, or whatever horrible fate awaits us?

 

Isaiah 49 (King James Version)

   ¹⁴But Zion said, The LORD hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me.  ¹⁵Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.

 

God, the God of love, justice and life, is in our hearts, giving us the will and the courage to fight for our planet and our descendants.  He will not forget us if we do not forget Him.

 

In the name of the Prince of Peace,   Carol Wolman