Who speaks for working people?

Who speaks for working people?

Spiritual Aerobics for the 21st Century Chapter IV

Spiritual Aerobics IV

Rev. Rod Reinhart

The price of success comes high these days... especially for the Church. Some of America's most successful modern churches have been forced to submit to the the exclusionary bigotry of modern culture just to survive. In the fourth chapter of Spiritual Aerobics for the 21st Century, I show how God's universal message of salvation and redemption is often subverted and forgotten in today's culture of "religious success at any price."

In this chapter, I ask if Christian Faith has become just another life-style choice in today's popular culture. I ask if conservative evangelicalism has become captive of the culture or a transformer of the culture. Please let me know what you think.





SPIRITUAL AEROBICS FOR THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY IV

MODERN MINISTRY AND SANCTIFIED SUICIDE

In simpler times, for kids, Church was outrageous
In Sunday School, the competition was contagious
Perfect attendance pins covered all your sins
With prizes to win when you brought your friends in
No gossip. No Gum. Can't fight and can't curse
Just memorize the Bible, each chapter and verse
Kids could be kids without much precision
Make revival confessions and learn catechism
The church was our life-boat, our own Noah's Ark
It carried all of us safe through the storm and the dark

But the old Ark today, seems antique, out of place
Church competition is cut-throat . . . a custom yacht race
Instead of sailing everyone saved to the Lord
Those who don't fit get thrown overboard
Some churches are Ivy League, Big Ten Divisions
If we don't make the team, it's our life's cataclysm
We strive for the image of overwhelming perfection
We want numbers and power, and eternal election
Our pastor embodies the prestige we have won
He's Captain Crunch, Captain Bly and Attila the Hun
With religious aerobics, we go after the feel
Of muscles to be martyred for, spiritual Buns of steel

Listen to the language of new time religion
Mergers . . . buy-outs . .. take-overs . . . forced retirement
Mega-churches . . . TV ministries . . . religious entertainment
Highly paid pastors with highly paid staffs
Government contracts where nobody laughs
Spiritual power over power lunches
Church business ties to big business lies
Our corporate sponsor’s flag boldly unfurled
Spiritual seduction by the Prince and Powers of this World

Will the twenty-first century Church redeem the culture
Or get caught in the culture?

It's troubled times for troubled teens
When myth-makers and image magicians take over the Church

To survive the new millennium, each church must build an empire
In this raging race for membership and power
You need that "special look"
To build that huge congregation
You pay consultants to help
You project that "power image"
You create a lie you can market on TV

Don't we all dream to be that "Golden Cathedral"
Where spiritual, financial and political power unite
To help us become “Today's great religious success story?”
We can't deny it . . . We all want it
They teach it in seminaries everywhere

But is “the Church’s One Foundation” really
American Corporate Culture?
Do our dreams of success lead us to idolatry?
Do we visualize the "graven image" we want to become
Then sacrifice our children
To make that image come to be?

The Church today is squeezed in the vice:
The Paradox of Paradise
If gargantuan growth is our goal
We can't let certain people in
We must live out the image of perfection
So we are all dancing on the head of a pin

When some people fall off
Pastors and boards politely cough
And take more pledge cards in

Jesus called us to cast the net wide
To take every one inside
To go to the highways and byways
Bring in the lame and the halt
Not just Suzy Creamcheese
Not only John Galt

But Americans are buying exclusivity today
Custom made churches like designer genes
Private schools and country clubs
Private neighborhoods locked up with gates
We want churches to protect us from the people we hate

And too many churches
With barely a shiver
Buy into that vision
They really deliver

But the fly in the ointment
The fly in the soup
Is the teen-age church member
Who is out of the loop

Suppose you're the Mega-Church pastor
And one of your teenagers tells you a secret
A secret so painful they trust no one but you
What it is doesn't matter
They're pregnant or gay
They dropped out of school
They didn't make the team
They're beaten, molested, HIV tested
We all know the secrets
But you're the one trusted

After you think
After you pray
What do you do?
What do you say?

Do you say it's O.K.
Do you open God's arms of forgiveness and love
Do you accept them and help them
Do you say you'll stand by them
And share in their pain
Do you carry them up the mountain and back down again?

But suppose you won't help them?
You've got budgets to raise and an image to maintain
You have secrets of your own and so much to gain
Your youth must be perfect: straight, chaste, and clean
They could be Miss America . . . sell Calvin Kline jeans
Success brings in converts
You know the scene


So you condemn the kid as a miserable sinner
Fallen from God . . . he can't be a winner
On Sunday, you preach it
You blister the rafters
One of you is a failure
A vicious disaster

You use Scriptures to prove the kid can't be forgiven
You don't offer Christ's love
You close the doors of Heaven
Suspicions won't end . . . they lose all their friends
Condemned and alone what do they decide?
If repentance won't work
Why not suicide?

Can this happen today?
It happens all the time
As parents and pastors know all too well
Sometimes, it's easier to bury our children than to love them
And the graveyards are filled with young people
Whose pastor took the easy way out

There'll be a nice funeral
You'll tell your side
Such a wonderful Christian
Who knows why they died

But you're very careful
With the story you tell
Not one soul will know
You condemned this child to Hell

Everyone will believe
You're as good as St. Paul
A man of great faith
You live by God's call

But it is a sin to say
"Thy will be done"
Then spend all your time
Looking out for Number One



But truth is the truth
And Heaven is not free
And Pastor, we wonder where
You'll spend eternity

You may love to tell the story
It may be your theme in Glory
But what will God do
When you lace that old, old story
With self-serving . . . soul-destroying
Anxiety and fear
and kill the people you are called to love here?

Christ, our Compassionate Companion
calls us to heal the suffering of others
To put a face on God's Love
To bring the power of God
To the point of their pain
To transform Scripture into love
To bring Heaven's banquet to earth
To bring freedom to souls bound in sin

But how often is the forgiveness we offer
Just another mask for self-hatred
How often is our love simply fear under an assumed name

We live the paradox of paradise today
Jesus calls us to Love God through loving others
But the rage for power has blinded us to God's love
Non-believers say Christians serve God through hurting others

In a culture of scarcity, animosity, and violence
The air waves and collection plates overflow
As talk show hosts and TV preachers blast vile messages
Against any convenient victim they think will make them a buck

How can they do it?
How can they so viciously condemn
The powerless, the unpopular and the poor
Do they believe God has tunnel vision?
Do they believe God sees only what they want Him to see?
How can they cruelly violate God's call to love the poor
And expect God to do nothing?

The question is simple
Does God care what we do?
If we believe God will punish the drug dealer
The murderer, the adulterer, and the Mafia Don
For their crimes
How much more will God punish
The Pastor who pushes his teenagers to suicide
The preacher who condones murder
The Christians who bashes of women and gays
The church that destroys schools and the environment

There is no Grandfather clause for sin
Martin Luther and the Popes
And generations of preachers
Burned witches
Supported slavery
Tortured heretics and hated Jews
Are we different today, or have we just found new victims?
When religion rests on political realities
And big business moralities
And money justifies our fear...
Then God still sees us.

We want diamonds in our eyes
But all we have is
Nubian rubies glued
To Cuban Steuben glasses

None of this is new
All of this is true
Sometimes, it's more profitable to bury our problems
Than to solve them

Christ, our Compassionate Companion
Calls us to a life of sacrifice and love
To share his work of redemption
But we want new redeemers to suffer for us today
We want God to raise us an army of Dry Bones
But we forget our bones are dry too

We merchandise Heaven like Amway Products
While we're really selling Hell to willing customers



We say we want to be Salt and Light
We want to be the City on the Hill
But is our Gospel only pretense or proclamation?

We pretend to be the Paragons of Paradise
While we parachute from Paradise
To drown ourselves in the popular culture
Of pleasure, politics and greed

And beneath our striving and struggle lies the fear
That our Christian Life has become mere life-style
And we wonder if we are just a measurable demographic
A new statistic for advertisers and television shows
We wonder if we are no longer the light of the world
But consumers of the world

And we wonder if Christians are just another
"Alternate Life-Style"
A new minority with our own desire for
Power, privilege and a place at the table
We wonder if we are just a shifting, social tectonic plate
Another pressure group with record companies
TV stations and secular institutions
Fighting to control the culture
With enemies everywhere

We wonder if the harder we hold on
To the ancient traditions of our faith
The faster we buy into the conditions of the modern world
We forget that God looks at the sins of the wallet
As well as the sins of the flesh

We know all too well we are living in an age
When there's money to be made
People to be betrayed
Old hatreds to be replayed
And people willing to pay

We talk about being faithful to God
But we lay up for ourselves treasures on earth
While we render unto Caesar
And we render unto Caesar
And we render unto Caesar
Until Caesar's got everything we've got

We run around the world in raging pain
Seeking powerless targets and unpopular scape-goats
Because in the midst of our proclamations and processions
We wonder if we've lost our most precious possession:
The power of the Gospel
The reality of the Church
The healing love of God

And we wonder if we have purposely
Misused, mistranslated or misunderstood the Scriptures
And hurt others for our own profit and power

And we wonder if we have kept the right promises
As we repent for the sins of the past
While we work to get away with the sins of the future

And we wonder if our victims are not whispering
About us in God's ear right now

And we wonder if Christ's blood is enough for our salvation
If we have committed the unpardonable sin
Of sacrificing our faith to the culture of hatred and violence
We wonder if we have slammed the gates of heaven on the poor
And proudly driven from God the ones we are called to love

We wonder what kind of Christians we have become
And we wonder if God still loves us
In spite of all our victims
And we just don't know


The sins of the spirit are hard to detect
And easy to sell
We wonder how many we have bought
And who has gotten rich on the slow erosion of our soul
Even Eve bought the apple at the cost of her soul
And the snake carried the coin away in its teeth
And we wonder who has carried our coin away


As Christians today
We must be careful what we do and why we do it
We must remember God called us to minister to this world
By loving Him . . . loving ourselves . . . and loving others
God has called us to heal this world of suffering and pain
We all carry a burden of fear and grief
God calls us to bear one another's burdens
So why do we so seldom obey?


We must remember that our spiritual wholeness comes
When we bring our will, our actions and our desires
Fully into union with God's will for us

We must remember God calls the Church to speak out against
The culture of violence, bigotry and hatred
Not to represent, reinforce, justify, or reinvigorate it

World Culture today culture is about scarcity, exclusion and competition
But Christian Faith is not competition
Spiritual wholeness comes when we realize
Christianity is not a Super Bowl Religion
There is no World Series for Church growth
There is no Stanley Cup for Spiritual growth
There is no NBA Title for saving souls or serving the poor

Redemption . . . Salvation . . . Communion . . . and Regeneration
Are all God's free and gracious gifts for everyone
God offers them to us through the death and resurrection
Of Jesus Christ our Lord
God loves us because God loves us
None of us earns God's love

How many Christians try to earn God's love
Through excluding their enemies from salvation
How many "hate sermons" masquerade as Gospel today?
No one now walks on water and
God hates cruelty done in His name

The Revelation of God's rage aimed at very few Churches
But the whole Church needs to hear


Spiritual Cancer comes upon us when we desire and will
Only our own power and pleasure at the
Expense and suffering of others

Spiritual destruction comes upon us when our hearts
Are so hardened by our cruelty, hypocrisy and lies that we die
Believing we are safe in the arms of Jesus
But awake in the flame

When there's a man going 'round taking names
Which list will your name be on?


Let us return to the day
'When perfect attendance pins led to perfect love
Not some false image of perfection we lie or die for

Let us return to the day
We could preach the Christian life
Without a 500 voice choir, a major publishing house
Or a national TV network

Let us return to the day
Children could confess their secrets to the pastor
Without fearing for their lives
Let us return to the day when the Church tried
to love their children, not to bury them

Let us return to the day
When forgiveness and redemption meant acceptance and freedom
Not impossible religious blueprints or a shroud of chains

Let us return to the day
When pastors marched for peace
Marched for freedom and preached about equality
And didn't try to build empires
Exclusionary ministries
Or personality cults

Let us return to the day
When we sought to transform the culture
Through the love of God
Not to enslave ourselves to the culture's pre-made patterns
Of private school prejudice, political orthodoxy,
Hollywood religion, or talk-show spirituality

Let us return to the day
When we could go to church, live the Gospel
And call ourselves Christians
Without everyone
Checking their wallets, filtering out our words
Or pegging us with extremist political labels

Let us return to the day
When Communion with God
Led us to deeply engage the suffering of the world
When the Communion of Saints came marching in with us
When we could go forth into the world together
Rejoicing as equals in the power of the Spirit
When the great Ark of God carried us all
Safely Home
Safely Home
Safely Home


Rev. Rod Reinhart
Plymouth, MI 1995

Chicago, IL 2011

Faith on the Front line

Faith on the Front line

Spiritual Aerobics for the 21st Century Chapter III

We know a lot more today about religious cults than we did
twenty years ago. But violent religious suicide cults have made
a big splash over the last twenty years, and we should know
know the difference between true religious faith and these
dangerous cults.

From Waco to 9/11, to Columbine, cultic extremists and alienated
outsiders have killed people and committed suicide for strange
religious and political reasons... sometimes for no understandable
reason at all.

Spiritual Aerobics is contemporary theology in poetic language.
I ask some questions in the third chapter of Spiritual Aerobics.
What if these violent and destructive
religious cults, Like Jonestown or the Branch Davidians,
or Bin Laden had a real and practical and religious
reason to do what they did? What if they
were trying to force the Second Coming... and bring on the
Apocalypse? What if they were trying the end the world?
How will God respond to cults that try to use violence
to force him to do what they want? How can people of true
faith respond to dangerous religious cults today?



SPIRITUAL AEROBICS FOR THE
TWENTY FIRST CENTURY III

CULTIC REVELATIONS
WACO to 9/11

Rev. Rod Reinhart


When I was a boy in that Bob Jones Baptist school
Tons of Fundamentalist preachers
Paraded past the microphones in Chapel every day
Scorching the earth with Millennial Revelations
Apocalyptic Visions
And countless warnings about the end of the world

They would tell us that the Anti-Christ was coming
Describing him with their Schofield Bibles
Down to the cut of his clothes
And the cavities in his teeth
Telling us who he was and when he would appear
And we would believe 'em . . .
We knew what was going on in this world

Trouble was . . . he was always a communist
Or a member of "that other" political party
And his identity would change
Like the fashions marching down a New York runway

I was a kid . . . but I knew lots of preachers
Religious entrepreneurs who wanted my money
They had a product to sell and they knew how to sell it

I was a kid .. . but I knew lots of preachers
Religious predators who wanted your soul
They knew how to draw you into their game
And get you under their control
The same way Grandma "got got" by the Big Bad Wolf

And I was real religious then
Still am, as a matter of fact
And I had the call so bad
That my dreams filled with verses and visions
And the sure knowledge that I was something special
and the Spirit of God would guide me on my way

And even though I was just a kid
I had been saved a thousand times, and
I met just about every huckster and hustler
Entrepreneur and predator there was
They couldn’t spare a dime to find the Paradigms of Paradise
But I could smell them coming and I knew I'd better watch out

Then came the late '60s
When the world filled with unimaginable
Pantheons of gurus and cults
Jesus Freaks on the streets
Swamis, Commies, and Buddhists beyond belief

And I saw one friend after another shave their head
Pick up a drum and give their college money to some strange temple
And disappear into a maze of religious razzle-dazzle
Only to end up preaching Revolution on the streets of San Francisco
Or Religion on the streets of New York

I guess I was blessed with this "sixth sense" for predators
When they shook their tambourines and tempted me to cults
I just kept myself in college
Not some Ashram in Tennessee or Tibet
And though I was tempted by a few… for a year or two
I was in seminary by age twenty-two
Fighting my way from Apocalyptic Fundamentalism
And into the arms of the Episcopal Church

My struggle was a gift God used
To give me that jaundiced view
To see how some religions can be cultic or chaotic
Abusive or untrue

And I knew enough to never hold in awe
Politics, business, education or the law
They had hucksters just the same
Hustlers playing games and
I knew I'd better keep my eyes up
And my wallet hid away


But what makes these “end of the world” preachers
Flail their days away anyway?
There are pay-offs in the Apocalypse and we'd better know it
We've seen cultic predators pass on from
Small time hustlers into politics and power
Enticing entire nations to embrace their blasphemy
Dig themselves into visionary ditches
And then pull down the dirt

Didn't Hitler dim a century of lights
With campfire stories of heroic Germans
Rescuing the virgin of their soul
From circumcised dragons who played the violin?

Didn't Stalin envision a perfect world
Where mindless conformity masquerades as liberty
Where everyone is equally impoverished for free
Where glorious revolution leaves them living on their knees?

Didn’t Osama Bin Laden dream a perfect Islamic world
Where virgins in exploding vests chanted songs from the Koran
While murderous martyrs fall from the sky?
We once believed all religions taught charity and love
But religious violence today is All-American as Apple Pie
And Designer suicide suits mean maximum numbers die
Waco to Baghdad… we weep and wonder why

And how many nations claimed they were free… then
Filled quaint and ancient cemeteries with unnamed graves
And butchered scapegoat tribes in the streets?
No glory… no freedom fight.. just millions struggling and poor
Dying for a mad-man's vision of prosperity through war

A billion Hell-bent zealots hold their hands out for your dime
God called out the prophets to warn nations of their doom
A poet is a prophet . . . listen up . . . I need some room

Maniacal messiahs and phony holy ones
Are pawing on America's trees
Marking out their territory
Playing on our religious addictions
Preaching to the nations that they, themselves . .
Are the Voice of God

They proclaim their credentials
Apostolic Revelations
Mystical successions
Mountain-top transfigurations
Or they killed the last guru
They claim prophetic knowledge
Mighty truths and mystic visions
Claiming they know God better
Than Canterbury's Archbishop
Or the Pope, or me, or you

Bin Laden, David Koresh, Charles Manson, Jim Jones
Glenn Beck and Donald Trump
Just to name a few
Prison, poison, flames and bullets
Just the ice-berg coming through

Each obsessed with power
Each controlled by pride
Murdering the masses
With disciple's suicide

These Satanic messianic, spiritual Titanics
Float from Texas to the Baltic
Creating gods in their own image
They want divine and violent dancing bears
Deities so limited they don't know what to do
That is why they need an all-knowing prophet
An omnipotent oracle
Killing children on their altars
A strange and dangerous crew
But Manson's in prison…
Bin Laden is dead and buried at sea
And Jim Jones is dead

And Koresh is dead too . . . deader than Elvis
Politicians and preachers shed crocodile tears
And sell shares of his memory

Koresh is dead
Gun dealers sell tickets to his second coming
Koresh is dead
Writers made careers of manufacturing myths
Twisting his "theology" and selling souvenirs

Koresh is dead
The great wake at Waco wailed for years
And the world sighed in relief
When his Hall of Fame become a Ball of Flame
Koresh learned the lesson all dictators learn
The game isn't over until everyone is dead

Maybe the world is lucky he burned himself up
He had all the makings of a Hitler from the heartland
Or a Stalin in the wings
With the right training
(And there were plenty ready to give it)
He could have become the next TV dictator
Or religion's rising star
He could mouth every hateful and lie
That would get him out of jail and raise his star on high

Koresh was a cancelled check . . .
No better than Bin Laden or Timothy McVeigh …..A child murderer…
The black hole of American religion
A steel-belted bomber from the Bible Belt
He was ready to do to America what he did to his followers
Just a plastered pastor, grabbing for the brass ring
But if he had grabbed it… think what he could have done
He was a Siamese twin of Rasputin and Charles Manson
A Mad-man messiah with that winning smile
Ready to lead you to the cross and nail you to it

He would have been America's nightmare
And enough of us are sleeping to dream it
Remember all the crazed and cultic leaders
Who grabbed political power and used it 'till we burned
Hitler, Stalin, Bin Laden
and God only knows what candidates today
Jesus gave up his life for the world
These guys force martyrs to die for them
Until all their disciples have fallen on the knife
Koresh is dead… but who is next?

What are they after… these militant messiahs?
Why do they preach the end times…
Then kill to make them come?

They are plotting the Apocalypse
They are forcing God's hand
They want to end the world
Then be the hero of the final days

They believe their right ritual suicide
Their liturgically correct massacre
Their magical murder and sensational sacrifice
Will force the Second Coming… The Rapture… The Revelation
They will bring on Armageddon
And reap the profits on the side
They believe they can crack open the seven seals
And force the four horsemen come forth
They plan to sound the seven end-time trumpets
So seven angels, like cheap movies
Will throw God's Wrath Upon the Earth
Then . ..When Christ appears, triumphant in the East
When the dead rise up to meet Him in the air
Then THEY . . .these strange and dangerous visionaries
With their jet planes, cool-aid, firebombs and guns
They shall rise first with their money in their fists
Rise up from their own sacrificial ashes
To take their place with Jesus on the throne
And reign with him in glory
As the forerunners, the way showers…
Those whose foolish cruelty made it necessary
For Christ to come again

And it's all lies
When Christ comes back, it will be of his own accord
No dictator-mad-man-mass-media-messiah will call the shots
Not Koresh, or Jones, Bin Laden, or any other TV terrorist religious hustler
None of them will force Jesus, or anyone else, to return

God will not allow some immoral maniac
To pave his personal way to eternal glory
By pinning the tail on the Anti-Christ

We must be oh so careful to not be taken in
By power hungry heretics
They make a mockery of the cross
Pray for religious war
And dig themselves fiery holes
In the bottom of Eternity


When all the flames of Waco burn out
When all the planes of 9/11 have fallen from the sky
When all the flames of Jonestown, or the Tate La Bianca Estate
The subways in Japan or the death-camps of Auschwitz, Bosnia or Rwanda
Have turned to ash and blown upon the wind
When all these horrifying pyres of sacrifice
Are burned out and cold

Then we will see they were all a hollow holocaust
An empty offering, a perverse religious act
As cruel and meaningless as burning the children
On ancient altars of Baal or Moloch

For God never called dictators and terrorists
To offer blood sacrifices for anything
Their murders had no redemptive value
And their ashes will fly on the wind
We will pray for the victims
But revile those who killed

The lies of these cults are finally revealed
Their lies come to light and their souls fall in the flame
We know that mad men want to use
Mass murder or ritual suicide,
Cultic Sacrifice and religious war
To force God's hand to give them what they want
But all they will have is a pile of dead bodies
While the Heavens remain silent

For God is no one's butler or maid
He doesn't take orders and He doesn't do windows
And he doesn't get pushed around
By phony two-bit messiahs or their henchmen

Amid these Paradigms of Paradise…
Why does God reject the suicide cults?
Why does God despise these modern mad messiahs?

Why did Christianity survive
While the ancient mystery religions passed away?
Why did Israel survive
While Babylon and Sumeria passed away?
Why did Christian Orthodoxy survive
While the heresies passed away?
Why did the Church of England survive
While the "reforms" of Bloody Mary and Cromwell passed away?
Why will the Church survive and thrive
While Koresh and the cults pass away?
Why will authentic faith survive
While Bin Laden and the terrorists pass away?

Because God’s Love and God’s Church
Are a big cut above the cults
The Church loves God and cares for people
The cults breed violence and greed

The Church preserves the future
The cults burn the world to the ground
The Church worships God, alone
The cults worship whoever takes control

The Church lets God be God
The cults replace God with their guru
The Church asks God to return in His own time
The cults try to force God to return on their command

The Church knows the real God
The cults have no idea which end is up

Be Oh So Careful and teach your children well
There are powerful, dangerous people out there
Hucksters, hustlers, entrepreneurs and predators
Who want to take your money, chain your soul
And drag you to the flame

Remember that God loves us and wants us to love one another
Hold fast to Christ . . . know Him as your savior and Lord
Hold fast to the Church . . . live within its sacraments and faith
Don't be taken in by those who claim to know God
So much better than you, your bishop, your pastor, or your priest
Test the spirits . . . study the Scriptures
Pray faithfully, but keep your eyes open wide
Know who you are
Be strong in the Lord
Love God
Love your neighbor
And know when to say "NO"

Spiritual Aerobics for the 21st Century Chapter II

This is my second chapter of Spiritual Aerobics
For the 21st Century. It is entitled Dangerous Prayer.
This chapter contemplates the power, ethics and dangers
of prayer in the modern world.

Given the weakness and sin of humanity, Christians
once believed that prayer should center on personal
and social repentance. We recognized our constant
need for God's forgiveness and grace. The Episcopal
Church's Book of Common Prayer is a great example of
traditional prayer.

In today's popular TV religious culture, prayer is
portrayed as our source of personal power over
the world, and even over God.

Many people pray, "In Jesus' Name," asking
for prosperity, power, victory or revenge. They pray
as if the name of Jesus were a mystical spell, or a
magic word. What if we pray, in Jesus' name, and
ask for something totally sinful and wrong?
Such prayers are very dangerous. Spiritual Aerobics
shows us how God might answer these dangerous prayers.




SPIRITUAL AEROBICS FOR THE
TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY II

The Rev. Rod Reinhart

DANGEROUS PRAYER

When I was young and holy
The Church always taught me
To take my burdens to the Lord
And leave them there

The Church taught me to "let go and let God"
It taught me that "I was weak and
He was strong" and
"I'd be satisfied as long
As I walked, let me walk close to Thee."

They taught me to pray and not worry, just live in God's light
"Just have a little talk with Jesus and
Everything would be… ALL RIGHT"

But patience and faith are not popular
In this age of instant religious gratification
We no longer take our burdens to the Lord and leave them there

We storm Heaven with our demands
We send bucks to religious radio shows
We petition TV preachers
And all the saints in Glory
To release God's power in prayer
And make JESUS give us
Exactly what we want and right when we want it



America is caught in the
Arrogance of Prayer
We don't trust in God's patient power
To heal and help us.
We thrust our fist in God's face
Demanding a miracle
As is we were in control
And a few Biblical verses
Give us power over God

How many books and TV preachers teach us
That Prayer is our personal Power over the real world
How often do we pray
"Not THY will, but MY will be done"

The Church once taught us to love our neighbors as ourselves
To love our enemies and care for the sick and the poor
But are we taught today to trust in God
And lean not to our own understanding
Are we taught today to love mercy
Live justice and walk humbly before our God?

Humility is as out of style as the 1964 Thunderbird
Too many of us come to God today
In the cool assurance
Of our own perfection
And the cruel resurgence
Of our own prejudice

No longer do we earnestly repent
Of our own sins
Or live in love and charity with our neighbors
No longer do we make our humble confessions
Devoutly kneeling
To our almighty and loving God


All too many preachers today have taught us
That patience and love are signs of weakness
They tell we must expect a miracle
As soon as we send our money

We now expect God's wrath to fall on our enemies
When we wave around words like
"Tradition, Heresy, Righteousness and Morality"
We pile these words like stones
On the backs of people we do not like
Yet we refuse to carry them ourselves

The arrogance of phony prayer
Fills far too many temples today
Self-flagellation has become self-congratulation
As powerful leaders legislate repentance
for the sins of the world
And not the sins of themselves

I have grown old enough to see
Doctors run TV cameras through my heart
And felt the cat lick my whiskers when I'm sick
I have seen many painfully glorious
answers to prayer
And I know now that we must be
very careful with prayer
For God pays attention
Maybe too much attention
And God makes desperately
important decisions about us
With every prayer we even begin to breathe

For Christ's death and resurrection
Opened the doors of Heaven to our prayers
Jesus promised God would obey
Every prayer we pray in His name
But when we fail to pray with mercy and love
God alone knows what judgment we will receive

Prayer is not playing power games with God
It is not magic or wishing on a star
Prayer is not taking revenge against strangers
Or building our career on the people we crush

Real prayer is power by which God
Judges, changes, guides, and enlivens us
We must give ourselves totally to God
Or our prayer isn't really prayer at all

Prayer is our total concentration
Our ultimate consecration
Of utterly giving ourselves to God
Prayer is that moment of uncontrollable intensity
When God fills our mind, our emotions, our whole being
With incomprehensible presence and overwhelming power
And pours forth His own prayer through us
We plead with God from the flaming shadows of our soul
God explodes through us to move the stones of earth

Prayer becomes prayer when we cannot stop praying
When God becomes the flood raging over our barriers
Of fear and pain and reaches through our lives
To incarnate justice and redemption in the world

Prayer becomes prayer when we are engulfed in God
And God prays through our lives
Prayer becomes prayer
When we are transfigured, transcended
And transformed by the love of God
Prayer becomes prayer
When we are the prayer of God

And how many vast armies
Of visionaries, missionaries, and monks
Have raised their voices
To become the prayer of God?


The Archbishop of Canterbury
Back woods Pentecostal preachers
Priests offering Christ at mass
Tibetan monks on mountain paths
Gurus in crowded temples
Swamis, Imams, and Shamans
Ancient gypsies and medicine men
St. Teresa, St. Claire, St. John of the Cross
St. John the Divine
The Bal Shem Tov, the Seer of Lublin
Ghost Doctors of the Aborigines
Gnostics, mystics and agnostics
Kneeling or dancing
Singing in the void or weeping into silence
How many vast armies have prayed themselves out to God

With every ounce of consecration and joy
Every second of concentration and love
With profound repentance
Overwhelming gratitude
Endless longing and unhealable pain
How many vast and holy armies have prayed
That great spiritual prayer
That subsumes all prayer....

Oh God, save us from ourselves
Oh God, teach us how to love
Thy will be done, Oh Lord
And let our cry come unto Thee

And whose prayer does God hear
And how does He answer them?

Does God hear the prayer of the abortion doctor
Or the prayer of the abortion doctor's murderer?


Does God hear the prayer of the gay Christian
Struggling to live out his faith
Or does God hear the prayer of the gay bashing Christian
Looking for his next victim?

Does God hear the prayer of the concentration
camp prisoner trying to escape
Or the prayer of the concentration camp commander
Trying to cover up his crime?

Does God hear the prayer of the old woman
Seeking safety on the street
Or the drug-addicted mugger
Looking for his next fix?

Does God hear the prayer of the preacher
Calling down damnation
On the hustlers and hookers on the streets
Or the prayer of the local pastor
Trying to save young people
From a life of destruction?

Does God hear the prayer of the drunk
Looking for a drink
Or the prayer of the AA member
Trying to stay sober?

Does God hear the prayer of the man dying with AIDS
Or the politician trying to cut AIDS funding?

Does God hear the prayer of the Rabbi
Before he is killed by the Nazis
Or the prayer of Hitler before he kills himself?

Does God hear the prayer of the escaping slave
Or the prayer of the master hunting him down?

Does God hear the prayer of the mental patient
Crying out in the dark
Or the prayer of the governor trying to close
The mental hospitals?


Does God hear the prayer of the Crusaders
attacking Jerusalem
Or the prayer of the armies defending it?

Does God hear the prayer of the strikers
seeking fair wages
Or the prayer of the owners refusing
to give in to their demands

Does God hear the prayer of the beaten wife
Trying to defend herself
Or the prayer of the drunken husband
Gathering his strength
To slug her again?

Does God hear the prayer of Caiaphas and Pilate
As they condemn a man to death
Or does He hear the prayer of Christ
Forgiving them from the Cross?

Whose prayers does God hear?
He hears all our prayers
He knows us by our prayers
He judges us by our prayers
He hears the prayers
Of the righteous and the unrighteous
He answers our prayers in the world today
And in the world to come

God answers our prayers through the power
Of the Cross and the Resurrection
He answers the prayers of the
Repentant, the suffering, the faithful
And the merciful with reconciliation
In this world and redemption in the next

God answers the prayers of the
Unforgiving and the unforgiven
The murderer and the basher
The merciless and the hypocrite
With punishment in this world
And judgment in the next

God hears our prayers
He hears them all too well
He knows far beyond our knowing
Why we ask and what we're after
And some times, just because He is God,
He touches us
With underserved but overwhelming grace
Just because He loves us
and we need His love so much


God hears our prayer . . . born on the heartbeat
And summoned on the drum of our soul
We come to God with courage and love
Throwing off our cloak of hatred and fear
Coming to Him in full consecration
Clothed in the garment of redemption and love
In union with Christ, asking one thing
That God's will alone be done in our lives
As we enter fully the mystery of God
He will grant our request that His will be done
All will be well and our joy will be complete
For we shall be like Him and He will call us each by name
And all of us will be forgiven and redeemed
Filled with the Spirit . . . made one with Christ
United to God in holiness and peace

Rev. Rod Reinhart

Plymouth MI 1995
Chicago IL 2011

Spiritual Aerobics for the 21st Century

I now begin to publish my book called
SPIRITUAL AEROBICS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

I wrote this book of poetic, political and critical theology
in the early 1990's. It reflects on the ways that religious
fundamentalism, new age mysticism, and unrestricted greed had
become accepted all through the 80's, as America's main mode of religion.
I sought to show the difference between legitamate religious faith, and the
violent, vague and self-serving religious messages people received from
extremist politicians and TV preachers.

Now that we are in the 21st century, I can see that my warnings from long ago
were completely justified. This long poem... SPITIUTAL AEROBICS, is more needed
than ever before. This work has many fine, quotable lines. Feel free to quote from
it as long as you give credit to the author.
I have updated and edited the book with the help of my good friend, Alan Engle.
I plan to post a new chapter of Spiritual Aerobics for the 21st Century each week untill everything is on the internet. Please let me know what you think. I believe you will enjoy reading it.

Rod Reinhart




SPIRITUAL AEROBICS FOR THE
TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

Ebenezer Scrooge had it easy, compared to us
All the ghosts of Christmas worked overtime
To convince him to love the poor

The crux of his salvation was to care for Tiny Tim
And give some bucks away
The paradigms of Paradise have shifted and
It's not so easy now
Christ's Gospel has been twisted like a top
To justify bigotry, violence and sin
Scrooge scoured his soul and learned to love
But cruel passion's back in fashion
We don't know if God calls us to let the Tiny Tim of Today suffer
and die
Or languish in an orphanage
Or live at home on welfare… then steal the welfare away
Our guilt has been gilded through therapy and talk shows
We are weighed in the balance and found confused

Christ's incarnation was not a vacation
Jesus did not vault in from the void
To sanctify our moral chaos or justify our fear

He called us to be His disciples here and now
He called us to bring our inner Scrooge to redemption
And save the children dying in the streets

We Americans want a paint-by-numbers religion
A fast-food faith for the twenty-first century
We'll repent for other people's sins
And never worry about our own

We want Inquisitions and repentance for our enemies
But instant unrepentant forgiveness for ourselves
We pray for our enemies while the blood drips from our hands
We believe in the sanctity of life
But we justify murder when our ideology is right
We accept cheap religion and radio idolatry
We grasp a bargain basement morality
When rioters and cops destroy a city
Militias bomb day care centers
Holy Warriors bomb churches
And all claim God's grace upon the deed
We are a nation of pathetic ascetics and misguided mystics
We want our salvation on the installment plan
We want to be redeemed in six easy lessons
We want religion that fits our life-styles
And makes us popular at parties and at work

We want preachers and gurus to do our spiritual work for us
We want confessors to confirm our transgressions
We want pastors to pat us on the head
And tell us our most vicious feelings are the will of God

We want TV evangelists to absolve all our sins
And never make us look at our own soul and say "I'm sorry."
We want to feel forgiven when
Insincere repentance lets hate grow in the heart
We cry for scapegoats to attack
And we beg for the command to go get them

But God wants us to love one another
He wants us to climb the ladder of knives
To walk on fire and hold the rattlers high
He wants us to brand His name on our hearts and hands
And love God by loving others through the Church
But we so seldom commit ourselves to faith
We jump from church to church seeking the most
Convenient path to God . . . hoping God will never catch on

We may be baptized to new life in Christ
But we won't go any deeper than our finger-tips

We want to grab the grace and run
We want mystical experiences to make us feel good
We want salvation that soothes the nerves
We want a conversion we can write in our resumes
We want a church as prestigious as a country club
We want a faith we can place on our wall like a trophy
And point out to voters or advertise on TV

But Spiritual Union with Christ is not a spiritual high
God is not a license, a degree, or a suburban address
Miracles are not magic
Enlightenment is not entertainment
Redemption is not recreation
And salvation is not for sale to the highest bidder

The mystical presence of God breaks us, overpowers us
And builds us into God's own image
When you pray . . . and really pray . . . watch out . . .
God just might answer you
When we follow the cross, we must change our direction
We're marching to Zion so loudly God's orders are lost
On the wind

But we lack the courage and compassion to follow God
We play the victim so we can make others suffer
We pretend to be Jesus so we can judge like Pilate
We talk like Tiny Tim so we can walk like Scrooge
We play the game so we never give God our lives

But what does God want except our lives
And he'll pull every string until He has our lives
All we want from God is happiness with no strings attached

We claim we won't believe unless we see a miracle, but
We want secular miracles that make no demands
We go to Lourdes for the cure the same way we'd
Go to Hot Springs or the Betty Ford Clinic
But Bernadette never had it easy
And God heals us for His purposes, not ours

We weave our religion around miraculous powers and miracle cures
But we don't have real miracles because we won't
Give our lives to God
Real miracles are messy and make too many demands
We want second-hand miracles
Magic is cheaper

We don't want to come to God's Kingdom unless it's good for
Our Career
We want to be embraced by someone else's light
We don't want to face real pain, so
We pay for psychic hot-lines and pray to plaster angels


We buy our spiritual abuse at the cost of our blood
We pay new-age hucksters and Fundamentalist Hustlers
To comfort us when we call and drive the demons away, but
They channel darkness disguised as light into our souls
They baptize us amid piranha swimming in pools of despair

But where do we find God? God runs out to meet us on the road
We need only to reach out our hand but we run the other way
We could return like the Prodigal Son
But we adopt ourselves to cruel families
We kiss the lash while God weeps for our pain

A vision quest is not a picnic
We don't take the great Spiritual Journey to see the sights
A pilgrimage is not a pleasure cruise
Our pilgrimage to whatever holy land we choose means nothing
Unless we expect revelation and change
God wants us to see a vision which will cut us to the heart
And carve reality on our eyes
Open your eyes wide . . . God has so much more to reveal

Jesus did not call us to an easy life
When he said, "Follow Me."
He is not our bell-boy or tourist guide
He wants us to follow Him to the cross

Jesus wants to be our way
Our truth and our life
He wants to be all we need

But we fixate on times and trends
We look for Jesus in tree-tops or the sides of barns
We go to hear the latest raging preacher
We make pilgrimages to the newest weeping Madonna
We want our auras balanced by soul-retrieving
New Age healers
We want to be saved by the grace of any one in style

We refuse communion, yet seek the Holy Grail
We abandon the rituals and discipline of the Church
While we seek instant access to powerful religious emotions
We want the ecstasy of the Cross
To sweep over us and disappear like a movie storm
We want our spiritual orgasms to pass away quickly

God offers us total transcendence
We refuse to be transfigured or transformed

We deify the culture and abandon justice and love
So we elect God every year
We want our creed to be multiple-choice
Yet we wonder who will fill in our blanks
When we die

God wants to be revealed through you
What have you done to walk in His love?

We tolerate and respect every religion today
But it doesn't mean I must worship your idol
Toast marshmallows at your cross burning
Or believe everything your guru says

We make a religion of weapons today
The non-violence of the past
Bleeds through a mirror of murder today
We all preach peace
So why does your pastor have so many guns
And why are some church armed to the teeth?

What about these Christians today?
New age Puritans of the passive pew
On the take and on the make
Placing their faith in religious commercials
Buying with other people's money
And repenting for other people's sins
It leaves them morally bankrupt, homeless and damned
The blood of Christ won't cover your secrets
When you confess to nothing, burn witches
And your phone number is 6 . . . 6 . . . 6 . . .

We want the manuscripts of our lives illuminated and laminated
To eliminate any ghosts of trespasses past
We want visible spiritual perfection which requires
No repentance or change

But Jesus is standing there full of forgiveness
He wants to love us and heal us
If only we would leap into His arms
But the leap of faith is not a bungee jump
Sometimes, we must leap off a cliff in the dark
To be saved
God calls us to fall on the Rock of His Word
He calls us to the ambiguity of our own repentance
He calls us to the ambivalence of our own salvation
He calls us to discover it is no metaphor
To be a soul set free from sin

He calls us to love our enemy with real love
Not the disguised hatred we pass off as love
No longer can we define Sin
As other people's sins against us
The Gospel is not a self-help book
God will not heal us
If we curse our enemies with phony forgiveness
And prepare our knives to strike
God wants to redeem us and save us for His own
But don't take it for granted
He judges us by whom we love and who we hate
And our enemies will arise to accuse us before the Throne

God is no myth
God is no genie in a bottle
God is not going to offer us three wishes if we let him out
God is no philosophical principle
God is no vague ideal
God is no game show host
God is no gun dealer
God is no agent of our revenge
God is no advocate for our fear
God is no infomercial for salvation
God is no cosmic cosmetics kit

God is power and love
God is fire and light
That fire will burn you
If you do not walk in His love
And live in His light

The Way of the Cross is not the
Path of least resistance
It is the path through the flame
And God's fire burns away everything in you
Not filled with the love and charity of God

Embrace the flame
Take up your cross
Care for the poor

Jump over the cliff
Seek the vision
Go on the journey
Stand for your faith
Repent of your sins
Receive your redemption
Be changed by your miracle
Give yourself totally to God

Look, with Scrooge, into the
Depths of your own grave
And find new life among the stones

Come forth, with Lazarus
From your tomb of despair
From this culture of hatred
From confusion, chaos, and fear

Christ has called you to new life
Grasp, with Him, the nails
Accept His great salvation
Dance with Christ on the flame
Raise with Him to the sky

The true Paradigms of Paradise are about to be revealed
Let the Apocalypse begin

Rev. Rod Reinhart
Plymouth, MI 1995
Chicago IL 2011