Faith or Superstition

If you accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior you will go to heaven. If you refuse to do this you will fry in the lake of fire known as hell.

If you look in a broken mirror or walk under a ladder you will have bad luck.

Both of the statements above are superstitions. Lutherans know this. Yet in our age, we keep it to ourselves. Here in the Bible belt, the Jesus superstition is used as a club to whack people over the head into submission. This is a con which has been used for centuries and the people of the church of Jesus Christ must say it is wrong.

My late friend, Wes Seeliger, wrote an essay that put this con in the terms of the mafia's protection racket. The way the protection racket works, a gumbah and a thug walk into a store and declare to the owner that that he lives in a very dangerous neighborhood. Glancing at the thug standing next to him, the gumbah tells the store owner that someone might break his kneecaps for no reason at all. 

Then comes the con. The gumbah says, "but we have the solution." Again glancing at the thug, he tells the store owner that his friend here will protect him. And he will do it for a "small" fee.

The con of eternal life is no different.  The pastor tell the congregation, "you have a problem," glancing at the picture of a stern Jesus (very white in white clothes). You are going to hell. BUT we have the solution, again glancing at Jesus. Accept everything we have to say about this monster and you will go to heaven.

Is there a difference between the mafia's protection racket and the "accept Jesus and get a ticket to heaven" racket? 

I think not.

We Lutherans know this. We should say so. 

It is interesting that the muslims run this con by promising 72 virgins in the sweet bye and bye. They use the carrot as opposed to the Jesus stick.