After All The Fire and Brimstone, Is there a God?

As another Christmas holiday season draws to a close we are reminded of the eternal question, is there a God? The question is always in our minds however at the time of Jesus’s birth it is asked more frequently—practically, in terms of the practicalities of his birth, the debate of its location and the number of wise men and more philosophically or faithfully regarding a greater meaning or higher being. This great question is not reserved for those who categorise themselves ‘religious’ for what this question really proposes is ‘Is there meaning?’, ‘Is there something greater?’, ‘Is there a purpose on our planet?’.

I was not raised in a religious household. We did not attend church, we did not have a ‘religion’, and my parents did not discuss God, Jesus or faith with me or my siblings. We were not anti-religion, it was simply just a non-issue. My first inkling that religion even played a part in people’s lives was when in primary or grade school. The majority of the pupils had half an hour a week of bible studies, where, in a very elementary fashion, we would learn about Jesus and Mary and generally colour in our ‘Jesus Books’. I had one friend though, who went to the library with about 6 other children from the 600 in the school, because their parents didn’t approve of their attendance. It wasn’t a great issue in our innocent minds though, merely another unexplained event that the adults made occur.

I attended an Anglican Girls School where hymns were sung in assembly each day and Religious Education was compulsory until you were sixteen, but again it was very organic and certainly not fire and brimstone. I was still very unaware of the differences in people’s religious beliefs. I didn’t realise that my best friend’s family being ‘Catholic’, meant anything different to other friends whose family was ‘Anglican’ or ‘Protestant’, I just thought everybody was ‘Christian’. My best friend’s family attended Mass every Sunday and her mother would regularly be sitting in her ‘Bible Chair’ with dollies on the armrests, reading her daily passage. But again, it really was just something different that another household did, different to your own, like having different types of food, or different rules about the television. It wasn’t until we were talking one day about contraception that my friend told me about the Catholic church’s stance on the issue that the penny finally dropped that there really was quite a big debate raging around my little world, where religion actually played a pretty major role. I was so astounded about this contraception rule, realising the implications, that I would then ask people the number of siblings they had, and on discovering it was anywhere over four, would immediately ask if they were catholic! I certainly had not yet discovered that religion was a contentious subject in which people would be offended or reactionary or angry about—it makes you wonder if I was listening in Religion Education or in Modern or Ancient History on how all the great wars were started!

The point of all of this, is that since I have now aged considerably, been to university, had many jobs, boyfriends and now a husband and children, the great question is still on everybody’s minds. Attending the traditional church service of my father-in-law this year, Is there a God was the subject of the main sermon. For those having been raised in a highly religious environment down to me at the other end of the spectrum, everybody is still yearning for the answer. But for the first time in my life I know I finally have the answer.

The colours in my ‘Jesus Book’ had not convinced me, the man reciting the hymns in assembly certainly didn’t do it, the ‘goodness’ of my friend’s mother’s bible readings were outweighed with the meanness she exuded when leaving her doily chair. However the amazing insights I have just discovered by Australian Biologist Jeremy Griffith and the World Transformation Movement not only sheds incredible, heavenly, fire-and-brimstone truth to the question of questions but for the first time it also answers it. And the answer is with compassion, understanding and above all knowledge.

So, Is there a God? There certainly is and all the great religions have been right, it does bring peace and hope and love to ourselves and our world.