Submitted by Karl Forehand
Over the past few months, I have experienced some lapses in communication with people. These lapses in communication leave me feeling misunderstood, not cared for, and often retributive toward the other person.
I don’t want to throw shade on the people involved in those incidents. I often feel bad about myself because of what I did or didn’t do. I would like to blame it on technology or the times or something else, but the truth is that we have just accepted bad communication, and it started with our religion.
For starters, the Bible does not clearly communicate anything. It doesn’t take a stand on slavery, genocide, misogyny, racism, classicism or even abuse. To say that the Bible is clear communication about anything is just about the best example of burying our head in the sand.
We have also grown accustomed to being lectured on Sunday mornings. During the time of Emperor Constantine (306-337), the stage was elevated, and communication became one-sided from the “special” person that possessed the answers and read from their special book.
There are probably a myriad of clinical and psychological reasons why we don’t communicate well, but one thing is for sure, Western religion employed the worst possible strategies and made the problem much, much worse.
(A note from the author: You guys know me as the author of The Hotel. I write almost every day. I have a blog and podcast. After being a pastor for 20 years, I deconstructed my faith and now challenge religion, hoping it will get better. I do write from my unique perspective, but hopefully it’s also from my soul.)