Solid Rock - Climbers Reaching Climbers for Christ
Two-Minute Message - #38 (September 25th, 2001)
From Calvin Landrus,
National Director
Hi
all (it’s been a while again),
Sorry
for the lack of Two Minute Messages. At
my church where I am one of its pastors, I have been working two fulltime
positions during a very busy season of the church’s life. Recently, we hired Children's Minister; she
has taken much off my plate. This will free me up to get done some of the extra
things of life, such as working Solid Rock stuff. Thanks for your understanding.
THE
QUOTES BELOW ARE SELECTED PARTS OF LETTERS TO THE EDITOR FROM THE RECENT ISSUE
OF “CLIMBING”. THEY ARE IN RESPONSE TO A
LETTER FROM THE PREVIOUS MONTH (it’s posted at the end of this message)
“This self-righteous, I
know-everything dogma is nothing more than the expression of your own ego.”
“Is anything more
unenlightened than biased prejudice running around in the guise of moral
superiority? Personally, I dropped
religion at the age of 12 to distance myself from bigoted and hypocritical men
like reverend McLeod.”
“Religions are not
incompatible. There are many roads to one mountaintop. Pick up any guidebook
and take a look! Not only are there many
routes, but there are often endless variations.
The mountains and he Earth itself prove this.”
Seeing one climber saved
through Solid Rock would be huge (I believe there will be many). Look at the attitude we are up against in the
climbing community. Let’s encourage and
pray for one another in process of reaching out the to
climbers in our lives!
Serving
the Lord with you,
Calvin
------------------------------------------------
Your Editorial ["Holy
War," No. 205] demands expert commentary. Only in spiritual matters do
people without any training or credentials consider themselves to be an expert.
I would therefore offer you my professional insight into the desirability of
climbing Mount Kailash [a Tibetan mountain sacred to
Buddhists and Hindus].
Several issues are raised
by the issuance of this permit [to climb Mount Kailash].
First and foremost: Is there a real issue of spiritual propriety? In other
words does God care if this mountain is climbed. This
demands we go back to the question of who God is, if he exists at all, and what
He wants.
World religions are not
compatible. [For example], the Hindu says that God is an amorphous spirit with
many manifestations who wants three things. The Buddhist, whose religion was
originally a reformation of Hinduism, says that there is no personal God, and
that all we can hope for is an escape from interminable reincarnation. Even
Christians disagree. Roman Catholics say that God can be appeased through the
performance of good works, while the Protestant says that God can be appeased
only through faith in the person and work of a son, Jesus Christ. You can't have
it all these ways. These religions are incompatible. Either one is right and
the others wrong, or
they are all wrong. We need to
stop the charade that there are many roads to
one mountain top.
First, a religion must
deal with the issue of human sin. Man is not good, and never will be. We tend
to evil, and people who deny this are, in the words of George Patton,
"sophists or other crackpots." Second, God, if he's worth anything at
all, is holy and perfect, and cannot tolerate sin. Third, a religion must allow
for some reconciliation between these two competing facts, for God is also
love, and seeks our company. Examine the claims of world religions in the light
of these rational and objective standards, and only one works.
Thus, if we are honest,
the beliefs about Mount Kailash are in fact
destructive fables, which do nothing but give false hope. Crawling 33 miles
around a mountain on one's knees is not God's desire for his children. Neither
is immuration, which is also practiced in the area of
Mount Kailash. This requires a person be sealed into
a cave never to see the light of day again. They are fed and live for decades.
Is this a loving God? Does this make man any better? If you take one
observance, the veneration of a mountain, you must take them all.
Crawling under a book, as
Buddhists do, does not confer knowledge. Washing in a filthy river does not
cleanse from sin, as the Hindu does. Doing more good than bad does not render
perfect, as the Roman is told. The Chinese are right in determining that false
religions do not help their citizens, and demystifying Mount Kailash is a step in the right direction. Their problem is
that their substitute, communism, is a religion in its own right.
Ninety-five percent of
religions have something in common with the Protestant message, and we need to
look for [those things]. It does no good to take something away from somebody,
until you have given them something superior. If climbers are worried about the
spiritual health of Tibet, then live the Gospel when you go there, or support
missionaries if you cannot go there yourself.
My personal feeling is
that this climb should proceed. These people aren't satisfied with their
religion, and if climbers start bringing truth as well as dollars with them,
they can have a real impact on the countries they climb in. The problem with
underdeveloped nations is not primarily historical, political, or economic; it
is spiritual. The devil loves filth, laziness, and ignorance, and for us to
romanticize the living conditions of some of these people is
the height of cultural imperialism.
I started climbing in the
early 1970s, and have made the acquaintance of some of the better climbers of
the world. I know of no group of people who, on average, claim to know more
about morality and ethics while in fact knowing less. On the one hand we claim
to be spiritual because of our travels and exposure to exotic religions; on the
other, many of us are lazy, egocentric, drug-addled, sexually promiscuous
cheats. If you and your magazine want to talk about right, wrong, and spiritual
matters, fine. Publish this letter and start a debate with someone who really
knows what they are talking about.
-- The Reverend Robert B.
McLeod Rector,
Christ the King Episcopal
Church
Orlando, Florida