What if you've been unintentionally causing harm, even with the best of intentions? As we navigate through this conversation, we dissect the unfortunate reality of the corporate church's detachment from Christ's values and how this has given rise to religious zealots speaking for an omnipotent God. We also celebrate our diverse traditions, races, and cultures as a God-given design.
In the second part of our discussion, we face the uncomfortable clash between tradition and acceptance. People often forsake their heritage in favor of something new and unfamiliar, leading to spiritual confusion. We consider a local bar in Lebanon, Indiana, wanting to host a drag show as a real-life illustration of this clash. We emphasize the importance of living true to oneself while advocating for freedom and peace. Wrapping things up, we explore the potential religious trauma that can stem from misunderstandings about our cultural and spiritual heritage. So, tune in and join us for a candid and enlightening conversation.
What if you've been unintentionally causing harm, even with the best of intentions? As we navigate through this conversation, we dissect the unfortunate reality of the corporate church's detachment from Christ's values and how this has given rise to religious zealots speaking for an omnipotent God. We also celebrate our diverse traditions, races, and cultures as a God-given design.
In the second part of our discussion, we face the uncomfortable clash between tradition and acceptance. People often forsake their heritage in favor of something new and unfamiliar, leading to spiritual confusion. We consider a local bar in Lebanon, Indiana, wanting to host a drag show as a real-life illustration of this clash. We emphasize the importance of living true to oneself while advocating for freedom and peace. Wrapping things up, we explore the potential religious trauma that can stem from misunderstandings about our cultural and spiritual heritage. So, tune in and join us for a candid and enlightening conversation.
Speak your mind on the show - Message Richard Ravenbrook
Speaker 1:
Welcome everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Pagan Pregistered Podcast and another spiritual message. You know, throughout the week I pondered upon what spirit has to say and what people need to hear. This week, me and my wife we went to see Teresa Caputo. We saw the blessings that her gift gave to people, how her gift healed hearts. But you know what else I saw? I saw hate, fear, bigotry and spirit kind of just moved within me In reference to how people with good intentions can do so many bad things and so many harmful and hurtful things in this world, even with the best intention.
Speaker 1:
Sometimes, you know, I don't believe people understand the repercussions of their words, that sometimes you can't take back what you say, that your scars are the scars that you leave from the wounds that you deliver from your words Sometimes never completely heal. You know, in the many years that I spent in a corporate church setting, you know I truly and I don't quite know how to say this without actually condemning the church and the many of the people that still follow the corporate church setting, because, as I've said before, there is some truth within Christianity, but the corporate church has become anything but what it was supposed to be it's membership. I mean we have a church value of trillions in a world drowning in debt and poverty. We have a people that proclaim to be just like the Christ but yet do nothing that he would have done, but rather they do the opposite, as the Pharisees did. They condemn everything and everyone outside of their belief, outside of their understanding. And you know many of my podcasts. We talk about how to survive in a world full of so much hate disguised as godly love. But we know it's not godly love.
Speaker 1:
Those people that truly have read the Bible Truly, with spirit, can understand that something just doesn't click, that the things we read within scripture don't line up many times with what we believe that the man we call Jesus was like. We don't live that way, the church doesn't live that way. And now we live in a country and in a world that is separated, with so much division and hate and bigotry, because for some reason, religious zealots feel that they have to be the right hand and the voice of an all-powerful God. And I question them that if God, if your God, is in so much control and is so omnipresent, omnipowerable, why do you have to intervene and do the work for Him? Something's not right, something just doesn't line up. You know why? Because in my past everyone knows that I was a preacher. I did pastor in churches, I did minister in churches and the whole time I knew, I felt, I felt this leading, that you know, yes, you're helping some people in these congregations, but more, something just doesn't line up, it just doesn't.
Speaker 1:
And eventually spirit led me to a point where truly understood that the corporate church was only put there to control us and to try to create a one system, one world religion that believes that we need to humble ourselves and suppress ourselves and to walk a certain way and be a certain way, because in theory, that would make a good world, wouldn't it? Everybody getting along, everybody loving each other, everybody helping each other and loving our neighbor, and all that good stuff Sounds good, doesn't it? But that's not the way we were built. But God's didn't make us that way. We weren't designed with all of our different traditions and races and cultures. We weren't designed to follow the same.
Speaker 1:
How many cultures have abandoned their true heritage, their true culture and tradition and follow something that's not even theirs? Because they were told that this is the only way and, without understanding how to seek spirit. They follow it because they trust the people that are proclaiming. They don't actually look into these things, they don't actually dive into things and research things and seek spirit. But if they do try to seek spirit, they doubt the message they receive within themselves. Well, that's just my mind, that's just my subconscious. Try to you know that's not spirit. And most of the time it is spirit, that little faint, gentle voice most of the time. Sometimes it gets a little louder, sometimes it might even feel a little aggressive, but rarely it's usually that gentle voice. And no, I'm not talking about an audible voice. So no, you're not hearing voices. But it's the thing that's within you, a notion, a knowing that you pick up on this conversation. That's within you. You just know it's hard to put into words without people thinking that you've lost your mind, you're off your rocker, you don't understand what's going on. That's crazy. But you're not crazy. You can't understand spiritual things without getting out of the physical and exploring the things that people think are crazy. Because to believe in spirit, to believe in the spiritual things, you have to believe in the things that you cannot see. That you cannot always hear, that not always can be proven, but you believe it anyway Because you know deep within you that it's real. It's tangible. You do feel you can touch it's in different ways, but it's real.
Speaker 1:
But talking in this particular podcast, I guess it really got brought up. You know, everyone knows, that I live in Lebanon, indiana, and there is a local bar here in town that wants to have a drag show and they have all right to do so. But this drag show that is coming up October 21st, I believe this year, at the Echo Room, is already coming up against, with protesters Already protesting, the idea that they don't want these kind of things in their town. I know this is an all adult event. There's no children, there's nothing perverse or anything about it. It's artistry in itself, it's a way of expression and it's their full right to do so. It's their right not only to have it, but it's the right of the participants, it's their right to be able to perform it, because we live in a free country.
Speaker 1:
But people want to protest, claiming their religion, that how bad it is and how evil it is and that they don't want these kind of things in their town. But I asked them do you really know your religion? Do you really know your God, because if you did, you wouldn't do the things that you are doing already on social media, posting the things that you post, writing the things that you write. You wouldn't desire to protest if God was truly in control, because if God is in control, then God must have allowed it. The door was open for it. Why do you feel that you need to close it? Why do you feel or is it this notion that we have to? We just have to quench everything that we fear that we don't understand? Well, it's just too far different. We don't want those kind of things around us. Well, that's okay. You have that choice too. You have the choice to stay home. You have the choice to go somewhere else. You have the choice to sit down with your children and talk to them about how you feel.
Speaker 1:
What you don't have the right to do is force someone to live a life that is your life, without allowing them the freedom to choose for themselves. Because that's the greatest prison that we can put ourselves on or in on this planet is to put ourselves in a mental and social, emotional prison that we pretend to be something we're not simply to satisfy and comfort the needs of others so they are not offended, so they are not living a life in discomfort, or they're just not comfortable with what you do. All while screaming the right for their freedom. They desire to take your freedom. Freedom isn't freedom unless you are free to be yourself, free to express yourself and to live the way that you feel you need to live. And as long as you're not hurting someone else involuntarily, then it's no one's business how you live or what you do in this life. No human has the authority to judge. Judgment is left to the gods, not for us.
Speaker 1:
We should live among each other in peace and harmony, and you'll have a lot of people out there, you'll have a lot of Christians out there that will say no, but I can't do that because it says this or it says that. But do you really know what it says? Do you understand that the Bible talks about love a night neighbor, but it also talks about, if at all possible, live in peace with mankind. We have to understand that spirit understands that we have to find a way to coexist. But why do people within the church setting feel that they have to play the role of gods? Why? Why do they do the things they do Now? Shall love your neighbor as your soul.
Speaker 1:
How many love others like they would love themselves? They want freedom. They want to be able to exercise their religion or their lack of religion or their belief, and they want to be able to do so openly and willingly, without persecution. But at the same time, they want to deny others that same thing if it doesn't line up with their narrative. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word you shall love Love. Are we loving when we demand others conform to what we say? Is the truth? That we say is the only way you know.
Speaker 1:
All we have to do is look, go back into history and understand that every society, every culture, every race began with its own tradition, its own religion, its own culture and others that thought that they knew it all, that they had to play God, that they had to be the right hand that would destroy everything that would not conform to their narrative. You know, evil has a way of portraying itself as good. But does good destroy everything that doesn't conform? No, it doesn't, because spirit tells me that where the spirit of liberty is, there's freedom, that freedom to express, that freedom to speak what's on our mind and in our hearts. We have to understand, be kind and compassionate to one another. Forgive it each other. Kind and compassionate to each other. And note these things that you've heard. These are all scriptures from the same Bible that the people that are protesting and denying rights to others say they follow.
Speaker 1:
You know there's a difference between trying to share things in love and trying to shove things down people's throat in a way that is anything but godly. Love, choice. You know we're not just talking about what is an American right, but we're also talking about what's spiritual truth. God or the gods do not wish you to condemn people, to force people to live a certain way, because life is about the experience, life is about living, life is about spirit, having a physical experience, and when you confront someone and you tell them the way they're living is unacceptable and just not, it's just not okay with you and this other group of people, you are denying everything that spirit holds true, everything that is within even scripture and most religions.
Speaker 1:
When it comes down to the spiritual truth of things. It talks about the divinity within ourselves, understanding ourselves, understanding that in this lifetime, as we struggle to find the truth of our self and our own power, and of the universe and of Mother Earth and nature. We're going to fall down many times, we're going to make mistakes, we're going to get hurt, but we have that right to walk that path and no one has the right to deny you any path that you choose to walk, because what's right for others may not be right for you, because you have a destiny that is not like them. You may be created to blaze that new path to get people out of and I've done another podcast kind of like this, talking about get out of the book and get into spirit. Because you know, so many times we, you know, I say we but the church, the corporate church setting, wants to hold up that Bible, wants to hold up those 66 books and say that that's all there is. And they just want to quote scripture like a parrot, like the Pharisees, and have no idea of what they're even saying, no idea of the context behind what they're saying, no idea of what spirit was intending when those words were inspired. They were written by men years after the fact. They were written in a time where slavery was acceptable. They were written in a time where treating women as lesser was acceptable rather than equal. You know, they were written at a time where it was acceptable to stone rebellious children to death. It was written at a time when they would boil people, burn people alive. And now we have people that still want to use those same, those same ideas in the year 2023.
Speaker 1:
People get out of the book and get into spirit. You say, well, this is all there is. If that's all there is, then you know nothing about spirit. You know nothing about spiritual. And if you read your bible, what does it say about spirit? It says God is spirit. Even Jesus himself said that the kingdom of God is within you. It's not in a four-wall building, it's not in any place up or down, but God is spirit and the kingdom is within you. Within you is spirit. That spirit that is having a physical experience. Let others have their physical experience and if it's something that you can't approve of, then keep your mouth shut and just move on.
Speaker 1:
You ever heard that saying if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. Is God in control? Because if you have to go out there and protest, if you have to do all kinds of nasty different things to everything that you don't believe in everything from pegging festivals to occult stores to drag shows or whatever it may be, if you feel that you have to stand in between the outside people and the things that are going on, then, my friends, god is not in control. You are. You and your friends feel like you have to intervene. What would happen if we had the mindset that God truly was in control? We just allowed people to be people as long as they're not hurting each other and hurting others, as long as those things that they were doing was within the basic rights of all humans freedom of expression, life, the ability to live happy, to pursue happiness. You know, people can't be happy if they're not living the way they are. Happiness is impossible.
Speaker 1:
You know, just like a minister or a preacher or someone in the spirit field has to speak, it has to do it some way one another, because that's who they are. A teacher needs to teach, you know. An athlete has to play. It's who they are. But that also goes to who we are inside, who we identify as. And you know, it's not up to others to understand your walk, it's not up to others to tell you what's right and wrong. That's only between you and spirit. And if you believe one day that we're all going to be judged, then so be it. That's between you and that God. But together we live on this earth, together and, just like you heard the three or four different scriptures that I just spoke, you know, if at all possible, live at peace with all men. That just because I said men, doesn't mean that doesn't include the women. It includes everyone. It's like mankind when it says that it's talking about everybody.
Speaker 1:
Love thy neighbor as yourself. What would you want for yourself? What if the tables were turned and whatever it is that you believed in, they were doing that in there and the other group was out there going to protest? You, you would want your freedom. You would want to be able to express yourself, able to teach what you have learned and to share what you believe. But why can't you do that to others? Because you think you're God, or do you not believe that that God is in control? We have to make up our mind. We've got a church on every corner. We've got thousands of corporate church members out there, but a society that has no idea of where they're going.
Speaker 1:
The idea of love is blurred and confused and dark, because we have people that are trained to be godly, people that have no idea of what divinity actually is. God is love. God is spirit. Within you lies all the power to make the change that we need. We choose the nonviolent way. We choose a life of peace. We want peace.
Speaker 1:
We want to educate people that what they're doing is wrong, that what they're doing is not godly, that their God does not will them to do the things that they do. Nor in the past did God ever want the death of his people, his children, those people that say God wills it. No, god didn't will it. They did, they wanted power, they wanted control, they wanted things their way. Maybe they had good intention, I don't know, but regardless, more people have died than what people say was God's will, than anything else in existence, and it's time that we truly begin to understand divinity and God in spirit, or what it is Within you, within me, within all of us.
Speaker 1:
We all have that element, that essence of divinity within us, but so many people have tried to suppress it and quench it and hinder it and tell you that you're worthless, that you're a sinner and you're lost and you can't be nothing without a savior. But that isn't true. We all need saved. Yes, we need saved from corporate religion we need saved from the lies that hinder us, and we need enlightenment to show us who we truly are and what we truly can be. If we just let go of the books that only restrain us, open our minds and open our hearts to spirit and begin to understand that we all live on this earth together and we want to coexist and throughout scripture, with all these different religions, it all says the same thing Striving on measure to live in peace, to coexist and to love each other. Leave the judgments up to the gods and just be you and let others be them.
Speaker 1:
If that's you out there that feels like you have to protest and that you have to do something to oppose the things that your church or your community doesn't believe in, I urge you to take a step back and just ask yourself are you showing that your God is in control, or are you showing the very opposite, that you and your community, your friends, your church, have to go on the attack and slander and destroy the names, the lives of all those people that you don't believe in and what they do? Understand the repercussions of your actions, your words and the religious trauma and the pain and suffering that you could cause, all in good intention. Just consider these words. Thank you everybody. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your time listening to the Peck and Preacher podcast. Please subscribe. I am Reverend Richard Kent, lebanon, indiana. Be blessed everybody and bless it be. Thank you.