[revtj]

Why make the focus of my religion what you call the fear of God and His judgement? How will that feed the poor, clothe the naked, house the homeless, or do anything at all for the least of these whom Jesus directed us to serve?

Jesus said many would call him "Lord, Lord..." (isn't that a fear-based theology exalting God?) but they ignore the poor and Jesus sends them away.

The judgement I fear is the one happening all around us in the world where 1000s of children die every day from hunger, where people live in cardboard boxes in the richest nation in the world, where the poor are exploited and killed by big military powers. All of these things are of this world in the here and now.

If there is to be a cataclysmic coming of the Lord, so be it. Until then, let me be found, by the grace of God, loving my neighbor, actively working for justice and trying to change the earthly conditions that keep the poor and oppressed shut out from the abundance of God's creation. If I can practice that Love, I will not become stuck in the fear of some future prediction of God's burning wrath.