1981-May-15

Bilalian News

Suicidal God

Imam W. Deen Muhammad

(Editor's note: Following are excerpts from Imam Warith Deen Muhammad's publication, "As The Light Shineth From The East, " Bilalian News takes this opportunity to provide its reading public with brief glimpses of this historical work. We not only recommend that everyone purchase a personal copy, but also additional copies for friends and relatives.)

When they tell me that God was incarnated, became flesh, and that He went up and ascended the cross and gave His life to save sinners, to me that says God had to commit suicide to save sinners. "Oh that wasn't God, that was His son." I thought about that. I still had a problem because I remembered the preacher said they are "three in one." And I heard the preacher say when you see the father you see the son, and when you see the son you see the father.

That bothered me — that God Almighty could be a split personality with terrible guilt complexes for the sins of His creation and came down here and told people, "Crucify Me so your hearts would be turned to love Me." Now, dear beloved people, this same kind of split personality, the same kind of guilt, is in the mind of the Christian society — the same suicidal inclination. We commit sin — and how do we pay for it? By killing ourselves or by provoking people to kill us. When we feel that we've done wrong, we give ourselves to more wrong. We will use narcotics, go out and get in the car and drive 90 miles per hour in a 25 miles per hour speed zone. We do this to kill ourselves —we want to die. We will go to the home of a married woman, get into her bed and stay right there until the husband comes home; and know what time he's coming home, and get shot. We want to get shot for our sins.

We will get stopped by the police for driving 35 miles per hour in a 25 miles per hour speed zone. We can't just get ticket, we have to get shot. "You ain't taking me nowhere, sucker...." He had to give his life for his sins. In the literal language, the Bible says that God repented that He had made man on earth. Follow the movement of the story.

God makes everything; it is good. First day, it is good; second day, and it was good: third —all the way down, and it was good. Then He made the man from the dust of the earth and the man sinned. And sin grew so much that God regretted that He had made man and put him on earth. How does He correct this — ? By coming down out of the sky Himself and taking on flesh that can feel pain. "Whip me, whip me" and they lashed Him. He didn't have to get a whipping. He could have stayed up there..,. "Spit on me...." That is not enough, "Carry me up on Calvary, nail me to the cross—stick that crown of thorns into my skull...."

Don't you know there have been preachers who read the New Testament and went off to do foolish things. I have a clipping at home now. A preacher thought the Bible should be interpreted literally. He went and put his hands in a snake pit. He just went looking for it to prove that he was Jesus Christ's disciple; he stuck his hand in there and he was killed.

The Bible says if you have faith you can stick your hands in the snakes' den and not be poisoned. So, many have done crazy things. Self destructive things, thinking that they're really proving themselves worthy as believers in the word of God. There are some who become very cruel because they read that cruelty in the Bible is justified. They read where the Bible says: "As they dealt out to you, deal out to them double." They read where it says there would be no mercy on the fruit of the womb. It says the babies would be snatched from the mothers and their heads bashed against the stones. They read where Christ is going to return and just drench his garments in the blood of the wicked. They read these things and interpret them literally and then claim to be good Christians and practice horrible cruelty against their fellowman.

A surviving testimony to this kind of influence on the minds of so-called Christians is existing right now in that secret underground order called Ku Klux Klan. They carry crosses, pray to God, execute injustice and cruelties against human beings in the name of Jesus Christ. Where do they get the inspiration to behave like that? They get it from a literal reading of the Bible.

Don't you know that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad with his reverse psychology of throwing the same dirt back in the face of those people who threw dirt on us; and myself with my kind of socially clear interpretation of the Bible that is to be applied to the social problems in our lives—don't you know we're making a greater contribution to the revival of Christianity than all the preachers have made?

We're doing more to revive the purity of Christianity than all the Christians have been able to do over the past 2,000 years. None of them has had the courage to take the literal language of the Bible and deal with it and say this is not rational, it's not practical, it doesn't make sense; it's not moral, it's immoral. If this is really the word of God, then we must find some kind of logical explanation for this thing being in the Holy Book. How many of them have tackled the problem like that? They fear to do it. They fear because they know if they do that they're going to be thrown out of the circle of Christianity.