spiritual exercise or stark superstition?

Yesterday’s paper had an article on left-handedness.  It seems that left-handed people are on the increase, up from 3 to 11 percent over the last 100 years!   I think most of us know about the dogging that left-handers used to get, especially at school. That has now largely changed and people are being accepted for what they, naturally, are.

Left-handedness has been viewed with suspicion by the right-handed majority for centuries all over the world: many languages have derogatory, hurtful descriptions of it; I would guess that all do. But it’s not just the outright unkind word: the word ‘sinister’ comes from the Latin for the left hand. It’s almost like a world conspiracy!

Actually, it is a superstition.

Superstition governs our life far more than we realise.

Superstition sees life as stacked against us; the world is out to get us. So we need to take every precaution imaginable to survive. The Latin word, superstes means to survive.

Life is a barrier to be scaled or, perhaps, a host of difficulties and dangers to be avoided. God is to be dreaded; if things are to go right for us we need to pacify Him or even trick Him. 

Do you want to survive? Well, possibly, a rabbit’s foot in your pocket wouldn’t be a bad idea.

And, if it could guarantee fending off trouble, I would avoid every crack in the pavement, avoid walking under every ladder and I would go out of my way to entice a black cat to cross my path each and every day. I might even wear a cross out of reverence to the Lord: but I may also wear it to stave off evil. Superstition. Come to think of it, I could drill a hole through my pocket New Testament and string it round my neck. But it was never meant to be used like that!

Welton Gaddy once saw an American high school football team, in danger of defeat, call a time-out in order to kneel together on the field and repeat the Lord’s Prayer and so avoid being beaten. Sincere and helpful spiritual exercises can degenerate into stark superstition. We see umpteen footballers run on to the park, touch the ground and make the sign of the cross. Surely preferable to train more and train better.

Genuine Christianity shows us that we don’t need to mistrust God. He loves us and wants a personal relationship of daily intimacy. ‘More than all in Thee I find’ wrote a Christian songwriter many years ago.

Many local churches are now running courses that aim, humbly, to share the basics of the Bible with non-church people and church people alike: Christianity Explored is one such. I commend them to you.