Global Faith: The Place of Meeting God

This article is a preview from the not-yet-published book: Global Faith: Universal and Existential, the flagship book of the Global Faith Book series which is scheduled to be published in 2012. But this article is included in the new book, about to be published, the second one in the book series: Global Faith: A Model for the 21st Century.

The Place of Meeting God

The prophets of the blessed past called the peoples to meet God of their faith each in their appointed consecrated places which in time became sacred, each in their homeland of origin.

The great Hebrew prophet Isaiah prophesied, "Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established on top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow to it. Many people shall come and say, ' Come and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD'" (Isaiah 2:2-3a NKJV).

Some pious souls interpret this passage literally and look forward to its fulfillment in a literal Jerusalem. Yet other pious or faithful or scholarly souls interpret this passage spiritually-metaphorically. This latter realistically understands the sheer difficulty if not virtual impossibility of God's global people of faith traveling to Jerusalem, not just once in their lifetime, but perhaps many times as the text may suggest. Better it seems this spiritual-metaphorical interpretation of this prophecy that speaks to all God's people of faith globally, wherever they may live, even Global Faith peoples in these latter days who come to God in spirit and in truth and figuratively to His holy mountain, wherever we hear His words, His teachings, receive them into our hearts and souls, submit our wills to Him, and worship Him in all His glory and majesty.

God foresaw our day, our global age, and a growing movement of Global Faith peoples. God has brought a new age through His holy Son Jesus who proclaimed, "...neither on this mountain [Gerizim in Samaria] nor in Jerusalem [Mt. Zion] will you worship Me but in spirit and truth they shall worship Me" (John 4:21, 23 NKJV). Souls of faith, let God's Spirit inscribe these words into your precious hearts and minds. Notice that this speaks of NO CENTRAL place on earth where God's people meet God and worship Him. There is no geographic latitude nor longitude, but speaks of a spiritual Zion of longevity, where the sacred meeting place is the meeting of the Divine and the human being through his or her soul, wherever their bodies are physically, locally. In the roads of the well known Christian rock song by Petra, "the road to Zion's in my heart."

The believers of Judaism have the Wailing Wall, Christians have the Church of the Holy Sepulchre also in Jerussalem, and Muslims have Mecca, the Sikhs have Golden Temple in Amritsar, and Baha'is have the Shrine of the Bab (international Shrine, Haifa, Israel), but the prophetic scripture above from John's Gospel (claimed to have come from Jesus) looks to our day when and where people of faith are not bound to attend one specific sacred spot on earth-obligatorily-for the meeting place of God, for worship and prayer. The great Hebrew prophet Isaiah (most scholars refer to this section as Deutero-Isaiah) prophesied, "He is called God of the whole earth" (Isaiah 54:5d) and the prophetic scriptures speak through Solomon, "But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this temple which I have built!" (I Kings 8:27 NKJV).

Therefore, Global Faith does not seek to establish any central sacred place for the meeting of God and His people, but it is intent on remaining decentralized; and likewise it does not to establish even a central global organization or institution. Global Faith peoples do not stress over where to establish a central sacred spot on earth, where it should be, what country it should be located in, consequentially refraining from the potential engine of conflict with established religions or governments. Be let there be thousands of local assemblies of Global Faith peoples who can gather on a regular basis (for example, weekly), locally. Moreover, let it be permitted that Global Faith local communities associate with each other, but remaining decentralized. And let them even establish regional shrines that they may make pilgrimages, either peacefully securing agreement with representatives of existing shrines or establishing new shrines. Global Faith peoples may peacefully worship, pray, and/or meditate in many and various religious settings. But peacefully seek official permission if groups of Global Faith communities want to gather at shrines/houses/temples/churches/gardens or grounds of existing religious institutions or organizations.