Pastafarian Paganism

What we think about and treasure, that shows the extent to which we revere God and place Him in the first position in our lives.  Colossians 3 emphasizes how important that it is to make sure that we
are living with Jesus as the absolute Lord of our lives; it says:
2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.
3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
4 When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.
5 Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

We can be challenged to consider how our thoughts are centered on God day by day.  Or, do we go through an entire day without even thinking of God's Word or acknowledging His presence?  If we are a devoted follower of Christ, it is critical that we look to Him for guidance and rely on Him for strength.  We can enjoy His peace and His presence when we are thinking about being with Him, assured that He is with us, and honoring Him with our daily worship.

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God teaches us through the 10 Commandments the standards that He has set for us, and the first
commandment deals with giving Him first place in our lives. Consider these words from Exodus 20:
2 "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
3 You shall have no other gods before Me.
4 "You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth;
5a you shall not bow down to them nor serve them.

It's not just a fun cartoon character; the icon of a certain religious practice actually grew out of a desire to mock God.  I found a summary of the rise of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster on The Atlantic website, which stated (keep in mind, this is the publication's words):

In 2005, the Kansas Board of Education voted to let public schools teach the creationist theory of intelligent design alongside evolution, arguing, among other things, that you couldn’t prove a supernatural being hadn’t given rise to life. A 24-year-old with a degree in physics named Bobby Henderson responded on his website that you also couldn’t prove a flying spaghetti monster hadn’t created the universe.

Unfortunately, the Kansas school board reversed its decision two years later, but as The Atlantic reports: "the semi-parodic Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has outlasted the dispute, spreading via the internet to countries around the world."

In 2016, when this article was written, "...the Infrastructure Ministry in Brandenburg, Germany, found itself litigating what counts as religion. The ministry typically concerns itself with worldly issues like road signage. But then the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) sought a road sign of the sort that local Catholic and Protestant churches receive from the German state."  The article says:

The ensuing legal skirmish—a court ultimately sided with the Infrastructure Ministry, which argued that FSM wasn’t “a recognized religious community..."

Fast forward to today, where this practice or philosophy, known as "Pastafarianism" made another meatheaded appearance.  According to a report on the Christian Headlines website:

Thanks to a court ruling, a representative of the make-believe Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster led prayer at a government meeting in Alaska this week.

The prayer at the government meeting in Homer, Alaska, followed a 2018 decision by an Alaska state court that ruled the previous policy – only permitting individuals from government-approved religious groups – was unconstitutional. The ACLU brought the suit, the Anchorage Daily News reports.

The Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly could have abandoned the prayer tradition altogether, but instead adopted a new policy that allows anyone to sign up to pray.

This follows on the heels of a Satanist offering a prayer back in June. The story quotes Willy Dunne, a member of the Assembly, who told the Anchorage Daily News: “There’s quite an interesting cast of characters, and it looks like it’s a majority non-Christian as far as I can tell,” adding, “It’s become kind of ... an area of debate over what should be a valid belief, prayer, to begin the meeting.”

The "Pastor" of the FSM, in his prayer, delivered with a colander on his head, mocked God by saying, as the Associated Press reports: “...I'm called to invoke the power of the true inebriated creator of the universe, the drunken tolerator (sic) of the all lesser and more recent gods, and maintainer of gravity here on earth. May the great Flying Spaghetti Monster rouse himself from his stupor and let his noodly appendages ground each assembly member in their seats..."

You know, there is just such as widespread lack of reverence for God all around us.  Yet, people, whether they admit it are not, are in dire need of Him.  They have rejected His ways, and that departure has yielded a pervasive anger across our culture, which is an expression of the rebellion in their hearts.  We have the chance as believers in Christ to show a better way and to share the love of Jesus.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster is certainly no deity, not even close.  Yet, the reverence for this fictional character can remind to make sure that we are keeping the commandment to have no other gods before us.  We do have real-life idols - not graven images, mind you, but there are things that we put above the Lord on our list of priorities.  We may seek power and possessions, or put people, fellow humans, on a higher plane than God.  Whatever replaces God on the lordship scale is an idol to us.  We can be challenged to identify the idols in our lives and to declare that Jesus is Lord.