“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(We sat for the session at 9:10, and as the minutes passed Jane grew more and more impatient. We had no idea what the session might be about, since we’d posed no questions for Seth. In view of the subject matter that did develop, rather to our surprise, let me note that since late last week President Carter, President Anwar Sadat of Egypt, and Israel’s Prime Minister Begin have been meeting at Camp David in pursuit of peace for the Middle East. The conference has been called crucial to peace in our time, etc. The scanty news from their meeting seems to be that matters are moving in “the right direction.”

The Arabs and the Jews and your Baptist Carter—a beautiful instructional picture.

I spoke lately about your communications, and some of their more fortunate ramifications. You have had what amounts to local gods, even though one name may be used, so that Carter can say “We all worship the same God.”

Begin, Sadat, and Carter are each “God-fearing” men, sincere believers in their causes. How can “God” be for the Jews and against their enemies, the Arabs, as the Jews suppose, and how can God be for the Arabs and against the Jews, as the Arabs suppose? “Decent” God-fearing men, then, must indeed question how the same God can have such different views, and at least wonder if their own nationalistic histories and prejudices may not have distorted the interpretation of God’s word somewhere along the way.

Since this “one God” of Carter’s, however, can obviously have such different ideas, saying one thing to one nation and the opposite to another, then men will begin to check their nationalistic lists of divine instructions, discovering that to one extent or another this God would seem to have told several different groups of people that they were chosen above others, that their enemies would be vanquished, and that they might indeed defend their divine rights through whatever unfortunate but necessary means.

At various times this one God of Carter’s seems to have said, on more unearthly subjects, that the Jews would be saved, while our infidels languished in the deepest hell, or that the Mohammedans would be saved—and throughout history as you know it, and as you do not know it, the stories have thrived.

It would do Carter well on one level to question this God more thoroughly. Yet on another level he is doing very well, for he is bringing about a situation in which men must question the nationalistic intent of this “one God.”