[davidk]

Soma,

Splendid little treatise on the Fall of Man and man's need for a Savior.

I'm sorry if I'm slow in catching on to all you intend, because I'm not certain what is your intent here. For, John 10 is the parable of the good shepard.

---
Dutch,
It seems, without human participation prayer would have no need to exist. It was made for man. Since it will always be for man, humans will certainly always be involved.
---
Any individuals posture during prayer (in regard to previous posts), should not be to indicate where we think God is, but perhaps be a posture of humility and resignation. As far as answers are concerned, God will answer them, but we must be ready to accept His 'NO's" as well as His "YES's". His answers are always perfectly apropos.

[glintofpewter]

soma wrote

Quote

That's why we need someone, something to come and reveal the fullness of God's love to us and in the case of Jesus lay down His physical life for us.

What about the billions of years before Jesus? Is Jesus the only answer to the revelation of God' love.? Experience of nurturing love precedes homo sapiens. soma, are you implying that there are other "cases"?


davidk wrote

Quote

God will answer them, but we must be ready to accept His 'NO's" as well as His "YES's". His answers are always perfectly apropos.

This response has been used many times but I feel that it is insufficient. Richard Foster said that "to Pray is to change" and, in that experience there are many more answers than "yes" or "No"

Dutch

[soma]

glintofpewter, on 15 August 2009 - 07:26 AM, said:

soma wrote
What about the billions of years before Jesus? Is Jesus the only answer to the revelation of God' love.? Experience of nurturing love precedes homo sapiens. soma, are you implying that there are other "cases"?

glintofperter, Great question. I think the revelation of God is universal and that universality is reflected the phrase "the coming of the light that gives light to every man." It could be translated "This was the true light that enlightens everybody at all times by coming into the world". This is the universal application of the light for every individual at all times. The light of Jesus is as universal as the light of creation, but as a Christian I refer to it sometimes as the light of Jesus. The light did not come merely to some Christian elites, nor to a single nation or culture. In Christianity we refer to the light as the Word that became flesh in a given time and place in the name of Jesus, but the Word was from the beginning. It is the scandal of some Christians to make the light specific for only Christians. People of all cultures and times are to, have and will receive the light that shines on everything. This means the light of God is manifested in and throughout the world's religions and philosophies. It is only by this light that we recognize what is true light everywhere. When the true light has come, I feel one can see the light shinning on and through everything. I feel the light is not the full degree of the genuine true light if one only sees it in a part of creation. The light encourages us to recognize that which is of the truth from every quarter.

God is not working out salvation through one nation, and specifically one person within that nation, but through a universal salvation. The light shines on everyone. The tragedy is the mixed response to close the eyes of the mind to see only in part and not the whole or true light. The light was and is in the world for everyone. The prophets of all religions have witnessed the light and have experienced rejection as the common human response. Thus the same old, familiar pattern is repeated by people who have not had an enlightened experience.

The imagery of coming alive as God's children suggests the the light is witnessed as the power that produces divine life that is why I feel it is a power that must be exercised by a person. I think that is why John did not say "he made them children of God" but "he gave them power to become children of God".

Jesus speaks of the oneness of all believers that all of them may be one, and links it with the mutual indwelling of the Father and the Son. It is model for Christians about the relationship among believers, "just as you are in me and I am in you." I think the light shows this concept of one God, the recognition of one universal God and human nature. Jesus for Christians is made to embody this unity, one God and love. I feel Jesus suggests that the working of the believers' oneness with one another and to the Father through the Son is a process that will take some time and perfecting in seeing the whole light. May we have the grace to see the light.

[glintofpewter]

soma,

In the Resurrection topic you wrote

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I love Jesus in the physical form and start my meditation with it. It is hard to love the impersonal so Jesus is a form I can love in the physical where he resurrects in my mind as Christ consciousness where I can enjoy an expanded consciousness in the impersonal God.

and here you write

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I think the revelation of God is universal and that universality is reflected the phrase "the coming of the light that gives light to every man."

I appreciate the many layers of, and the breadth of, the vision you have. Some day I may even understand the mystic view of yours.

Thanks

Dutch

[billmc]

I recently posted on this subject on my blog and thought it might fit here.

In the gospels, Jesus said that God is spirit. He said that because God is spirit, God must be worshipped in spirit and truth. In my opinion, Christianity has hijacked the word “spirit” and has tried to define it, primarily, by what it is not and tried to make it serve in religion.

What I mean by this is that, for Christianity, “spirit” means “non-material”, or not susceptible to the senses. So God is thought to be this immaterial being who lives beyond the sky who, because he cannot be known through the senses, can only be believed in. Hence the necessity of faith in this God. The religion that grows out of this understanding of “spirit” is focused on determining who is in and who is out with this God depending on who believes in this God and who doesn’t.

I think this is a serious distortion of not only “spirit” but of religion itself. My studies of the scriptures have led me to believe that when Jesus is describing God as a spirit, he is not primarily speaking of God’s immaterial essense. Rather, he is speaking of God’s omnipresence and interconnectedness with the universe. This is why his answer to the Samaritan woman concerning where God should be worshipped is so radical. She believed that God was in Samaria. She knew that the Jews believed that God was in Jerusalem. Jesus tells her that because God is spirit, God is not confined to physical locality and that God is accessible to everyone everywhere.

This connectedness is also reflected in Jesus’ Two Greatest Commandments where he tells us that God is loved by us loving each other. The apostle John says much the same in his book, that if we say we love God, but if we don’t love one another, than we are lying about loving God. This, again, is a radical notion. This means that God does not care about religious systems that make up rules and doctrines about who is in and who is out. God cares about how we treat each other. If we don’t truly love one another and feel connected to one another, then our claims to love God ring hollow.

So, to me, being spiritual does not mean going to church, praying three times a day, studying my Bible every day, or doing all the things that Christians do to practice their religion. To me, being spiritual means being aware of my connectedness to everyone and everything around me. It means being aware of God in my own heart to where I can reach out to the God I see in others. This is a quite different paradigm from the way that Christians think they own or posess God so that they can take him to others. For me, being spiritual means that I learn to love others to where I put them first. That is the kind of God I see in Jesus. That is the kind of God I can believe in, even in my own life.

Where is God? Where is not God? Sure, we can point to people and events in human history where it certainly seems that God was absent. But it is usually the case that those people and those events somehow forgot how interconnected we are with one another and how, if God is love, that love is God.

[JosephM]

Great post Bill,

So much of it rings true. So good to hear from you...

Love in Christ,
Joseph

[soma]

Bill, Thank you. Your post was very clear and right on the point.

[Javelin]

My first thought, after reading Bill’s post, was wow! My second thought was amen. I try to read a few post each day. I’ve found so many of the thoughts being posted here to be incredibly insightful, uplifting, and inspirational.

My understanding of God has come through the lens of Christian fundamentalism, but I don’t think that I was ever truly comfortable with that teaching. It was so depressing because no human being could ever live up to the standards fundamentalist believed God requires. The teaching was also replete with contradictions and inconsistency.

I’ve known for a long time that my studies and research lead me to understand scripture in a very different light than my fundamentalist friends. I’ve just recently acknowledged, to myself, my wife, and a few close friends, that I’m a Christian liberal and have probably been for several years. My fundamentalist friends believe I’ve lost it. They think I’ve studied myself into agnosticism.

Whatever I am theologically, my thinking and mindset clearly aligns with the thinking and viewpoints that I routinely find on this site. It’s refreshing to find like minded believers. Continually being the odd man out has a tendency to become tiresome and stressful.

[soma]

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I’ve known for a long time that my studies and research lead me to understand scripture in a very different light than my fundamentalist friends. I’ve just recently acknowledged, to myself, my wife, and a few close friends, that I’m a Christian liberal and have probably been for several years. My fundamentalist friends believe I’ve lost it. They think I’ve studied myself into agnosticism.

Javelin you are a good role model. You have shown us that the key to change is to let go. Thanks.
Emerson said, “For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.”

[billmc]

Javelin, on 22 August 2009 - 11:00 AM, said:

It was so depressing because no human being could ever live up to the standards fundamentalist believed God requires. The teaching was also replete with contradictions and inconsistency.

I feel much the same, Javelin. You're not alone, not by far. Even the fundamentalist mantra that all one has to do is to "believe in Jesus" opens up the Pandora's box of what it means to believe in Jesus. Does it simply mean believing in Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection? Does it mean believing in the gospels as historical truth? Does it mean following Jesus' teachings to the letter of the law? Does it simply mean loving God and neighbor and shelving everything else Jesus taught? Questions like these drove me nuts.

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I’ve just recently acknowledged, to myself, my wife, and a few close friends, that I’m a Christian liberal and have probably been for several years. My fundamentalist friends believe I’ve lost it. They think I’ve studied myself into agnosticism.

I "came out" to my wife about 2 years ago. She was very understanding and has given me the freedom to not go along with the "second-hand God" that much of Christianity holds to. But I also know that I am on a number of prayer lists at her Southern Baptist church.

What Soma said about hanging on and letting go certainly rings true to me. I sometimes feel like a trapeze artist swinging from trapeze to trapeze. And I'm not exactly sure where the other trapezes will take me. But I have just enough faith to believe that it is further into God.

Thanks for sharing part of your journey with us. I look forward to hearing more from you and getting to know you better.

[AllInTheNameOfProgress]

"So, to me, being spiritual does not mean going to church, praying three times a day, studying my Bible every day, or doing all the things that Christians do to practice their religion. To me, being spiritual means being aware of my connectedness to everyone and everything around me. It means being aware of God in my own heart to where I can reach out to the God I see in others. This is a quite different paradigm from the way that Christians think they own or posess God so that they can take him to others. For me, being spiritual means that I learn to love others to where I put them first. That is the kind of God I see in Jesus. That is the kind of God I can believe in, even in my own life. "

Bill,
My journey includes church for a few reasons. One is that I can make a bigger impact on the world if I'm not trying to do it alone. So, when I organize volunteers to help the disadvantaged school across town, they get more help than I could provide by myself. My church latches on to my passion.

Sometimes church calls me to be more than I am, by asking me to help others with their "missions" or by calling me to new ways of thinking. This tcpc group provides another means of challenging my thinking, but it is also good to be able to talk to others face to face or give them a hug when they need it.

Some of the church rituals (not all - mainly the music) fill me with a heightened sense of God's presense, hope during troubled times. Church counteracts some of the negativity and fear-building I feel from the media, knowing there really are a number of us trying to love others to where we put them first. It brings that sense of connectedness you mention.

I agree wholeheartedly with your conclusion about what it means to be spiritual!! I also don't think any of the things I have written above have to happen in a formal church building. In fact, I think there may be advantages to doing these activities outside of church, so people aren't reminded of negative experiences they have had there. I don't care if it's "Organized Religion," but let's love the world together, rather than individually.

[billmc]

AllInTheNameOfProgress, on 23 August 2009 - 02:29 AM, said:

My journey includes church for a few reasons. One is that I can make a bigger impact on the world if I'm not trying to do it alone. So, when I organize volunteers to help the disadvantaged school across town, they get more help than I could provide by myself. My church latches on to my passion. Sometimes church calls me to be more than I am, by asking me to help others with their "missions" or by calling me to new ways of thinking. This tcpc group provides another means of challenging my thinking, but it is also good to be able to talk to others face to face or give them a hug when they need it. Some of the church rituals (not all - mainly the music) fill me with a heightened sense of God's presense, hope during troubled times. Church counteracts some of the negativity and fear-building I feel from the media, knowing there really are a number of us trying to love others to where we put them first. It brings that sense of connectedness you mention.

Good input. I'd definately agree that God can be experienced in church meetings or missions. Of course, churches, like people, all have different personalities, so what works for one person may or may not work for another. My post was not advocating a mass exodus from churches, I was just saying that many (most?) churches seem to think that if God is to be experienced, that he is primarily experienced within those walls. That is why churches refer to themselves as "the house of God." I see a radical shift in the NT that says that God's dwelling place is primarily seen in people. Of course, this doesn't negate God's presence in nature or morality. IMO, God's spirit (or connectedness) can't be confined to a particular place, people, or time.

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I agree wholeheartedly with your conclusion about what it means to be spiritual!! I also don't think any of the things I have written above have to happen in a formal church building. In fact, I think there may be advantages to doing these activities outside of church, so people aren't reminded of negative experiences they have had there. I don't care if it's "Organized Religion," but let's love the world together, rather than individually.

...and a hearty AMEN to that!

[AllInTheNameOfProgress]

"I was just saying that many (most?) churches seem to think that if God is to be experienced, that he is primarily experienced within those walls. That is why churches refer to themselves as "the house of God." I see a radical shift in the NT that says that God's dwelling place is primarily seen in people. Of course, this doesn't negate God's presence in nature or morality. IMO, God's spirit (or connectedness) can't be confined to a particular place, people, or time"

I love this, Bill! I may use it in my discussions with people at my church about moving beyond our building.

[Shekinah]

It's the Zen in me speaking, but this has to do with western man's wishing for a higher plane of existence that is free from this existence right here. And the duality between spiritual and material. Out of curiosity I studied the chakra system somewhat. There's an emphasis that the heart is where the energies balance. The higher emotional center is the heart, and is the connection to the relation to God. Hence the Catholic Jesus with burning heart pointing up to heaven.