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Keith Kelly

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  1. With the decline of the church, especially in industrialized countries, churches are increasingly used more and more for baptisms, weddings and funerals. Buddhism, on the other hand, has increased in the United States by 200% from 1990 to 2000 and another 200% from 2000 to 2010. People are searching for meaningful modalities of understanding spirituality and Christianity is but one alternative. The older models of the fall, saved by grace and Christ's death and the coming of the Kingdom are hardly understandable in modern terms, starting with understandings that developed during the Enlightenment. Is it time that we, as ones who identify ourselves as Christians, to think and speak in terms of us saving Christ? Cultural Christianity is readily available, however relatively few show up at, say, the Passion of St. John or Matthew. Volunteerism is another way to communicate the message. However it is my feeling that the present state of affairs calls for more of an overt salvage operation to meet the requirements of the coming age. Any thoughts?
  2. United Methodist. Have volunteered in the past to be sure. Attend weekly plus on religions holidays. The Methodist Church I attend is fairly open to comments that are progressive and are not offendedn that I know of regarding a person's beliefs, however most attendees themselves it seems are adherents of a theistic theology and would see the scriptures more as divinely inspired and containing accounts of happenings instead of being spiritual literary works.
  3. From the earliest Christians to the modern day one hears that Jesus is divine. However the search for the meaning of Jesus, at least in modern scholarship, questions the account of the Gospels as a bibliography. Strauss, followed by Bultmann, undertook the needed task to demythologize the Gospels. Strauss denied the divinity of Jesus while Bultmann generally supported it, perhaps in some qualifying ways. Does this dymythologization or further demythologization need to find its way further into the very meaning of Jesus? One could say he is divine in the classical (orthodox) sense; one could say Jesus is divine because as a human he nonetheless had a unique relationship and connection with God, or one could say that Jesus is divine in a way that all who seek to be fully human are divine. What does it mean to say Jesus is divine?
  4. Well, I think what is so disappointing about this is that Spong is an intellegent fellow with a lot of very good points to make. Such mis-exegesis at times really distracts from his work. Moreover, it leaves the reader wondering just what the motivation is. Is it publicity? Pushing an agenda at the cost of overreaching and tarnishing his work. Only Spong knows this, I suppose.
  5. Spong recounts scriptures and perspectives that places St. Paul in a certain perspective--one which he supports to a degree but far from conclusively--that St. Paul was a repressed gay man. Spong goes beyond stating this as a possiblity, however, establishing the perspective and subsequently speaking as if it is established that St. Paul was gay. Spong (Reclaiming the Bible) writes: "Imagine rather the power of the realization that we Christians have received our primary definition of grace from a gay man who accepted his world's judgment and condemnation until he was embraced by the Jesus experience and came to the realization that nothing any of us can say, do or be can place us outside the love of God. Paul, a deeply repressed gay man, is the one who made that message clear." This seems to be fairly close to a "just so" approach to the biblical literature and, frankly, sloppy and almost irresponsible as far as biblical interpretation goes. Spong is usually pretty good at interpretation, however it seems here his agenda gets in the way of the interpretive task. Bringing up a possibility is not the problem. Proceeding as if it is the truth and a springboard for further interpretation certainly is.
  6. Do you hear God speak to you? It this an outdated theistic view of religion, rooted in tradition or primordial thinking, or is it real? If God speaks directly to believers, why do believers hear different things? Many in the church pray and hear the voice of God or the Spirit. Is this consistent with Progressive Christianity?
  7. I have not studied dreams academically. It seems my dreams can usually be interpreted and the symbols or events within them directly relate to my life. Mine are highly symbolic, either in the actions or symbols in them. Sometimes I don't know what to make of them and sometimes I don't know if they really mean anything. The ones that make sense sometimes require some figuring out and usually point to something that takes up my time and thoughts during the day or over a period of time. A large anaconda that was lying around living quarters, being a menace and needing to be removed but nonetheless was not a direct threat, but a direct problem, was my dissertation. I finished my dissertation, so I don't see much of that snake any more. Something else will come along, though, as it always does. I suppose if one were seeking something spiritually then they might hear from a divine, but I think they are our minds are simply processing things that are eventful or important in life. Interestingly enough, John Wesley insisted that we be pure in thought and he included dreams in this. This raises some other questions, I suppose, and many find this a bit amusing.
  8. When is the last time you read the book of Revelation? Is it worth it? It seems fairly muddled to me and I don't see much value in it myself. Is there any value to it, apart from an historical or literary review of apocalyptic literature, i.e. if one happens to be interested in such literature? This is an interesting link on the book: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/31/four-big-myths-about-the-book-of-revelation/
  9. The concept of Jesus dying for the sins of the world is indeed quite strange. It is as if God were offended by the sins of humankind and thereupon sent another manifestation of the diety to suffer even further insult to clear the original offense. This logic is seen in many religions whereby adherents hold to a theory that a sacrifice of their possessions or other people to appease the God or gods and "earn" good favor from them. This logic is quite puzzling to the modern mind where cause-and-effect is not related to sacrificial offerings. There is punishment for offenses of crimes, and sometimes upon the families of criminals, but this is not related to the atonement theory of religious sacrifice. Now there are those orthodox adherents who would say that the wisdom of God is higher than our logic and that human logic is flawed in this manner. This is reminiscent of Pope Urban VIII telling Galileo that there is such a thing as human understanding but this does not displace the wisdom of God. Therefore the earth still rotates around the sun, and not vice versa. The problem with appeals to the wisdom of God is that historically they are frequently in retreat. Further, what is the wisdom of God during one period is different from the wisdom of God in another period--do to human understandings (or misunderstandings) of it! Therefore the arguments tend to be both ignorant of cause-and-effect as well as characterizing a circular belief system in orthodox Christianity. Now one might say that Jesus did die for our sins, however. His death highlights the life he lived, the price he paid for it, and the encouragement and vision for followers to follow his example. One might also say the same for Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. Jesus said “I am the way, the truth and the light,” and he may be. But there are also other incarnations close to spiritual connections. Religion is full of stories. The medium of belief and hope is realized through these stories. Sometimes the stories become outdated to future generations, but often something may also be gleaned from them. The challenge of Christianity is to make sense of the stories the best it can, but realize that we do no longer live in a world of gods being appeased by sacrifices and such. Hope this perspective helps.
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