A Long Journey Home

[Guest billmc]

Did you ever have an experience, an idea, or a revelation that changed the way you look at things? For some people, becoming a parent is this sort of thing. For others, getting married or even getting divorced is this sort of thing. And probably for many more, discovering religion or “getting saved” is this sort of thing. Especially in what’s called the religious realm, circumstances don’t necessarily change, but how we see those circumstances does. Some may even call this “enlightenment.” It may be instantaneous, or it may take weeks, months, or years. But things seem to “shift” and you find that you just don’t see things the way you used to.

 

Some people are eager to talk about such “shifts.” Their experience is so dramatic that they just have to tell somebody. Evangelical Christians tend to be this way. When Jesus changes their lives, they want to tell everybody about it and assure them that Jesus can change their lives too.

 

But others who experience these “shifts” are quiet about it. They may have a more naturally quiet personality. Or they may wonder if their experiences are real. Or they may feel that if they “came out,” they would be picked on. They often feel like “I’m the only one to experience this or see this in this way.” So they stay quiet. That’s me. Or it was me. J

 

See, I was a Christian, and a fairly evangelical one at that, for about 30 years. I put a lot of my life into my Christianity and took it quite seriously. I went to Bible college and married a Christian wife. We had two nice little Christian babies and even a Christian dog with a cross-shaped dog tag. J I studied the Bible as much as I could, was a Sunday School teacher, and felt I was a decent apologist for the Christian faith. But there was something gnawing at me, either in the back of my mind or deep in my heart. For the sake of time and brevity, I won’t go into all of the details, but I’ll sum it up by saying that my personal experiences of God didn’t line up with all the doctrines that I was suppose to believe as a good Christian. This didn’t happen all at once, it accumulated over time. And I didn’t know what to do about it. I would go to church and something would be preached or said and my heart would respond, “I don’t believe that anymore. That doesn’t seem true to me.” What made this all the harder is that Christianity told me not to trust my heart, that my heart was deceitfully wicked and trying to draw me away from God.

 

A couple of years ago, I reached a breaking point. Some would call it a dark night of the soul. The discord between what I felt was right in my heart and what I heard in church lead to cognitive dissonance, a fancy term that means that I was trying to believe that what my heart said and what the church said were both true although often at direct odds. And I lost my faith. It seems my prayers were going unheard, I couldn’t read my Bible, and I stopped going to church. All my Christian friends could say was, “We’ll pray for you.” I was alone - just me and the shambles of my faith. Or so I thought.

 

Things went on like this for quite a while. I didn’t write down dates so I can’t tell you exactly how long this dark night of the soul lasted. But it seemed like forever. It was especially hard on my wife because she knew that I loved God and Jesus but felt like there was no where to turn to find help. I even had a counseling session with a retired pastor that I trusted and his conclusion was that I should question whether or not I was ever a true believer.

 

But I decided that if God was truly there, then he knew my heart. He knew all the cognitive dissonance that I was in and that I had lost my faith. And I felt like he would also know that deep down I still loved him or wanted to. So I got blatantly honest with him and told him how pissed off I was – with him, with the Bible, with the church, with the state of the world, and especially with myself. Despite my tirade, no lightning struck. Instead, it was like I heard this still, small voice inside saying, “Bill, what do YOU believe about me?” I wanted to respond with a Bible verse, or with what a creed says, or with what a church doctrine says. But he whispered, “Who do YOU say that I am?” I was honest in my reply. I said, “I don’t know. I don’t even know if you are real anymore.” That didn’t seem to bother him. Instead, I felt like he was saying, “Why don’t we discover together?”

 

This began a fairly lengthy time of “shift” for me. And it still isn’t over. It may be just the beginning. But I began a long process of rethinking, or maybe just giving myself the freedom to explore, my beliefs and experiences of God, Jesus, the Bible, the church, humanity, the world, life, and especially my own relationship to all of the above. I slowly began to see what I thought was light at the end of the tunnel, but I thought at the time that I was the only one who was thinking of or experiencing God and life this way. So I remained quiet about my “shift.”

 

Then, one day while I was researching my family’s surname on the web, I pulled up a link to something called “Celtic Christianity.” Being a curious person, I clicked on the link. As I began to read about the ancient Celtic Christian culture - how they saw God, Jesus, the Bible, humanity, and the world – I suddenly realized that I was not the only one who was crazy enough to think or believe as I did. As I read about their faith, I kept saying, “Yes! Me, too! This is how I experience it also!” I wasn’t alone. And my questions and musings were certainly not new ones. Something deep inside me resonated with what I read about Celtic Christianity and how these people experienced God and life. In fact, I openly wept as I read some of their poems that describe the beauty and the pain of life and living as part of God in this world. I was especially touched as I read about how these people, though certainly not perfect, did the best they could to be faithful to Christ and to each other long before they had Bibles or church doctrines or creeds. They didn’t have all the “safeguards” that modern Christianity has in order to try to make sure that everyone stays orthodox and on the straight and narrow path. Instead, they simply trusted the Spirit of Christ within them and within each other.

 

So I have developed an appreciation for Celtic Christianity. But it’s not because I think it is “the one true church” or “the way to heaven” or God’s only means of relating to us as human beings. Rather, it is because, for me, it is a Christ-centered way of living that believes and lives out the love and compassion for God. I may eventually “outgrow” this particular form of faith, I don’t know. What I do know is that it confirmed to me that God is still in my life, still working, and even behind the dark night of the soul that I experienced so that I could become more true to who I think he has created me to be.

[soma]

I feel in individual prayer, meditation and contemplation we face God. Thank you for your personal, unique and solitary communion.

[Guest billmc]

Point 3 - By calling ourselves progressive, we mean that we are Christians who understand the sharing of bread and wine in Jesus' name to be a representation of an ancient vision of God's feast for all peoples.

 

I really like this point. This is one point I wish our churches interpreted more literally. As a youth, communion was about me confessing my sins in order to keep a blank slate before God. I was often afraid that if I missed one, lightning would shoot out of heaven and vaporize me just as I was about to put the cracker in my mouth. Communion was mainly a private thing between me and God, it really wasn't much about communion with others except that we tried to time eating the cracker and drinking the juice in unison.

 

The cracker. Yuck. Yes, it is a cost-effective way to administer the 'Lord's Supper' to all the people, but it is often so dry and tasteless. Is this what the abundant life that Christ offers us tastes like?

 

I worked at a mission once where we did the coolest thing. About twice a year, instead of having the traditional cracker and grape juice, we turned 'communion' into a pot-luck or covered dish meal available to anyone in the neighborhood who wanted to come and each with us. We did not insist that they become Christians or join our church. We just fed people, asking nothing in return. I wish our churches would occasionally take this approach - really turn communion into communion, not just with God, but with others in a feast. No one leaves hungry. No one leaves feeling not welcome. No one leaves feeling there was a 'catch.' They just left feeling loved. And some of them did indeed come back.

[soma]

billmc again nice post. The Church, the family and life of God involved in union with each other. No my church, we want you possessiveness, just one mind and one love in divine mind. I would like that kind of attitude also. God bless.

[Guest billmc]

Point 4 - By calling ourselves progressive,we mean that we are Christians who invite all people to participate in our community and worship life without insisting that they become like us in order to be acceptable (including but not limited to): believers and agnostics, conventional Christians and questioning skeptics, women and men, those of all sexual orientations and gender identities, those of all races and cultures, those of all classes and abilities, those who hope for a better world and those who have lost hope; without imposing on them the necessity of becoming like us.

 

'Becoming like us.' The older I get, the more I see how self-centered I am, how much I am the center of my own universe. I see how much my ego wants others to see things my way, as if agreement validates my self-esteem and guarantees that I am right. Like a lot of Christians, I don't proclaim that this is my ego; instead I tend to proclaim that my views and standards are God's own views and standards. He becomes my 'big stick' that I can use to try to create others in my image. How can I stop this from happening? How can I exorcise myself of this demon of judgmentalism. I think my problem comes from my own faulty images of God. They have me trapped.

 

"Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free." - Jesus

 

Religion told me that I wasn't acceptable to God. It told me 'God loves you if' or 'God loves you when.' It especially told me 'God loves you but.' In other words, it put qualifiers on God's love for me. It made God's love for me conditional on something I needed to do or believe. Therefore, I treated others the same way. If God couldn't accept me 'just as I am,' how could I accept others just as they are?

 

But John 3:16 says God loves the world. Period. There is no 'if, when' or 'but', just God loves the world. I believe one of the ways he demonstrated that love was through Jesus Christ, through his life and death. And, yes, there is a human response to that love, but it is a response to something we ALREADY have - his love - not an effort to earn it or qualify for it.

 

Religion tells us that God's love and his good will towards us is always conditional. You have to do the right things or believe the right things or be part of the right group. But the gospel of Jesus as I'm coming to understand it is that God loves us - period. If I really believe that, then I can extend that same kind of love to others. They can be who they are. They don't have to be like me (thank God). They don't have to be a Christian. They just have to be. That is enough. If I can learn to respect their 'being' and entrust their 'being' to the One who created it, then maybe a bunch of us human 'beings' can get together and discuss, not where our limits are, but how far compassion can go in making a difference in our lives and in our world.

[soma]

Bill, I agree the process of becoming a good Christian is the process of falling in love. I have found in my mental prayer = contemplation = meditation God reveals his love in a heart to heart conversation that enlightens my mind and enflames my heart with intensity. I feel it is inside where the flames of love flicker and flare up. It also seems that religion can diminish and divide the love of God causing the heart to flicker. I wish religion would lead people into the inner altar of God where love can flare up and not become an attachment that limits and divides our love. As for me, reality has its deepest meaning in the deepest Reality of God, which I find in my center. I think religion is a starting place and not the final landing location so it is a good place to begin on our way to secure our spiritual focal point deep within ourselves. I try not to let religion cut my moorings so I will drift to the surface and become my superficial self. At the surface I seem to wander from one false center to another, forced to drift on the outside edge of life. In the end I become drained and exhausted and start searching and diving again to find the real center, which energizes with the heart to heart communion. This center seems to be everywhere in the heart of God even at the surface when I am there. It seems to be everywhere waiting for my ego to let go, a mindless state where everything is connected.

[Guest billmc]

I have found in my mental prayer = contemplation = meditation God reveals his love in a heart to heart conversation that enlightens my mind and enflames my heart with intensity.

 

I appreciate the way you put this, Soma. That is becoming my experience also. Speaking only for myself and the kind of religion I knew, it drew too many boundaries in my life and experiences and tried to limit how big my heart could become. It was like my heart was beating against these 'walls', wanting to expand, wanting to grow, but religion said, "No, you can't go past this point." It told me my heart would be 'safer' this way, more 'guarded.' But it became a prison. My 'setting free' has only just begun. I am by no means finished. But the truth is setting me free, one step at a time.

[Guest billmc]

My next few posts here could possibly be more inciteful than insightful. I am going to speak quite openly and honestly about fundamentalism, at least from my perspective of it. Please know that I am not purposefully trying to offend fundamentalists themselves as much as I am trying to critique the beliefs that not only do they themselves hold to, but that they insist that other Christians hold to. I am going to address the 5 fundamentals of fundamentalists, show why I no longer believe in these fundamentals and, hopefully, offer something of a spark of reinterpretation that might help others in their journey.

 

For those who don't know, Christian fundamentalism is a movement that became popular in the church during the late 1800's and early 1900's in reaction to the Enlightenment and to modern critical biblical scholarship. The Christians involved in the movement felt that they needed a set of 'fundamentals' of the Christian faith that they would not compromise on as being part of what it means to be a Christian. I applaud their desire to try to be discerning of their faith. But I question what they chose as their fundamentals, especially considering that Jesus said the love of God and love of others were primary.

 

There were originally 5 fundamentals that they decided on. The first thing I would like to say about these fundamentals is often overlooked. Christians, not Jesus, decided what the fundamentals of fundamentalist Christianity should be. To them, these are the essences of the Christian religion and if one does not hold to these 5 fundamentals, one is not a Christian, in their opinion. Fundamentalists won't hesitate to tell you that you are a heretic if you don't hold to these principles. It's been my experience that fundamentalists don't really care what Jesus had to say about these fundamentals. I.e. these are about the Christian religion, not necessarily about following Christ. They make the assumption that Christianity always follows Christ, but such is not the case. It doesn't. In fact, sometimes the teachings of Christianity go directly against what Jesus taught. But, IMO, most Christians are oblivious to this or they simply don't care. For Christians, it is usually more important that they follow their Christian religion than that they follow what Jesus taught.

 

So as I share my viewpoints on these 5 fundamentals, I'm more concerned about what Jesus had to say about these subjects than I am about what Christianity thinks. Christianity claims to follow Christ. If that is true, then the 5 fundamentals of fundamentalist Christianity should be very prevalent in Jesus' teachings, would you think?

 

The first fundamental of fundamentalist Christianity concerns how the Bible is viewed...

[Guest billmc]

The first fundamental of Christian fundamentalism concerns the Bible. Fundamentalists view the Bible in a certain way which becomes key to how they read, interpret, and apply the scriptures to themselves and the world.

 

The first fundamental says that fundamentalists hold to "the verbal inerrancy of the Scriptures." Some of them add to this the notion of infallibility. And some of them might qualify this fundamental by saying that it applies only to the original autographs (which we don't have, but which doesn't seem to bother them much).

 

But the concept behind this fundamental is this: God wrote the Bible. The Bible is not only the metaphorical 'Word of God', but it is the very 'words of God.' They will concede that God used humans to write the Bible. But some insist that God essentially put his exact words into the writer's head to come out of his pen, while others say that God simply supervised the writer's thoughts in such a way that no error was put into the text. They believe that every word is what God wanted and so, because God is without error, the Bible is without error.

 

Now, I could go into a lot of detail here to list errors and inconsistencies in the Bible, demonstrating that if the fundamentalist's claim is true, God isn't too concerned with accuracy or logic or continuity. Check out the first two chapters of Genesis and you will see that in one chapter humanity is created first before the animals and that in the other chapter, mankind is created after the animals. They can't both be right.

 

But, as I stated in my intro, what does Jesus have to say about this subject? Granted, the New Testament did not yet exist when he was preaching, but does he ever say that the Old Testament was infallible and inerrant? Does he ever contradict what the Old Testament has to say or teach? Does he every say something like, "You have heard it said (the OT was spoken in those days)...but I tell you...?

 

Why would Jesus revise or reinterpret or recaste the teachings of the Old Testament if he believed, as fundamentalists do, that every word in the Hebrew Bible was written by God?

 

These Christians will quickly jump, not to what Jesus had to say about the scriptures, but to what Paul had to say in 2 Timothy 3:16 where it says that all scripture is inspired (God-breathed). Okay. That's Paul's view, not Jesus'. Do Christians claim to follow Paul or Jesus?

 

Nevertheless, does being 'inspired' mean 'infallible and inerrant'? Consider Adam. According to Genesis, he was 'God-breathed.' Did this make him unable to do wrong? Consider the OT prophets who were 'inspired' by the Spirit. Did they ever make any mistakes while being inspired? Considered the disciples of Jesus, on whom he breathed the Spirit and said, "Receive the Spirit." Were they infallible and inerrant from that point on? Or did Peter mess up concerning eating with Jews-only? In the Bible, being 'inspired' is used way more in reference to people than it is to the scriptures. How 'perfect' were these people while being 'inspired?' We, too, are 'inspired' by God with the Spirit. Does that make us inerrant and infallible?

 

So the fundamentalist make two serious errors in his claim about the scriptures. He claims something for the scriptures that Jesus himself never taught and he interprets 'inspiration' to mean something that the Bible not only doesn't say, but argues against. Jesus nowhere taught that the Hebrew Bible was infallible and inerrant. And having something 'inspired', whether it is people or a book, is no guarantee that perfection is achieved.

 

I love the Bible. But I see it as a library of two ancient cultures' experiences and ideas about God, Jesus, themselves, and the world. It is a treasure, but it is not God and it is not the Living Word.

[Guest billmc]

The second fundamental of Christian fundamentalists concerns Jesus' virgin birth.

 

Fundamentalist Christians, because they believe that every word in the Bible comes straight from God, hold to the story of Jesus' virgin birth as a historical fact.

 

Interesting, Mark and John never mention Jesus having a 'virgin birth.' Only Matthew and Luke tell this story. So my first thought is, if this is a fundamental, if it is so important to Christianity, why do only half the gospels mention it?

 

Let's take it a step further, and you can probably guess where I am going with this. Jesus never once mentions his virgin birth in his teachings. Not once. In all of the things he had to say - the Sermon on the Mount, his parables of God's kingdom, his private teachings to his disciples - Jesus never says that they and his subsequent followers have to believe in his virgin birth. Why not? If this belief is a fundamental of what it means to be a follower of Christ, why didn't Jesus talk about it?

 

Even Paul, who is probably the true founder of Christianity as a religion, never says that Jesus was born of a virgin. He says that Jesus was born of a woman, but the word 'woman' simply means 'adult female', not 'virgin.' So this doctrine of Jesus' virgin birth wasn't part of either Jesus' or Paul's gospels.

 

So why do the fundamentalists put so much emphasis on this doctrine? They do so because another fundamental doctrine called 'substitutionary atonement' supposedly requires a sinless sacrifice in order to purchase the forgiveness of sins. I'll talk about this fundamental later, but the notion is that God cannot freely forgive sins or sinners, he must punish sins and sinners. He has no choice in the matter. And the logistics of this work out in such a way that God needed someone sinless to punish in the place of sinners, sort of an even swap. The only way for Jesus to be sinless was for him to be born of a virgin for, it was thought, the male seed alone carried the 'sin DNA'.

 

For the fundamentalists, remove Jesus' virgin birth and you no longer have a sinless sacrifice and you are no longer forgiven and you don't pass 'Go', you simply careen right into hell.

 

But my point is still that Jesus never taught his virgin birth that we know of. He never made believing in it a requirement for his followers. So why does the church?

[JosephM]

But my point is still that Jesus never taught his virgin birth that we know of. He never made believing in it a requirement for his followers. So why does the church?

 

A most excellent question.

 

Joseph

[Guest billmc]

The third fundamental of Christianity fundamentalism is the divinity of Jesus.

 

I'm really gonna stir the pot with this one. Fundamentalists claim that to be a Christian, one must believe in the divinity of Jesus. I believe in the divinity of Jesus...but not in the same way that they do.

 

When they talk about the divinity of Jesus, it is hard to pin them down as to exactly what they mean by the term. They claim that God became a man...but then they say that this man had always been God. They claim that Jesus is God, that the Father is God, that the Spirit is God...but then they say that Jesus is not the Father and is not the Spirit. They claim that Jesus was fully human, which seems to mean that he wasn't divine...but they claim that he was divine. They claim that he was God, which seems to me that he wasn't human...but they claim that he was human. They insist that to be human means to be a sinner...but they claim that Jesus was sinless. They claim that Jesus was born at a specific time...but they he has always existed.

 

So when it comes to the divinity of Jesus, fundamentalists are, IMO, quite confused about the subject. They believe that God and humanity are always separate, but claim that, in Jesus, God and humanity come together in a unique way that didn't happen before and never will again. Jesus is one-of-a-kind. This sort of makes it impossible for us to be like him, doesn't it? After all, most of us will admit to being fully human. But few of us want to claim that we are fully God, right? How can God or Jesus expect us to follow him when he isn't really like us at all?

 

As I said, I believe in the divinity of Jesus. But I would put it this way: Jesus was divine because he had the Spirit of God on him and in him in such a way that people could see God in him. And here is the kicker (or the heresy): We share in the same divinity. If we are walking or living by the Spirit of God in us, then people should see God in us and we share in the divine nature. We are called to follow Jesus, not in a legalistic WWJD sense, but in relying on God's Spirit in us as our source of strength and love. When we do that, we are just as divine as Jesus. In fact, the word 'Christian' mean 'little Christ.' Christians want to claim a false humility. They want to say that they are just 'sinners saved by grace.' But if they truly believed they were 'Christians', wouldn't they want to be 'little Christs'? Wouldn't they want to live as Jesus lived and share the same mission and passion that he did?

 

So I believe in Jesus' divinity. But I don't believe he was Yahweh in a 'man-suit.' Rather, just as the scriptures say, I believe he was a prophet anointed by the Spirit to preach and live out God's kingdom. And I believe we have a similar call. Christianity says that the goal of being a Christian is to be like Christ. I'm down with that. But you can't be like him if he is so 'other', so 'one-off' that there is no resemblance between us and him. He was a human, just like we are. And he was anointed by God (that's what 'Christ' means), just as we can be. And we can be just as divine as he was, if we follow that anointing.

[Guest billmc]

The fourth fundamental of fundamentalism is the theory of substitutionary atonement. This theory originated, not with Jesus or with the apostle Paul, but with Anselm, a Christian who lived in the latter half of 1000. Anselm pulled certain verses out of the Bible and put them together in a systematic way to try to understand what happened on the cross when Jesus died. It needs to be said that this understanding is only a theory, the Bible does not specifically teach it. But fundamentalists hold to it anyway.

 

In brief, the theory goes like this: Humans are sinners and their sin offends God. But God loves them and wants to forgive them. But due to his justice (more on this later), God cannot simply forgive sin, he must punish it, someone must pay for it. And God cannot accept the payment of a sinner, he requires a pure sacrifice. Jesus, because he did not sin, became this pure sacrifice on the cross and paid for sinners' sins. He took our place and God 'substituted' Jesus for us on the cross when we should have been there. Because Jesus' blood was pure, God accepted Jesus' payment...providing.

 

Why providing? Because, for most evangelicals, if you as an individual don't put faith and trust in what Jesus did on the cross, God does not accept Jesus' payment on your behalf and will ultimately send you to hell. So Jesus' payment only 'takes' when you become a Christian.

 

Now, this is complicated a bit by Christian Universalists who believe that Jesus' payment on the cross was so inclusive and effective that everyone's sins are already forgiven...they just don't know it. And then we have the Calvinists who insist that Jesus' payment was only for the elect, the chosen by God. And then we have a lot of Protestants and Catholics that believe confession is necessary in order to keep sins 'under the blood.' So things are not quite as simple as they may first appear.

 

What I find ironic about this view is that the fundamentalists insist that because God is just, he must punish sin. But then they insist that God punished Jesus in our place, that God punished an innocent man for the sake of the guilty. Is that just? How is it just for an innocent man to suffer punishment and for the guilty to go free? Do our laws work that way? I don't want God punishing Jesus in my place. I'd rather God simply forgive me.

 

And this is the crux of the matter for me. Substitutionary Atonement says that God cannot (or will not) forgive sin or the sinner for simply asking God to be merciful and forgive. It says that God MUST punish sin. Sins cannot be forgiven, they must be 'paid for' or 'atoned for.' Somebody must pay. God has no choice in the matter. One way of another, God must have human blood. This 'theory' about the death of Jesus says some pretty nasty and uncomfortable things about God's nature.

 

There is no doubt that the ancient Jews believed in animal and blood sacrifice to keep Yahweh's anger appeased. But towards the end of the Old Testament, God tells them that he doesn't want sacrifice, that he wants mercy instead. And Jesus forgave peoples sins and told his disciples to forgive sins without the, supposedly necessary, 'shedding of blood.' Jesus wasn't my substitute on the cross. And I don't need a God who has to punish one of his children in order to forgive another. I don't need a God who is a 'divine child-abuser.' I believe in a God who is merciful and forgives sins, not because he is paid-off to do so, but simply because he is a merciful and forgiving God.

[Guest billmc]

The fifth and last fundamental that fundamentalists hold to is actually two-for-the-price-of-one. Fundamentalists believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus and his physical return to the earth to reign as King of King and Lord of Lords.

 

Was Jesus' 'rising again' a physical resurrection? It's a good question and still hotly debated, even after 2000 years. The problem? We have no proof. The gospels, when it comes to the resurrection, don't agree as to what happened, when it happened, or who saw it happen. And the term 'physical' is troubling. For one thing, Jesus' 'physical' resurrected body could go through walls or closed doors. No physical bodies that we know of can do that. For another, his 'physical' resurrected body could be instantaneously 'transported' between places miles and miles apart, again, something no physical bodies that we know of can do. And his 'physical' resurrected body could disguise itself so that Jesus could not be recognized as Jesus, something that most of us would require plastic surgery in order to accomplish. Add to this that all physical bodies that we know of die and we can see that whatever the gospel writers may have believed about Jesus' body, it certainly didn't seem to be much like the physicality that we know of. Maybe we could call it 'trans-physical', but to insist that Jesus' body was physical means his 'physicality' bears little resemblance to our 'physicality.' Now, if we only had a modern resurrection that we could study...

 

Concerning Jesus' return to earth, this is, again, an issue where Christians are deeply divided. We have pre-millenialists, post-millenialists, a-millenialists, and preterists. I lean towards preterism myself, believing that most of Jesus' prophecies about the future were fulfilled during the first century.

 

In keeping with preterism, I do believe that Jesus 'bodily returned to earth' during the first century. We are his bodily return. We are the Body of Christ, here on this earth to continue his message and ministry. His Spirit is in us to unenable us to do so. Jesus did return, and he did so...in us.

 

IMO, the Church should be the Body of Christ, continuing to be 'Jesus' hands and feet' and heart to a hurting world, doing God's will here, which is loving others. But the Church seems to be more often concerned with waiting for Jesus to swoop down from heaven like Superman to rescue them from this world. The world could go to hell in a hand-basket and they wouldn't care as long as they each have their 'mansion over the hilltop.'

 

So I'll conclude by saying that it may be possible that Jesus' resurrection and return isn't so much about him as it is about us. It is in us that his life continues in this world everyday. It is in us that he finds hands and feet to help feed, heal, cloth, shelter, and touch a hurting world. Fundamentalists won't like my interpretations but that's okay. I don't answer to them or to their interpretations and have little interest in arguing with them. I follow Jesus in the way that makes the most sense to my head and to my heart, not according to the traditions of the Church.

[soma]

Bill you are a rebel and that is not bad for Christianity, it seems that the popular Christianity taught was not good for you. I feel the rebellion against modern Christianity is due to the consciousness and intelligence observing the truth and comparing it to teachings that dishonor God and man. I feel thoughtful, educated, and intelligent people have slipped away from Christianity because the fundamental church has represented God as a tyrant and man as evil. It is not moral degradation that leads the revolt against fundamental dogma, but moral outrage and intelligent shock at the crude ideas and authoritative teachings that are rammed down people’s throats. I feel they have forced Christian Mysticism behind a veil so people fail to notice reality, truth and the personal spiritual experience with Christ. I am not against Christianity, but feel it needs to awaken the inner teachings, which need evidence and theory. The Christian mystics seem to be persecuted for seeking illumination of the inner light and listening for the inner voice of God. I feel the future of the Church depends on the greater mysteries being taught by God’s children of light along side the lesser mysteries as preparation. The hirelings who alienate people against Christian Mysticism need to be replaced, as they are the blind leading the blind.

[Guest billmc]

Bill you are a rebel and that is not bad for Christianity

 

Who, me?

 

Soma, you had a lot of food for thought in your response to me, some of it about me and some of it about your own observations, which I agree with. So I'd like to return comment in two parts.

 

Yes, my name is Bill and I am a rebel. Does PC offer a 12-Step program for rebels? Some think I rebel solely out of hurt, pain, or maybe revenge. I have searched my heart concerning this and, yes, some of it does come from the hurt and pain. But despite the , I don't live in the hurt and pain. They are/were simply seeds planted in my heart that would help me grow in compassion. We have talked a lot on this board about theodicy. We haven't resolved the issue (being good Progressive Christians and all) but we know that it is out of suffering and pain that compassion seems to grow. So I don't regret the hurt and pain, trusting that God will use it, hopefully, to make me more compassionate towards the suffering of others. So my rebellion comes, I hope, from my concern about people, not in shielding them from pain and hurt, because that seems to be part of "just the way life is", but of out not putting them through the unnecessary harm that fundamentalism can do to our lives and our images of God. I love Christianity for what it is - just like me, a cracked and broken container that somehow still manages to carry something of the truth of the love of God in it. In that, we can rejoice and be thankful. But when it pretends to be a perfect vessel incapable of misinterpretation or misunderstanding; when it pretends that only its teachings will gain someone the love or presence of God, then it has, IMO, crossed the line and set itself up to be the very One that it should only point to. It seems to be the nature of humanity that we will worship things we create rather than the Creator.

 

But I need, quite often, to be reminded to be humble in my rebellion. I have not yet 'arrived.' My journey home has only just begun. And I shouldn't approach these things from the viewpoint of "now I have the truth and can tell everyone else how wrong they are." That tendency is strong in me, probably due to my upbringing. I am good at deconstruction. But I'm not that good at reconstruction. Therefore, I try to temper by criticisms by considering other ways to see things. If I can't do that, then I should probably keep my mouth shut. No one likes a critic.

 

People have been raised in fundamentalism and have turned out to be very loving Christians, I know that. I attribute this to two main factors: 1) the mysterious grace of God and 2) fundamentalism is more about what you believe than about what you do (i.e. you can believe in the virgin birth and be very loving, and you can believe in the virgin birth and be an ass). God does indeed work in mysterious ways.

 

My main gripe about fundamentalism is that it presents an almost immediate roadblock to people who might otherwise consider Jesus and what following him means. Fundamentalism tells people that they need to, as Alice says, "believe six impossible things before breakfast" in order to become a follower of Jesus, things which Jesus himself never taught. If people consider following Jesus, IMO, they should do it based on what Jesus taught, not on what the church says needs to be believed in order to be considered to be a Christian. I am not worried that these people who may be blocked by the intellectual dishonesty of fundamentalism will go to hell, but why make the path harder than it needs to be? Following Jesus is 'difficult' enough as it is (in learning to love others, to be compassionate, to make a difference in this world, to be self-sacrificing) without adding believing in nonsensical or anti-intellectual propositions into the mix.

 

So my "cure" for this, in my open rebellion, is to say, "Go and look at what Jesus taught. Read the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the Plain. Read the Lord's Prayer. Does he mention the five fundamentals of Christianity in his teachings?" If not, add them if they make sense to you and your kind of faith requires them. But allow others the freedom to not carry them on their journey, especially if they don't necessarily make us more Christ-like.

 

I'll be back later concerning the rest of your response, Soma. You write some good stuff, ya know?

[Guest billmc]

Hi Soma. You wrote:

 

I feel the rebellion against modern Christianity is due to the consciousness and intelligence observing the truth and comparing it to teachings that dishonor God and man. I feel thoughtful, educated, and intelligent people have slipped away from Christianity because the fundamental church has represented God as a tyrant and man as evil.

 

I think your assessment is spot-on. Of course, these views can be found in the Bible, especially if interpreted a certain way. But I am perplexed as to why Christianity or the Church chose to use these concepts as central instead of the concepts of God as love and as humanity being earthly image of that love.

 

It is not moral degradation that leads the revolt against fundamental dogma, but moral outrage and intelligent shock at the crude ideas and authoritative teachings that are rammed down people’s throats.

 

Again, spot-on. Here in Texas we still have the occassional crackpot standing on street intersections handing out Chick tracts. I give him credit (for some reason, it is never a woman), he is sincere in his beliefs. But he is so motivated by fear.

 

I feel they have forced Christian Mysticism behind a veil so people fail to notice reality, truth and the personal spiritual experience with Christ.

 

This is an area where I have grown...some...but not enough, and need to grow more. I grew literally tired of my faith being based on and judged against the faith of Paul or of the Church Fathers, councils, etc. I needed something of my own, something that did not depend on 'second-hand' faith as if someone else could be a mediator between God and I. Despite my recent experiences, I am at a loss to know whether it is God or Christ or the Spirit that I am experiencing in my heart. Is there a difference? I don't know. All I know is that it SEEMS real, but I cannot prove it to others.

 

I am not against Christianity, but feel it needs to awaken the inner teachings, which need evidence and theory. The Christian mystics seem to be persecuted for seeking illumination of the inner light and listening for the inner voice of God.

 

And isn't this odd considering Jesus' statement that the Spirit (not the Bible, not the Church) would lead us into all truth? Not to Dawkinize anything and say that the Bible and the Church are total farces and should be eliminated (perish the thought), but what role does the Spirit have? Is it a slave to the Bible, to the Church? I think not. As the UCC says, "God is still speaking..." Fundamentalists insist that God HAS spoken and he is done doing so. But such a view goes back to the canonization of the Bible, not to the teachings of Jesus.

 

I feel the future of the Church depends on the greater mysteries being taught by God’s children of light along side the lesser mysteries as preparation. The hirelings who alienate people against Christian Mysticism need to be replaced, as they are the blind leading the blind.

 

I agree. There are issues facing us as human beings that may well be issues of our survival that the Bible simply does not address in any specific way. We need the Logos, the Wisdom of God to discern what to do. These things cannot be solved by quoting a Bible verse or by our belief in Jesus' virgin birth.

 

I could never say this on another board (well, I could say it...and then get banned), but I believe the Incarnation needs to continue. The Spirit of God needs to be continually born anew in each of us in each and every generation so that something of God's dream can be realized, for the sake of our survival. I don't believe the Bible and the Church are up to the tasks of the future. While they have been used by God and will continue to be, only the Spirit can guide us and lead us into the future. To me, the "mysteries" need to be made manifest. And it may be more than just the future of the Church that is at stake.

 

My railings against the fundamentals is that, IMO, there are impotent and irrelevant to address the issues that we face today. They are a criteria for measuring who is a "Christian" (by their definition) and who is not. They say nothing about how we should live our lives as 21st century spiritual people who care about our world and want to make a difference.

 

Thanks for a great conversation, Soma.

[JosephM]

Bill,

 

The entire post is a very insightful post in my personal opinion.

 

Despite my recent experiences, I am at a loss to know whether it is God or Christ or the Spirit that I am experiencing in my heart. Is there a difference? I don't know. All I know is that it SEEMS real, but I cannot prove it to others.

 

I think this statement shows great insight. How can one proof to the flesh of others that which can only be subjectively experienced for oneself? The answer, at least to me, is that one simply can't. It has to be experienced for oneself and no proof is then necessary nor is any proof to the other realistically possible.

 

Joseph

[soma]

Despite my recent experiences, I am at a loss to know whether it is God or Christ or the Spirit that I am experiencing in my heart. Is there a difference? I don't know. All I know is that it SEEMS real, but I cannot prove it to others.

 

I feel God, Christ and the Spirit are the same, and we have different words so we can talk about the different aspects, means of communication and relationships we have with God. I love talking about this so excuse me for getting into it.

 

If we want to get wet we have to dive into the water, to get warm we get next to the fire, and if we want to love God we have to dive into the divine, spiritual love of God. I feel individuals through intuition know that which is outside by bringing it inside the conscious mind where the perception and the perceiver become one and the same. This process I would call love where one knows and loves something by bringing it into his heart. It seems nothing can appear in the objective world unless there is first a subjective world to perceive that object; therefore, it seems there is no object on the outside of God because everything exists inside God’s subjectivity; therefore the tree that falls in the forest is heard and does exist. Our thoughts arise from a medium in which both the one who sees, and that which is seen, exist in unity. The Bible says, "God is everything." Therefore, God exists in me, and because of this I can recognize other beings in which God exists. I feel this is the medium (can put other words here) through which we are conscious of others, our environment and ourselves; therefore, “Love your brother as your self.”

 

It is hard to understand and love the abstract so as a Christian I have chosen to grow up in Christ. I try to think like Him, love like Him and act like Him. In this way I am learning to love God, the great abstract. We can’t love what we don’t know so we I feel we develop a personal, intimate, spiritual experience with God or a personal relationship with Christ. For this reason I feel our minds must remain free to explore, to contemplate and to evaluate higher subjects in order to gain maturity, love and understanding of God; or else we stagnate. I can relate this to being a Progressive Christian where we can be silent, live in service, solitude or mental prayer to love consciously in the here and now or presence of God.

 

Knowledge of God is not loving God so mere thinking, and hearing about God is not loving God. We learn to love God by loving God. Knowledge, thinking and hearing about God can fan our spark of love, but we need to love Him on good days and bad days. I feel a good proof of our love is sacrifice because it says we prefer to love God above everything else so we can make use of our understanding without direction from another because we start to listen to our intuition and wisdom. Religious or rigorous practice does not give us intuition or wisdom because we already have them, but it does give us the resolution and courage to use our intuition without another’s direction so people who are enthusiastic have nothing to fear from life. Religion or rigorous practice can't be applied with pressure and intimidation similar to what is happening in some churches because that only brings force and violence, not wisdom so it must be fulfilled with reason, debate and intuition. It seems when religion is left to the conviction and conscience of every person, then one can achieve a balance in this world between positive and negative, good and evil, and also between pleasure and pain. For this reason I feel if religion brings fear, hatred, separation or anything that will frighten a child, it is probably not a true practice. Religion should bring reverence and respect for everyone and everything.

 

I feel God leads us on a natural path in agreement with the spiritual plan for the evolution of the individual and the species because God can impart ideas to us by means of dreams, hunches and intuition. In this way the higher understandings and perceptions approach the conscious mind so no one can say that God is unable to speak through these means? We need only to think of the prophets and the saints who without the higher layers of their mind open to suggestion wouldn't have been able to receive sublime inspirations from beyond the conscious mind and then express them in words or shape them into religious symbols.

 

We have different words for God, now man. The body can be seen as a candle, the mind can be seen as a flame and our intuition or higher mind as the light around it. I feel the Spirit or Soul is the witness of God’s pure consciousness that sees all inside and out. We can’t prove this to others except by our actions, which is social service, etc. I feel a good Christian doesn’t even have to speak about Christ, just live as Christ would live. A scientist thinks about a problem and concentrates to solve it. They look at the outward signs and say they have solved the problem and have done a great or good thing. The inward significance is that their concentration has opened the mind to a greater field of receptivity. In their contemplation they have complete reliance upon natural law, an unqualified trust in it, and this directs the mind to other channels that bring everything into focus. I feel this is true prayer. These men have entered the realms of a deeper reality, and I appreciate their consciousness because they have had experiences that the average man cannot conceive. Even the scientists go behind the material world and stand next to the consciousness of God that supports our physical existence in theories. I agree that we must test all ideas, laws, theories and processes to see if they are the Truth or not, like the scientist, we must be on guard against accepting that which is not true. Bill you do a good job with this. The scientists do this by performing an experiment and if someone else can reproduce the experiment then they call it a truth. I feel as Christian mystics we have to observe our internal environment, unity, love and God consciousness and if we can reproduce it in a good way then that is proof to ourselves to continue and get closer to God. Another can’t tell us how to love; we learn to love by loving. I think people want to eat cake and not just hear stories and descriptions about it so there is no proof except our love. We love God I feel by changing mundane things for celestial things and human things for divine things. In other words we exchange everything for God or love.

[Guest billmc]

Been a while since I've said anything on this thread so I thought I would update it a bit.

 

As I mentioned elsewhere about "Route 66", I've been thinking a lot about my spiritual journey. Having come out of (or still coming out of) Christian fundamentalism where the goal of the Christian life seemed to be to drive a stake in the ground as far as knowing exactly what one believes and holding to "the faith once delivered to the saints," it is unsettling to find almost everything in one's life up for grabs. Though I struggled with a number of things as a Christian, there was always the comfort that God was in control. For various reasons which I won't go into, I no longer feel that way. My life is my own which, I believe, God has given me as a gift. But I don't think God controls me (or anyone else, for that matter). But what I wanted to update about really isn't my theological notions which seem to blow this way and that as I travel along, but about how we, or more specifically I, long to both journey AND to have a home.

 

I still long for a spiritual home. And that makes me think that I haven't found one yet. Do you know, really know, when you find it? Or do you create it for yourself? I want a place to hang my hat, to feel safe. Not safe from all the world's troubles, because my religion, such as it is, calls me into those troubles. But safe to be who I am, deep down, and still feel okay about myself and my Creator. And I starting to feel that...a bit. But I'm certainly not overwhelmed with the sensation.

 

At the same time, leaving Christianity has thrown open this door in my life where I want to journey and learn as much as I can about everything. Not to gain "head knowledge," but to experience as much as I can, believing that everything is sacred and comes from a good Creator. I'm interested in a thousand different things and have so little time to learn and no filter to tell me what to learn first.

 

I was thinking of the old Aesop's (sp?) fable of the tortoise and the hare. The hare was fast. No doubt about it. But he didn't have his priorities quite right. The tortoise was slow, but determined. Unlike the fable, I don't really see my life as a race (although I know the Finish Line isn't too far distant). But I don't want to really be the hare for two reasons. One, I don't want to go so fast that I miss the sights along the way. And, two, perhaps like the tortoise, I am in some odd way actually taking my home with me. Maybe I've been looking for it "out there" when it has been, in a good way, on my back all along.

 

Well, enough rambling thoughts for now. But then, that what I do best -- ramble on and on.

[JosephM]

Bill,

 

It seems to me that Home is the acceptance of wherever you are at in the world of form in the spaciousness and stillness of the formless. That is Rest and the best explanation in words i have to give at this hour.

 

Your friend and brother in Christ,

Joseph

[spiritseeker]

 

I still long for a spiritual home. And that makes me think that I haven't found one yet. Do you know, really know, when you find it? Or do you create it for yourself? I want a place to hang my hat, to feel safe. Not safe from all the world's troubles, because my religion, such as it is, calls me into those troubles. But safe to be who I am, deep down, and still feel okay about myself and my Creator. And I starting to feel that...a bit. But I'm certainly not overwhelmed with the sensation.

 

 

his is exactly what I strive for Bill. I feel that we are on very similar paths. As you know I am feeling very strongly about Universalism but this forum (especially our chats) has made me feel like this place is the best place for me at the moment.

 

Thank you for the last few days and I loook forward to building on our friendship!

[Guest billmc]

It seems to me that Home is the acceptance of wherever you are at in the world of form in the spaciousness and stillness of the formless.

 

This resonates with me, Joseph. In my former religious paradigm, finding home was, supposedly, finding a group of people who believe as you do. But in my expanding horizons, I appreciate others who allow me to be who I am, who entrust me to my Creator, and who encourage me to go deeper into life. Home, for me, is less centered on beliefs and more about finding the freedom to grow. And it makes me want to be that way with others also.

 

To Spiritseeker: I'm really enjoying getting to know you also, my friend. I sense that we are both seeking the very best from what our religious traditions have to offer us while being open to new ideas and opportunities to grow. That is, IMO, a very good and wise thing.

[tariki]

Just to share, a little verse written by one of my mentors, Shinran, from a collection entitled:- "Hymns of the Pure Land Masters"

 

 

My eyes being hindered by blind passions,

I cannot perceive the light that grasps me;

Yet the great compassion, without tiring,

Illumines me always.

 

(Not much difficulty in "hearing" these words in the form taken by any Faith)

[soma]

tariki I like that. I wish it was shorter so I could use it as a mantra. I would like to repeat it endlessly.