Kathy23

I agree with everyone's explanations of mystical experiences. My first experience of this was when I was in college. As part of a sociology class, we went to a maximum security prison to meet guards and inmates and learn about the realities of prison life. At one point, I was looking at a large group of inmates and I "saw" them as the cute little 5 year old kids they once were. Now, this was more like a powerful thought, not a literal vision. And it was accompanied by a powerful emotion of devastation that so much human potential is not being realized. It was like I woke up to a part of reality that I had not been aware of before, even though I had been raised in an abusive family so wasn't wearing any rose colored glasses. I guess I was struck by the fact that while I was making it, so many aren't. I didn't know what to do with the experience at first except to just be with it. It never let me go and not long after I graduated, I went into criminal justice as a profession and am still doing that today. So I experienced this as signaling my "calling" so to speak. Since then, I have experienced other similar, but less intense, "awakenings" in my life. I see it as the way that the spirit within me guides me. Not in the sense that a personal god is speaking to me and telling me what to do but moreso in the sense that I'm able to be in tune with situations and what I have to offer to them, if that makes any sense at all.

When my husband and I started dating many years back, we had an interesting discussion one night about religion. We both came from very similar standpoints - raised protestant but had grown beyond theism... He made the statement that religion had done more harm throughout the ages than good, particularly in regards to Christianity. I disagreed, arguing that religion served a useful purpose in helping many people get closer to "god" and that many good works have been done in the service of people's understanding of "god" that they got in the church. And even in situations where god is used mostly as a drug to make people feel better, it often still leads to growth and good works. So despite all the horrors done by religion, the rough calculation in my head was that it was a net good. However, as time goes by, and I watch fundamentalist views influencing state and national legislatures, the calculation in my head is starting to change. We are already starting to suffer the consequences of climate change deniers, and some churches have a role in that. And while corporate America is exploiting religious folks on this and many other issues to do their bidding, the church is complicit in this. My question is what is our responsibility as Christians to address the destructive behavior of other Christians? It is not ok for them to teach hate against gay people, it is not ok for them to confuse children about science, it is not ok for them to pass themselves off as the 'true believers' and try to legislate their outdated beliefs for the rest of us. And I don't think it is ok for those of us to believe otherwise to sit back and let them go unchallenged. But I don't know what an organized response would be. They automatically dismiss any opinions that come from "non-Christians" but perhaps (and this is more of a question) they would have a better chance of listening if there was more vocal pushback from other Christians. Or perhaps I'm naive on that? Maybe they won't listen regardless.

Hi everyone. I'm an almost 50 year old who has been reading Bishop Spong's work for about 25 years. I grew up in the Methodist church and was very influenced by the life and teachings of Jesus (still am). However, I could not get on board with the theistic (and parental) concept of God or the virgin birth and physical resurrection stories. And at about 12, decided if there was a theistic God, I didn't like him so would figure things out for myself. I was very drawn to the writings of the mystics and philosophers and eventually stumbled on Paul Tillich's The Courage to Be - this resonated with me immediately. I returned to a fairly liberal church in my 20s but was very frustrated with the level of discussion of spiritual issues. So I ended up in psychological/spiritual counseling for 3 years - best thing I ever did for myself. My therapist, a former chaplain in the military who was also a historian and biblical scholar, introduced me to Bishop Spong's work. For the last 20 years or so I've been pretty content to call myself an atheist/nontheist because intellectually I'm closer to that line of thought than to traditional (even liberal) Christian thought. But I do have a working concept of God that is along the lines of Tillich's "ground of all being" and more recently I've discovered it's similar to the Taoist understanding of the Tao. And the reality is that I have always been a Christian at heart and the life and teachings of Jesus are integral to how I live my life. I actually find Jesus to be more compelling as a human being than as some divine being. Like Amy, I struggle with the fact that conservative Christians have the bullhorn and that the church is still so stuck on the more "magical" aspects of Jesus rather than the historical and extremely human aspects of Jesus. Admittedly, it keeps the bar comfortably low for Christians if Jesus is divine - hence we can't be expected to do the hard stuff he did..... My current struggle is that I would like to be part of the conversation but am still so far from conventional thinking on this that it's hard to find a forum for this. And I would like to see Christianity grow and embrace the "believers in exile" so to speak so that folks won't be so turned off of all things Jesus just because many of his followers believe incredulous things. One of the things I like about Eastern religions is that they are so much less dogmatic and are more open to rational thought. While I'm open to things I don't yet understand and can't explain, I will not predefine these things and then set my belief on my limited definitions. Anyway, I look forward to exploring these message boards and continuing my spiritual growth, wherever it leads... Thanks!