Burl

As a new Christian I'd love to read some perspectives on your beliefs as progressives:

 

1. Do you believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour?

2. What are your views on hell, eternal damnation, and demons?

3. What do you think about homosexuality?

4. Do you believe God created the earth in six literal days?

 

I'll add some more later if they come to me, thanks!

2) Hell is an incinerator. The spirit is disposed of as unworthy of continuance. Scripture describes hell as eternal, but the idea of eternal life in hell is just not there. That all comes from Milton and Danté, not the bible. Any kind of eternality is only for the saved. I have heard many believable stories of demons from well-educated health professionals but demons are beyond my understanding. They are definitely seperate from psychiatric conditions.

3) Homosexuality has been around since forever. The Christian Church has traditionally been a safe haven for all sinners, including homosexuals and know-it-alls. The current fracas is not because of homosexuality but because of egos, money, conceit and false pride on all sides.

4) Six literal days is a silly idea as days were not even created until the fourth day per Genesis. Genesis reveals that God created the world in a sequential and logical order, and that He stopped to evaluate his creation regularly. God could have created everything in one grand gesture, but did not. He took incremental steps, and regularly stood back to evaluate His work before proceeding.

Perhaps there are no paths to God but God is simply drawing us inexorably into him.

What we percieve as a path may be just be looking through the wrong end of the telescope. A path implies we are in control, and that may not be the case at all.

Thanks, Paul. I'm flattered.

Western Australia is famous among woodturners for great burls. Jarrah burl, mallee burl, coolibah burl. And you're writing all this way for a burl from Florida. Who'da thunk it?

You are kinda right, Steve. Hildegarde von Bingen, Thomas á Kempis and Thomas Merton were extrordinarily productive in their cenobitic lifestyles. I appreciate their meditations, but I am not brave enough to renounce the physical connections necessary nor do

I have their spiritual gifts. I do not fast, I am not celibate and my primary spiritual charisms appear to be teaching and sarcasm.

From what I have read on the PC homepage, PC seems to have a traditional mainstream Christian focus. It appears to be firmly biblically based and tolerant towards everything except intolerance, which is a rather loveable human hypocracy if you don't take yourself too seriously.

An open question to this community: this discussion board is moribund, yet the homepage has fine sermons left without a single comment. Why the disconnection?

I try to limit my mysticism to small doses. My mind has a remarkable capacity for self-delusion.

I think of it like the old WWII movies. When I am alone with my thoughts, I am behind enemy lines. Caution is the watchword.

One thing I found attractive about Progressive Christianity is the reliance on the common lectionary. It's the best way I know to hit all the biblical highlights, and avoid ministerial agendas.

This week's gospel reading is the Lord's Prayer passage. The "lead us not into temptation" part used to puzzle me, so I would gloss over it as a generic 'don't fall into sin' phrase.

Now I realize that as our broken souls follow God's lead we are inexorably drawn into evil and self-delusion, and we even use our good intentions as evidence of divine justification. Jesus knew we would do evil in his name and all the while think we were following God's lead.

The prayer is absolutely perfect.

Thank you for the warm welcome. I find Christianity a very simple and productive religion, but it is sort of like a junk shop that hasn't been tidied up in 2,000 years. It's often difficult to locate the truth under all the clutter.

I'm having a hard time following that, Soma. Can you give a concrete example? Obviously 'Heavenly Father' and 'soul' are discrete entities but the traditional Christian definitions don't fit your context.

Defining those terms might help me. Perhaps Aquinas can provide some common point of reference.

I just tell people I admire Jesus, and ask them how they feel about him. Muslims, neo-pagans, just about everyone likes Jesus and has something nice or at least neutral to say.

If you say Christian the first thing they think of is that crazy German bbq'ing Qu'rans on his Weber kettle.

My observation is that we exist in God, but there is a division which is exceptionally rare to eliminate. The body may become a holy vessel if it is kept sufficiently pure per 1 Corinthians 6:17-20. Much like Wesley's Christian Perfection or Michael Jordan's hang time, this is a fleeting experience at best.

Acts 17:28 - ‘In him we live and move and have our being’. Even Calvin noted there is a panentheistic aspect to existence. In some way, we live within God as a fish lives within water.

We always live in Christ, but it is a rare and temporary occurance for Christ to live within us. Pentecost and the early baptisms were great examples.

What are the calendar, blog, gallery, download areas for?

How does one style text, insert graphics etc?

A brief comment from an Orlando area resident. The public narrative is not correct on many points, and we will never know exactly what happened.

What is true is that there is a great deal of fear, and trust in Christ is the only way to live as fearlessly as we are able. Fear is the true enemy.

Hello. I joined this group because it seems intimate. I was brought up Roman Catholic where I had my knuckles rulered for muttering "Dominick packs Nabiscos" and "myfadderplaysdominoesbetter'nyourfadderplaysdominoes" during Mass. My seminary education was Wesleyan, which I find to be a healthy, productive and balanced framework.

I would describe myself as both conservative and open-minded. I'm not quite sure what a progressive Christian is, so this should be enlightening. Every time I have had a progressive realization I discovered someone else had it centuries earlier.