sterrettc

Okay, here's my 1.8 cents worth. (10% discount) By calling ourselves progressive, we mean that we are Christians who: 1. Proclaim Jesus Christ as our Gate to the realm of God AlethiaRivers said “Other times I wonder why I'm trying to find meaning in a tribal religion, from another country and another time.” i) Just because they were tribal, from another country, and in another time does not mean that they may have had some very valuable insights into life and the divine. We call ourselves progressive, in part, because we believe that we are capable of making progress. While we don’t want to be held back by a rigid requirement to believe now what they believed then, at the same time we shouldn’t want to have to start over from zero in every generation. We are capable of progress. Let us recognize that tribal people from another country and time were also. ii) I believe that Jesus transcended the society into which he was born. There are aspects of his message that are very much about that society, and there are transcendent lessons that are still valuable to us today. To an extent, we need to know something about that society to recognize what the transcendent message is. 2. Recognize the faithfulness of other people who have other names for the gateway to God's realm In any real dialogue between person of different faiths there has to be some mutual respect. Each person has to recognize the other’s faith as a valid set of beliefs. At the same time, each person has to recognize the other’s right to feel that his beliefs are, in some way, better or more true. What I am trying to say is this. If you and I believe differently, but respect each other, then you must recognize the validity of my feeling that my beliefs are truer than yours, but at the same time I must recognize the validity of your feeling that your beliefs are truer than mine. I can respectfully tell you why I think that my beliefs are true, perhaps even why they are truer, but if I accuse you of willfully believing things that you know are not true, then I have ceased to respect your beliefs as beliefs. 3. Understand our sharing of bread and wine in Jesus's name to be a representation of God's feast for all peoples While I do understand the sharing of the bread and wine in Jesus’s name to be a representation of God’s feast for all peoples, I have a little problem with this statement. It seems to be dismissive of a belief in the real conveyance of grace through the sacraments. The Reformed Christian belief is that the sacraments are given to us by God as the sign and seal of the Covenant of Grace. This makes me think of a contract. While it would be possible for God either to default on a contract or to provide grace despite not having given us a contract, we believe that he did give us the contract as a sign that he would be faithful to it. 4. Invite all sorts and conditions of people to join in our worship and in our common life as full partners, including (but not limited to): believers and agnostics, conventional Christians and questioning skeptics, homosexuals and heterosexuals, females and males, the despairing and the hopeful, those of all races and cultures, and those of all classes and abilities, without imposing on them the necessity of becoming like us; I have known conservatives who would tell you that they would welcome, for example, a family headed by a lesbian couple to their church. However, what they mean is that would welcome the opportunity to get that couple to see the error of their ways. In the end, I would say they are not welcoming to that family because, while expressing welcome to the members of the family, they would be denying the validity of their identity as a family. I would welcome individuals as they are. I would also welcome families as they are. 5. Think that the way we treat one another and other people is more important than the way we express our beliefs; Yes. But I still think that beliefs are important. 6. Find more grace in the search for meaning than in absolute certainty, in the questions than in the answers; It does sometimes get tiring to be always be searching for meaning. Sometimes it is necessary to rest a while. Where people of faith have erred, however, is insisting that others must rest where we rest. Just because we want to believe we have found the answer does not mean that we have. And a time comes when we should rise from our rest and go further. 7. See ourselves as a spiritual community in which we discover the resources required for our work in the world: striving for justice and peace among all people; bringing hope to those Jesus called the least of his sisters and brothers; We must also recognize that sometimes we are the resource for someone else’s work in the world. 8. Recognize that our faith entails costly discipleship, renunciation of privilege, and conscientious resistance to evil--as has always been the tradition of the church. Amen

My problem with Christian Science has not been as a Christian so much as a Scientist. If they are going to call their faith Christian Science, they should involve a lot more experiment, and I don't see how being against modern medicine is consistent with Science.

In the Presbyterian Church we baptize infants primarily, but I have seen a good number of adult baptisms. As a rule we do not re-baptize, but people who say that they don't know if they were baptized essentially can choose to be baptized or accepted as already baptized. I think that if someone said that they had been baptized as an infant in some other tradition, but that, for various reasons, they did not feel that that baptism had any significance, and that they earnestly wished now to be baptized, they would not be denied it. When someone joins a particular PC congregation, there are three ways. I have thought it was reminiscent of the "rat pie, rat cake, rat sorbet, or strawberry tart" line in Monty Python. The strawberry tart has "some rat in it." The three ways are 1) making a profession of faith and being baptized, 2) making a profession of faith (having already been baptized), or 3) letter of transfer. There is some profession of faith involved in joining by letter of transfer. There is also always profession of faith involved in every baptism. First either the adult to be baptized or the parents of the infant make a profession of faith. Then the whole congregation makes a profession of faith and pledges its support for those baptized. In partaking of this, the members of the congregation reaffirm their own baptisms. In my question on the other thread which des quoted at the start of this thread, I did not mean to be dismissive of anyone's reservations. But at the same time, if you believe that there should be a strong supportive relationship among the community of believers, if you are willing to provide your share of support, and if you acknowledge that we will need support some time, then I believe that participating in baptism, either by being baptized or by affirming your commitment to those who are being baptized is a powerful way of experiencing that community.

In the Presbyterian Church--PC(USA)-- communion is theoretically restricted to those who are baptized, but I don't think you could find a case where someone had been turned away who wished to take communion on account of that person not being baptized. I don't think that it so exclusive to say that those who wish to take communion should have been baptized when one is pretty inclusive about baptism. Communion is seen as an activity of the whole of the church as the body of Christ. Baptism is seen as the ingrafting of persons into that church, or the recognition that God has already ingrafted those person in. You don't have to pass an examination or be voted in to be baptized. If you take seriously the meaning of communion, why would you not want to be baptized?

I think that the "evangelical" and related terms are misused. It is often used synonymously with "proselytical." The latter means seeking to convert others to your religious beliefs. The former is often used this way, but etymologically implies being filled with the good news. I have known very proselytical Christians who I would not say were filled with the good news of our Lord Jesus Christ. I believe we are called to show the world what the Lord has done in our lives, and that doing so will change people's lives, but I don't think that this is a call to be conversion motivated. That said, I believe that I fall short of my own standard of being filled with good news. I am open to everyone about my considerable involvement in church, however the topic of what the Lord has done for me rarely comes up except when I am with others who are already believers.

Yes the word satan appear 27 times in the Hebrew Scriptures. The first one is in Numbers 22.22. Balak is striving against the Children of Israel and he sent messengers to the priest Balaam asking him to come curse them. But the LORD speaks to Balaam and says not to do it and not to go with the messengers. Balak sends a second set of messengers, and the LORD speaks to Balaam again saying he can go with the messengers, but should not curse the Children of Israel. When Balaam does go, this happens. “But God's anger was kindled because he went; and the angel of the LORD took his stand in the way as his adversary. Now he was riding on the ass, and his two servants were with him.” The word translated as adversary here is satan. It would have been valid to translate this verse in this way “But God's anger was kindled because he went; and the angel of the LORD took his stand in the way as Satan. Now he was riding on the ass, and his two servants were with him.” In the following verses, Balaam’s donkey sees the adversary and refuses to go, and Balaam beats the donkey. After a time, the LORD enables the donkey to speak to Balaam, and then he allows Balaam to see the adversary, and Balaam realizes that his donkey was being more faithful than he. The thing to notice is that the adversary, or satan, is clearly a servant of the LORD. It is not until the writings that date from the deportation to Babylon that the adversary is represented as clearly working against the interest of the Lord. The first occurrence in which the word is translated into English (RSV and KJV at least) as a proper noun, Satan, is 1 Ch 21.1, and to my reading it could have been translated as “an adversary” just as easily. This is the ninth occurrence of the word. It occurs 14 times in Job and is translated as the proper noun “Satan” every time. I looked at the first three, and they could have been translated as the improper noun “an adversary” just as well. There is an occurrence in Ps 109 which could be translated as “an adversary.” There are two occurrences in Zec which are usually translated as the proper noun. There is a related verb which occurs six times, but it is always translated as “to be an adversary.”

I agree, it does sound Onionesque. I think that it might have been the Onion, or maybe it was bbspot, that reported a poll in which they asked what the root of all evil was. The majority of responder said that it was 25.80697580. I guess they will have to change that to 24.81934729. The article that you refer to says the following: "Ellen Aitken, a professor of early Christian history at McGill University, said the discovery appears to spell the end of 666 as the devil's prime number." It should be clear that neither 666 or 616 can be the devil's prime number, if they are in base 10. Perhaps the Devil uses a different base than 10. However, 666 is divisible by 6 in every base. 616, however, would be prime in bases 7, 11, 13, 23, 29, 41, 49, 55, 71, 85, 91, 95, etc.

Alas, Fred, it was employment that took me out of Chi-Town. Furthermore, it was my wife's employment. I became what is know in academic families as the trailing spouse. I do miss that Chicago-Style Pizza, and I miss spring. Californians think they have spring, but it really isn't spring if it doesn't follow winter. I miss noticing how warm it is when it gets back into the 40's and 50's. I miss being able to get places without having to drive. (God bless the El.) And I miss the occasional weekday afternoon baseball game at Wriggley Field. (The Dodgers have only 3 weekday afternoon games this season. Plus, the famous Dodger-dogs are sorry in comparison to the Polish sausage you get at Wriggley.) BTW, your profile says you are in the NW suburbs. I used to teach at Oakton Community College.

Beach, I don't think that Mr. Wallis is "doing the same thing." I don't think that he is trying to infiltrate the conservative ranks by subterfuge, but then I don't think that the conservatives are doing that to the liberal ranks either. I think that he is doing the following 1. He is reclaiming the term evangelical which has be coopted by people whose real goals are politically conservative. There are people who are filled with the Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ, who are politically liberal. The conservatives have represented that these liberals cannot be real Christians for reasons that have very little to do with the tenets of Christianity. I feel that it is important that the general population and our elected officials know that not all Christians support the conservative agenda. 2. He is supporting continued dialogue between diverse factions. Insulated from disenting views, groups have a tendency to become too extreme. We could allow those groups whose views are radically different from ours to become more extreme, and then try to keep their extreme views from affecting us. In doing this we are saying that those people are unimportant, and we must expect that those people are saying the same thing about us. Alternatively, we could continue dialogue, and, while not enforce uniformity of opinion, at least foster a mutual respect. I may not respect the views that extreme conservatives have, but I should respect them as human beings.

I have re-read Jim Wallis's article, and I think that the people, the clear implication of whose message he refers to in the second paragraph, were the leaders at the "Justice Sunday" event and not the participants at the "Freedom and Faith" event.

I don't know what happened at that Church. I might be able to find out. I will see. I do know that it cannot be a very conservative church. There are several groups within the PC(USA) that are called affinity groups. On the conservative side, the most important one is the Confessing Church Movement. On the liberal side is the Witherspoon Society and specificaly supporting ordination of GLBT persons there is the Covenant Network and More Light Presbyterians. CN seems to work more for institutional change while MLP seems to work more for getting individual congregations to be welcoming. MLP is thought by most to be more extreme. Nearly all member congregations of MLP are also members of CN, but not the other way around. Central Presbyterian Church in Louisville is a member congregation of MLP but not of CN. I don't know what their view on abortion is, but they support ordination of GLBT persons.

One I find with spiritual significance is "In This Life" by Pat Humphries In this life I am but one Of a million starving others Robbed of everything but hunger We are prisoners together I am one, but one of many single voices in the silence That refuse the lies that bind us. We are worthy. We are safe.

I too am in Southern California, but I will not say that I am from here. I was born and grew up in Texas, and was educated in Illinois. I am reasonably happy here for the time being, but wish to move back to the midwest someday.