October's Autumn

Yes, thanks for sharing!

I have attempted it. I suspect I'm not a good candidate for being a vegetarian. I'm allergic to dairy (in some forms) and egg which knocks out a lot of sources of proteins that are often used to replace meats. I do eat several vegetarian meals a week, though.

Do you think the writers of the Bible were following a particular agenda when they wrote those sayings, or that they were just from a different worldview?

I think different writers had different agendas. I don't know if that really answers your question, though. There is a lot I don't know.

I appreciate your feedback -- at the meeting last Wednesday we talked about how nice it is that the Methodist church is not a creedal church, and the group was concerned about affiliating with TCPC, because it almost sounds like we'd be creating a liberal creed for our church.

We decided we need to come up with a message that is reconciling, knowing how many have felt excluded and hurt by Christianity, but that we also need to communicate and celebrate the diversity of belief at our church. Even when we don't see eye to eye, we see heart to heart...

Be careful. There are those who will try and come in and "fix" those who don't have an orthodox view point. I look at it like this. There are plenty of conservative churches out there. If one wants a conservative creed/doctrine they have plenty to choose from! There are very few truly liberal/progressive churches so let those of us w/o orthodox view points have our space, it is small as it is!

October's Autumn: Thanks for your reply. Do you have time to elaborate on why the others do not apply to you? I have struggled with some of these (like don't worry) and have had to try to figure out how to reconcile the Bible teaching with my understanding of God. Do you think the ones you deleted are not true teachings of Jesus or are ones that do not point you to God?

 

If I do not get other answers I will repost in a different section. Good idea!

Because they aren't true.

Would someone please give me feedback on this? I need to meet with my pastor on the 30th to talk to our church about affiliating with tcpc, and I was hoping we could have some classes where we talk about the teachings of Jesus that help with daily living.

 

Thanks!

You might want to post this is another section where there is more traffic! Not the debate one, but the one above that!

Here's my start at "Which Teachings of Jesus" I find God in...

Your thoughts? Anyone?

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Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength

Love your neighbor as yourself

Do unto others as you would have them do to you

 

Become like little children(humble) – the last will be the first

 

*** I think this is an incorrect interpretation of this story. I believe that when Jesus said that we had to be like little children he was talking about how children were completely unprotected in society -- much like women, the poor, and those with physical defects i.e. leprosy, paralyzeed, blind, etc.

 

Children are far from humble... in fact they can be incredibly arrogant

 

 

Love your enemies and forgive,forgive,forgive!

 

There is a special place in God's heart for the underdog in life

 

Need to be hearers AND doers of Jesus' teachings – followers will be known by their

actions.

 

God loves all of us, and giving us Jesus is a great expression of that love!

I deleted the ones that didn't apply to me. I did add a note to one of them!

To David and soma,

So, we'll just make a church based on man's standards instead of God's. Then it will be perfect. It'll be another 'Tower of Babel'!

Don't decieve yourself, davidk. All churches are based on human standards, not God's. The closest I've seen to a church based on God's standards is the UCC church I attend. And even they are off sometimes...

Where is Des?

If you would, please, tell me of the god you believe in. If you have already told me, forgive me for asking you to repeat it. Tell me where I could find it and you won't have to go through this again.

Not one where anyone would be punished forever...

What has happened so that your journey has brought you here?

Well, on this I'm not quite certain I understand. If, as you say, I have everything compartmentalized, live in denial (constant denial), and do not have to think or work; doesn't that actually require less effort to maintain?

It is a different kind of effort.

God does not send people into eternal punishment. Don't be foolish enough to think He does or that I believe He does.

No, you believe people send themselves to hell... nice god you believe in...

It is just as foolish to think I have not been where you and the others have been before I had this 'comfortable' life. To assume answers not given is likewise, just as foolish.

Coming into what has proven to be 'hostile territory' when I hoped it would be as claimed, an environment of 'open minds', inclusive, and pluralistic, and only to have found the contrary could also be considered foolish. It is certainly not comfortable, but challenging.

You misunderstand what "open minds, inclusive, & pluralistic" means. I have no desire to go over old territory with someone who does not have an open mind, is not inclusive, and is not pluralistic. When you get to where we are then we may be able to have an intelligent discussion.

It takes a great deal of effort to stay where you are because you must compartmentalize and live in constant denial. Challenging, yes, but not in a good way. Comfortable because you don't have to think or work.

Autumn-

Hear this, oh foolish and sensless people,

You have eyes, but do not see.

You have ears, but do not hear. -Jer 5/21

I appear to have hit a sore spot. Don't fancy yourself a prophet, don't take biblical passages out of context. It is you who has eyes but does not see and ears but does not hear. Come back when you are willing to risk something outside of your comfortable life.

God has offered His solution, but the majority of the world won't accept it. It is a lost and dying world, and the only thing that will save it is, the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Interesting god you believe in... One who sends most of his creation to suffer for eternity... I don't like your god nor do I believe in your god... he reminds me of Zeus.

"Lord let thy Will be done" is a technique to free the mind or make it unattached to one's actions. 'You reap what you sow" similar to the Eastern law of Karma. It doesn't matter if we are bound by gold chains or steel we are still bound by our actions and reactions so to get out of the cause and effect we detach ourselves from the action. Lord let thy Will act through me. I remove my ego from the situation, therefore; I do not reap the actions good or bad because I didn't do it. I really don't know the conservative view, but have reaped and sowen many thoughts and actions over time so I have no one to blame for this except myself for getting into the situation, but now I can remove myself from it with different techniques. Spiritual practise helps one to witness the physical, mental and spiritual and all the repercusions.

Often that is true that we reap what we sow. But not always. My class is a good example. I was proud of them today when they were the best behaved group in the last day of school assembly. It didn't last past the assembly but that is another story. New teachers often end up with difficult classes because teachers will change grade levels or tracks to avoid them thus leaving the vacancy open for a newbie. It isn't a reaping and sowing it is just the reality of life.

But how does that view differ from a conservative's? I've never heard of a conservative who rejects the idea that God is omnipotent and to some degree controls what happens.

Well, the reality of life is we can only control certain things. One of my favorite sayings is "Life is what happens when you are making plans."

Conservatives blame everything on God. A friend of mine from college lost a younger sibling in a car accident when he was 14 (the sibling was 12) somehow this was God's will, from a conservative point of view. A more progressive or liberal person would acknowledge that sh** happens. It is horrible that his sibling died but it certainly wasn't God's will. It is what happens when a vehicle runs off the road and hits a tree and someone flies through the windshield.

"not my will, but yours" seems more of an acknowledgement of having limited control over one's own life.

I have two liberal christian sites:

 

http://www.cafepress.com/plucked_strings -- art, stationery, apparel and other gifts for the mainstream, anti-fundamentalist, moderate to liberal, progressive Christian. Themes include Jesus Was a Liberal, The Religious Right Is Neither, Straight But Not Narrow, Peacemaker, The Anti-Fundamentalist, Liberal Christianity, Separate Church and Hate, Separation of Church and State, and Micah 6:8 (so far).

 

Holly Stevens

Oak Ridge, North Carolina

Thank you for posting these! I love the bumper stickers. I've been looking for one similar to the Straight, not Narrow. Trying to figure out how to design it.

The style of music, architecture, furniture, etc are not what makes a church progressive. What makes a church progressive is an openness to new persons even if they are unlike us, and an openness to new ideas even if they challenge us, and a willingness to reexamine what we believe and what we do.

I like this.

I've found more truth in secular music than in the current christian music that is available. From what I can tell Christian music hit a high point with telling the truth in the 90's then crashed and burned.

I appreciate the effort but if you use "spirit" to define spiritual, nothing is gained.

I don't see spiritual as needing to be contrasted to religion. Although the poetry of what you posted is certainly aethestically pleasing.

Perhaps I could better word my question: What do you perceive as your spriritual needs? People talk about going to church or doing this or that to have their spiritual needs met but in all the conversations (in person and via the web) I've had no one has been able to explain a spiritual need as anything that wouldn't be equally explained as a psychological need.

I've posed this question numerous times in numerous situations and still don't understand what "spiritual" means.

Anyone help? Remember the rule when you were school: you can't use the word you are trying to define in the definition!

One can't know God through reason, but through emotion and imagination...that part of the spirit.

I adamently disagree. If God is God then we can completely know God through Reason. God is afterall, the author of Reason. God certainly did not give us a brain and the ability to use it and then tell us to stop using the brain we were given!

It is emotion which keeps us from God. The ups and downs of life. Read through the Psalms. One minute God is far away and has abonded the Psalmist the next God is invovled in every aspect of his(?) life. So which is it? Has God abandoned the writer or is God always there? The Psalmist is expression his own emotion regarding how he feels at the moment. God isn't any further away or an closer based on the Psalmist experience. It is only when the Psalmist can remind himself using his reason that God is there regardless of how he is currenlty feeling that he will be able to truly know God at all times!

Now Imagination, that is another story.

Certainly there is Truth there. To me that's enough.

--des

I think that is a good way to explain it. And I agree. One of my first moves from Conservativism to Progressivism was recognizing that All Truth is God's Truth, regardless of the source.

That has come to mean a lot to me over the past few months.

 

I'm still not an inerrantist, I think men's opinions are in the Bible as much as God's are, but even with that, I look at each scripture (even the objectionable ones) and try to find the truth within it. Reason and interpretation definitely play a role.

The notion that Jesus held the scripture to be God's Word is an interesting concept, allbeit a misconception. The New Testament didn't exist at the time. The idea of "God's Word" didn't exist at the time. It is a modern idea.

Judaism has traditionally been a religion of discussion and debate. Interpreters freely disagree with each other about what means what.

Certainly you can find truth anywhere so the bible would not be any different than a piece of artwork, a poem, a song, a book, newspaper article or a speech.

It is when the bible becomes a weapon in the hands of some that I draw the line. Some use it to decide who is "in" and who is "out." When Conservatives and Fundamentalists put gay people "out" they automatically become in as far as God is concerned. Read what Jesus has to say about the religious leaders of his time and their desires to determine who is "in" and who is "out." THose who they determined to be "out" were the same people who Jesus said were "in."

You ask how we could be offended personally by someone's ideas.

It isn't just *someone's ideas* it is someone claiming to be speaking for God and knowing what God thinks! While it is wrong to call someone who is gay an abomination it is even more wrong to claim that God believes such. It makes me sick to see someone use God to justify their own hatred.

"...wholesale revision of history and Sacred Scripture which is currently taking place under the guise of tolerance and political correctness."

 

But what Bible? What version? Written by who? Are we to believe the Bible was written by God and is not to be questioned? And exactly what 'history' is contained in the Bible that is not to be revised?

You can also add "which manuscript." I tell you, study Greek, understand how the bible was put together and is put together today. The idea of inerrancy will fly out the window!