The Non-compelling Gospel

Broadly I would say we are on the same page. The dumbing down of the message is certainly what the creeds and doctrinal statements have done. But even worse is the sense I get that without the supernatural divinity surrounding Jesus, he becomes very unremarkable to most people. Reading Borg and other "liberal" theologians we can become aware of how meaningful Jesus's message really can be to us today. However, the vast majority of people are so wrapped in the literal reading of scripture, fantacizing about the myths surrounding God, they fail to see the practical implications of faith.

I guess what I am saying is, the gospel presented as a literal wedding banquet where all will be invited but only those that RSVP will get to attend, is not only non-compelling, it is disgusting. I am sad that people that once inspired me are spreading this self-serving ineffectual gospel. I am even more saddened that apparently many of the early christians believed at least some form of this gospel. It makes one wonder if Christianity can have any meaning beyond it.

Brian

Brian,
There were levels of teaching and understanding in the early decades of “The Way.” Christianity, I believe, came later. If we accept that the Apostles were also human as well as their disciples—who likely wrote the Gospels—then it's possible that there were several different movements even in the first several decades. I'm not brining this up to throw water on the faith of anyone reading my words here. My point is to separate human frailty and competitiveness from the original message.

Last night I watched a documentary on PBS about the choosing of the new Pope. The references to the Roman Catholic Pope succeeding from Peter as the first Pope, took on a new meaning for me after reading some of Elaine Pagels' books. Now, rather than dismissing the idea, I can see that the orthodox movement may well have originated in the followers of Peter while other movements started with followers of other Apostles. The Apostle Paul notes this in one of his letters to the Corinthians (I think). But the orthodox (right thinking) folks won the battle and forced all others into hiding or oblivion.

So, what if there is more to know?

bill

Sure, this more to know. Our world is very mysterious and we will never fully understand it. I can live with that. In fact, I prefer the mystery to the pat answers I was fed for most of my life. My frustration is with where I am now, and how few people seem to be here. I am exiled from Christianity, at least the forms I am most familiar with. Is there a form I could accept? I don't know.

I am aware that other groups had different ideas and Peter's group seems to have won out. What do you do with that though? What does it say for the savior of the world to deliver a message that nobody fully understood? What do I say to my future children about the faith that once gave my life meaning? Do I read them Bible stories but quickly add these are just stories? Maybe these are questions with no right answers and I should just learn to chill out.

I think what bugged me most, if I am being completely honest, is the certainty and conviction the preacher had that what he was telling the congregation was the unquestionable truth, when I know get and well it certainly is not. I am jealous of that conviction, but I equally pity it. Does that make sense...

Brian

Brian,
I didn't have my first child until I was 41. Everything I thought I would do or that I thought I knew went right out the window when the first one popped her head out. That is not to say I am doing everything wrong now, it is to say that my worrying about it wasn't necessary. You will continue to have questions about what to tell them, but you will also be surprised at how many answers they will have for you too.
I struggle with this one also What does it say for the savior of the world to deliver a message that nobody fully understood?
I struggle with quite a few things envolved with scripture.
I think in the end it comes down to simply chosing to believe it. For me, I can't imagine anything else being possible or true, I've tried.
Children may do this to you, but I think at some point you come to grips with the fact you will never have even a small percentage of the answers. The main thing is that you don't let life pass you by while you hunt for them, and trust me, children will not give the time to ponder it.
Jim

Maybe there are just three possibilities. Well okay there can be other possibilities - but these are the only ones I can think of.

One - Jesus existed exactly as it was said and the Bible is completely literal: the majority of the human race is going to be tortured for eternity and a small minority will get to skip around on golden roads with Moses.

Two - Jesus didn't exist at all and it was completely a fairytale.

Three - He did exist. He did go around sharing "the word": preaching about redemption - which could have been a real place on earth. He did preach about loving your Neighbor and preached about healing your soul. And over time powerful states have taken his message and adjusted it for their own purposes. I mean Caesar is mentioned in the Bible of all things.

And his message really is the universal message of all people who are looking for a "Heaven". - and this is why people go to church - to find it. They are all looking for a place that is better than where they live. A place where there is love all around. A place where no one suffers - not them and not their family or anyone else. A place better than the condition of their home.

John

Can #3 be reconciled with the teaching of Scripture? Does it require a different view of Scripture, and perhaps a different view of who God is, who the Christ was, and who we are?

reido

I don't know if it's possible for me to give an accurate account of what happened 2,000 years ago. But I think it's possible the type of thing it could have been is a message that repeats over and over among multiple religions and philosophies throughout history - as what the soul looks like when it burns through immorality.

I would say it's possible that people like Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi had the same message as Jesus. Their concern was for the betterment of the people inside their countries. Martin King talked about the Promised Land and the coming of the Lord and it didn't sound like an after-life. He said right before he died: "It really doesn't matter what happens now.... some began to... talk about the threats that were out -- what would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers.... Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place, but I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over, and I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. And so I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

And Gandhi's passion was the same for the people of India. He would stop at nothing for the people to be free [and advocated it all non-violently like Martin King]. But I don't think these things originate from the leaders who come out of them. I’ve come to believe that our history is often missing and crossed out. Martin King grew up in a climate of black people committed to getting their due rights to live as human beings. People were already joined with him by the millions before he ever even spoke.

So if all of that type of thing is really our nature. And God is different, the Christ is different. And the references to the importance of the value of humanity in the Bible and in all the other texts could –all- be our Scripture of the human race. - I think it is all very possible.

John,
You may have hit the nail on the head. Perhaps too many people are looking to church life to fill their spiritual void. I know I did. Hanging around a group of loving people is great but there's got to be more. And the “more” is what you must take with you when you go to church.

I think that your third possibility is the correct one—but with a catch. The catch is this. The Kingdom is within you.

bill

It's in us that we experience the universe. It's in us that we experience our consciousness. That's our human need besides our animal needs. It's living beyond and being creative - making experience - making the universe. We do this by ourself. But we also do this with each other. And every thing that limits us or our family, limits us from being alive.

Yes! Yes!

And to your post above,titled Maybe.

What you've described--I believe--is Living Water. In John 4, Jesus describes living water as something that springs forth from within. Although many teach that Jesus is convicting the Samaritan woman of the "sin" in her life, in this passage. The truth is that he's offering her The Kingdom, even though she is a Samaritan woman (imagine a Jewish Rabbi telling this to a Palestinian woman in Ramallah).

bill

John

You wrote..."We do this by ourself. But we also do this with each other."

Is this purely thru human behavior, or is there a working of God (the unnameable power in whom all have their being)? This is not a test, it is part of my own search.

reido

You guys are making me say crazy things, but I'll say them anyways...

We are alive but everything compels us. We are compelled to do what is right. We are compelled to improve. We are compelled to seek happiness and seek truth. We are compelled to go above and beyond. We are not even limited by what we can put into our imagination!! Everything changes us. We are a new being every single day. We can see the moon smile back at us. We can see the stars reach for us and snatch us from the earth. We lay inside a rain of meteors that turn our earth into a quiet ocean of fire. We lay on the tip of the edge of the nuclear explosion that made everything we see. And it always gives us something we can take with us. We can use it to live or live differently or just be. And it’s always with us - it is this place we call home!

I don't know if there is a God working in that. But if he is, he's the God of Passion. The God of Love. The God of Wonder. The God of Beauty. The God of Life!

I forgot to include one of the most important:

The God of Limitlessness!

John

I have studied written revelation to see if the message corresponds with this unlimited cosmic existence. In many ways, I can see how these same phenomena that you describe are an active part of what Scripture is also about.

Some time back I asked myself, does and must the working of God cease? That is, is it a static process or a living one? A lot of biblical scholars would consider it irreverent to seek anything beyond the canon and its correct interpretation, but I have concluded that part of the answer is that the cosmic creator is very much a part of the continuum of life and reveals this in limitless ways. This may or may not be good news, depending on the person's perspective.

reido

Yeah - I've thought of it too.

If God is a totally separate person I don't think I could ever trust him - and I would feel like I'm in prison. It would be against human nature.

I mean - who would he be then? A person who made the universe to just study the stuff inside? My mother does that with her fish tank. The dreams for the fish (though I'm guessing they have them) are long and distant.

I mean - maybe the separate God is a purely benevolent thing to us. But what does he want with us - won't we always be in his grip? He'll have to make us exactly like him if we even want to have a conversation with him. And then, will we be free to go away from him if we don't like him?

I mean the only outcome that would be acceptable for me if he were literally an alien from another universe or something. Maybe the alien is a student making universes in his laboratory. Or he and his other alien buddies accidentally make universes all the time by going into warp-speed on their spaceships or something. Or this universe was born from a natural phenomenon in an outer universe like a seed being planted in the ground turning into a flower.

And even then, we may or may not like the alien or the outer universe. He could be a great friend and all humans get along with him. The outer universe could be a nice place or a terrible place. However, I hope we would have the ability to get away from it all if we had to and start another universe if we needed to.

You know, I really understand where you are coming from with asking if God is just an alien and all the anxiety that goes with that pondering. I think the fact that the Incarnation is the ultimate answer to that worry is what kept me a Christian despite all my questions and disillusionment with stereotypical Christianity.

Even without the Incarnation, we have Genesis saying that we are made in the image of God (I always liked the Society of Friends version of this: 'There is that of God within us'), so we could know that God is not completely alien and unrelated to us. But just what that means is hard to grasp and sometimes harder to believe.

But the Incarnation shows that even though God is Creator and we are creatures, we are much more to God than fish in an aquarium, or a lab experiment, or an accident. God's interest in us is personal, intimate. So much so that he demonstrated it in the most radical way possible: he became one of us to draw us to him. And he didn't come as king or high priest, demanding homage, but as a guy born into a poor-to-middle class family and he lived as an average joe tradesman for most of that life. When he stepped beyond that role and started shaking things up, he knew the religious folks and the powerful people wouldn't like it and that he would die for it. But he did it anyway to show us that he loves us even and esp. when we step outside the boundaries (if we do it honestly) and that he has been there and understands and suffers with us in our doubts and trials.

And I don't for one minute believe that that sort of love is limited to just a few 'elect'. It has to encompass everyone. But maybe it is possible for us to choose to walk away, and maybe that is hell. I don't think God sends anyone to hell. I think heaven and hell aren't thing that happen in the next life. They start now and how far we are into either 'kingdom' depends on whether we are turning toward God and love or toward hate and selfishness. The only hell I could ever believe in was the one from C. S. Lewis' The Great Divorce, where heaven or hell were just continuation of the paths we took in life. Either toward loving God and others or turning ever further into ourselves and selfishness. And even then, there was always still the chance to turn around and head the other way.

a friend once told me of a story about someone she new who had a rather difficult past with relationships and marriage. She went on to tell how the woman after a bitter divorce became devoted to Christ and church where she met the man she felt was sent from God. She went to church 3 times a week and shared the same with the man and they were wed after a short romance. Soon after the marriage the man began drinking and staying out all night, sometimes several. Then my freind asked "What does the Lord say about that." The reply was simply, "She was looking for the wrong man."

Brian

I have attempted to go back to places where I used to be. Although I still visit and enjoy my time with friends and listening to thoughts other than my own, my feelings are that there is no going back to what is static compared to the dynamics of change.

Why is that? It is tied to what is relevant to you as the person you are. Sometimes a minister will hit on something that connects -- other times only to himself or to the particular dogma of his flock.

Paul said, "When I was a child, I spoke as a child...now that I am become a man I have put away childish things... Now we see thru a glass darkly but then we shall see face to face" (1 Cor 13:11-12). If there were to be times of transition for them, there will be for us as well.

reido

Bill

Are you adopting my bad habit of asking questions?..."What is the lesson, if any?"

I thought about your question, and have my own answer (unless I change my mind later?):

That the compelling and the non-compelling exist equally as opposites? One the antithesis of the other, but both necessary to have the whole?

There is a compelling gospel for me but it is the opposite of rhetoric and compulsion by force (that is the name of the game isn't it?). To be free for something that was forbidden -- to actually experience the God that is above all, thru all, and in all by being open to the limitless possibilities. Now that is a compelling reason to live.

reido

Reido,

Were there, from the beginning, two sides to the story? I'm thinking about Paul and perhaps some pre-gnostics on the one side and Peter, James and most others on the other. In fact, I'd go further and ask whether there was Jesus on the one side and Mosaic Law on the other.

So, using your perspective, the literal needs the spiritual which need the literal. The literal thinker requires a literal law while the spiritual needs no law. Experience sure seems to prove it.

bill

Bill

Even before the Mosaic Law and Jesus contrast. When we look at the Garden, God, Creation, Adam, Eve, the Serpent...can we see that there has always been the equal and opposite? Spirit and Matter coexist, sometimes in agreement, sometimes at war. It appears to be part of the overall picture of God.

reido

Welcome to faithCommons, Kansas!

I agree with you on the facts. Personally, I rely now on intuition or spiritual knowledge because the more I learn the more I distrust what I've learned the previous part of my life.

Actually I think that, were we to tell the truth about what's known, many church systems would be undermined and would continue to exist only for those who don't want to know.
Your statement:

is similar to what brings me back from the—as Reido says—Borders of Belief. It's not a belief in the unbelievable but deeper than any intellectual assent. We must have a deeper connection because the truth about Christianity is that there is a lot of untruth. The Christ is beyond our petty power plays.

bill