sojourner
Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
Yes it is! Your perspective seems to me to give way too much power to “evil,” “the Devil,” the “god of this world.” In fact, your perspective seems obsessed with what has been “tainted,” “ruined,” and “made dirty.” Instead of celebrating the good things, it seems that you seek to simply fight off the “bad stuff.” Your entire theological underpinning seems to be that everything is ruined. Again, you appear to be giving an awful lot of power and energy to the “bad stuff” of life. I sense that you could be such a power for the positive, but you’re too busy being subsumed by negativity to “let your light shine.” That’s too bad!Your perspective is definitely different to mine
You came out of one side of the church — one perspective. I read your story; I can assure you that not all Christian clergy would have blown you off like that. yet, you seem to want to lump us all together. It looks like a knee-jerk reaction to one traumatic event that has created a generalized negative viewpoint of the entire church.I came out of Christendom, so I have been on both sides of this fence. This shapes my perspective
IMV, God's marvellous work is obviously still there, but his enemy has thrown all manner of disgusting pollutants all over it.....in case you hadn't noticed, godless humans are bent on destroying his handiwork....materialistic greed continues to pour chemical poisons into our oceans, food, air and water
That’s my point: in your view. Your view is neither “correct” nor “incorrect” — it’s merely your view. Your view does not encompass the entirety of the theological landscape. But you’re not providing room for the views of others. The theological landscape is like a patchwork quilt or a collage. Each piece is unique in its color and shape, year each piece is just that — a piece of a much larger whole. Each piece works in unity with each other piece. Your view seems to disregard all the other pieces. it seeks the uniformity of all pieces.
And your view seems to be that the world is beyond salvation — that there’s nothing good left for God or humanity to work with. The Psalmist asks, “Where can I flee from your Presence?” God’s hand is still powerfully at work in this world, yet you would appear to throw it all away for some mythical “second chance.” I’m sure you have biblical interpretations to back up that view, but I and many others certainly don’t share them; it seems to lie at the heart of the modus operendi of your praxis. meanwhile, many of the rest of us celebrate what we call the “sacramental universe.” We see the world as God’s body, the rivers as God’s veins, the wind as God’s breath. We find the power of God marvelously at work to create and recreate a cycle of life within God’s creation, which is, as God declared, “very good.” We seek to foster and expand the positive spiritual energies through following the great commandment to love.
I agree with the first part of your statement. The military machine is scary and dangerous — and a misuse of the power God has given to us to curate. BUT, not all the church supports these efforts — and certainly not by providing chaplains. The role of the chaplain is not to support the killing, but to help the people who fight for you to cope with the consequences of having to leap neck-deep into the human condition. AND, most churches have a “conscientious objector” tool in place.The military spending of the nations has poured billions of dollars into the development of the most heinous weaponry to indiscriminately destroy innocent life along with perceived enemies. The churches of Christendom have supported these efforts, providing chaplains for military personnel, no doubt to salve troubled consciences, lest they question God's command..."Thou shalt not kill"...or Jesus teaching his disciples to "love their enemies".
Not all churches. You're generalizing again.Churches were used as recruiting stations in world conflicts
I don’t know what “false gods” you refer to. God is God. God is known by a thousand names, and yet is the unnameable one. The name you recognize is just one of many, for God is multifaceted, as humanity is multifaceted.Satan has influenced disobedient ones to corrupt human worship by dividing it up between multitudes of false gods....but they are all invented by him....including Christendom's freakish god with three heads
And yes, I know how you feel about the Trinity. you don’t understand it; therefore you fear it. You make fun of it because you fear it. The beauty is that you don’t have to believe in that particular construction. There is room for any number of theological constructions.
I don’t. I believe it’s humanity’s doing. We are given the power of harnessing energies for creative purposes, and we misuse that power.How can you believe this mess is God's doing?
Your construction is too small and fear-laden for me. It would choke me. Religion was meant to make more of us, not less.We demonstrate whom it is that we worship by the way we conduct that worship and by the beliefs we hold as truth and the practices associated with it.
From your own understanding.Where did our "truth" come from?
I disagree. One’s truth is malleable and highly influenced by belief.Sojourner, the truth is the truth regardless of what anyone believes
Yes it does. Yes we can. We can imagine our destiny and build upon that vision. for example, it used to be a truth that women were physically incapable of being good leaders and business people. We have imagined our way beyond that limited vision.Believing" doesn't make anything "true". No one can change the truth
And yet, God is also portrayed as the loving father who waits at the door, watching, waiting until the prodigal returns. Jesus uses hyperbole a lot. It’s an invaluable literary and argumentative tool. How can we reconcile the biblical certainty that we can go nowhere without God being there with the utter separation you tout here? It’s hyperbole! God asks us to love, honor, and support each other. God asks us to build and foster community. God asks us to tend and care for each other. God’s laws are mercy, justice, kindness, forbearance, inclusion, forgiveness, hospitality, and love. Not pedantic and ancient rules written in ancient scrolls.Why are these ones appealing to Christ as if he should accept them as his own? Didn't they do all those things 'in his name'?....they are shocked to hear that their "powerful works" were not from God. It is God's laws that they are breaking....and the list is long
And yet, wherever we go, there is God. I adamantly disagree. The church is the Body of Christ. Just because the body has Beyoncé dirty, or diseased, or disfigured, is no reason to condemn it and give up on it.That's how he can say he "NEVER" knew them? "Never" means "not ever". Christ has never set foot in Christendom.
For me, the truth is full of possibility.For us, the truth has no 'maybe's'.
The Bible presents God from a limited perspective. And God is open to negotiation. Abraham argued with God. God died in a vast negotiation for the soul of humanity.the Bible presents the God of Abraham as a God who has one truth and one set of rules for all his worshippers....none of them are negotiable.
Truth is a collage of many interpretations, only a few of which we perceive.Truth does not allow for many interpretations.
Yes it is. And you appear to be doing everything you can to be divisive — even going so far as to condemn the Body of Christ and to impose your vision on the rest of us.The identifying mark of true Christians is unity, not confined to a local church or even a national denomination....but an internationally recognisable brotherhood of Christ's disciples who follow the teachings of Jesus Christ without compromise.
Just because you don’t recognize them, does not mean they aren’t true.The fact that we do not adhere to Christendom's theology means that we do not recognize any of its teachings as "truth
Yet, in God’s kin-dom, the Master directs the wheat and weeds to grow up together. It appears as though we are directed to “have part of” each other — even if we disagree.We are no part of what we see as the 'weeds' of Jesus parable.
The religious system is the people. You’re justifying your condemnation. But condemnation is not what we are called to.That is a condemnation of the religious system, NOT the people who have been taught untruths all their lives
There was no “divided church system” when Jesus sent them out. You’re misinterpreting the text.This is why Jesus sent his disciples out to search for the "worthy" ones (Matthew 10:11-14)......to find those who aren't convinced that the divided church system is genuine Christianity
We are the church, which you condemn. you speak with forked tongue.Again, that is how you view it.....but we do not view people as "evil" at all.
Jesus directs us to share Gospel, not to spout a limited vision and “sell” it to people. It feels as though your system objectifies souls. I’ve been visited by JWs. They’re not there to share, they’re there to sell. Part of sharing involves a lot of listening to the perspectives of others, to see what one can learn from them. I don’t perceive a whole lot of listening/sharing going on with door-knocking. You don’t want to enter our reality; you only want to sell yours. That’s how I see it.If we did, we would not have been out preaching to them all this time, as Jesus directed