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What is Contemplative Christianity?
- Thread starter Yoshua
- Start date
sojourner
Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
Again: What's complicated about sitting in silence and listening for God? And breathing deeply and regularly? That's all in the world it is! It appears that you're making something of it that it's not. It's not Pagan. It's not magic. It's not hard, or "unnatural." It's the simplest thing in the world to sit in silence and breathe.
sassysam29
Member
Maybe I am?!?! Lol. It just seems like a practice that is certainly tied to pagan belief systems (maybe not yours), but because we differ on the authority of the scriptures, My skepticism may seem peculiar to you. I guess I am just not completely convinced of its biblical relevance and believe it to possibly be more dangerous than effective. Most generally when the scriptures speak of meditating, we are being advised to meditate on his precepts.
"Tied to pagan belief systems". So are scriptures. So are prayers. So are offerings. So are churches or temples. So is music in worship. So are faith communities. So are practices of abstaining from sin. So are teachings and doctrines. So are beliefs. So are deity forms. So is sacred imagery. So is worship. So are festivals and holidays. So are many, many, many things that all religions have and use.
Show me one Christian church that doesn't have anything that is "tied to pagan belief systems". But besides all this, it is NOT "tied to" pagan belief systems. Last I checked the practice of Christian Centering prayer, for instance, does not "tie itself to any belief system at all outside Christian tradition. To "tie" yourself to it, means that is actually has and uses the belief systems themselves, such as sacrificing livestock.
Cherry picking? Reading scripture passages is okay, but meditation is not? It's all so.... arbitrary.
It's very simple. If you don't want to do it, then don't. But don't try to make up reasons why you believe others shouldn't. It's irrational.
Show me one Christian church that doesn't have anything that is "tied to pagan belief systems". But besides all this, it is NOT "tied to" pagan belief systems. Last I checked the practice of Christian Centering prayer, for instance, does not "tie itself to any belief system at all outside Christian tradition. To "tie" yourself to it, means that is actually has and uses the belief systems themselves, such as sacrificing livestock.
Cherry picking? Reading scripture passages is okay, but meditation is not?
It's all so.... arbitrary.It's very simple. If you don't want to do it, then don't. But don't try to make up reasons why you believe others shouldn't. It's irrational.
sassysam29
Member
"Tied to pagan belief systems". So are scriptures. So are prayers. So are offerings. So are churches or temples. So is music in worship. So are faith communities. So are practices of abstaining from sin. So are teachings and doctrines. So are beliefs. So are deity forms. So is sacred imagery. So is worship. So are festivals and holidays. So are many, many, many things that all religions have and use.
Show me one Christian church that doesn't have anything that is "tied to pagan belief systems". But besides all this, it is NOT "tied to" pagan belief systems. Last I checked the practice of Christian Centering prayer, for instance, does not "tie itself to any belief system at all outside Christian tradition. To "tie" yourself to it, means that is actually has and uses the belief systems themselves, such as sacrificing livestock.
Cherry picking? Reading scripture passages is okay, but meditation is not?
It's very simple. If you don't want to do it, then don't. But don't try to make up reasons why you believe others shouldn't. It's irrational.
All that you claim is correct because men created their own systems of belief for their own greedy purposes because Christ crucified was never enough and it still isn't., so there is really nothing new under the sun.
sojourner
Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
I don't think Christian meditative practices are "tied to Paganism." The practices were employed by the Desert Fathers and Mothers, beginning around the year 200 C.E.
it is relevant to the biblical injunction to "be still and know."
sojourner
Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
You're too skeptical about the established church.
sassysam29
Member
You're quite insightful
sojourner
Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
Most legitimate religions are human institutions surrounding higher spiritual truths. They are put in place with their systems of belief to support those higher truths, to teach them to other, and so forth.
Something occurred to me this morning after meditation. These claims that these things are not "in scripture", is completely a bogus, red-herring distraction. Is it Christian? Yes, of course it is! People who are Christians have and do practice these things in support of their spiritual path within the Christian lineage. Lineage is the operative word here. If you recall the passage in the Bible where it says we are "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus being the chief cornerstone"? This misguided, modern notion of "fundamentalism" is false. What they are doing is a form of modern Retro-Romanticism, imagining this idealized past when everything was pure and true. This mythologized notion of getting back to the 'basics', is nothing short of just a simple, misguided nostalgia of a fictional reality.
Let me explain myself. Any religious lineage evolves and changes over time to meet the needs of a growing need in a growing world. The world is not stuck 2000 years in the past, and Spirit is not static. Neither should the church be. Even IF meditation practice was adopted into the Christian lineage as something recent, it is still a legitimate Christian practice if it has been integrated into the Christian lineage! Of course it is historic, but it doesn't matter even if it wasn't. When it say we are built upon that foundation, the operative word is "built". There are new structures being built all the time!
This myth of fundamentalism envisions there is no building whatsoever, no creative choices allowed, no variations, static fixed, and flat. Flat on the ground level. No building at all. It is foundation only, and a foundation that arose to meet the needs of a culture 2000 years in the past. To live then, in this imaginary reality of the "pure truth", utterly fails to understand the truth of the dynamic nature of faith in an evolving world. The church is "built", not finished 2000 years ago.
Now, I can continue in this, but my point is it is entirely legitimate to have new insights, new understandings, etc, that "build" upon the foundation. As as they build upon that, it is in fact Christian. It follows from the lineage. But that is not good enough for fundamentalists who want to tear down structures they don't understand which they find themselves unable to relate to. "It's not in the Bible," is actually not the litmus test at all. Is it consistent with the Spirit of Truth is. "The letter of the law killeth, but the Spirit maketh alive." Why? Because it lives, and breathes, and grows, and evolves, spreading out touching and being part of the world of the present, not a mythological imagined nostalgia fictionalized past.
/rant
sojourner
Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
The church is an organic being. As such, it lives, grows, and adapts to its environment. It does not live in stasis, in a vacuum. Like all other living organisms, in such an environment, it would die. Which may explain the plethora of dead churches, who have failed to improvise, adapt, and overcome.Most legitimate religions are human institutions surrounding higher spiritual truths. They are put in place with their systems of belief to support those higher truths, to teach them to other, and so forth.
Something occurred to me this morning after meditation. These claims that these things are not "in scripture", is completely a bogus, red-herring distraction. Is it Christian? Yes, of course it is! People who are Christians have and do practice these things in support of their spiritual path within the Christian lineage. Lineage is the operative word here. If you recall the passage in the Bible where it says we are "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus being the chief cornerstone"? This misguided, modern notion of "fundamentalism" is false. What they are doing is a form of modern Retro-Romanticism, imagining this idealized past when everything was pure and true. This mythologized notion of getting back to the 'basics', is nothing short of just a simple, misguided nostalgia of a fictional reality.
Let me explain myself. Any religious lineage evolves and changes over time to meet the needs of a growing need in a growing world. The world is not stuck 2000 years in the past, and Spirit is not static. Neither should the church be. Even IF meditation practice was adopted into the Christian lineage as something recent, it is still a legitimate Christian practice if it has been integrated into the Christian lineage! Of course it is historic, but it doesn't matter even if it wasn't. When it say we are built upon that foundation, the operative word is "built". There are new structures being built all the time!
This myth of fundamentalism envisions there is no building whatsoever, no creative choices allowed, no variations, static fixed, and flat. Flat on the ground level. No building at all. It is foundation only, and a foundation that arose to meet the needs of a culture 2000 years in the past. To live then, in this imaginary reality of the "pure truth", utterly fails to understand the truth of the dynamic nature of faith in an evolving world. The church is "built", not finished 2000 years ago.
Now, I can continue in this, but my point is it is entirely legitimate to have new insights, new understandings, etc, that "build" upon the foundation. As as they build upon that, it is in fact Christian. It follows from the lineage. But that is not good enough for fundamentalists who want to tear down structures they don't understand which they find themselves unable to relate to. "It's not in the Bible," is actually not the litmus test at all. Is it consistent with the Spirit of Truth is. "The letter of the law killeth, but the Spirit maketh alive." Why? Because it lives, and breathes, and grows, and evolves, spreading out touching and being part of the world of the present, not a mythological imagined nostalgia fictionalized past.
/rant
sassysam29
Member
Most legitimate religions are human institutions surrounding higher spiritual truths. They are put in place with their systems of belief to support those higher truths, to teach them to other, and so forth.
Something occurred to me this morning after meditation. These claims that these things are not "in scripture", is completely a bogus, red-herring distraction. Is it Christian? Yes, of course it is! People who are Christians have and do practice these things in support of their spiritual path within the Christian lineage. Lineage is the operative word here. If you recall the passage in the Bible where it says we are "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus being the chief cornerstone"? This misguided, modern notion of "fundamentalism" is false. What they are doing is a form of modern Retro-Romanticism, imagining this idealized past when everything was pure and true. This mythologized notion of getting back to the 'basics', is nothing short of just a simple, misguided nostalgia of a fictional reality.
Let me explain myself. Any religious lineage evolves and changes over time to meet the needs of a growing need in a growing world. The world is not stuck 2000 years in the past, and Spirit is not static. Neither should the church be. Even IF meditation practice was adopted into the Christian lineage as something recent, it is still a legitimate Christian practice if it has been integrated into the Christian lineage! Of course it is historic, but it doesn't matter even if it wasn't. When it say we are built upon that foundation, the operative word is "built". There are new structures being built all the time!
This myth of fundamentalism envisions there is no building whatsoever, no creative choices allowed, no variations, static fixed, and flat. Flat on the ground level. No building at all. It is foundation only, and a foundation that arose to meet the needs of a culture 2000 years in the past. To live then, in this imaginary reality of the "pure truth", utterly fails to understand the truth of the dynamic nature of faith in an evolving world. The church is "built", not finished 2000 years ago.
Now, I can continue in this, but my point is it is entirely legitimate to have new insights, new understandings, etc, that "build" upon the foundation. As as they build upon that, it is in fact Christian. It follows from the lineage. But that is not good enough for fundamentalists who want to tear down structures they don't understand which they find themselves unable to relate to. "It's not in the Bible," is actually not the litmus test at all. Is it consistent with the Spirit of Truth is. "The letter of the law killeth, but the Spirit maketh alive." Why? Because it lives, and breathes, and grows, and evolves, spreading out touching and being part of the world of the present, not a mythological imagined nostalgia fictionalized past.
/rant
sassysam29
Member
sassysam29
Member
Wow....you painted a whole lot of people with the same brush in that rant! The fact of the matter remains that without an absolute standard of truth, the Spirit of truth is what? Whatever we want? The truth of scientology? The truth of Islam? Judaism? Christianity? Which is it? What is the Spirit of truth? Which church? Baptist? Pentecostal? Atheism? Without an established truth there is what? Traditions? Are traditions true? Are ceremonial sacrifices true....can we sacrafice animals for Jesus? Who decides those things? What is truth and who determines that if it is not the scriptures?
sassysam29
Member
Oops Sorry...yes I did..
sassysam29
Member
Then tried to correct and did it wrong again :/
Actually, I was speaking of the fundamentalist movement as whole. The question is, what was inaccurate about it?
Alright, let's address this issue head on since you bring up so often. This notion of an absolute standard of truth that you can somehow know by reading in some holy scriptures somewhere is an impossibility. Even if, the Bible was a direct dictation by God and has no cultural artifacts whatsoever, YOU still have to read and interpret it! It is impossible for you to understand what you read without subjective, relative interpretations. This "absolute standard" would be irrelevant to act as one for anyone, as whose interpretation is absolute? You cannot read or hear or see anything and have a perfect, absolute understanding of that thing. So what you do is assume that because you read something and it says a certain thing to you, that that thing is not your interpretation. That is utterly a fallacy, an illusion of your mind.
You are looking for something that does not exist, and never can because no human has an infallible interpretation, including you.
If you want to know the Spirit of Truth, you do not do so by looking for a propositional truth. Truth, with a capital T is not something you 'believe in'. It is the source of all truths, which are relative, which are reflections, refractions, glimpses, and glimmers of something that cannot be grasped, quantified, defined. The Spirit of Truth, is that which is known, not with the mind of reason, not with doctrines and theologies, but by resting in Silence, not looking to understand with the mind of reason, but with one's own being. From this Knowledge, then all relative truths, all interpretations, all perspectives, all points of view receive a certain illumination that allows Truth to be known in many living, dynamic ways, but NEVER held as absolute points of view. That Truth is nothing you can claim to know as "a truth".
So then, I'm sorry to say, you have to deal with reality by being Wise which comes through becoming Aware of that Truth. Once you open to that, then you realize that truths are not absolutes and used as weapons, or as false sense of security as a substitute for resting in Truth itself.
sassysam29
Member
Here I thought all along that the fear of God is the beginning of all Wisdom but you must have that market cornered already.