I’ve seen so many people become disallusioned with institutional churches. I understand that. I started one and I am in the midst of modifying that, believing there is a compromise that will do away with the totalitarianism of the institutional church and still maintain the mission that Jesus, the Christ had. I see way too many people throwing the proverbial baby out with the bath water and winding up with neither baby or bathwater! Continue reading ‘Maintaining The “Christ Mission”’
Monthly Archive for June, 2007
It’s been more than twenty years since I was a part of all the “World is coming to an end” rhetoric. Have you ever believed in something and then changed your mind and asked yourself how crazy were you to believe that? For way too many people it can be said about their marriage. How’d I think he’d ever change, or why was I so cray in love with her. But I’m talking RAPTURE here. You know all that Left Behind HYPE! Fear sure sells a lot of books though. We wewre going to be raptured in 1,000, in 1976 (can you say Hal Lindsey?), in 1984 when all the planets came together, and 88 reasons why the world would end in 1988. Did you fall for any of them? Continue reading ‘End Time Foolishness’
June 22, 2007 - As one goes through life there’s a need for a new things: a dress, new suit, dining room furniture, car, or other “material stuff” that wears out over the years or becomes functionally obsolete. Don’t you find it interesting and also troubling that the church thinks that 2,000 year old concepts ideas are still workable today? That’s what got Copernicus and Newton on the church short list as well.
I remember the days when as a good Baptist I would ask a question that seemed innocent enough. You know, like how does one speak in tongues, for example. I got this look from my friend of whom I posed the question. A week later in a conversation with one of the deacons, I was told that I had better be careful about playing around with fire! Fire, I queried? You know, “tongues“. I quickly found out that this would be but the first of many questions that got a silent rebuke or what I now know as a “passive-aggressive” behavior. How’s a person to know anything if they can’t ask questions? Tell me. How? Continue reading ‘A Question Isn’t Rebellion!’
No one is objective, totally objective in their Christian paradigms. We all wear American Christian glasses which come in various shades of denominational hues and rhythms. For all Christians it should go without saying that Jesus is the decisive revelation of God, the defining revelation , though when in a world context, not the only defining entity. But, since I just said it, “Houston, we have a problem!” In other worlds, how we SEE Jesus is how we see Christianity. How we tell the story of Jesus is how we tell the story of “our Christian beliefs“. Continue reading ‘Jesus Today- In Context!’
You can have all the hell fire and brimstone you want. Me? I’m into the Abba Father that Jesus saw, the God that Jesus talked with daily, and the Creator of the universe that ame ALL things GOOD. You kow, that loving, merciful, forgiving, and NURTURING God. Forget all the church “control stuff” and get back to what Jesus said and pictured to us. Continue reading ‘A Nurturing Model’
I am speaking both historically and present tense. But, I am primarily talking about the last 400 years of history. You see, prior to the Enlightenment, the verb BELIEVE had a very different meaning than how the word is used today. The “object” of the verb was always a PERSON! Can you say Jesus? And then along came the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment is often closely linked with the arriving of Scientific Revolution, for both movements emphasized reason, science, and rationality, while the former also sought their application in comprehension of divine or natural law. And immediately the church got “defensive“. Continue reading ‘Enlightenment Threatens The Church’
You’re going to have to read this with your tongue tucked neatly away in your cheek, be open-minded, have a sense of humor, and be non-religious. On second thought maybe I shouldn’t write this at all, but just maybe there are some out there who will see the seriousness of the message. Oh yes, and you’ll also have to click on the Religious Myth Information site at the end of the commentary to finish the thought. Why not? It’s Tuesday and early in the week. Continue reading ‘A Kryptonite Kross?’
Jesus Is The Key
How you SEE Jesus is how you see God and when you get right down to it, how you see everything. The church wants you to see a Jesus “as God“: fully human and yet fully divine. I never have been able to figure out how that mental leap worked. He was perfect, sinless, and knew what His purpose was here on earth. And, He went about accomplishing that. He told His followers to “follow me“, but what does that mean in light of the above description and definition of God? Who among us mere “humans” could possibly follow a fully divine being? Or is there another way to look at Jesus, the Christ? Continue reading ‘Jesus Is The Key’