Every now and then I like to at least remind myself, if not the occasional reader as to why I spend some time writing on one of the two dozen web sites that I loving call my “spiritual net“. Different people respond to different things. You can’t use the same “bait” on every fish (pun intended). And by the way, you don’t catch fish in the Sporting Goods Store (can you say church), because fish are OUT THERE in what’s called WATER! Ask a fish to define WATER and he can’t because he doesn’t have anything (think land) to compare water to. Oh yes, and fish can’t speak as well; but, you knew that one. Ah, and therein is a key for people who call themselves Christians (Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, Catholic), because since they are afraid to read a book by someone outside their pedigree, they just live life religiously incestuously (is that good English?): and you know where that leads in the natural (weaker and weaker).
My journey in reading John Shelby Spong (12+ books), turned me on to an individual that he liked (who died in 1983) that lived across the big pond- John A. T. Robinson. John has coined a word back in the ’50s- Beyond Theism! Theism, which is where most Christians are, though they don’t know it, is with a God (Marcus Borg calls it Supernatural Theism) who is OUT THERE somewhere behind one of those Super Novas (unlike Bossa Nova) or Black Holes, and He responds to our prayers every decade or so. He’s more like an absentee landlord who comes visiting to repair a leaking sink, or stopped up drain from time to time.
Getting the picture?
Beyond Theism is just that. Comprende “beyond“? Say “more or something else, in addition to“. I don’t have that fully worked out yet which is why there’s so much joy, excitement, and pain in my life. But, I’m searching, and I don’t believe Jack Nicholson’s movie is the answer. “Is This As Good As It Gets?“. But what I do “get” so far as a partial answer is that God’s not OUT THERE but IN HERE (in me- as in you- as in all things- but not as in pantheism).
Say panentheism!
Why do I write this site? Not entirely to confuse the secure, frustrate the knowing, or irritate the religious (although I’m certainly not against any of those), but to make this journey of living the Kingdom life NOW exciting and REAL!
Onward!



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