I believe in the one true catholic church- which is not the Roman Catholic Church. The GOOD NEWS is that the one true universal (catholic) church does include the Roman Catholic Church. Did I mention the word UNIVERSAL? That word scares the heck (or metaphorical hell) out of fundamental Christians who only want to see people in heaven who think like they do. What a surprise they’ll have on their faces! Yep, that man and those people whom their denomination marked out of the Book of Life (as though they had such power to do so) God wrote back in.
Make sure that you hear that I do not believe in some sort of syncretism (the attempt to reconcile contradictory beliefs, often while melding practices of various schools of thought.) wherein I’m talking about a universal religion that is one part Buddhist, one part Hindu, one part Muslim, on part Judaism, one part Christian, and three parts name it and claim it.
That’s far from what I’m advocating.
While I obviously believe (many might question me on this) that Jesus, the Christ was the express, and exact representation of God, unrivaled by any of history’s revelators, (name em!) Jesus was not totem dei (ALL that God is), but the Latin expression totus deus (God through and through). A fine line, but a critical one, that all the founding fathers knew and grappled.
We need to give God more credit and compassion to think He’s only interested in spending eternity with Roman Catholics or Southern Baptists. Come on! 
While there can ONLY BE one universal religion (there’s only one God), and while the greatest representation of Him is Jesus, we need to gratefully accept the contributions which other traditions can make (and do make if we’ll listen) to our knowledge of the ONE GOD! May we get off of our arrogant and self-righteous religious thrones and embrace the true findings of other scholars, scientists, and religions.
It’s ALL ONE, it’s ALL God, just in varying degrees.
You are awaking me to a new broader view of the greatness of my God
I’ve never seen before!
It’s like the story of the man who saw the ocean for the first time and said, “IT’S SO BIG! SO VAST!” Your the best spiritual guide I know! THANK YOU for ALL the grunt work you do!
Gosh E-, that one didn’t hurt at all! And I’m not even done drinking my coffee yet.
It’s really cool at times to read something from you that I already believe. So it’s just an affirmation, not a pounding in the head wake up call.
I’m off to teach Elvis oh great one!
You go to church on Sunday, Melana?
And thanks for you affirmation Barbara.
A lot of people like to throw around John 14.6, ( I am the way, the truth and the life…) but if Jesus is THE TRUTH, then why can’t we embrace all that is truth and call it part of Jesus? Scary I know, but beautiful non the less. Think about it.
The answer was posted on spiritual liminal space.com two days ago. We see Christianity as a MONOPOLY instead of the IDEAL. In other words, the sectarianism that we abhor in Iraq, we practice in our own religious ghettos here in America.