Emergent Valley (Salem, OR)

NEO-PAGAN CHRISTIAN

1. We are all human!!
   Bertrand Russell in a A Free Man's Worship Writes

   The life of man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, toward a goal that few can hope to reach, and where none may tarry long. One by one, as they march, our comrades vanish from our sight, seized by the silent orders of omnipotent death. Very brief is the time in which we can help them, in which their happiness or misery is decided. Be it ours to shed sunshine on their path, to lighten their sorrows by the balm of sympathy, to give them the pure joy of a never-tiring-affection, to strengthen failing courage, to instill faith in hours of despair. Let us not weigh in grudging scales their merits and demerits, but let us think only of their need--of their sorrows, the difficulties, perhaps the blindness, that makes the misery of their lives; let us remember that they are fellow sufferers in the same darkness, actors in the same tragedy with ourselves. And so, when their day is over, when their good and their evil have become eternal by the immortality of the past, be it ours to feel that, where they suffered, where they failed, no deed of ours was the cause; but wherever a spark of the divine fire kindled in their hearts, we were ready with encouragement, with sympathy, with brave words in which high courage glowed.

   This passage really makes me think. I feel that it really hits on what I am striving to do and what I feel we all should be striving to do as people and as humans as members of the human race. It shouldn't matter to me what a persons religion is or what their sexual preference is, or their income bracket, or their country of origin. What should matter is that I m doing all I can to help them live a good life. That I treat them with kindness and with the respect that they are due as persons of worth. To do anything less, is I feel just as much of a sin as any of the ten commandments. It is hard to always remember but we are all people and we all have the same spark of humanity within us.
2. An Immoral Christian?
   Nietzsche writes in his book Daybreak "morality is nothing other (therefore nor more!) than obedience to customs, of whatever kind they may be; Customs, however, are the traditional way of behaving and evaluating. In things in which no tradition commands there is no morality; and the less life is determined by tradition, the smaller, the circle of morality." This is an interesting quote because the word moral or morality is such a weighted word for Christians but in this context the word isn't being used to convey good or evil. But the context of tradition and people behaving in a way that society has come to expect them to act. The key point here is the need to understand why we do the things we do and why do we believe what we believe. I think that this has even more resonance when we look at the modern mainstream church and the differing rules and traditions that we follow, without understanding why we follow them and where they came from. The point of this is that we need to look at why we do what we do, why we believe what we believe, and then figure out what caused these traditions and whether or not they came from something good and right or from the mere concept of tradition. Then after you figure that out you move forward and do it again and again as long as it takes to move to becoming a better Christian and a better human being. I feel that this is what we are doing on Saturday nights and this is a very important process. I think that if this process makes us/me Immoral then so be it. I believe that at the end of the process I will be a better Christian and have a stronger understanding of why I follow and believe the rules that I do.
3. "DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT THE BIBLE"
   That is the title of a fascinating book written by Kenneth C. Davis. I was reading through it today as I indulged three of my favorite activities 1. Reading, 2. Drinking Coffee, 3. Pipe Smoking. These are a few of my favorite things. But back to the book, it really is very interesting and brings up some good questions and then works to answer them in a respectful way. Questions like "Who wrote the Old Testament?" and "Who really killed Goliath?" or "Did Jesus have brothers and Sisters?" These are all interesting questions in that they are not salvation questions but they call in to play what we are taught in Sunday school and in private Christian schools or at church. It really amazes me what people take for granted when they are taught things. I will most likely write more on this book as I move further into it but these were the thoughts in my head as I was reading today.
4. Divine Foreknowledge/Freewill
   I have just been reading Boethius's CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY and if you are at all into philosophy I highly recommend it. But on to the issue at hand. Do we in fact have free will? The deeper question is this one if God knows all that we do and all decisions we make is that truly free will. Boethius argues that we do have free will. He says that God resides outside of time and that for God he sees all possible choices we might make. The thought being that since God is outside of time there is no past or present or future. That for God all these happen at the same time. I would argue that his defense is flawed in that I believe that if we feel that God's knowledge is divine and that he can not make a mistake. Well then if God were to see us do something and then we do something else it brings into question the divinity of God or whether or not he can make a mistake. I think that is the flaw in Boethius's reasoning. I am not sure if I feel one way or the other on this issue. I lean toward the no freewill side of the argument but I feel that while Boethius's defense of it makes some sense. I feel that he makes that one fatal flaw. Thoughts?
5. What is a Christian?
   I read this excerpt from Frederick Buechner this morning and thought it was worth passing along. I'd be curious to hear what you all think of what he says.
   "Some think of a Christian as one who necessarily believes certain things. That Jesus was the son of God, say. Or that Mary was a virgin. Or that the Pope is infallible. Or that all other religions are all wrong.
   Some think of a Christian as one who necessarily does certain things. Such as going to church. Getting baptized. Giving up liquor and tobacco. Reading the Bible. Doing a good deed a day.
   Some think of a Christian as just a Nice Guy.
   Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me"(John 14:6). He didn't say that any particular ethic, doctrine, or religion was the way, the truth, and the life. He said that he was. He didn't say that it was by believing or doing anything in particular that you could "come to the Father." He said that it was only by him--by living, participating in, being caught up by, the way of life that he embodied, that was his way.
   Thus it is possible to be on Christ's way and with his mark upon you without ever having heard of Christ, and for that reason to be on your way to God though maybe you don't even believe in God.
   A Christian is one who is on the way, though not necessarily very far along it, and who has at least some dim and half-baked idea of whom to thank.
   A Christian isn't necessarily any nicer than anybody else. Just better informed."
   courtesy of Erin