Although I am neither traditional or nontraditional in certain ways, I do want authenticity. And that includes church.
That authenticity includes not going to church -- not because I'm an uninvolved Christian, but truly and frankly, because I'm so involved I can't spare the cost.
I wonder as a Christian how I am benefited from church. Although we often hear The Bible read, study The Bible before the auditorium-part and sing praises to God, I do not see how I can't do most of this on my own, with other Christians, and skip what I now see as ineffectual on any serious level.
I've got The Bible on computer, The Bible being read in audio, any time I want to hear it. I can study on my own, and I've learned a lot more effectively. Older people often cease going to church and listen to perhaps a better preacher on their syndicated channel on TV or the radio. I can sing without anyone else being necessary.
Now this may sound all-too cynical to the dedicated church-goer, and I used to be one of them! I thought it was just what you did. It was an expectation of every dedicated Christian. But how far does my dedication and gravity go in it? I've found church-Christianity to be very lighthearted, unconfronting, and never too deep.
I know that Jesus was so offensive to his synagogue, or 'church,' gathering, that they tried to throw him off a brow of a hill. Jeremiah, even his own family was calling for his blood. Paul's jail-time. John's, the baptist, beheading. In a Christian society, Martin Luther's sentence. Tyndale's perfidious translation! And what of me? Am I satisfied with arm-chair Christianity? Then let my name be never: John, Jeremiah, William Tyndale, Martin Luther, Paul, the Anabaptists; let me never be burned at the stake for translating into English, sought for opposing the practices of a corrupt Catholic church, beheaded for speaking the truth, persecuted from city to city, as Jesus promised; let me be satisfied to sit back and accept right or wrong, whatever the pastor, priest or minister, board, etc., tells me, that in any practical way has nothing to do with mission work, persecution, objection, offense, church holiness, repentance or anything else than attendance at a edificial slightly-varied repetition at an institution ...
... Yes, that doesn't satisfy me and isn't me. And few, of course, are prone to question. No message will ever rattle our boat. Sedentary. Static. Just the way we perceive our Christianity to be, just as Jesus' ministry exhibited, just as Paul's laid-back voyages, just as "upstanding" citizens of a Christian country that never go to jail! Or is there more? ...
Frank Viola and George Barna in their book Pagan Christianity, have alluded to more, a community of Christian followers, and participants ... but honestly that's not far enough for me. That Christianity in someone's living room by nature exceeds to God's calling in Christ so much over the building-style churches, that the topic is thereby ended, with some talk of "spiritual gifts," and "sharing," of the type where the word "community," ... "fellowship" and "brotherhood," ... "brother" and "sister" are mentioned. Is that the Christianity that was rocking the world in Paul's time, and with the Anatolian Christians to whom John writing concerning their persecution? Or is it just so Christian all of the sudden, our living in a Christian society that no stands and no work remains? ... It's all internal now. No need to get up. ... It certainly is honesty that gives us the answers we don't want to hear ...
That those of The East, many of them, can't see how we can be so immoral; that those of the Muslim regions can't see how we allow such a worldly life, with sexuality and disrespect in shows and in movies. And are we the light of the world, are we not worldly? The "unbelieving," ask us questions we can't answer ... even though we go to church Sunday after Sunday, or even more than once a week. Is there something wrong? You know there is!
It's as though people don't know what Christianity is, and as people of Jesus' time and afterward, in any practical way, don't intend to learn it. And that is the fact. Paul uses the term "holy and dearly loved," and does he mean us? We, holy? Of course not. That is not the kind of persons we find at church, nor expect at church, but we do find immoral and unholy people, whether we're honest about it or not. So what did Paul mean? ...
I think truly the house-church movement is a great movement, as one of the premiere proponents, Frank Viola, has extolled, and rightly so. And great. But it doesn't end there. Paul spared no measure himself in correcting the churches he wrote to, which discipline by Paul or by God himself we certainly do not expect today and in our churches. Again I ask you: What changed? Paul went so far as chastising the Corinthians, for what?, why, for even allowing the kind of behavior that was occurring among just one of their members. Can you imagine today? They wouldn't put up with it.
Accountability is a big portion. Another has to do with fellowship. Paul never intended, nor Peter if you read his two letters, nor John the apostle, that his and God's church and people have fellowship with one another including with an adulterer -- Paul even mentions that the body of Christ should not be joined with "a prostitute" -- even to the point of excluding an "immoral person".
Now shapes up Paul's intent for his church, and churches. That indeed the fellowship with God is not fellowship with evil, but fellowship with him, who is righteous, holy and good, and loving, and not the opposite. That their fellowship with "light" as John says, excludes fellowship with darkness. Thereby if the church you attend, as I've found through my travels, pleads "neutrality" on these life-altering issues, then it seems they plead "neutrality," on God and what the church is supposed to be.
Be like the first gatherings of Christians. You don't need a big building. You don't need people that feed over from the big building to find out what you are doing, or to corrupt your fellowship, or what I would call, your holy values. Of brotherhood in gratitude to Christ. If it is a fellowship with God, do we need claimants of the Christian faith mulling around a building, listening and proceeding through recitations and what's rote?
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Common Among All Major Religious Belief-Systems
What is common among all benevolent mainstream religious belief-systems?: Morality
What is expected among all people? It is that they do right by other people. Any moral system requires that proper behavior is exhibited both by its followers, and by transference also it is expected by outsiders.
Is that so hard?
So then often what is the issue is not what religious system people follow, excepting the dearness of the religion to people's heart, or belief that it is the right religion, but that people fulfill their religious morals, often simply that they live out the morality of the religion that they claim.
A lot of times, it doesn't matter what religion or group the other person is, but that they are treated well by you, and that itself will usually speak more for your religion, as far as it relates to you, to your practice of your religion, than the details of it which people will not always understand, especially or appreciate. Likewise, if you want to feel good about another person or their practice of their religion, denomination, religious affiliation, it matters to you, if you can see how you would feel being on the receiving end, that their interpersonal interaction in morality, their interpersonal morality, includes treating you honorably and morally well. This often speaks loudest for your religion, and many people are persuaded by good behavior towards themselves, and a forgotten trait called 'kindness'.
Apart from and knowing the distinction between 'buttering-up,' this is a religious moral and righteous belief that people share, that the other person or group should be treated well and regarded as valuable. What respected religious or belief system does not have the expectation that treating people well, often even with kindness, is an objective or obligation? In Christianity besides 'loving God' that is the totality of the religion, or at least the law Jesus recommended. And so, with Christianity, and also with others, we are speaking for our religion by having these high moral standards that we also exhibit. Practically. If your religion is to be spread, if you want to convince others of it, and they do not accept specific tenets, such as Jesus rising from the dead, then what is your specific approach, considering that in Christianity the love for God, which may or is supposed to be or turns out being largely a private affair, that then the only Christianity they see other than your tenets, specific, perhaps to a denomination, or general, is your love or good behavior with regard to them, which they certainly see!
What is your tack as a Christian, Muslim, Jew, esoteric ... that they go to your building, reciting your tenets, practicing your rituals ... regardless of your or their behavior on this universal moral quotient that everyone apparently knows is right and that these religions as well as others ostensibly or in actuality put such a high rank on that its practitioners put such importance on supposedly, while they may lack displaying this behavior in some ways, or to its full extent?
You must ask What am I converting this person to or what do I hold to so strongly that I am emphatic about it?
In saying this I have not betrayed my own religion, but that my practice must line up with my confession. If as a Christian I believe that God loves me and that love is the highest and greatest commandment, both to God and to people, Why then would I focus so much on everything else, to the exclusion or sublimation of the crown of what I say I most stand for? For us who believe either religiously or otherwise that this is important to our code, why would everything else take precedent, or this practice even a back seat? In this way our stated religion or ethics inform us of what we already believe and should be practicing.
Regardless of the point we are trying to get across, religious or otherwise, if we acknowledge and have the expectation that the right way people deal with us is of utmost importance, if we believe people should be treated well, and we expect they should be treated as we would want to be, because we want the same in return, then violating this point makes you wrong already! Regardless of the issue, you have violated them, their value, especially if you are connected to part of such a religion!
Would you Christians say that Jesus loved you and them so much that he died for all, tell opponents of any sort to your religion, that they must love as you are to, and then rail them with abuse and insults for not accepting your religion, or do you display a lack of interpersonal morality? If you desire to bring people to your way, then as regards to them, both to their face and generally, treat them with personal integrity that you also accept as a basic requirement.
What is expected among all people? It is that they do right by other people. Any moral system requires that proper behavior is exhibited both by its followers, and by transference also it is expected by outsiders.
Is that so hard?
So then often what is the issue is not what religious system people follow, excepting the dearness of the religion to people's heart, or belief that it is the right religion, but that people fulfill their religious morals, often simply that they live out the morality of the religion that they claim.
A lot of times, it doesn't matter what religion or group the other person is, but that they are treated well by you, and that itself will usually speak more for your religion, as far as it relates to you, to your practice of your religion, than the details of it which people will not always understand, especially or appreciate. Likewise, if you want to feel good about another person or their practice of their religion, denomination, religious affiliation, it matters to you, if you can see how you would feel being on the receiving end, that their interpersonal interaction in morality, their interpersonal morality, includes treating you honorably and morally well. This often speaks loudest for your religion, and many people are persuaded by good behavior towards themselves, and a forgotten trait called 'kindness'.
Apart from and knowing the distinction between 'buttering-up,' this is a religious moral and righteous belief that people share, that the other person or group should be treated well and regarded as valuable. What respected religious or belief system does not have the expectation that treating people well, often even with kindness, is an objective or obligation? In Christianity besides 'loving God' that is the totality of the religion, or at least the law Jesus recommended. And so, with Christianity, and also with others, we are speaking for our religion by having these high moral standards that we also exhibit. Practically. If your religion is to be spread, if you want to convince others of it, and they do not accept specific tenets, such as Jesus rising from the dead, then what is your specific approach, considering that in Christianity the love for God, which may or is supposed to be or turns out being largely a private affair, that then the only Christianity they see other than your tenets, specific, perhaps to a denomination, or general, is your love or good behavior with regard to them, which they certainly see!
What is your tack as a Christian, Muslim, Jew, esoteric ... that they go to your building, reciting your tenets, practicing your rituals ... regardless of your or their behavior on this universal moral quotient that everyone apparently knows is right and that these religions as well as others ostensibly or in actuality put such a high rank on that its practitioners put such importance on supposedly, while they may lack displaying this behavior in some ways, or to its full extent?
You must ask What am I converting this person to or what do I hold to so strongly that I am emphatic about it?
In saying this I have not betrayed my own religion, but that my practice must line up with my confession. If as a Christian I believe that God loves me and that love is the highest and greatest commandment, both to God and to people, Why then would I focus so much on everything else, to the exclusion or sublimation of the crown of what I say I most stand for? For us who believe either religiously or otherwise that this is important to our code, why would everything else take precedent, or this practice even a back seat? In this way our stated religion or ethics inform us of what we already believe and should be practicing.
Regardless of the point we are trying to get across, religious or otherwise, if we acknowledge and have the expectation that the right way people deal with us is of utmost importance, if we believe people should be treated well, and we expect they should be treated as we would want to be, because we want the same in return, then violating this point makes you wrong already! Regardless of the issue, you have violated them, their value, especially if you are connected to part of such a religion!
Would you Christians say that Jesus loved you and them so much that he died for all, tell opponents of any sort to your religion, that they must love as you are to, and then rail them with abuse and insults for not accepting your religion, or do you display a lack of interpersonal morality? If you desire to bring people to your way, then as regards to them, both to their face and generally, treat them with personal integrity that you also accept as a basic requirement.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
A World Religious View as a Christian
With various world beliefs out there, from atheist to Christian, to Eastern philosophy, to another religion of the East, Islam, et cetera; we must ask ourselves, What are we criticizing?
What do cause the stomach to churn and cause our interjections and objections?
It is usually the same things that upset us so much in interpersonal relationships. That the other person doesn't care about us. It is often the reason atheists are so ardent, in objection; and the cause of hurt to the atheist heart, that not only do they feel that God doesn't care, or even exist, if you don't mind, but that Christians display an intolerant, and often hateful, especially virulent to 'sinners' or 'deniers,' expression to those who will not accept their principles, which objections, to be honest, are ofttimes valid! Logic is, or seems to be, undeniable. And why would the Christian be so offended by an appeal to the truth, or logic? Or, for some, science for that matter? The important point for the atheist ... is that the Christian is unreasonable, believing in something, or a laundry list of things, because of tradition, or upbringing. The atheist is individualistic, future-oriented, reasonable, ... or else he often perceives himself to be, or desires to be. To the atheist, the Christian is unreasonable, ... and to top it off, not only can't explain his tenets, for many Christians, he may be unwilling to do so, and appear or be recalcitrant to our poor atheist, who is just in search for the truth. The Christian, strangely, or perhaps strangely, registers the same sentiments.
To the Christian and the Muslim, and even to often those of the Eastern philosophical persuasion, God is undeniable. But the atheist cannot fathom, through thought, reason, religious experience or bitterness, perhaps, the religious one's unbending adherence to his own religion or a conviction of one sort or another. Again, just as the atheist closes his mind to his personal conviction, against naysayers and incompatible ideas, so does the Christian and all else, even applying to outside religion, in other areas, as politics, gender ... The unaccepting mind is just closed, each party will say, or the heart is closed. The ideology one chooses comes from the heart. It is not that it does not comport with the asserter's mind at all, but that it is something the person believes to be right.
At this point, religion or belief, tenet ... it all fails to matter. Those who hold particular said belief, position, are the enemy, for many. The idea of being intellectually right or morally right falls by the wayside, for the adherent has chosen what makes sense to him, and the opponent to him or his is the adversary.
This is all too unfortunate. For, as an old saying goes, attaining to truth leads to unity, but attainment, or arrival, at truth leads to division. The idea is that as long as we have a common goal we're unified in that, and not on the basis of denomination, religious or otherwise.
Those who make themselves our enemies or adversaries, or we who do the same, on this basis, lack one thing: Education. We're so interested, many of us, in entrenching and solidifying our own position, that we cease to learn, for our unyielding ossification lets us not change our minds, in small way, or great, in tenet or totality, for we are right. For we are no longer Christians, atheists, Jews or Muslims, wise men, but propagandists, at least only and alone to ourselves.
I have seen the objections on the part of many of the East, who deject at and upon our immorality in the West, atheists who note an uncaring God, Christians who question how the atheist yet doubts even in an undefined God at all. The Christians on the Western side of the world seem to have little interest in the pure life of the East. The morality. The Eastern world has no interest, the philosophical Buddhists and esoterics, et cetera, in substitutionary atonement, of a christ who died as a substitute.
The sad fact of all this, ... is that whatever the truth is, and whatever is the appropriate philosophy, outlook, or religion, we apparently will never discover it, will we; unless on the off-chance we already have? For if the name and life of the Christian, is correct, then it will end there. The mind is closed to any thought not already rattling around in the brain, or open to the heart of the Christian, or expounded by their famous religious demagogues, or local assembly leaders. In the end we have abdicated our minds, our hearts, to the narrowness of the haranguing of our opinion-makers, and socially delineated constraints, rather than the fearful tenuous ship's plank -- or it is perceived, apparently, treated as such -- of open heart, open mind, ... genuinity.
As a Christian and for a Christian, and to convince those who are not, will I not have to open my heart and my ear? Keep throwing up walls, and renunciations, and whether Christian, or not, the world will not listen to you. And why should they? For you have painted them as the black sheep, often Christians, that in your mind they are. Shall they renounce their objections and thoughts, and beliefs, so that they fit your idea, when many Christians themselves are more interested in denominations than truth, love, or being called 'Christian'? Now what denomination? Is your mind big enough to grapple with their thoughts and understandings, or your heart wide enough to see their perspective and how it seems appropriate to them? Or do you array yourself with presorted answers? What if your favorite preacher, doctrine or pope is at stake? If your religion or belief is the issue then these things are or may be secondary. What if ... by laying down your defenses, you come to the truth? What if you come to be known as open-minded ... convincing ... reasonable? And if all else fails, at least you get an education yourself.
What do cause the stomach to churn and cause our interjections and objections?
It is usually the same things that upset us so much in interpersonal relationships. That the other person doesn't care about us. It is often the reason atheists are so ardent, in objection; and the cause of hurt to the atheist heart, that not only do they feel that God doesn't care, or even exist, if you don't mind, but that Christians display an intolerant, and often hateful, especially virulent to 'sinners' or 'deniers,' expression to those who will not accept their principles, which objections, to be honest, are ofttimes valid! Logic is, or seems to be, undeniable. And why would the Christian be so offended by an appeal to the truth, or logic? Or, for some, science for that matter? The important point for the atheist ... is that the Christian is unreasonable, believing in something, or a laundry list of things, because of tradition, or upbringing. The atheist is individualistic, future-oriented, reasonable, ... or else he often perceives himself to be, or desires to be. To the atheist, the Christian is unreasonable, ... and to top it off, not only can't explain his tenets, for many Christians, he may be unwilling to do so, and appear or be recalcitrant to our poor atheist, who is just in search for the truth. The Christian, strangely, or perhaps strangely, registers the same sentiments.
To the Christian and the Muslim, and even to often those of the Eastern philosophical persuasion, God is undeniable. But the atheist cannot fathom, through thought, reason, religious experience or bitterness, perhaps, the religious one's unbending adherence to his own religion or a conviction of one sort or another. Again, just as the atheist closes his mind to his personal conviction, against naysayers and incompatible ideas, so does the Christian and all else, even applying to outside religion, in other areas, as politics, gender ... The unaccepting mind is just closed, each party will say, or the heart is closed. The ideology one chooses comes from the heart. It is not that it does not comport with the asserter's mind at all, but that it is something the person believes to be right.
At this point, religion or belief, tenet ... it all fails to matter. Those who hold particular said belief, position, are the enemy, for many. The idea of being intellectually right or morally right falls by the wayside, for the adherent has chosen what makes sense to him, and the opponent to him or his is the adversary.
This is all too unfortunate. For, as an old saying goes, attaining to truth leads to unity, but attainment, or arrival, at truth leads to division. The idea is that as long as we have a common goal we're unified in that, and not on the basis of denomination, religious or otherwise.
Those who make themselves our enemies or adversaries, or we who do the same, on this basis, lack one thing: Education. We're so interested, many of us, in entrenching and solidifying our own position, that we cease to learn, for our unyielding ossification lets us not change our minds, in small way, or great, in tenet or totality, for we are right. For we are no longer Christians, atheists, Jews or Muslims, wise men, but propagandists, at least only and alone to ourselves.
I have seen the objections on the part of many of the East, who deject at and upon our immorality in the West, atheists who note an uncaring God, Christians who question how the atheist yet doubts even in an undefined God at all. The Christians on the Western side of the world seem to have little interest in the pure life of the East. The morality. The Eastern world has no interest, the philosophical Buddhists and esoterics, et cetera, in substitutionary atonement, of a christ who died as a substitute.
The sad fact of all this, ... is that whatever the truth is, and whatever is the appropriate philosophy, outlook, or religion, we apparently will never discover it, will we; unless on the off-chance we already have? For if the name and life of the Christian, is correct, then it will end there. The mind is closed to any thought not already rattling around in the brain, or open to the heart of the Christian, or expounded by their famous religious demagogues, or local assembly leaders. In the end we have abdicated our minds, our hearts, to the narrowness of the haranguing of our opinion-makers, and socially delineated constraints, rather than the fearful tenuous ship's plank -- or it is perceived, apparently, treated as such -- of open heart, open mind, ... genuinity.
As a Christian and for a Christian, and to convince those who are not, will I not have to open my heart and my ear? Keep throwing up walls, and renunciations, and whether Christian, or not, the world will not listen to you. And why should they? For you have painted them as the black sheep, often Christians, that in your mind they are. Shall they renounce their objections and thoughts, and beliefs, so that they fit your idea, when many Christians themselves are more interested in denominations than truth, love, or being called 'Christian'? Now what denomination? Is your mind big enough to grapple with their thoughts and understandings, or your heart wide enough to see their perspective and how it seems appropriate to them? Or do you array yourself with presorted answers? What if your favorite preacher, doctrine or pope is at stake? If your religion or belief is the issue then these things are or may be secondary. What if ... by laying down your defenses, you come to the truth? What if you come to be known as open-minded ... convincing ... reasonable? And if all else fails, at least you get an education yourself.
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