Posted by Dena on April 25, 2005, at 10:37:52
In reply to Re: Been listening to Huston Smith's lecture series, posted by Dinah on April 24, 2005, at 11:52:03
Dinah -
I hear what you're saying... or I see what you're "painting"...!
I'm reading through a series of books that goes into what you're describing. It's written from a Christian perspective, but it's a perspective borne out of frustration with the whole "who's in and who's out" mentality regarding salvation...
It starts with the premise that yes, Jesus came to save, but He came to save the WHOLE WORLD, not a select few who get their brains wrapped around "right doctrine"...
... and, it discusses how we need to become part of the salvation of the whole world, through our works... that our works are about His plan for others, not so that we, individually are thus "saved"...
... how it includes saving the environment, the planet, the creation itself. Not writing it off, because "it's going to be destroyed one day anyway".
It's been challenging my "traditionally held Christian beliefs" - stretching me in often-painful, sometimes overwhelming ways...
...but it's all good, because it's enlargening my concepts of God. Letting Him out of my box, & the multitudes of boxes that others have tried to squelch Him into.
This concept not only allows, but ENCOURAGES all manner of questioning -- it mandates a belief system that makes room for doubts - even serious ones, because that's how we learn, and ultimately, that's how faith grows -- with honest integrity, rather than swallowing what others spoon-feed us.
It also forces us who've been "in the Christian community" to face our failings -- the ways in which we've "marketed" God, through the abuses of the crusades, slavery, dominion of other cultures, genocides, superiority, ignorance, and not to mention the tele-evangelists...!
It shows us that many of us have "missed the point", and have become more like those whom Jesus condemned, than like Jesus Himself...
It's more than cool.
"A New Kind of Christian" That's the first of a trilogy... while it's easy to read, it's not easy to digest... but VERY worth the while!
Shalom, Dena
poster:Dena
thread:487466
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/faith/20050312/msgs/489219.html