Spiritual Manifesto
I
am a Christian, though not of the variety that consigns everyone
else to hell
in a handbasket. This makes me a non-Christian
to certain fundamentalists. Luckily for me, I will be judged
by God and not by them. I believe that Jesus spoke with the authority of God, but don't believe that the words in the Bible are an exact script, given that they didn't have tape recorders back then. I don't get too wrapped up with the whole Trinity thing. I believe the relevant point is to model our lives on the life of Jesus, both in a wordly, ethical sense, and a spiritual, personal relationship with God sense. I believe that Christ is the best way for us homo sapiens -- with our tiny homo sapien brains -- to understand and know God's infinite redemptive love for us. I believe that Jesus' life and resurrection was a watershed in man's understanding of the relationship between God and man. I do not, however, believe that God fundamentally changed the "rules of the game" at one particular point in human history, because the God I believe in is a little bigger concept than that. Thus, I do not believe we are forgiven because Jesus died on the cross, I believe we are forgiven because God forgives us (and always has). I believe the Sermon on the Mount is supposed to be too hard, so that, when taken to heart, we must realize we all fall short of the mark (consistently), and therefore ought to act humbly. Any theology that prescribes a code obtainable by man will invariably produce Pharisees and fundamentalists. Bottom line: We are all sinners, not because we inherited some seriously old karma from our mythical great-grandpa Adam, but because we are all inherently self-centered human beings. We are sinners with God-shaped holes in our hearts, and we are saved by the grace of a God that loves us completely and wants us to return just a bit of that love. I believe this saving grace relationship with the creator of the universe is most clearly expressed in the New Testament. My favorite scripture: |
||||
| Love God Love people Nothing else matters |
||||
| Matthew 22:34-40 | ||||
| A few random pearls of wisdom: | ||||
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who
has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo
their use |
||||
| Galileo Galilei | ||||
| Life
is not about you Get over it Life is about God’s plan for your life |
||||
| Michael Slaughter | ||||
| There
is nothing you can do to make God love you less; There is nothing you can do to make God love you more |
||||
| Philip Yancy | ||||
| Any spirituality that does not lead from a self-centered to an other-centered mode of existence is bankrupt | ||||
| Brennan Manning | ||||
As
for being saved, I do not make that claim. I do claim that I try
to follow the teachings, examples and person of Jesus Christ as best
as
I can - that is, mostly poorly - and that I do have "a conviction,
wrought in my heart," that in Christ God accomplishes everything
necessary for my salvation, as John Wesley put it. Before now and my
death and resurrection, all I can do is "work out my salvation
with fear and trembling," as Paul advised the Philippian Christians.
At that, I leave my salvation in God's good hands, in whom I have
placed my trust. |
||||
| Donald Sensing | ||||
To
be infinite, God must include all possibilities. Finitude is possible – here we are as witnesses – so finitude must
be included in God, together with all its gradations. That sounds like
a syllogism, but if it remains at the level of logic only it will speak
to no one. Only if the point is grasped intuitively will it become religiously
effective. Then every moment is recognized as being God in this particular
mode of his/her/its veiling. Secularists see only the veil, those with
religious sensibilities glimpse God through the veil, mystics see only
God, because they realize that the veil is necessary to God’s being
God and therefore is a part of God. This does not cause mystics to disregard
the veil. Indeed, at times they experience it as so thick that it causes
them to cry out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” But
in their heart of hearts they understand that God is fully present
everywhere and in everything and that his seeming absence is required
if he is to
share his infinity while remaining in himself the absolute perfection
that he is. That perfection prevails. God is all in all. |
||||
| Huston Smith | ||||
| Most influential books: | ||||