Re-inventing the Wheel

"Choosing the "right" religion.......can it be a matter of spinning the wheel the right way.....?"





















"In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing."

- Mark Twain

Although my desk and work-surfaces don't reveal it - I am a pretty well-organized person. Even amongst the stacks of papers around my desk I generally know what's there and can usually find things very quickly in my "stacked by date" filing system. I usually have more trouble finding things when I try to organize myself in a "more-conventional" way.


With the advent of the Internet and its ability to seek, search and organize almost everything, there has come a trend to try and classify life into handy categories that offer the appearance of "organization" and "simplicity." Websites like "beliefnet.com" offer "free" spiritual profiles where you can answer a few questions about important "life issues" pertaining to faith and religion and very quickly you get a handy-dandy profile that places you in whatever spiritual or religious classification that your existing beliefs appear to reveal. Other websites like "eharmony.com" claim to do the same thing with relationships, by helping you to find your "soul mate" through a personality profile that helps you to classify, or focus your identity as a person.

TRUTH AS YOU WANT IT - NOT AS IT IS

It seems that the spiritual life in western culture, like restaurants, and party politics, has become just another choice.

I've attended various religious meetings and debates over the years and I've noticed that often the questions from seekers and newcomers seem to come from a motivation of trying to find out how the particular religious path might fit their preexisting belief system. When I consider the practices of the early church and the actions of the founders of the world's various religions - I see truth as being something clearly defined - communicated through a channel of common understanding, rather than something that is decided upon through"debate."

Truth is reality - what we believe about it can be variable, but our beliefs do not determine the truth.

In the western Christian tradition - the Bible is the sole standard for truth. Let me state categorically, at the risk of being misunderstood, that I think this approach has had disastrous results and is fraught with dangers that were not intended by the founding Fathers of the church. The Bible as it is today did not exist until well into the second millennium - of course, the early church had the letters of the apostles and the gospel accounts (which became the "New Testament" over time), but most of the teachings of the church were handed down through verbal transmission and were understood in the context of the existing Jewish communities of that time. Today we have a very different society than that which existed in the first century and therefore we cannot, in truth, interpret scripture accurately without the benefit of the lens of tradition that has been carried down through the ages.

Here's an interesting fact: Christianity grew at an amazing rate during the first thousand years - heralding tremendous changes in society throughout the known world, despite the absence of the compiled Bible - after the proliferation of the Canon of scripture - Christianity splintered literally thousands of times based on various personal interpretations of the "packaged" scriptures, and became affiliated with political power and supremacy.


REALITY + BIBLE = TRUTH

I urge a return to the observation of reality in the light of Scripture - not the other way around. We must stop limiting reality through the lens of the bible and start interpreting reality through the lens of the Bible. Reality becomes more meaningful this way.

Despite the protests of many conservative Evangelical Protestant Christians, the Bible is NOT the word of God - it is the interpretation of God's revelation to humanity recorded by men and women inspired by the Holy Spirit. That Holy Spirit is present in Christians today - as it was in those early days - therefore we can interpret the bible in the light of tradition - just as it was interpreted in the first millennium.

YESTERDAY'S NEWS

I'm tired of hearing so-called radio evangelists interpreting prophecies and proclamations from the Old Testament, or Hebrew Scriptures - as if they had not been fulfilled - using them as threats of punishment and damnation - ignoring the fact that Jesus Christ fulfilled the law, that there would no longer be condemnation or judgment under the old law. It's like reading yesterday's news as a prediction of the future - we don't even accept yesterday's weather forecast as current, but consider it as a way of measuring what's "normal"!!!

Jesus demonstrated time and time again that truth is found in the spirit, and not the letter, of a thing. Love is the ultimate law for everything - Loving God and neighbor.

For much of the "outside" world, Christianity in America is identified with manipulating politics and judging and/or condemning the world instead of transforming it through love and compassion. This is very sad.

If I were a seeker I'd be reluctant to "choose" this kind of Christianity and I'd probably manipulate my personality or spiritual profile to avoid that kind of classification. Life would be simpler that way.

Lord have mercy.......