Well, we just went to the last session of Saving Jesus tonight. Sad to see them end. Never have been to anything like it. It wasn't a Bible study. What does that mean ..Saving Jesus?? . We've had the privilege of hearing from some religious thinkers that normally we don't read about - spiritual leaders who question the notion that we must take everything in the Bible absolutely literally or we don't have faith. These people have a radical - perhaps revolutionary approach to re-defining Jesus..or maybe I should say re-claiming Jesus. Can he be just human.. albeit an extraordinary human and one whose teachings we should emulate and spread? What happens if we don't think of Jesus and God as divine and one - a supernatural power? Are we still Christians? Can we share that believing in Jesus means Love..unconditional love for All...without being "evangelists?" Can we be inclusive of all interpretations without judging or spending time on those who are fearful of that? Can we allow that people who have different views from ours are entitled to them? Much food for thought. It's been enlightening, energizing and inspiring. And mulling it over with the other folks in the group we've found that you can question your beliefs as a way of staying ON your spiritual journey. Faith doesn't have to be static. Lots of people out there need our direct help. It doesn't much help a thirsty, hungry, exhausted, freezing family to just tell them that God loves them. They need a roof over their heads, hot meals and assistance to getting out of the cycle of poverty, sexual, drug, and alcohol abuse and mental illness. For those of us who have been shown God's love....our challenge is to go forth and share our abundance.
"I think these days we're having a bit of a culture war and Jesus happens to be one of the weapons that gets tossed about, in fact, by both sides."
-Amy-Jill Levine, Saving Jesus interview. http://www.livingthequestions.com/
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3 comments:
pretty deep - LOTS of food for thought. I always say....Bible/God, not religion AND Action, not words.....
We (humans) can intellectualize everything to death -- will we ever really know the answers?? No - probably not until we're in heaven. Do the best we can being obedient to the Word...
There are some people who need, for whatever reason, to have things pretty much defined in terms of certainty. In an age where things are anything but certain, whether in personal lives, or going on in the world in general, this gives tremendous comfort and stability.
Then there are those of us, the perennial Seekers, for whom certainty is at best a temporary stop until finding the next certainty. Or perhaps more correctly said as where some people have a need for "absolute truth" - we realize that the "absolute truth" of the "absolute truth" is that there isn't any such thing. And that scares the crap out of people who need certainty as their primary paradigm. We are the ones who ask of a particular truth or situation, "well, all fine and good, and?" It's that last "and," that constant question that freaks 'em out. [grin].
So some of us graduate to the Unitarian-Universalist realm of understanding, where the Journey is what is celebrated, not any particular "arrival." For the Journey never ends. We go through life after life learning more, doing more, and if we're doing it correctly, becoming more like the ideal of The Christ over time. Working for social justice, ministering to those in need, realizing that it is in giving we receive, in extending ourselves, the world shrinks, as such extending brings us closer together.
Namaste' and Blessings
Re-reading it again you wrote:
What happens if we don't think of Jesus and God as divine and one - a supernatural power? Are we still Christians? Can we share that believing in Jesus means Love..unconditional love for All...without being "evangelists?"
In answer I have heard that some call themselves "followers of Christ" rather than "Christian." Meaning follow what he did, rather than take on the trappings of what people tell you what a Christian is or isn't. In truth, I think Jesus saw himself in his time and place much as Martin Luther did some 1,500 or so years later, not wishing to establish a new religion, per se, but reform the excesses of the Judaism in his day, the holier-than-thou attitude of the Pharisees, the money-changers at the Temple and so on. Re-infuse the Spirit of the Law, instead of only living (or trying to) the Letter of the Law. As Bobby Fuller wrote in 1965, "I fought the Law (and the Law won)."
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