Why Christianity? Hmm, I guess because I was sorrounded by it and because also I felt it was the right path to God for me, I like the message of Love which came to us from Jesus and I like Jesus too very much, but, I also appreciate the other prophets, but Jesus is special in ways they were not, which doesnt mean they arent any good or cannot be rolemodels and such,we must respect and love all the prophets sent to us by God.

The question of salvation is a vexed one. The Christian creeds seem to affirm that Jesus is the only way for anyone to be 'saved.' For most of Christian history this has been the theological understanding of Jesus and the Gospels; he is the 'way, truth and light' and no-one comes to the Father except through the Son.

However, given our vastly improved knowledge of comparative religion, I find this view very hard to hold personally. Historically, Christianity has been confined to a fairly small portion of the world (the Roman Empire and some sections of Asia and Europe) and the vast majority of people in history would never have heard of either Jesus or the Gospel. Does this logically mean all Hindus, Buddhists, Shamans, Muslims, Jews, agnostics, atheists, and others outside of Christ damned? Did God predestine this for the original sin of Adam?

There are a range of theological responses to these questions, and I will outline three I have read. One is called exclusivism, and is defended by some. Jesus really is the true way to salvation but is also the only way to salvation. No-one can be saved and can have eternal life save through by Jesus, and all others who reject him are going to hell or perhaps will be destroyed on judgement day. This view is very popular amoung fundamentalists, pentecostal and charismatic Christian denominations, and amoung evangelicals (from my own experience with evangelical Christians).

A second view is tolerant exclusivism. In this way, all will be eventually saved, but only if they accept the grace of Jesus either in this life or the next. Jesus is still the only true way to God, however God gives those who have died another chance or chances to come to him. More liberal Protestants (i.e. Karl Barth) and Catholics (Karl Rahner) seem to hold this view.

A third view, and this is the one I hold, is it is true Jesus is the truth, way and light, but only for those who follow the Christian faith. I believe there are other pathways to God and a loving God would not condemn the majority of humanity to perdition forever for something beyond their control. I think it is an error to say all religions lead to God, since at least one major world Religion does not aim to create a relationship with a personal God (Buddhism) and offers a fairly non-theistic mystical encounter with the transcendant. Likewise, Sufi mysticism would regard the idea of the Trinity as ridiculous, since this violates the fundamental Islamic doctrine of God's unity (tawhid).

After one studies different religions, you realise all religions have very different concepts of the Absolute and also often divergent paths of reaching it. I think what Christianity should do is accept other ways to salvation exist, but at the same time Christianity should not surrender its unique spiritual core and heritage and still focus on Jesus as he is spelt out in the Bible, the creeds, and in tradition, so what is unique and insightful into the spiritual condition of man is not lost in vague syncretism (as it was in Gnosticism).

SisterLionHeart,

How good to have you with us!

I remarked to a woman that the probabilities of the Messianic Prophecies coming true in one man's life
defy human comprehension, and that she could do the research herself if she wished. She stood up, got angry and said that she has done plenty of research
and that the bible was all mistranslated, and hostile to women, and what about the Da Vinci code?

I've been getting these reactions from people for a quarter of a century now, and try not to take it personally, since they have a problem with Jesus, and some of his children (understandably).

They can throw stones all they want to, but I'll just never shut up!

caritas, mm <*))))><

Hello Michael,

Thank you, its nice to be here. Yes, I know what you mean, I have gotten reactions like that from people as well. I dont think the bible is hating towards women, I think all is what you make it, so if you want to see it that way you can, and if you dont want to, you cant, meaning, it depends on what you see and how you understand things from the bible. No, its good one should never shut up

Pax Christi

quote:

Originally posted by Gregory:
[qb]

A third view, and this is the one I hold, is it is true Jesus is the truth, way and light, but only for those who follow the Christian faith. I believe there are other pathways to God and a loving God would not condemn the majority of humanity to perdition forever for something beyond their control. I think it is an error to say all religions lead to God, since at least one major world Religion does not aim to create a relationship with a personal God (Buddhism) and offers a fairly non-theistic mystical encounter with the transcendant. Likewise, Sufi mysticism would regard the idea of the Trinity as ridiculous, since this violates the fundamental Islamic doctrine of God's unity (tawhid).

After one studies different religions, you realise all religions have very different concepts of the Absolute and also often divergent paths of reaching it. I think what Christianity should do is accept other ways to salvation exist, but at the same time Christianity should not surrender its unique spiritual core and heritage and still focus on Jesus as he is spelt out in the Bible, the creeds, and in tradition, so what is unique and insightful into the spiritual condition of man is not lost in vague syncretism (as it was in Gnosticism). [/qb]

Yep, thats what I think too!

In the 20th Chapter of the Book of Job, Job describes the honors of the life he once knew.

His life once dripped with wealth and comfort (v. 6).

He sat in the gate of the city where he received respect (vv. 7-9) and where the honorable men hung on his words (vv. 9-11).

He did great works of service for those in need (vv. 12-13). He was a judge among them, and the people came to him to plead the cause of justice (vv. 14-17).

He basked in the glow of success and adulation, and if we read the first chapter of the book properly, he enjoyed completely the wealth that his position brought.

Then it was swept away in the whirlwinds of disaster, and only then did he learn the important lessons of life. Those lessons pierce the core of the frustration that so many of us feel in today's world of acquisition and status, for Job had defined himself in terms of what he had and what he did, and in our modern world we often do the same.


http://www.borntowin.net/guest...y.aspx?who=yea&id=51

SisterLionHeart

Originally posted by Gregory:


�A third view, and this is the one I hold, is it is true Jesus is the truth, way and light, but only for those who follow the Christian faith.�

G> = gill
G> Jesus allways spoke the word and will of the Father, that his father had given to him, which was the truth,the way and the light.
That is, through his teaching and dialog given to those around him and to us during and after his ministery.
Jesus also had a human side.
Don�t you suppose, when some of his disiples were out fishing and he was
Waiting on the bank, that he may have yelled out, � how did you do boys?
Got enough for supper tonight�.

Jesus can also be our brother and friend.
To me he is my brother.

Greg > Only for those who follow the Christian faith?

G> How do you think non Christians become Christians?
In either case the truth,way and light are given to all man.

Do�es that mean all who have never heard the gospel message are
Up the creek.
I hardly think so.
One who is in Christ is judged already and found to be not guilty in judgement.
The others will have to wait untill they croak to be judged and then
According to their deeds.

Greg> I think what Christianity should do is accept other ways to salvation exist, but at the same time Christianity should not surrender its unique spiritual core and heritage and still focus on Jesus as he is spelt out in the Bible.

G> I�ll buy that.
When I was younger and working in the logging camps in the pacific northwest a friend of mine was an Indian chief and medicine man.
Their spiritual religion was much the same as the Lakota.
He told me that he now knew the great spirit is GOD, but they used to
Call him by another name.
He said they were children of the great spirit.

Dos�nt sound to far off from a christian perspective.

Why, indeed...

In 1981 I was drawn, by a series of striking coincidences, to visit Mount Athos, a monastic community in northeastern Greece. For me it was a turning point.

One monk, originally from Peru (but fluent in English and conversant in Norwegian!), spent many hours in conversation with me.

At one point, seizing an opportunity in the moment, he said: "You should repeat the prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." or simply "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me."

When I asked why, he simply smiled knowingly. "Pray, and you will have your answer."

A year later, sitting down to meditate, I took up the Prayer. Suddenly it opened like a flower of light, and I wept.

At times the Prayer feels more a part of me than my own breathing. Other times it is as though my heart is a bursting cup in the presence of Christ, a cup that cannot possibly contain or fathom what flows from the source!

I have not let go of the Prayer since � or more accurately, it has not let go of me.

That must be my answer as to Why.

Very interesting! Thanks for sharing. That kind of experiential knowledge is priceless.

Hi Phil, Jon, ev eryone:

I went through this thread "Why Christianity". Several things stood out for me. One was
that somewhere on this thread, i think, Phil you mentioned that you felt Christianity was about Love.
Could you express what you mean by love in this context please.

Is this thread only for a RC viewpoint or are other Christian understandings acceptable here.?

I relate to what Jon responded earlier in the thread. I am not learned in theology and this term
panenthesistic Christian was a new term for me. So i looked it up. Now this is something i can relate to. Have you addressed this issue on the list. Or some of the other issues Jon mentioned
in his post. If so could you direct me to the conversations please.

Thanks
Ajoy

*******
/Warning: Rant about to be pounded into the Cathedral door. Read at your own risk.

Why Christianity?

I don't know. I just don't know anymore. Why indeed? All I know is that I don't think I can really describe myself as Christian anymore without some significant qualifications--i.e. I'm a panentheistic Christian mystic, or Buddhochristian, or a mystic drawing from both Christian and Eastern traditions, or a mystic, with most my worship activity in Catholic settings.
<cut>
Why is the Gospel activity of lay preaching condemned? If the priests can't tell the truth, let me! I will! But if any of us contemplatives were to really say, REALLY say, unguarded, what God has shown us in the deepest part of our soul, the non-dual Godness and Goodness of ALL, wouldn't we be thrown out of the Church as quickly as Jesus was brought to the edge of the cliff from the Galilean synagogue?
<cut>
jon

quote:

Originally posted by Ajoy:
[qb]But if any of us contemplatives were to really say, REALLY say, unguarded, what God has shown us in the deepest part of our soul, the non-dual Godness and Goodness of ALL, wouldn't we be thrown out of the Church as quickly as Jesus was brought to the edge of the cliff from the Galilean synagogue?
<cut>
jon [/qb]

This is why we have online identities, carefully masking our true names. Except for Phil, that is.

There are, of course, good reasons why the Church does not canonise saints why they are still alive...

Hello PrayerHeart:

Thanks for the feedback. Just wanted to say that
those weren't my words you were responding to but
from Jon's in his earlier post.

I realized that i came to this group to see if i
wanted to call myself a Christian anymore. All i
was seeing was confinement with this term. Then when i read Jon's post i saw so much of my own frustration.

With some of the variety within Christianity
he wrote about i saw more of my own process. And it was refreshing. And like him i guess i would only be able to call myself a Christian with qualifications.

And personally after looking at a chapter in a
Matthew Fox book, Compassion, he is so far expressing much
of what i have experienced. And for me it is the
expression of compassion that feels under this whole process. Which is why
i asked Phil what he meant by love. For me
compassion includes love. By compassion i do not mean an emotion. It is beyond the ego. Yet this is not a expression i have heard used before within Christianity. So thanks for the space to
express such things.

Ajoy

Welcome back, Ajoy. It's good to see you here again.

It might be helpful to mention, here, the forum on the Christian Mysteries found on this board. We discuss various Christian beliefs and there's been quite a bit of dialogue already. This thread might be kind of redundant in a way; I think it preceded that forum. But it does address the "why" question, while the Christian Mysteries forum is more concerned with the "what" of Christian belief.

Maybe you could be more specific about what your questions and issues are? E.g., the teaching on love: that's very basic in Christianity and all the world religions. What's unique in Christianity is that this love is considered God's very life -- i.e.

quote:

God is love and anyone who lives in love lives in God and God lives in him. (1 Jn. 4: 14).

This love is manifest in and through us by the Holy Spirit, which is God's life indwelling in the soul. It brings forth a wide range of actions and is supplemented by a variety of gifts from the Spirit.

There is a kind of "non-duality" in Christianity in that through faith and baptism, our created human soul begins to draw its life from Christ and becomes transformed by the Spirit into a likeness of Christ. This is a quite different understanding from Eastern monistic systems in that it affirms our created nature and explains how, through grace, we become incorporated into the life of the Trinity.

Ajoy, misattributed quotes and jokes aside, I certainly hear what you are saying!

I define my Christianity in terms of my relationship to God, to Christ, to fellow pathwalkers -- and not in terms of institutions. To me Church is about the former rather than the latter. At one level I am unable to take divisions drawn my man seriously; they exist on a relative level, not in the absolute. And I think far too much effort is wasted in institutional boundary-drawing and the judging of others.

Elsewhere I voiced the belief that the Spiritual Body of Christ is the Church. (As opposed to the other way around!) And that we define membership in this one and only Church by the affirmation of our hearts.

That, of course, is very close to your wonderful Scriptural quote, Phil.

I am tempted to write a much longer response, but am quite open to channeling that into what Phil indicates might be a more appropriate part of the Forum.

And I would be very interested in reading more of your own thoughts on this.

Re. that discussion on the Church prompted by some of HP's earlier reflections, click here to read more about why the Church must needs have a visible aspect as well.

quote:

And I think far too much effort is wasted in institutional boundary-drawing and the judging of others.

Like you just did? Straw man argument, imo -- as though that characterizes organized, institutional Christianity.

But, yes, let's take some of these topics up on threads where they're being more directly discussed.

quote:

Originally posted by Phil:
[qb]

quote:

And I think far too much effort is wasted in institutional boundary-drawing and the judging of others.

Like you just did? Straw man argument, imo -- as though that characterizes organized, institutional Christianity.[/qb]

Phil, that is a straw-man rebuttal!

I did not say or imply that this characterises organised, institutional Christianity. Nor that it is universal or even pervasive. In fact I did not point any fingers, no judgment.

Read my post again. Slowly.

OK, OK. I apologize. It seems I did "straw-man" you. I was thinking not only of your post above, but of others you've made about church which seem to minimize the importance of its visible, organized manifestation. You and w.c. had an exchange about this, which prompted this discussion. I took a lot of time to respond to your earlier points about church, especially:

quote:

The community? Those who have spoken Yes in their Heart � that is the community. And that is the community I encounter time and again. That is the Church!

Call it an invisible aspect, if you will.
To me it is the only one that IS visible! The only one that counts.

I hear that sort of thing a lot and I don't think it resonates much with the biblical and traditional understanding of Church, institutional squabbling notwithstanding. There is surely this hidden, spiritual church that you recognize, but it's quite clear that it was Christ's intention that we also be a visible, organized, public reality with public ministries of all kinds (evangelization, catechesis, spiritual formation, worship, etc.). Indeed, the gifts of the Spirit move us to form such communities.

Would it not be true to say that we are all first the invisible mystical body of Christ who become visible through our participation in the visible communities of God. Is it not true that the Church is not a building but the people of God who all first become Christians in their individual capacities becoming at the same time the individual members of the body of Christ (the Church). Is this becoming not an invisible reality that initially only God and the person are aware of and only later do they manifest this invisible reality by participation in the visible communities?

Jacques, that's all very good, and highlights the importance of the invisible becoming visible, which is the whole point of the incarnation. That's what we mean, too, when we say that the Church is a sacramental reality -- that it manifests the underlying union we have with God. Baptism, you might say, is "going public" with one's recognition of and commitment to developing that connection we have with God and one another in Christ. And so the Church is not simply an invisible reality; it must-needs and has, from the first, been an organized, visible reality.

I would also add, here, that the institutional bickering that we all lament at times is really an important, ongoing, in-house discussion among Christians. It helps us to clarify who Christ is, how one comes to know and grow in Christ, how we relate to the non-Christian world, and even what it means to love. On the one hand, this is all very "human," and akin to what we see going on in other organizations we establish. But the Holy Spirit is at work in this process, sifting the wheat from the chaff, helping us to clarify these matters. That's always been the case in the apostolic tradition; Paul alludes to this in his letters, for example.

Totally agree Phil
after all, Christianity would never have become what it has if all that existed from the start was an invisible group of disconnected individuals whos only unifying reality was an invisible one.

quote:

Originally posted by Phil:
[qb]There is surely this hidden, spiritual church that you recognize, but it's quite clear that it was Christ's intention that we also be a visible, organized, public reality with public ministries of all kinds (evangelization, catechesis, spiritual formation, worship, etc.). Indeed, the gifts of the Spirit move us to form such communities. [/qb]

I totally agree, Phil!

It is a question of form and essence.
And both are, and can be, vital -- to the extent that their heart truly is essence. Then, one breathes as the Spirit inside the other, and they are One.

I agree, and there's no question that a Christian community has more credibility to the extent that it manifests the love of God. That is always the challenge.

Hello Phil, HeartPrayer:

Thank you both for your feedback. Sorry to have turned your name around HP.

Phil:

Maybe you could be more specific about what your questions and issues are? E.g., the teaching on love: that's very basic in Christianity and all the world religions. What's unique in Christianity is that this love is considered God's very life -- i.e.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
God is love and anyone who lives in love lives in God and God lives in him. (1 Jn. 4: 14).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There is a kind of "non-duality" in Christianity in that through faith and baptism, our created human soul begins to draw its life from Christ and becomes transformed by the Spirit into a likeness of Christ. This is a quite different understanding from Eastern monistic systems in that it affirms our created nature and explains how, through grace, we become incorporated into the life of the Trinity.

***********
Actually what you have written was helpful. And yes, it is this non-dual aspect of Christianity that i am
intersted in. What i understand is that the experience and expression of love can be different at a dualist level and a non-dual level. This explains a whole lot of my confusion within Christianity.

I left the church at 11. I attempted to return decades later but it didn't work out. And after reading another chapter on Compassion by Matthew Fox a whole lot more of my experience within Christianity now makes sense. There are some "real" differences in experience and understanding within Christianity.

I will take a look at the site Christian Mysteries you suggested and see if any questions arise.

Thanks again
Ajoy

quote:

Originally posted by Ajoy:
[qb] What i understand is that the experience and expression of love can be different at a dualist level and a non-dual level. This explains a whole lot of my confusion within Christianity.
[/qb]

Dear Ajoy,

Your comment about experiencing and expressing love at a non-dual level is intriguing. You have probably lived through some powerful experiences on your journey. Perhaps you can say more on this topic, if you wish... perhaps we need to start a new thread.

I've harped on this issue myself a few times at Shalom Place. See, I was on the Eastern path of Vedanta-ish yoga and I've been around a few powerful gurus and experienced some forms of non-duality. (I happen to think there are different forms of non-duality.) There are a least a half dozen or so very powerful gurus swimming in unity consciousness who are downright unethical, sexually immoral or just jerks. Despite their exhalted state, love seems absent.

In my opinion, non-duality does not (necessarily) a holy person make. And if love is NOT about approaching holiness, or vis versa, then we are not on the same page. This idea that as consciousness expands, love and holiness grows, is what the Hawkins / Wilber folks as well as the kundalini folks seem to be saying. They seem to claim that everything coming out of them is divine love once they have reached enlightenment.

Furthermore, there are folks like Tal Brooke, who was in the inner circle around Sai Baba before he came to Christ, who claim that this state of non-duality is really a form of satanic possession. He cites Muktananda and Rajneesh as prime examples, along with Sai Baba, who are clearly deranged in the love department as defined my most people's standards.

I had arrived a similar conclusion before I read Tal or others who found imitations of love on the non-dual path and then converted to Christ. You can see my paper, From Seeker to Saved, on the Transformative Experiences forum if you want to know more about how I arrived at my conclusions.

In my opionion, there are spirits which uphold some forms of unity consciousness which are not holy at all, but incredibly powerful and seductive.

To me, the question of "Why Christianity?" is answered as follows: it takes the HOLY SPIRT to build a character of love and this can happen with or without the unity consciousness offered by the Eastern path to God-realization.

The experience of growing in Christ is orthogonal or semi-orthogonal to expanded states of consciousness. And as Phil put it once, "there is a common obfuscation between the Christian mystical experience and enlightenment."

What do you think?

much peace to you, Ajoy!

Shasha

.
Those are fascinating thoughts, Sasha.
I�ll wait to make a fuller reply, seeing whether it is best to do so here or in a new thread.

A really important discussion!
I really do feel it deserves its own thread. May I suggest you and Ajoy repost both of your last posts in a new thread?

Just a thought, not my call.