Phil,

Thanks for your feedback. (Yours as well, Jacques). I have no problem with cosmic theology per se, nor with Teilhard.

Certainly, I may well be ‘reading in’ too much and too negatively with respect to Fr. Ron’s article. On the other hand, I may be intuiting. Perhaps time will tell.

Had the words: Unless | dilemma with no answer | quandary | and their associated ideas not been present, I would have had no discomfort with his text. But … they were.

Pop

Just wondering if it could be possible to view Mary, Mother of God in a Cosmic sense also?

quote:

Originally posted by Phil:
cut....

I don't think Fr. Ron is suggesting we give up on preaching the Incarnation in favor of some inclusive cosmic Christology. He's writing primarily to Christians already grounded in the basics of the Faith, and is attempting to educate them on an aspect of the Faith that has been sorely neglected.

Re. Christ "as a structure in the physical creation," I am reminded of Col. 1: 15-20 (Rolheiser quoted vs. 15-18 only):

quote:

15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Paul does not separate the Incarnation and ongoing redemptive work of the historical Jesus and his Church from his influence in the whole cosmos. He is suggesting something very profound: that the order of the universe and connection between created things is ultimately rooted in Christ. He doesn't go much into this cosmic Christology, as most of his letters seem to be about addressing issues in the various communities he had founded. The early Fathers did reflect deeply on this matter, however, and it would do us good to read and reflect on their works. . . along with Teilhard, of course.

MarySue,

My dibs – No. Certainly Mary has a primary place in the history of salvation, a unique and special role, and being born without the weakness of original sin she was graced. But she is a human being with one nature. I can’t see anything cosmic per se; she is no more cosmic than we. More graced than we. More true than we. More intimate with Christ than we; but not more human and not more cosmic. We all are a royal priesthood of course, and Mary is an exemplar of that. We are all members of a Mystical Body and you might conceive of Mary being the neck, the piece connecting the head with the rest of the body if that pleases you. Teilhard theorized mankind itself as a planet – a planet comprised of a unique combination of the elements of matter – said combination having consciousness and reflective ability. If you want to accept his thought and say we are all thereby ‘cosmic’ and continuing with his thought that we will all spin off from the non-compassionate and insensitive elements (the tares) at the parousia – well I guess you can. But, Mary would be no more cosmic than the rest of us – just the most ‘blessed among women” and of course thereby (lol) the most blessed among MANkind. You girls are the best!

IMO.
Pop-pop

I agree with Pop on this one. She is not cosmically present in the same sense as Jesus, who is the incarnate Word through whom God created everything, and who holds together all of the creation.

That said, the human soul is spiritual and thus transcends space and time. Of course, in the body, we are very well anchored in space and time, but after death, the spirituality of the soul becomes open to the whole cosmos and all of time. That doesn't make us omnipresent in the same sense that God is, but it does make for a deep and profound experience of the universe.
- see http://www.brogilbert.org/heavendms1.htm and the pages it links to.

Thanks Phil & Pop Pop for your comments
& the web page.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Mary Sue,

Mary Sue,

You yourself state that you “simply don't know if The Great Mother will be part of my Christian walk”. Previous to that you had written that belief in The Great Mother: “would be in a major disagreement with Christian beliefs.”

It seems to me that you already know that you need to abandon belief in The Great Mother in order to be Christian.

Jesus said that he who puts his hand to the plow and keeps looking back is not worthy of Me.

Stop looking back.

Sing the hymn “I have decided to follow Jesus -- no turning back;… no turning back.”

Pop-pop

p.s. Better to put faith in the words of Jesus than those of your former teacher.

Not to throw a spanner in the works, but since God is neither male nor female there is a sense in which He is both Father and Mother. Therefore all creation has both derived it's existence from from God's creative seed and come to term in God's divine womb.

Worshipping the Great Mother may or may not
be a departure from the Christian Faith.

It seems to depend, in part, on what you believe about God as an actual goddess who is a distinct,
created entity, like the angels. Goddesses with various names have been worshipped throughout human history, and they're often referred to as the ultimate GOD.

I got mixed up in this when I believed
the teaching of Siddha Yoga and others that the goddess
kundalini Shakti (Kali, etc. she has many names) was the
Creator God. They equate Mother Mary with just another manifestation of with Kali, the feminine divine. Sometimes she's manifest as a virgin, other times a slut, she has many aspects you see...and at the same time she's the Creator God. It's all the same 'feminine divine' the teaching goes.

Jesus called God "Abba" Father, so that's good enough for me.
And it just 'feels' right to talk to my God as Father. It comes natural to think of God as Father when I'm in states of profound intimacy with Him.

Jacques, my friend,

Methinks that was a spanner that you’ve thrown. Hopefully it hasn't hit Mary Sue. While it is certainly true that all of creation has come from God, it is not true that all religions have the same understanding of God … have a correct understanding of God. Mary Sue knows there is a distinction between her previous religious belief and her Christian beliefs. She herself has witnessed to that in her posts. “No man can serve two masters”, Christ stated. She needs to put on the mind of Christ in order to grow. That 'mind' is a different mind than that of believers in "The Great Mother'

Jesus said, ‘I came into this world to divide it’ * He wants mankind to put its faith in His revelation of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit…..and not any other. He wants His sheepfold protected. You and others do Jesus a disservice when you contravene his desire to have them choose Him and Him explicitly. To be a Christian is to be a follower of Jesus Christ. All religions are NOT the same despite the fact that indeed there is but one creator of the universe and being a spirit, has no essential gender. The apostles wanted it to be quite clear that followers of Christ were distinct from the Jews and followers of the pagan religions of their times. Why do so many Christians today want to blur that distinction? It is anti-gospel.

Pop-pop

* Jn 9:39.

Mary Sue, you could consider Mary to be our Great Mother, as the Church calls her the Mother of God -- not of God, the Creator, but of the Incarnate Son. For many, she satisfies the need for a more feminine approach to the divine, if that is what you're seeking.

My apologies, no intention of diluting the truth or equalizing all religions.

I firmly believe that Jesus and His Father are the Way the Truth and the Life.

I never got into godess worship myself and so I have very little knowledge about traditions that worship "The Great Mother".

But here are a few quotes from the Christian tradition:

Pope John Paul II: I have a newspaper clipping I saved from our local paper from September 11, 1999 (I don’t have the author’s name though). The headline reads: Pope’s ”God the Mother” views hailed by churches. Here are a few excerpts:

Officials in many of Canada’s mainstream Christian churches have reacted supportively to Pope John Paul II’s recent descriptions of God’s “feminine side” and his reference to “God the Mother.” “What the Holy Father is saying has been the traditional teaching of the church for centuries,” said [then] Ottawa Roman Catholic Archbishop Marcel Gervais. “There is no sexuality in God, who is neither male nor female. He is described in the entire Bible in male terms. But he is given female characteristics in many, many parts. So it is legitimate to say God is Father. But God is also Mother.”….

[the Pope said, to pilgrims in St. Peter's Square the previous Wednesday]: “The hands of God hold us up, they hold us tight, they give us strength. But at the same time they give us comfort, they console and caress us. They are the hands of a father and a mother at the same time.”….

Father Gervais suggested that the Pope’s revelation might come as a surprise to some because it is not a subject that is often addressed and they may not have heard about it. “Most people realize God is beyond sexuality. Everything we say about God is by analogy, and every analogy is partly true, partly false. It doesn’t matter what word we use for God, it’s inadequate.”

Julian of Norwich: From: Revelation of Love

Chapter 48 (pg. 95) “For I beheld the property of mercy, and I beheld the property of grace. And these have two ways of working in one same love. Now mercy has the property of pity, for it belongs to the Motherhood in tender love…” [and the footnote says, re Motherhood: the first reference to God's Motherhood, which Julian later develops and appropriates to Christ.]

Chapter 52 (pg. 113) “And thus it was I saw that God rejoices that he is our Father, God rejoices that he is our Mother, and God rejoices that he is our true Spouse and our soul his beloved wife. And Christ rejoices that he is our brother, and Jesus rejoices that he is our Saviour.”

Chapter 54 (pg. 120) “For the almighty truth of the Trinity is our Father, for he made us and keeps us in him; and the deep wisdom of the Trinity is our Mother in whom we are all enclosed…”

Chapter 57 (pg. 127) “For Christ, having knit to himself all those men and women that shall be saved, is the perfection of humankind. So is our Lady our Mother in whom we are all enclosed and of her born in Christ; for she who is mother of the Saviour is mother too of all who will be saved in our Saviour. And our Saviour is our true Mother in whom we are endlessly born yet we will never come out of him.”

Catechism of the Catholic Church (#370): “In no way is God in man’s image. He is neither man nor woman. God is pure spirit in which there is no place for the difference between the sexes. But the respective “perfections” of man and woman reflect something of the infinite perfection of God: those of a mother and those of a father and husband.”

From Holy Scripture: [I'm too tired to look them up, but you must know some of the ones, about God nourishing us with milk as from a mother's breast, and there are others. Help me out here if you like!]

St. Faustina (Her Diary, # 230): Although I didn’t mention it in my original comment at Battle Beads’ blog, there is also St. Faustina [no coincidence, is it, that Julian of Norwich sees God as Mother in the same vision as she sees mercy, and St. Faustina is God's secretary of Divine Mercy]:

Jesus, living Host, You are my Mother, You are my all! It is with simplicity and love, with faith and trust that I will always come to You, O Jesus! I will share everything with You, as a child with its loving mother, my joys and sorrows – in a word, everything.

taken from: http://contemplativehaven.word...ct-of-god-as-himher/

Jacques,

Apologies accepted and then some. Wonderful quotes you’ve found and a neat website link too (imo. I had never been there).

There is certainly a lot for Mary Sue and all of us to reflect on relative to feminine characteristics or qualities of God.

And here, all along I had thought God a tomboy. Aiyee!

I looked in an exhaustive concordance under milk, but didn’t seem to find exactly what you had alluded to. I did however, in the process, wind up reading Songs 4:11 – “Your lips drip honey, my bride, sweetmeats and milk are under your tongue.” Definitely a pretty intimate knowledge that!

Pop-pop

p.s. Meticulous in spades these concordance folk: lists of everyplace ‘the’ and ‘a’ and ‘an’ appear in the bible. In the days before TV …… different pastimes.

Thanks Pop Pop,

I found this on another website:

quote:

NOURISHER

This name, “El-Shaddai,” has the idea of one who is a nourisher. In fact, El-Shaddai is said to bless His people with “blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb” (Genesis 49:25). As a mother nourishes her children with the milk of her breast, so the Lord our God, El-Shaddai, tenderly nourishes His own elect with the fulness of His Being. In fact, the word “Shaddai” is derived from a word which means “breasts.” He who is God our Savior is God All-sufficient, or as Hawker describes him “God of many breasts of consolation for His faithful ones to suck at and draw from, in an endless supply.”

Your conceptualizing is still a bit incorrect, Mary Sue and will likely bring you continued confusion if you do not abandon it. You have now made a foursome of the Trinity – God the Father, his wife The Great Mother, God the Son (Jesus) and the Holy Spirit.

God is love; the term father or mother is your labeling of your experiences to date, of that love. You have not experienced the full spectrum of God.

Hopefully too, someday you can accept that a father’s love can be deep, caring, safe and nurturing.

There’s also a certain amount of danger of one’s becoming confused by associating God strictly with one’s experiences. Our faith is rich in truths that we have not and likely may not experience in this life.

As for your non Christian mentor, he / she may well have a different or perhaps distorted concept of God than would a Christian. ‘The Great Mother’ is not typical Christian terminology. One will not find it in Christian scriptures – scriptures which warn against adding to, as well as subtracting from, them.

Pop-pop

quote:

Originally posted by pop-pop:
... accept that a father’s love can be deep, caring, safe and nurturing.

There’s also a certain amount of danger of one’s becoming confused by associating God strictly with one’s experiences

So true, Pop-pop, yet what choice do we have? In the early stages of our spiritual walk, we are more constrained by our the coloring of our personal, historical realities.

In fact, one thing I believe the postmodern movement attempts to affirm is a deeper respect for one's personal 'truth.' The unhealthy aspect of this is assuming there is no objective, spiritual reality.

The positive and healthy aspect of this is to respect and validate one's *experience*. Our personal experiences are based on a real history of often horrible abuse and neglect, which the world and even our truth-telling churches want to deny or minimize or rationalize. None of us are exempt from seeing God through the broken lens of our childhood privations and abuse at the hands of broken mothers and fathers, themselves god-like figures with terrifying power. For many people, and I am not assuming anything about Mary Sue's personal life but am speaking in general terms, God being a 'Father' is way too dangerously close to their primitive associations of an abusive and/or engulfing father. No way, no how can God be equated with a father-figure. Another poster wrote very eloquently and candidly of this dynamic several months ago. I've worked with numerous sexual abuse victims who cannot approach God as a father. The very concept threatens to fragment them into chaos. And as we know, this internalized bad father representation stretches into a resistance to accepting any patriarchal system. In part, the postmodern push to accept relative, personal truth appears to be an attempt to honor the reality of these hidden, internal realities which cry out for an empathic response. I dunno, just speculating here...

You guys are so wonderful to talk to...

really liked what you wrote Shasha

Hi Jacques, Shasha & Pop-Pop.

Just wondering what your reaction is to what
Pope John Paul 11 wrote about God the Father but also God the Mother in the below quotes.

I am hearing Pope John Paul 11 say that this is commonly acceptable within the Church. That these are differing characteristics of God. Masculine as well as feminine. Not 2 different God's. This is what I'm saying also.

What I am hearing you guys say is that the idea of God the Mother as well as God the Father is unsettling to you.

"Father Gervais suggested that the Pope’s revelation might come as a surprise to some because it is not a subject that is often addressed and they may not have heard about it."

quote:

Originally posted by Jacques:


Pope John Paul II: I have a newspaper clipping I saved from our local paper from September 11, 1999 (I don’t have the author’s name though). The headline reads: Pope’s ”God the Mother” views hailed by churches. Here are a few excerpts:

Officials in many of Canada’s mainstream Christian churches have reacted supportively to Pope John Paul II’s recent descriptions of God’s “feminine side” and his reference to “God the Mother.” “What the Holy Father is saying has been the traditional teaching of the church for centuries,” said [then] Ottawa Roman Catholic Archbishop Marcel Gervais. “There is no sexuality in God, who is neither male nor female. He is described in the entire Bible in male terms. But he is given female characteristics in many, many parts. So it is legitimate to say God is Father. But God is also Mother.”….

[the Pope said, to pilgrims in St. Peter's Square the previous Wednesday]: “The hands of God hold us up, they hold us tight, they give us strength. But at the same time they give us comfort, they console and caress us. They are the hands of a father and a mother at the same time.”….

Father Gervais suggested that the Pope’s revelation might come as a surprise to some because it is not a subject that is often addressed and they may not have heard about it. “Most people realize God is beyond sexuality. Everything we say about God is by analogy, and every analogy is partly true, partly false. It doesn’t matter what word we use for God, it’s inadequate.”

Julian of Norwich: From: Revelation of Love



Chapter 52 (pg. 113) “And thus it was I saw that God rejoices that he is our Father, God rejoices that he is our Mother, and God rejoices that he is our true Spouse and our soul his beloved wife. And Christ rejoices that he is our brother, and Jesus rejoices that he is our Saviour.”

Chapter 54 (pg. 120) “For the almighty truth of the Trinity is our Father, for he made us and keeps us in him; and the deep wisdom of the Trinity is our Mother in whom we are all enclosed…”

Chapter 57 (pg. 127) “For Christ, having knit to himself all those men and women that shall be saved, is the perfection of humankind. So is our Lady our Mother in whom we are all enclosed and of her born in Christ; for she who is mother of the Saviour is mother too of all who will be saved in our Saviour. And our Saviour is our true Mother in whom we are endlessly born yet we will never come out of him.”



f Norwich sees God as Mother in the same vision as

taken from: http://contemplativehaven.word...ct-of-god-as-himher/

Of course God has feminine, as well as masculine, characteristics. Of course, God can be known to us and experienced as nurturing, caring, tender like a mom. And He can be experienced and known to us as the strong, protective provider like a father. It's not one or the other but both in one God.

Still, while God possess both masc. and fem. characteristics, my personal take is that God is more a He than a She. That's just my gut. I don't believe God is male quite the way we see Him reflected in the human male, but super-sized.

God's 'male-ness' is a mystery.

Jesus called God "Father." Think about that: Jesus, who knew God in a way that no living being could know Him, then or now, called God "Father."

Why not call God "Mother" or "Ma-ma"? Was it simply for cultural reasons? Was Jesus merely utilizing a metaphor of God as Father to His particular cohorts because it was a way of appealing to their psychological biases of males as more powerful, superior, etc?

If Jesus lived in some feminist-town, USA, would He have strategically used "Ma-ma" in praying out loud to God?

I just don't think so.

I think it's more than that, but I can't grasp it mentally.

At the same time, I'm not threatened or bothered in the least if others want to refer to the Christian God as Mother. And sometimes when I pray out loud with patients, I say "Mother-Father God." In my most intimate moments, I feel God is my Father. Maybe that's just identifying with Jesus or maybe more than that...

quote:

Originally posted by Jacques:
really liked what you wrote Shasha

Thanks for affirming me, Jacques

I enjoyed that website you shared by "Gabrielle." She's my kind of contemplative.

quote:

Originally posted by pop-pop:
Jacques,

Apologies accepted and then some. Wonderful quotes you’ve found and a neat website link too (imo. I had never been there).

There is certainly a lot for Mary Sue and all of us to reflect on relative to feminine characteristics or qualities of God.

And here, all along I had thought God a tomboy. Aiyee!

I looked in an exhaustive concordance under milk, but didn’t seem to find exactly what you had alluded to. I did however, in the process, wind up reading Songs 4:11 – “Your lips drip honey, my bride, sweetmeats and milk are under your tongue.” Definitely a pretty intimate knowledge that!

Pop-pop

p.s. Meticulous in spades these concordance folk: lists of everyplace ‘the’ and ‘a’ and ‘an’ appear in the bible. In the days before TV …… different pastimes.

I'm really enjoying all the places this thread is wandering to, and thinking over everyone's posts. I have an "exhausting" (it's heavy!) concordance and no TV, so my short contribution will be two passages from the Bible that I love to read:

Isaiah 49:15-16: "Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of My hands; your walls are ever before Me."

and Luke 13:34: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!"

My sense is that the whole of creation reflects aspects of God's inner nature. Since male and female are such profoundly key realities throughout the natural world I sense that the same is true of God's inner nature.

My thoughts are that perhaps the One known as Father is more masculine and the One known as Holy Spirit is more feminine, though since they are both One this is an artificial dissection that helps as much as it obscures the truth.

If male and female are such important manifestations of the divine nature that they appear throughout the natural order, then the joining of male and female in sexual union is just as vital to the understanding of God. The natural drive for all of nature is the joining together of male and female and from this joining new creation springs forth...again I see this as reflecting the inner nature of God.

Shasha, and gang,

********************************************************************
So true, Pop-pop, yet what choice do we have? In the early stages of our spiritual walk, we are more constrained by the coloring of our personal, historical realities.

In fact, one thing I believe the postmodern movement attempts to affirm is a deeper respect for one's personal 'truth.' The unhealthy aspect of this is assuming there is no objective, spiritual reality.
*********************************************************************

Yes. I agree with what you have written. Certainly there is much validity in it. I don’t contest that, nor terribly abusive and unfortunate victimizations or dysfunctional mankind including our parents as well as ourselves in varying degrees.

My concerns (perhaps due to my blue-meme clan membership) is that Christian revelation not be neglected or accepted as the rich gifted guidance and truth that it is and provides us – while one waits on their experiences to catch up, or waits on all their skepticisms to be removed. Sometimes, to me anyway, it seems like folk of other clans have a certain resistance to the gift that divine revelation is and so want to reinvent the wheel before accepting it. That is not the ‘faith of little children’ that Jesus spoke about.

Prior to the NT, prior to the appearance and gospel of Christ, folk had their experience of God, whether fatherish or motherish, paganish or Jewish, and didn’t get the clarity that Jesus came to bring and did bring – as well as the Holy Spirit. We now have that gift -- and God sacramentally as well -- available to us now in the New Jerusalem and under the New Covenant.

So, sometimes I feel frustrated by folk wanting to wait on experiences, feelings and emotions and their validation…or intellectual research into scrolls and Greek and Aramaic language connotations for the removal of their skepticism or the arrival of sufficient sufficiency to permit their accepting the next truth of what scripture says concerning some issue that they were concerned about (as if all scripture really isn’t inspired by God [2 Tim 3:16 & 17]). Sometimes (to me) it seems folk accept one scripture at a time until they get a chance to research and validate each step forward in their believing.

All that, to me anyway, begs the question: Are you putting faith in the divine revelation of Christ – or merely in your feelings and/or your research? If your experience one day seems to change – will you abandon your belief? If you can’t be intellectually satisfied via your research, will you not place faith in the word of Christ revealing? Faith is belief in things unseen -- unseen by my experience perhaps, unseen by my research perhaps.

The words of the Act of Faith (albeit an RC premodern’s prayer) are “…I believe these and all the truths that thou hast revealed, because thou hast revealed them, who canst neither deceive, nor be deceived.”

Blue-meme folk put faith in truths beyond the fullness of our understanding (or experiencing) based upon the authority of Jesus revealing –- based upon who we say He is. Who do you say He is?

Blue and perhaps turning bluer (lol)
Pop-pop

Hi Pop-Pop

What I'm hearing you say is to use discernment when one has an experience. I believe this to be a necessary part of this process.

Which is why I am exploring if this is written about by the RC Church. According to my last post by Pope John Paul 11, Mercy in old testament = rahmim = rehem = mother's womb.
Also came up with compassion.

That for me, this is about God's deep mercy & compassion for us.

The problem for me where scripture is concerned is not in the believing but in the interpreting. It may be a particularly Protestant problem, but we've been arguing over the interpretation of scripture for nearly 500 years. I had once hoped that becoming Roman Catholic might help my problem, but then I discovered the Eastern Orthodox church and the problem was simply compounded.

In the end, I've come to place my faith, not in the written documents of the Judeo-Christian faith (as important as they are), but in the Father, Son and Spirit that the documents speak of. By placing my faith in God, rather than in scripture, I trust that God will guide me as I read scripture, pray, and practice my faith in the Almighty One.

Like it or not, committed Christian of every stripe have loved and served the Living God without coming to the same interpretation of the scriptures. It seems that relationship with God does not come with a Bible interpretation key...guess God thinks we can still Love Him without it.

For me, Faith has come to mean trust rather than belief. I trust in God. I know He holds me in the palm of His hand and whatever comes my way in Life, He is Sovereign over all and will work all things for the Good in the end.

Ah, Jacques,

*In the end, I've come to place my faith, not in the written documents of the Judeo-Christian faith (as important as they are), but in the Father, Son and Spirit that the documents speak of.*

Hmmn…..


This ‘Father, Son and Spirit’ that you place faith in…and whom you today trust to guide you…..what do you know of them?

What even causes you to believe you can trust them…. and even trust them to guide you?

From whence comes this knowledge of the Trinity that you presently have?

From whence come these documents you speak of?

You’ve certainly aroused my curiosity.

Did that Trinity you mention have anything at all to do with the generation, content and subject matter of those ……. documents?

Do you also consider those documents sacred, as some say?

How do you personally differentiate what’s in the documents from what’s in ‘the Spirit’? What do you use to ‘test the spirits’ so to speak?


Jacques. I’m thinking you are a deep thinker but are not deeply thinking when you make that statement above. That’s a statement many (perhaps most) of your meme-color expresses. It is not atypical. …. but …...

You write:

* Like it or not, committed Christians of every stripe have loved and served the Living God without coming to the same interpretation of the scriptures*.

Some who love and trust 'the Living God' allow their kids to go without medical assistance and they thereby die. Some who love and trust the Living God believe that women have a God-given right to abortion … while others do not. All interpretations cannot be correct, if some are in direct opposition to others – like abortion as an example with clarity and importance. Do all these ‘trusters in the Living God’ truly serve Him as you state?

Are all these stripe varieties really in unity with the God who is love, do you think? Can there exist such disparity and at the same time unity? Certainly they have not come to the same interpretation of scripture. Do you think it does not matter? That God is pleased?

God’s going to make all things work for good, so therefore man has no personal responsibility. God’s going to make all things work for good, so therefore God does not care?

Christ wept for the women of Jerusalem. Why? Didn’t He know all things were going to work for good? Jesus was angered by the Pharisees and their hardness of heart. Why? Didn’t He know all things were going to work for good?

Is it that man cannot come to knowledge of the truth somehow? The natural law does not provide clarity regarding the murder of an innocent? God has to judge us innocent?

You write:

*I trust that God will guide me as I read scripture, pray, and practice my faith in the Almighty One*.

Wonderful stance there, but do you believe that the young father who was studying to be a minister and let his infant son dies sans medical care…because his interpretation of scripture was that he needn’t see a doctor but rather ‘stand in faith’ was not trusting, praying, reading scripture and practicing his faith in the Living God? That he was not as conscientious as others are? Seems he was quite conscientious, to me.

Does correct interpretation of scripture not make a difference?

Was the Holy Spirit given to the church, and is God a God of order and did He give varying charisms for the sake of the body at large and to be confirmed by the body at large?

Or was the Spirit given to an unordered amalgam of individuals to remain disjointed and scattered in diverse understanding and thought…individuals that He would guide individually and compensate all their mistakes? Does the latter approach strike you as wise …. as somehow more perfect in wisdom .. even divine?

Respectfully nonetheless, (but some days bluer than others)
Pop-pop