TruthBook Religious News Blog

December 3,2009
by Joseph Speranzella SFO

VATICAN CITY, 3 DEC 2009 (VIS) - Made public today was the Pope's Message for the eighteenth World Day of the Sick, which is due to be celebrated in the Vatican Basilica on 11 February 2010, Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes.

Noting how the forthcoming Day coincides with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the foundation of the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care, the Holy Father expresses the hope that this fact "will be the occasion for a more generous apostolic commitment at the service of the sick and of their carers".

"In the mystery of Christ's passion, death and resurrection", writes the Pope, "human suffering finds meaning and fullness of light. ... At the Last Supper the Lord Jesus, before returning to the Father, bent to wash the Apostles' feet in a foretaste of His supreme act of love upon the Cross. With this gesture He invited His disciples to follow His own logic of a love that especially gives itself to the weakest and to those most in need. Following His example all Christians are called to relive, in different contexts, the parable of the Good Samaritan".

Please click on "external source" to access the rest of the article.

Labels: Jesus, Joseph Speranzella, Pope Benedict, prayer, sickness

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Friday, August 21, 2009

Looking for a Higher Authority on Health Care

by Phil Davis

When the topic of health-care reform is so focused on economics and politics, I often think of a woman in the Gospels who had been hemorrhaging for many years. Who knows what her actual problem was, but it was severe enough that she had spent all her financial assets on the medical system of her time and was no better for it. In her desperate need, she reached out to Jesus Christ and was instantly healed.

What's the point of this story? Is it an indictment of a cold and heartless society not providing the necessary financial resources to give her better care? Is it an indictment of a health care system that didn't heal over many years? Some might think so. This is where the economics and politics come in. But I see it differently.

Obviously, the woman needed healing of her hemorrhaging. And yet, I feel she was reaching out for something beyond just another method to fix the body. She was probably yearning to have a deeper sense of her well-being that went beyond physical health...

Please see "external source" for this complete article. And for a Urantia Book perspective on this miracle of Jesus please see HERE

Labels: healing, health, hemorrhage, Jesus, The Urantia Book

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Friday, August 07, 2009

What do your spiritual paths say about the role of play?

Tue, Aug 04, 2009
William McKenzie/Editorial Columnist

This week's question comes from our own Texas Faith panelist Amy Martin, and it certainly is appropriate given that we're still enjoying summer, a time many of us associate with play. Here it is:

We live in society where so much attention is devoted to work. But we're headed into August, the vacation month. What do your spiritual paths say about the role of play?

Read on, because there are some terrific answers from our panelists:

Please click on "external source" for the complete article. Panelists include a number of prominent religionists in the state of Texas, and the answers are quite interesting, and very thoughtful. A nice article...

Labels: Jesus, play, spirituality, William McKenzie, work

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Thursday, July 09, 2009

Appalachian Trail becomes spiritual journey

Jul 6, 2009 | by Adam Miller

DAMASCUS, Va. (BP)--In about three months, several hundred hikers will summit a northern Maine mountain called Katahdin, a 5,000-foot-high peak just south of the border with Canada. Many of them will have completed an arduous 2,175-mile journey and fulfilled a dream.

Those who complete the millions of footsteps from Springer Mountain, Ga., to Mount Katahdin are forever changed with stories to tell well into retirement: encounters with bears, demanding 30-mile days, odd new acquaintances, lifelong friends.

And some might tell the story of First Baptist Church in Damascus, Va., where Southern Baptists washed their feet and provided hot showers, medical care, Internet access and a good conversation about God.

"It started as a hotdog cookout," says pastor Wayne Guynn, who credits Linda and Jeff Austin with taking over the ministry and ramping it up.

Now, Guynn says, they partner with churches in Alabama and Georgia and with the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia to simply make life more pleasant for hikers who come to the annual event known as Trail Days, which ran May 15-17 this year. In the process, they get to love hikers and tell them about Christ.

Nice kind of outreach - wonder if there are any Urantians in those churches? To read all about it, please click on "external source" for the whole article. Good reading, and a sweet idea.

Labels: Adam Miller, Appalacian Trail, God, hiking, Jesus, service, Trail Days

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Choosing good green living a spiritual journey

By SHARON THOMPSON
McClatchy Newspapers

WILMORE, Ky. -- Nancy Sleeth doesn't use her oven very often. At least not her conventional oven. Instead, she turns to her more energy-efficient toaster oven, microwave and convection oven. When Sleeth bakes bread, she uses a bread machine.

She also uses fresh ingredients and avoids processed foods. Her pantry is filled with grains, fruits and vegetables. The family eats very little meat; when they do, it's locally raised.

Their next-door neighbor grinds wheat for them, and Sleeth and her husband, Matthew, share a garden with their neighbors. "We share our talent and gifts and resources," Nancy Sleeth said.

The Sleeths' food choices and cooking habits are just part of their bigger effort to help the environment. Eight years ago, they decided to face the issue head-on.

They were "living out the American dream. My husband was an emergency-room physician, and we were living in a big house in New England," Sleeth said.

One evening while the family was on vacation, she asked her husband two questions that would change their lives: "What do you think is the biggest problem facing the world today?"

"The world is dying," he replied.

Her next question was: "If the planet is dying, what are we going to do about it?"

A couple of months later, Matthew answered her. "I'll quit my job and put all my energy toward saving the planet."

The story of how the Sleeths and their children, Clark and Emma, downsized their lives, gave away half their possessions and moved to a house the size of their old garage is documented in Nancy Sleeth's new book, "Go Green, Save Green" (Tyndale, $14.99).

As the Sleeths embarked on their environmental journey, they also began a faith journey. When Matthew Sleeth picked up a Gideon Bible in the hospital waiting room on a slow night, "a light came on. Here were the answers we had been seeking," Nancy Sleeth said.

"We took Jesus' advice and began cleaning up our own act before worrying about cleaning up the rest of the world," she said. During the next couple of years, the family began to change its lifestyle.

This is a small part of a two-page article. A good read, and things to think about...please click on "external source" at the bottom of this section to see the whole article.

Labels: environmentalism, Jesus, lifestyle, Nancy Sleeth, Sharon Thompsom

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Friday, April 10, 2009

Christians' Views on the Return of Christ

April 9, 2009

For many Christians, Easter is the most important religious holiday of the year — a time to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and look forward to the Second Coming. According to a 2006 survey by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, fully 79% of Christians in the U.S. say they believe that Christ will return to Earth someday. There is less agreement among Christians, however, over the timing and circumstances of his return.

Please click on "external source" to access the chart which displays the findings of this survey.

Labels: Christian, Jesus, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, resurrection

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Sunday, March 15, 2009

Church that cannot be attacked

A Christian Science perspective on daily life.

March 11, 2009

One heartbreaking aspect of the killing of the pastor in a Maryville, Ill., church last Sunday is that it happened in a church during a service – a place and time of refuge. It leaves one asking, Is there no time that is sacred, is there no place that is truly safe?

As meaningful as our places of worship may be, they are not the bulwarks of safety we wish they could be. But behind the physical structures is something unassailable and thereby safe because it is not material. It is our spiritual consciousness or our place of communion with the one infinite Creator, or divine Mind.

The Psalmist referred to this place of peace as "the secret place of the most High": "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust" (91:1, 2). This psalm assures us that we all have a place not subject to events, not at the mercy of violence – a place evil can never touch because it can only be accessed by aligning oneself with God's good thoughts.

The secret place of the most High is not an abstract place of retreat to avoid dealing with the world. Christ Jesus prayed consistently and was always conscious of his spiritual refuge in God. This protected him from an angry mob in the temple. He'd been sharing with this congregation that his spiritual identity (and therefore everyone's spiritual identity) exists in timeless, deathless, eternal oneness with God. This offended some listeners, and the crowd responded violently, preparing to stone him. "But Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by" (John 8:59).

Mary Baker Eddy described Church as "the structure of Truth and Love..." ("Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," p. 583). Prayer can help each person become conscious of dwelling in this spiritual structure. And we can feel this structure as an infinite embrace, the embrace of God's tender care, which is with everyone in Maryville, in churches throughout the world, and with all people everywhere.

Labels: Jesus, Mary Baker Eddy, prayer, safety, worship

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Friday, February 27, 2009

OPINION: Rick Warren's 10 Reasons Why We Need Spiritual Connections

By LifeWay Christian Resources , Biblical solutions for life -
February 26, 2009

LAKE FOREST, Calif. --- Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church led one of the general sessions during the Feb. 19-21 NEXT conference at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif.

Warren is author of the best-selling books, The Purpose Driven Church and The Purpose Driven Life. He is a self-proclaimed big believer in small groups and attributes much of Saddleback’s health, growth and development to small groups. He said the spiritual connections – vertical (believer to God) and horizontal (believer to believer) – lead to personal and church health and growth.

He outlined 10 reasons why people need to be spiritually connected to others.

1. Connections are the essence of life. Each person’s body has to connect muscle to bone to nerves for it to work.

2. We were created for connections. The pain of loneliness proves this. Love God and love each other – that’s the Cliffs Notes of the Bible.

3. Love is the ultimate connection. The No. 1 secret of church growth is not marketing or advertising, it’s love. If your church genuinely loves others, you’ll have to lock the doors to keep people out.

4. Connections help us understand life. The more you understand connections, how things fit together, the better you understand life.

5. Connections empower us. Power flows through connections.

6. Connections keep us growing. Knowing the right thing to do is rarely enough. To keep doing it over the long term you need partners.

7. Connections help us balance our lives. Memory is our connection to the past; awareness is our connection to the present.

8. Connections increase our confidence. We gain confidence knowing that others are going with us through this journey called life.

9. Connections make us more productive. The better connected we are to God and others, the greater the impact on our ministry.

10. Connections must be learned. Connecting is neither natural nor automatic. That’s why God sent Jesus.

Labels: God, Jesus, love, Rick Warren, spiritual connection, spiritual growth

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Friday, January 23, 2009

Launch of New Church Promises to Change the Face of Religion

The Vibe in Fullerton, Ca announces the February 1st launch of an unorthodox church that chooses inclusion over religion in an attempt to reach those who find the traditional church irrelevant.

Fullerton, CA, January 15, 2009 --(PR.com)-- The Vibe announces the February 1st, 2009 launch of a church with a whole new groove.

Super Sunday, The Vibe’s launch day celebration, is designed to provide a non-threatening environment for people to test drive this new kind of church. This new church firmly believes that people really want to make meaningful contact with God but religion keeps getting in the way.

“Religion sucks”, said Steve Brown, The Vibe’s Lead Pastor, “it sucks the life right out of the most liberating lifestyle imaginable. Jesus didn’t come to this planet to enslave us with a bunch of rules. He came to free us. That’s our message.”

The Vibe presents those exploring faith with an alternative to religious rules, regulations and rituals. They believe that the perfect church is filled with imperfect people - a "sinners only club". They believe that the church was established to include everyone – a belief supported by their mantra: come as you are and bring your baggage with you.

The Vibe’s optimistic enthusiasm is well founded. They began with informal, open-air meetings at Lemon Park in Fullerton, California. From the onset they appealed to people that have been marginalized by traditional religious groups. The homeless, those suffering from addictions as well as the “tattooed and pierced crowd” are embraced as family right along with those from mainstream middleclass America.

However, Brown is quick to add that the ministries of The Vibe are not solely relational or spiritual but also practical. “Prayer is powerful”, Brown said, “but prayer supported by action changes lives.” The action Brown refers to comes in the form of feeding and clothing the homeless, the establishment and support of recovery programs, assistance in obtaining suitable living conditions for those without as well as financial and job placement assistance wherever practical or possible. To this Brown added, “We can’t do everything, but we have to do something.”

Brown himself is not what one would expect. He has two tattoos and can often be spotted with the cigarette-smoking crowd on Sunday mornings. With Brown as its Pastor, one is compelled to agree that a very different kind of church has been planted in this community.

Yet, this unlikely foundation seems to explain the down-to-Earth feel of this new church. According to Brown this traditionally unorthodox version of church makes it easier for people to “catch God” – The Vibe’s primary mission. Through their Super Sunday event, The Vibe hopes to show this community what a real connection to God looks and feels like.

“It is our sincerest hope that people will find a connection to God that they never dreamed possible”, said Brown. Then he commented on The Vibe’s dress code. “Just wear what you’ve got on. God isn’t impressed by what you wear.”

Labels: church, faith, God, Jesus, religion, Steve Brown, The Vibe

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Thursday, December 18, 2008

Virgin Birth More Believable Than Darwin's Theory, Say Americans

By The Staff at wowOwow.com

God may be loving some recent religion-related poll results. A Harris Interactive survey released today shows that more Americans believe in an Almighty presence than in Darwin’s theory of evolution and that the majority of the public believes that the Virgin Mary gave birth to baby Jesus.

The findings, compiled from 2,126 U.S. adults, included:

— 80% of adult Americans believe in God

— 75% believe in miracles

— 73% believe in heaven

— 71% believe in angels

— 71% believe that Jesus is God or the Son of God

— 70% believe in the resurrection of Jesus

— 62% believe in hell

— 61% believe in virgin birth (Jesus born to Virgin Mary)

— 47% believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution

— 36% believe in UFOs

Click here for more of the poll’s findings.

American’s aren’t the only ones to believe in virgin birth. Another poll out today from theology think-tank group Theos has found that more than a third of Britons believe that the virgin birth of Jesus Christ really happened. In the poll carried out by ComRes on behalf of Theos, 34% of people agreed that the statement "Jesus was born to a virgin called Mary" was historically accurate, while only 32% said they believed it was fictional.

What’s also interesting is women — who experience the agonizing pains of birthing — were more likely to believe in the virgin birth (39%), compared to 29% of men, who just stand in the hospital room sweating.

Labels: Americans, angels, Darwin, God, heaven, Jesus, miracles, virgin birth

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Friday, December 12, 2008

61 percent believe in Jesus' virgin birth

December 10, 2008

A poll of Americans finds 80 percent believe in god and 61 percent believe the virgin birth of Jesus occurred.

The Harris Poll took the pulse of 2,126 adults in the U.S. between Nov. 10 and Nov. 17.

Other findings of the poll:

* 75 percent believe in miracles;
* 73 percent believe in heaven;
* 71 percent believe in angels;
* 62 percent believe hell exists;
* 59 percent believe the devil exists;
* 47 percent believe in Darwin's theory of evolution (52 percent of Catholics versus 32 percent of Protestants);
* 40 percent believe in creationism;
* 44 percent believe in ghosts;
* 36 percent believe UFOs exist;
* 31 percent believe in witches;
* 31 percent believe in astrology;
* 24 percent believe in reincarnation.

"Virgin birth" is one of the most searched terms on Google Wednesday. Also among the top search terms is parthenogenesis, an asexual form of reproduction found in females.

Labels: Americans, Harris Poll, Jesus, parthenogenesis, virgin birth

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Friday, November 07, 2008

Catholics, Muslims Affirm Shared Mission

Say Religion a Source of Harmony, Not Conflict

VATICAN CITY, NOV. 6, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Catholics and Muslims agree that youth must be formed in their own religious traditions and correctly educated about other religions, to give witness to transcendent values in a secular society.
The recently established Catholic-Muslim Forum affirmed this in a joint declaration released today, the result of their first seminar, which began Tuesday. The forum is comprised of 29 members of each religion and was formed by the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and representatives of the 138 Muslim leaders who sent an open letter to Benedict XVI and other Christian leaders in October 2007.

The theme of the three-day seminar was "Love of God, Love of Neighbor," with a specific focus on two areas: "Theological and Spiritual Foundations" and "Human Dignity and Mutual Respect."

The final statement of the forum reflected many points of similarity between the two creeds as well as resolutions for positive action to build solidarity and peace between the two.

Foundation of love

The forum recognized the specific focus of Christian love: "The source and example of love of God and neighbor is the love of Christ for his Father, for humanity and for each person. God is Love and God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. God's love is placed in the human heart through the Holy Spirit. It is God who first loves us thereby enabling us to love him in return."

They continued with a summary of how love for one's neighbor in word and deed follows necessarily from the Christian's love for God. This love imitates Christ's sacrificial love, and includes every human person, even enemies.

Turning to the Muslim perspective on love, the declaration affirmed: "Love is a timeless transcendent power which guides and transforms human mutual regard. This love, as indicated by the holy and beloved Prophet Muhammad, is prior to the human love for the one true God. […] God's loving compassion for humanity is even greater than that of a mother for her child; it therefore exists before and independently of the human response to the One who is 'The Loving,'"

In regard to love of neighbor, the statement added some Muslim beliefs similar to those of Christians: "Those that believe, and do good works, the Merciful shall engender love among them. […] Not one of you has faith until he loves for his neighbor what he loves for himself."

Given these common foundations of love for God and neighbor, participants in the seminar recognized the gift of human life and the need to protect it. They asserted the belief that human dignity is based on each person's creation "by a loving God out of love." Thus every person deserves recognition of "his or her identity and freedom by individuals, communities and governments, supported by civil legislation that assures equal rights and full citizenship."

The declaration acknowledged God's creation of human personas as male and female, and noted the commitment of the forum to ensure "that human dignity and respect are extended on an equal basis to both men and women."

Religious differences

Members of the forum wrote that love of neighbor includes respect for each person's choices regarding religion. They affirmed that religious minorities are to be respected and that sacred figures, symbols and places should not be ridiculed.

They acknowledged: "As Catholic and Muslim believers, we are aware of the summons and imperative to bear witness to the transcendent dimension of life, through a spirituality nourished by prayer, in a world which is becoming more and more secularized and materialistic. […]

"We are convinced that Catholics and Muslims have the duty to provide a sound education in human, civic, religious and moral values for their respective members and to promote accurate information about each other's religions."

A source of peace

Seminar participants recognized that plurality in God's creation is a richness and should not be a source of conflict. They professed the belief that "Catholics and Muslims are called to be instruments of love and harmony among believers, and for humanity as a whole, renouncing any oppression, aggressive violence and terrorism, especially that committed in the name of religion, and upholding the principle of justice for all."

They challenged individuals from any religion to come together to help the needy, and to work toward upstanding financial systems that will consider the needs of the poor and relieve individual or national suffering.

Forward looking

The joint declaration recorded the conviction that young people are the future of the religious communities as well as societies. It asserted the necessity of forming youth, in their own religions as well as in the understanding of other cultures and religions.

The statement closed with a plan to hold a second seminar in two years, in a Muslim-majority country. Benedict XVI received the members of the forum in an audience, and participants ended the seminar by expressing gratitude to God for the fruitful dialogue among them.

Labels: Catholic, Catholic-Muslim Forum, Christianity, Jesus, love, Muslims, peace, Vatican

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Monday, June 23, 2008

Eckhart Tolle: This man could change your life?

We live in an age of revitalised New Age mumbo jumbo; and these days no one is more jumbo with his mumbo than Eckhart Tolle.

Tolle, whose real first name is Ulrich, was born into a German Catholic family in 1948. He changed his name to Eckhart in a homage to the German spiritual leader Meister Eckhart. He refused all forms of formal education between the ages of 13 and 22, preferring instead to pursue his own creative and philosophical interests. Despite all this, he went to the University of London and is acknowledged by Cambridge University to have matriculated as a postgraduate student there in 1977, when he was 29. At 15, he was given the five books written by the German mystic Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken, also known as Bo Yin Ra. He is said to have been heavily influenced by these books; his writing also draws heavily on the New Testament, the Bhagavad Gita and Sufism.

After leaving Cambridge, Tolle went into a steep decline, however. "I was unhappy, depressed and anxious," he said in a rare interview, with the environmentalist website Ecomall.com in 2003. "I was not trying to become enlightened or anything like that. I was looking for some kind of answer to the dilemma of life, but I had been looking to the intellect for the answer; philosophy, religion and intellectual inspiration. The more I was looking on that level, the more unhappy I became."

And then, he says, he had an epiphany. "Suddenly I stepped back from myself, and it seemed to be two of me. The 'I', and this 'self' that I cannot live with. Am I one or am I two? And that triggered me like a koan [a Zen statement that appeals to intuition rather than ration]. It happened to me spontaneously. I looked at that sentence: 'I can't live with myself'. I had no intellectual answer. Who am I? Who is this self that I cannot live with? The answer came on a deeper level. I realised who I was."

He spent the next two years sitting on park benches "in a state of the most intense joy". And then he wrote his first book, The Power of Now. The book, published by Penguin in 1999, sat at the top of the bestseller lists for years.

There is not very much new about The Power of Now – it is Buddhism mixed with mysticism and a few references to Jesus Christ, a sort of New Age re-working of Zen. Its central message is that the root of our emotional problems is our habit of identifying too much with our minds. The past and the future are creations of thought and only the present moment is real and only the present moment matters.

The follow-up to The Power of Now, A New Earth, is an extended riff on the same subject. It aims to "provide a spiritual framework for people to move beyond themselves in order to make this world a better, more spiritually evolved place to live". The encapsulating idea, again, is that by abandoning your ego, you become "Present" in the immortal "Being".

William Bloom is a former professor at the London School of Economics, and one of the UK's most experienced teachers, healers and authors in the field of holistic development. He believes that Tolle's work provides a valuable perspective on Western culture.

"Tolle is offering a very contemporary synthesis of Eastern spiritual teaching, which is normally so clothed in arcane language that it is incomprehensible," says Bloom. "Some people might find him confusing but when he asserts that Descartes' major insight ("I think therefore I am") – one of the foundations of Western thinking – is ostensibly wrong, it's a conceptual challenge to how we think about ourselves. And that has always been the major assertion of Eastern religion: that thinking is not the core of who you are. The core of who you really are is that part of you that can watch yourself thinking – that's very Buddhist, very Eastern, very attuned to the whole field of transpersonal psychology.

"Second, he asks people to exist as best they can in any given moment and to connect with the sensation of the physical body – so instead of just staying in your head thinking, to be aware of what's happening in your feet, your hands, your whole body.

"This is particularly useful in the UK at the moment, because as part of Ofsted's initiative Seal [Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning], teachers are being asked to be very attentive to children's emotions and feelings; the foundation of emotional literacy is being present and to notice what's going on in your body and to feel its subtle sensations as a way of identifying your emotions. Tolle's approach is very body aware. He's done it in a nice accessible way for people.

"The thing that's really good about him," Bloom concludes, "in the midst of all the psychobabble to do with happiness being based on getting what you want, Tolle sounds a clear note stating that happiness comes from a state of consciousness and a connection with being present to the wonder of life. Which is just what's needed."

Tolle's detractors, aside from the Church, dismiss him as New Age rubbish of the worst kind, popular only because he has managed to get the attention of Oprah Winfrey. "Even by the standards of the self-help book industry, Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth is unutterable twaddle," said one newspaper book reviewer. "Oprah Winfrey's golden touch has turned a stinker into a bestseller for Penguin." Another dismissed the book by saying, "Its 313 pages are, frankly, baffling – a mix of pseudo-science, New Age philosophy and teaching borrowed from established religions."

Indeed, it is difficult sometimes to know what sense to make of Tolle's convoluted discursive style. Try this one, for example: "Something suddenly was there that actually had always been there but had been obscured continuously by identification with the heavy mind structure."

Despite this – or perhaps because of it – Tolle does have fans in academic, even Christian, circles. Andrew Ryder, a theologian at All Hallows College, Dublin, wrote in praise of Tolle in The Way, the modern Christian spirituality magazine: "Tolle's writing is based on his own experience and personal reflection. This makes his approach to the challenge of living in the present moment both practical and fresh. While he may not use the language of traditional Christian spirituality, Tolle is very much concerned that, as we make our way through the ordinary events of the day, we keep in touch with the deepest source of our being."

It's easy to see why Tolle's self-help schtick appeals to such ne'er do wells as Paris Hilton; his central advice about living for now and not dwelling on the mistakes of your past appeals to those with a colourful back history. Too many people, he says, defensively hold on to and preserve guilty, hostile feelings from past events and allow these memories to make them anxious and unhappy.

And really, what Tolle is trying to say is: "chill out" – but you can't sell five million copies of that.

Additional reporting by Photini Philippidou

Quote Unquote
Tolle in his own words

The Power of Now
"The pain-body consists of trapped life-energy that has split off from your total energy field and has temporarily become autonomous through the unnatural process of mind identification"

"Pain can only feed on pain. Pain cannot feed on joy. It finds it quite indigestible"

"In the normal, mind-identified or unenlightened state of consciousness, the power and creative potential that lie concealed in the Now are completely obscured by psychological time. You cannot find yourself by going into the past. You can find yourself by coming into the present. Life is now. There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be"

A New Earth
"Is humanity ready for a transformation of consciousness, an inner flowering so radical and profound that compared to it the flowering of plants, no matter how beautiful, is only a pale reflection? "

"There are three words that convey the secret of the art of living, the secret of all success and happiness: One With Life. Being one with life is being one with Now. You then realise that you don't live your life, but life lives you. Life is the dancer, and you are the dance"

"If you are not familiar with 'inner body' awareness, close your eyes for a moment and find out if there is life inside your hands. Don't ask your mind. It will say, 'I can't feel anything'"

"Can human beings lose the density of their conditioned mind structures and become like crystals or precious stones, so to speak, transparent to the light of consciousness?"

"You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge. But it can only emerge if something fundamental changes in your state of consciousness"

Labels: Buddhism, Eckhart Tolle, ego, Ether Walker, happiness, Jesus, spirituality

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Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Book Review: The roots of violence in religion

Reviewed by Allan F. Wright

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Abraham's Curse: The Roots of Violence in Judaism, Christianity and Islam
By Bruce Chilton. Doubleday (New York, 2008). 260 pp. $24.95.

Do Judaism, Christianity and Islam share a common ancestor whose obedience to God taps into the root of today's violence in the name of religion? Bruce Chilton, professor of religion at Bard College, rector of an Episcopal church in Barrytown, N.Y., and former member of the Jesus Seminar, poses this very thought in his book, "Abraham's Curse: The Roots of Violence in Judaism, Christianity and Islam."

The thesis of Chilton's work rests upon the idea that the violence we see in the three major monotheistic religions of today (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) is spearheaded by the "Aqedah," or God's command to Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, in the Book of Genesis. Chilton bookends his work with references to the horrific events of Sept. 11, 2001, and examines the common thread that links violence to religion. He pursues his argument that most violence in the name of religion can be traced back to this "Aqedah" with excerpts pulled from the Scripture and the Quran.

In the Genesis account according to the Hebrew Scriptures, Abraham obeys God's command to sacrifice his son on Mount Moriah, but at the last moment an angel stops him, saying Abraham has proved his faith by his willingness to obey. God himself points to a more suitable sacrifice: a ram caught in a thicket, which signals to many the end of human sacrifice in the name of God.

Chilton maintains that the original meaning of the story is that human sacrifice is not God's will. He successfully shows how all three religions, in times of persecution, have twisted this meaning to glorify martyrdom.

The title of the book is somewhat misleading as the reader may expect a survey of the many acts of violence and war in the holy books of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. However, the author overextends the idea that almost all acts of violence in the name of religion stem from the "Aqedah" account in Genesis. Chilton omits the concept that the sinfulness of man is often a root cause or explanation for violence.

Chilton expends much effort in the early chapters aiming to prove his point about the "Aqedah." However, he overreaches in his exegesis, forcing many occasions of violence found in the Scriptures to this one event. Obedience to God is the focus of the call of Abraham's sacrifice of his son, not violence. Throughout the first 90 pages of the book Chilton references extrabiblical texts and legends, muddled in clarity, to the text we find in Genesis. Unfortunately, this can be confusing for the reader.

Throughout the book there are references made that are not in line with Catholic theology. One glaring example is when Chilton says that "Jesus did not originally refer to his own personal body and blood" in the meals he shared with his disciples but the meaning came later, "in the Hellenistic environment of St. John's Gospel." If Jesus did not communicate the teaching that his "flesh is real food," then one can naturally question which Scripture passages are authentic and which are made up by the community. Chilton's association with the Jesus Seminar assemblage is evident in such interpretations.

In St. Paul's writings to the Galatians, the "Aqedah" is the occasion where the Abrahamic covenant takes on its greatest theological significance. This event serves as the pinnacle when Abraham's faith and God's promise reach their fullest expression. God's promises to Abraham and, in turn, Abraham's faith, are the two strands from which St. Paul eloquently explains his theology and the promise that follows. The faith of Abraham brings to completion the divine promise to all generations --- not an act of violence. Chilton does not mention St. Paul's interpretation which should be included because of St. Paul's influence on Christianity.

From the Islamic viewpoint, Chilton points to multiple texts in the Quran and incidents throughout Islamic history that use the Abrahamic sacrifice or the "Feast of Sacrifice" as a touchstone that likens the "Aqedah" in Judaism and Christianity to the Muslim faith. Again, this premise is designed to link the "Aqedah" to violence in all three religions.

Overall, Chilton offers an interesting perspective on the origin of violence in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. He does provide food for thought on the violence that exists today, all alleged to be done in the name of God.

Labels: Abraham, Aqedah, Bruce Chilton, Christianity, Islam, Jesus, Judaism, religion, violence

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Friday, May 23, 2008

Panelists debate: Jesus ... Who?

By Rachel Smeda

May 23, 2008

As part of its first Theology Weekend, Karis Community Church gave three panelists the chance to present and defend diverse viewpoints of who Jesus is. Answers to questions such as whether Jesus claimed to be the son of God define the boundaries between Christianity, Judaism, Islam and other major religions. The panelists’ conversation is not the only discourse on this subject happening in America. Summaries of a few other news stories on the debate about the identity of Jesus add a broader perspective to the ongoing debate.

Unitarian Universalism

The Rev. Bill Haney, a Unitarian Universalist pastor

Who was Jesus? A good man: “The gospels are the biography of Jesus, a man.”

Way to heaven? A mystery: “If God is good, why would God condemn anyone?”

“The UU tradition stems from the questioning side of the Christian experience. To question, to doubt, are essential to my exploration of faith.”

“Being a Christian is how one acts, not necessarily what one believes.”

“I’m more interested in the religion of Jesus than a religion about Jesus.”

“I worship God and not the Bible.”

“You could say that I am not a Christian because I don’t believe in vicarious atonement, that another’s death can make me right with God.”

Islam

Dr. Shakir Al-Ani, an Islamic speaker

Who was Jesus? A prophet: “Jesus was a human messenger from God to teach people where they went astray and to bring them back.”

Way to heaven? Through both faith and works: “Just believing in Jesus, peace be upon him, will not usher you into heaven.”

“Jesus did not come to be sacrificed because we are each responsible for our sins. Individual responsibility is the way to get to heaven.”

“Why would God sacrifice one person for another’s sins? An attribute of God is forgiver because he is all-powerful and has no limits, so why does he need a price to be paid for sin?”

“Jesus never claimed to be the son of God. It was said over him by others, including the writer of John, but never professed by himself.”

“Jesus was not with God in the beginning. God is independent of his creation and does not need a son.”

“Jesus was not crucified. God gave a look-alike to die on the cross and Jesus was raised to heaven.”

“Jesus came with a spiritual message to affirm the Torah and to correct the deficiencies in Jews’ lives.”

Christianity

Dr. Tom Schreiner, a Baptist pastor and New Testament theologian

Who was Jesus? Son of God: “Jesus did claim to be the son of God; in the Gospel of John, Jesus said, ‘Before Abraham was, I am.’”

Way to heaven? Trust in Jesus: “I think Jesus’ central message was that God’s kingdom was coming — in other words, the day of judgment and salvation. Therefore, all human beings must repent and believe in him in order to be spared on the day of judgment.”

“People need a savior because there is something dramatically wrong with human beings.”

“Universalism trivializes sin because it says that at the end of the day, all will be saved.”

“We’ve strayed from God and followed the creature rather than the creator. People have trusted themselves rather than God.”

“Jesus was crucified, according to the best historical evidence available, and rose from the dead.”

“One cannot claim to honor Jesus, I would argue, and reject what is said of him in the Scriptures.”

“Jesus came so that we would be entranced by God and fall in love with him.”

“God cannot just forgive because an essential part of his nature is justice and holiness. Sin must be paid for.”

Labels: Christianity, Islam, Jesus, Rachel Smeda, Unitarianism

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Monday, April 21, 2008

Book Review: Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope

April 22, 2008
reviewed by Todd Friesen

Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crisis, and a Revolution of Hope
by Brian McLaren
Thomas Nelson

Brian McLaren may not eat locusts or wear clothing made of camel's hair. But in Everything Must Change, this modern-day prophet issues a piercing critique of a U.S. church which, he says, too often serves as a force of "domestication, resignation, pacification, and distraction" rather than "liberation and transformation." All the while, a perfect storm of global crises gathers ominously on the horizon. But like the prophets of old, McLaren balances his warnings of impending doom with a compelling invitation "to defect" from the world's "suicide system" and to join Jesus' nonviolent insurgency of peace, generosity and sustainable living.

McLaren taught college English for 18 years and pastored the nondenominational church he founded in Spencerville, Maryland, for 24. In the past decade he has become a leading voice in the Emergent church movement and a prolific and sometimes controversial author. In 2005, Time magazine named him one of the "25 most influential evangelicals in America." Everything Must Change is a sequel to an earlier book, The Secret Message of Jesus (2006), in which he focused on the kingdom of God. In his new book, McLaren asks: "What would change if we applied the message of Jesus—the good news of the kingdom of God—to the world's greatest problems?"

This book's most significant contribution is its incisive look at the competing "framing stories" of our world and of Jesus Christ. McLaren argues that the world's crises are being driven by a powerfully destructive and covert narrative. This story tells us that we are godlike creatures who are free to live without moral or ecological limits and that we exist merely to consume products and experience maximum pleasure. The devastating consequences of this story are becoming increasingly evident in our families, communities and environment.

McLaren convincingly argues that Jesus exposed and confronted this suicidal story, which already existed in his own day, and offered a radically different one. His new framing story tells us that we have been created not "to shop" but to live in loving relationship with our Creator, one another and creation. This new narrative gathers us into faith communities that proclaim and embody God's liberating and nonviolent love. It leads us not to escape our troubled world but to engage its crises so God's will may be done on earth as it is in heaven. Evoking September 11, McLaren provocatively writes that the followers of Jesus are called to "fly airplanes of generosity into towers of need and plant improvised encouragement devices [IEDs] by roadsides and in neighborhoods everywhere."

In a book so focused on the dominant systems of our day, I found it surprising that McLaren mentions only once the New Testament's theme of principalities and powers (Colossians 1), and then only tangentially in his closing chapter. His analysis of the destructive potential of our world's structures would have been strengthened if he had integrated this crucial concept.

McLaren clearly recognizes that it is going to take more than a book to inspire American Christians to engage the urgent global crises of our day. It will require a profound transformation in our worship life, in what we sing about, and in the kinds of sins we confess each Sunday. With some fellow musicians, McLaren has recorded a CD called Songs for a Revolution of Hope to begin to fill this vacuum. He is also trying to connect with the younger, media-savvy generation by posting clips about his book's central ideas on YouTube and maintaining a Web site (www.deepshift.org) as a venue for further conversation.

As a pastor of a congregation in Chicago's wealthy suburbs, I found this book tremendously compelling, challenging and troubling. Everything Must Change left me asking two questions: What does defection look like when it is practiced by faithful Christian communities in the United States? And where in our nation are Jesus' followers actually making radical changes commensurate with the urgent crises we face and providing one another with the mutual support necessary to sustain this new way of living? McLaren's most recent work begs for its own sequel.

Todd Friesen is lead pastor of Lombard Mennonite Church in Lombard, Illinois.

Labels: Brian McLaren, Christianity, church, Emergent church, Jesus

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Monday, March 24, 2008

The Doctor Is In: God, the 'Wonderful Counselor'

Author and therapist points troubled souls toward Great Physician

Longwood, FL (PRWEB) March 23, 2008 -- Presenting Jesus as the best mental health therapist on the face of the planet, and the Bible as the best mental health book, Therapy with God: Wonderful Counselor, Comforter, Friend (paperback, 978-1-60477-587-7; hardcover, 978-1-60477-588-4) by Susan Henderson McHenry teaches you, step by step, how to meet with Him on every page, how to see yourself through His eyes, and how to turn to Him for lasting freedom from mental, emotional, and spiritual suffering.

"In my therapy with clients, I have discovered that although they love the Lord, they don't know how to go directly to Him for their mental health therapy," says McHenry, a licensed mental health therapist. "I have written this book with the goal of bridging that gap. As the reader applies the techniques in Therapy with God, they will learn to see Jesus on every page of their Bibles, find a deep and abiding love of Scripture and Jesus, and learn to find biblical solutions to their struggles and suffering."

McHenry said most of the books on the market either help people grow closer to God, but do not have mental health as a focus, or, conversely, they address mental health and teach what the Bible says, but don't teach readers how to go into the Bible to find answers for themselves. Her book is unique in that it interweaves, in a single volume, how to apply what they learn in the Bible directly to their mental, emotional, and spiritual issues for lasting change. It specifically targets people who know that Jesus is the answer, but do not know how to go to Him for help.

Xulon Press, a part of Salem Communications Corporation, is the world's largest Christian publisher, with more than 4,000 titles published to date. Retailers may order Therapy with God: Wonderful Counselor, Comforter, Friend through Ingram Book Company and/or Spring Arbor Book Distributors.

Labels: Bible, Jesus, mental health, Susan Henderson McHenry, Xulon Press

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Saturday, March 22, 2008

Christ rose again, say 57 per cent in British poll

by Ed Beavan

MORE than half the British believe that Christ rose from the dead, a survey for the theology think tank Theos suggests.

In the think tank’s Easter survey, carried out on its behalf by ComRes, 57 per cent of respondents said that they believed Jesus had been executed by crucifixion and buried, and had risen from the dead. More than half of these (30 per cent of the total) believed in a bodily resurrection, while 27 per cent of the total believed that Jesus had risen in spirit form.

Asked about life after death, 44 per cent said that they believed their spirit would live on after death. Only nine per cent believed in a personal physical resurrection.

The survey found distinct differences between different age groups. Fifty-three per cent of 55- to 64-year-olds agreed that Jesus was the Son of God, compared with 29 per cent of 18- to 24-year-olds.

Mr Woolley said: “The fact that younger people are less clear about what they believe than older generations reflects a more general rejection of the certainties of the past among that age group, whether religious or atheistic.”

The widespread belief in the soul’s escaping to heaven rather than in a physical resurrection suggested the influence of Plato rather than the Bible, he said.

The Bishop of Durham, Dr Tom Wright, said that the findings showed that people still cared about Jesus, and the confusion over the resurrection was “predictable”.

Labels: afterlife, Ed Beavan, Jesus, resurrection, Theos

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Monday, March 10, 2008

Expanding, not dumping, our definition of God

Mark Morford
March 5, 2008

...God is mutating, becoming slightly less appealing as a dogmatic force of sit-down-and-shut-up paternal scowling and becoming perhaps more dynamic, unspecified, something you actually want to take into your heart and into your mouth and lick until you find the rich, creamy center and then define that taste for yourself, blissfully independent of what your parents or priest or president tells you, until you reach that point of deeper knowing where you can't help but go aha.

It's all part of that big study from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, released recently and ready to be spun a thousand different ways, the one that contains the whopper of a statistic that says 28 percent of Americans have abandoned the religion they grew up with and have taken up another one, or none at all, or maybe more than one because polytheism certainly sounds tasty and, you know, what the hell, right?

But it's always good to be reminded that 1) try as they might, no one system can ever have a lock on the divine experience, 2) more people are at play in the Wal-Mart of the lord than our leaders, preachers and godmongers might imagine, and 3) despite the disturbing number of evangelicals in America (26 percent), there might yet be hope for the nation to evolve and grow and bust out of the archaic straightjacket of religious authority once and for all.

Or maybe not.

Given the high rate of turnover, it's easy to see religious choice in America as essentially a dour marketplace, a consumer good, each system vying for your attention and your devotion and very much your dollar because, if you think it's all about deep personal enlightenment, I've got this noxious library of "Left Behind" books on tape to sell you, cheap. The pothole on the road of religiosity is obvious, and enormous. As the saying goes, most people use religion the way a drunkard uses a lamppost: as convenient support, not illumination.

Still Christian

Ah, but what of the big stunner of a number, the one that says 78 percent of Americans still identify as Christian, no matter if they actually pray or attend church or run for Congress or secretly snort meth and visit gay hookers as they run an evangelical megachurch in Colorado? It certainly seems like an impressive number - no matter how many new beliefs spring up, we are overwhelmingly, devoutly Jesus-happy.

I'm not buying it.

I suspect a huge chunk of respondents merely check the "Christian" box for lack of something else, because they felt they needed to choose something, even though they don't actually follow Scripture in the slightest, but since they're not technically atheists and they've never really ventured out on a unique spiritual quest of their own, they merely choose "Christian" as the default American position, the fallback, the safe bet, sort of like checking "average" on a customer satisfaction survey or saying "fine" when your barista asks you how you're doing today. Thoughtless, automatic, convenient.

Which brings us to perhaps the most interesting stat of all, wherein 16 percent of Americans (and 21 percent of godless, sinful, heathenistic Californians, both much larger percentages than perhaps anyone expected) don't hook into any religious affiliation whatsoever, thus making them/us the fourth largest "religious" group in America - and growing fast.

They are the unaffiliated, the wayward ones, not just agnostics and atheists but also the poets and the grazers and spiritualists, the mystics and the explorers and the cosmically, intellectually, divinely self-determined. (Or maybe they're all just actors and bass players and trust-funded art students. But let's try to be optimistic.)

A new secular age?

It's a heartening number, and it brings up a delicious question, pondered for ages and yet seemingly more pertinent than ever: Are we headed for a more secular age? Is dour organized religion finally losing its grip? Does it all point to something grander, perhaps more luminous for us as a society, as more people abandon religion's authoritarian hammers for spirituality's exquisite seeds?

And what of the other big question, the one no one really talks much about and certainly no one really teaches you? How does one actually abandon a religion? How do you dump your God and choose another, or none or the one deep inside yourself?

Tentative answer: Maybe you don't. Maybe it's not about abandoning God, and instead merely broadening your definition of the divine so as to encapsulate and swallow it all, every God, every dogma, every attempt to corner the market on belief and put it into cute little boxes and break us all up into angry tribes who stomp our feet and wave our little gilded books and launch wars over promised lands and chosen peoples and crucifixes and crusades and witches and pagans and gays.

In other words, maybe you abandon God by realizing it's all God, it's all divine, all hot, thrumming, vibrating connection in all places in all things at all times, and hence to try and parse it and restrict it and beat it into submission and claim it for one people, one history, one country or church or authoritarian body, is actually the highest form of divine insult.

Or, you know, grand cosmic joke.

Same thing, really.

Labels: Christian, God, Jesus, Mark Morford, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, religion, secular, unaffilIiated

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Monday, February 25, 2008

Free to love, freed by love

A Christian Science perspective on daily life.
from the February 26, 2008 edition

The United States has yet to achieve "liberty and justice for all" – the concluding words of its Pledge of Allegiance – but few would deny that the nation has made great strides in that direction. In part, Black History Month celebrates that progress toward freedom.

Two thousand years ago, Jesus recognized people's need for freedom – regardless of race – and he explained how to get it. He said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). If to "know the truth" means to know God, divine Truth, Jesus' promise can be paraphrased this way: "Ye shall know divine Truth, and divine Truth shall make you free."

Knowing God as divine Truth includes understanding and believing what's divinely true about ourselves and others – that God created us in His image (see Gen. 1:27). Viewing others from that perspective makes hatred hard to justify.

Perhaps that's the reason love, like truth, figures so prominently in Jesus' teachings. In his Sermon on the Mount, he said, "Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies ..." (Matt. 5:43, 44).

The Monitor's founder, Mary Baker Eddy, emphasized the power of divine Love as well. In her book "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" she identified Love as a synonym for God (see p. 587) and explained, "... Love imparts the clearest idea of Deity" (p. 517).

Importing that "clearest idea of Deity" into Jesus' statement sheds new light on freedom with this paraphrase: "Ye shall know divine Love, and divine Love shall make you free." Free of hatred, envy, strife, even of physical and mental illnesses. But also free to see the reality of each individual's spiritual nature as the son and daughter of an all-loving God.

The Negro spiritual that Dr. Martin Luther King quoted at the end of his "I have a dream" speech makes a specific connection between love and freedom as well. The speech concludes, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!" The Negro spiritual ends, "For I never felt such a love before,/ Thank God Almighty, I'm free at last."

That love "never felt ... before" is God's liberating love, the driving force behind Dr. King's fight for civil rights. In a sermon titled "Loving your enemies," King described a few strategic reasons for loving those who hate you. Then he noted, "An even more basic reason why we are commanded to love is expressed explicitly in Jesus' words, 'Love your enemies ... that ye may be children of your Father which is in heaven.' " And a few lines later he added, "We must love our enemies, because only by loving them can we know God and experience the beauty of his holiness" ("Strength to Love," p. 55).

Hating our enemies blinds us to God's love for us – and for them. God is Love and God is All, so He can't know anything unlike Love. And as God's ideas, or reflection, we can't know anything unlike Love either. That doesn't appear to be the case from our limited, mortal perspective, but as we replace our material view of things with the divine reality, whatever basis for hatred we thought existed disappears.

That change – or spiritualization – of thought and action is the only way to keep our end of the bargain. Both Jesus and King urge us to know God, divine Love, by living love. And if we do our part, God will certainly do His: Divine Love will make us free. And not only will those who love their enemies be freed, but the enemies themselves will be released from hatred's grasp. That's the way divine Love operates – impartially, universally, unconditionally, irresistibly.

Mrs. Eddy wrote, "Love is the liberator" (Science and Health, p. 225.) King and his followers proved that fact in their day, and we can continue to prove it in ours.

Labels: freedom, God, Jesus, love, Martin Luther King Jr., Mary Baker Eddy

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Saturday, February 23, 2008

The power of prayer, in good times and bad

Friday, February 22, 2008

Christian Scientists rely on spiritual healing throughout their lives.

By BILL CUNNINGHAM
The Orange County Register

At Fullerton's First Church of Christ, Scientist, two speakers stood together at a wide podium. One read a passage from the Bible; the other read related words from Mary Baker Eddy's book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." The Sunday morning congregation listened quietly in the plain sanctuary. No crosses, no statues, no elaborate ornaments. Words and thoughts were emphasized, rather than symbols and rituals.

The two books, the Bible and "Science and Health," are considered to be the spiritual leader of the church. There is no ordained clergy.

Mrs. Eddy, who wrote about suffering with ill health since childhood before studying the Bible and discovering a method of curing herself and others, founded Christian Science in 1879. It was designed "to commemorate the word and works of our Master (Jesus Christ), which should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing," states a church manual.

An estimated 1,600 congregations now exist in America, with hundreds more worldwide. Beyond the use of the word "science" in the name, it has nothing to do with Scientology.

Spiritual healing is an important part of the Christian Science religion. When practitioners are sick or injured they pray first, rather than head to a medical doctor.

"Spiritual healing probably has as many different faces as there are individuals that are applying it," said Donald W. Ingwerson, spokesman for Christian Science in Southern California and a church member for over 50 years. "Basically it's the power of prayer that heals. And that prayer is based upon inspiration from the Bible and from 'Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.' "

But if a church member with a broken bone or a severe illness feels the need for medical treatment, there's no stigma attached. "All Christian Scientists are free to go to a doctor any time they feel the need for it," said Ingwerson. "However, generally speaking, a Christian Scientist would pray first and see where that leads their thought and their need. And if they felt after that prayer, they needed to see a doctor, they should feel free to go see a doctor. But many find that they don't need to go to a doctor after they pray."

Although Mrs. Eddy was founder of the church and the author of one of its most important texts, she is not looked upon a saint or a prophet. "But she certainly has the deep respect of the world for the religion she created," said Ingwerson. "Mrs. Eddy herself said 'look for me in my works' and that's where she wants to be of value to us."

Each church reaches out to the community in several ways. There are practitioners, considered full-time professional healers, who can be called by anyone seeking treatment through prayer. And there are Reading Rooms open to the public throughout the county. These rooms have Bibles and Christian Science literature available for reading, borrowing or purchasing.

On Wednesday evenings, one-hour Testimony Meetings are held, at which individuals tell of personal experiences involving healing. At a recent meeting, several spoke of ailments that were resolved without medical assistance. One woman told of many healings, "physical, emotional and relational" over the years.

Unlike some individuals who live in fear or hope of an afterlife, Christian Scientists "don't believe in a literal sense of heaven and hell," said Ingwerson. "We don't think it's a place. We think it's a state of thought and it's right here. You're living in your own hell or heaven right now. It's not a place you go to later."

Labels: Bill Cunningham, Christian Science, Christianity, health, Jesus, Mary Baker Eddy, prayer, spiritual healing

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Monday, February 04, 2008

Soldier to soldier

A Christian Science perspective on daily life.
from the January 30, 2008 edition

A few years after the Vietnam War, I left active duty and joined the Army Reserves. As a battalion chaplain, I noticed an interesting pattern with some of the other vets. It seems that they were returning to the military for no other reason than to sort out their war experiences with others who knew what they'd gone through.

Many of them had been exposed to such assaults on human sensibilities that sights and sounds were seared on their minds, haunting them. These soldiers had done whatever they could to get through their tour of duty, but when they got back home, they didn't leave behind the mental impressions and the emotional turbulence.

Often when I talked to a vet, he wanted to know if I was a vet too. Empathy helps. Certainly my tour in Vietnam broke open my shell of self-interest and evolved a greater sympathy for the sufferings of those around me. And I was so grateful for others whose sympathy let me know that I wasn't alone in encountering feelings I'd never experienced before.

Ultimately, I found that my sympathy was most helpful when I recognized something else we had in common: that we were children of a loving God, dwelling in a spiritual reality that was untouched by the imprint of war.

In a sense, all of us who have witnessed suffering that has pushed us to the margins of human stability are on a walk to Emmaus. The Christ is with us, doing what it has always done. The Christ, so fully expressed in Jesus, is the ever-present spiritual reality of being making plain to disturbed and disoriented human thinking our well-being in God's love.

Monitor founder Mary Baker Eddy glimpsed and then explored this reality that healed her in her desperate search for meaning in life's tragedies. She shared in her book "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures": "Take heart, dear sufferer, for this reality of being will surely appear sometime and in some way. There will be no more pain, and all tears will be wiped away. When you read this, remember Jesus' words, 'The kingdom of God is within you.' This spiritual consciousness is therefore a present possibility" (pp. 573-574).

As you sympathize with soldiers struggling to recover, let your sympathy evolve into a prayer that acknowledges the presence of spiritual reality making itself known to them in a peace that is untroubled and unafraid.

Labels: Jesus, Mary Baker Eddy, peace, veterans, war

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Friday, January 18, 2008

To continue freedom's work

A Christian Science perspective on daily life.
from the January 18, 2008 edition

For many people, the Martin Luther King holiday has become yet another three-day weekend, time off from work or school. The Civil Rights movement, which began with the bus boycott in Montgomery, Ala., in 1955, may seem like ancient history in a society where there's "instant" everything from coffee to messaging.

But this special day is a time to consider that despite the progress that has been made, racism hasn't been completely eliminated.

Discrimination against indigenous peoples, against immigrants (including legal ones), as well as those of different races still remains, even though it sometimes takes subtler forms. For example, in many large cities young African Americans still grow up in poverty and remain there because they can't escape that mental environment. Breaking out of the culture of poverty isn't just about getting more money. It's about knowing that you have value, that your presence in this world can be a blessing.

In a way, that is perhaps the last but also the most challenging aspect of the civil rights struggle. Mary Baker Eddy, who founded the Monitor, witnessed this country's struggles with slavery, and the transition out of it. In her book "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," she observed, "Legally to abolish unpaid servitude in the United States was hard; but the abolition of mental slavery is a more difficult task" (p. 225)

For Jesus, healing was not only about setting people free from suffering, but also about changing the thought of society, especially among those who felt superior to others. So, for example, when he was criticized for healing a woman on the Sabbath (because no work was supposed to be done that day), he replied, "Doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering? And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound ... be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?" (Luke 13:15, 16)

To me he was saying, "You value your animals enough to take care of them. Can't you see that this woman, as a descendant of the man to whom God promised His care, has an even greater heritage?

Society has changed greatly from the times of Jesus, yet the same mental struggle goes on: the need to value each individual, to see his or her spiritual heritage and the blessings to be gained from unlocking those talents. Each of us can contribute by not looking down on someone else because of race, background, handicap, or gender, and by praying for the day when all people will be valued.

And there's a direct, personal benefit to taking this step. Each time we can see others as children of God, we reinforce our own spiritual heritage as God's offspring. We become freer from the mental slavery that says some are "top dogs" and others are not. We are loosed from the burden of despising or rejecting others to rejoicing in the knowledge that our Father's house is big enough for everyone to have a place and for each one's gifts to be joyfully expressed.

Labels: discrimination, Jesus, Mary Baker Eddy, racism

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Sunday, January 06, 2008

Theologian who heralded the death of God ponders his own

PORTLAND, Ore. — It was a quiet Sunday afternoon in 1938 when something went terribly wrong near young Bill Hamilton's house. His teenage friends had been building pipe bombs. One, an Episcopalian, was dead. Another, a Catholic, lay on the grass fatally injured. And the third, the son of an atheist, emerged without a scratch.

How, Hamilton wondered, could a just God allow this? Why do the innocent suffer? Does God intervene in human lives?

The questions haunted Hamilton at his friends' funerals, at school, in the Navy, at seminary and in his years as a theology professor in upstate New York. By 1966, he had an answer, and it landed him in Time and Playboy magazines: God was dead.

Now, some 40 years later, a new atheism is surging. Best-sellers bash religion, Christianity in particular. Published excerpts from Mother Teresa's private journal reveal her doubts. The Golden Compass, drawn from a trilogy of novels in which a key character wants to kill God, is a blockbuster movie.

Hamilton grew up a "bland, very liberal" Baptist, in a middle-class Chicago suburb. "As soon as I was able," he says, "I left it." He graduated from Oberlin College and joined the Navy in World War II. "I may have been the only guy on my ship with a copy of The Nature and Destiny of Man in my duffel," he says. Its author, Reinhold Niebuhr, was the leading U.S. theologian of the day.

After the war, Hamilton went to Union Theological Seminary in New York City because Niebuhr invited him. It didn't matter that Hamilton wasn't sure he was a Christian. Niebuhr thought Union, a bastion of liberal Protestantism, would be a good place to figure that out. The two became lifelong friends.

Hamilton graduated in 1949, got married and earned his doctorate in theology from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. The family returned to the U.S., where Hamilton taught theology at Colgate University in upstate New York.

Hamilton spent those years reflecting on his fractured faith. The image of God as an all-knowing, all-powerful solver of problems couldn't be reconciled with human suffering, especially in the wake of the Holocaust.

Hamilton wrote out his two choices: "God is not behind such radical evil, therefore he cannot be what we have traditionally meant by God" or "God is behind everything, including the death camps — and therefore he is a killer."

Hamilton didn't see an active God anymore. But the theologian was not an atheist. And he didn't want to let go of Jesus, as the example of how humans should treat one another.

"The death of God is a metaphor," he says. "We needed to redefine Christianity as a possibility without the presence of God."

He stopped going to church, but because he wanted his children to know the Bible and understand how Jesus lived, he taught them Sunday school at home. "All of us appreciate the teachings of Jesus Christ, what an extraordinary figure he was," says his son, Ross.

Hamilton redefined Christianity without God, other theologians speculated: God died long ago, perhaps at the birth of Jesus; or science and technology killed the deity. Hamilton, Thomas J.J. Altizer at Emory University and Paul Van Buren at Temple published a few articles in theological journals. Newspapers picked up the story in 1965. On April 8, 1966, Time's cover declared that God was dead, and christened the movement "radical theology."

By the time Hamilton's essay appeared in Playboy four months later, alongside topless photos of Jane Fonda, he was frustrated with the public perception of his work. Some didn't understand his argument or care about its subtleties. The response was hostile. "Institutions were upset, trustees perplexed, colleagues bewildered," he says.

Critics dismissed the death of God movement as a blip, a passing fad. But Hamilton helped pave the way for other radical theologians: feminists, who dropped patriarchal descriptions of God; and liberationists, who saw God in poverty and suffering.

Hamilton left Colgate to teach religion at New College in Sarasota, Fla., where an avant-garde and freewheeling atmosphere attracted bright students. But after a few years, he and his wife decided it wasn't where they wanted to raise their five children.

They moved to Oregon in 1970, where Hamilton taught at Portland State University for 14 years. His classes covered topics from literary criticism to death and dying, even a little religion.

Hamilton still rises every day at 6 a.m. to write. He writes by hand, and progress is slow. He hopes, however, to get his novel off to a publisher soon. He still reads avidly — Shakespeare, politics, some theology and the new atheists. It's their attitude that annoys him most.

"These are blanket indictments of religion in general, or Christianity in particular," he says. "There is a self-righteousness, a glibness in their writing. They are too sure of themselves. They've backed themselves into a fundamentalist mode."

He remains a Christian who doesn't go to church. And faced with his own mortality, he doesn't think much about God anymore, except when asked.

"The death of God enabled me to understand the world. Looking back, I wouldn't have gone any other direction. I faced all my worries and questions about death long ago."

Nancy Haught writes for The Oregonian in Portland, Ore

Labels: atheism, Bill Hamilton, Christianity, God, Jesus, Nancy Haught

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Monday, December 24, 2007

Pilgrims celebrate Noel in Bethlehem

By DALIA NAMMARI, Associated Press Writer

BETHLEHEM, West Bank - Gloom was banished from Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem for the first time in years on Monday as Christian pilgrims from all over the world flocked here to celebrate Jesus' birth in an atmosphere of renewed tranquility.

After Israeli-Palestinian fighting erupted in 2000, most of the people milling around Manger Square in the center of this biblical town on Christmas had been local Palestinians. But this year there were large numbers of tourists from all over the world, back after avoiding the region's strife.

Bethlehem Mayor Victor Batarseh predicted earlier this month that the lull in violence would help to bring about 65,000 tourists to visit to visit the traditional site of Jesus' birth this Christmas — four times the number who trickled into town for Christmas in 2005.

Still, unmistakable signs of the conflict that has killed more than 4,400 Palestinians and 1,100 Israelis in just the past seven years made it clear that peace was not yet at hand.

Gray concrete walls measuring about 25 feet high enclose Bethlehem on three sides — part of the separation barrier that Israel says it's building to keep out attackers from the West Bank. Palestinians allege that the complex of concrete slabs and electronic fence, which dips into parts of the West Bank, is a thinly veiled land grab.

Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah, the Roman Catholic Church's highest official in the Holy Land, could only reach Bethlehem after passing through a massive steel gate in the barrier. An escort of Israeli mounted policemen led Sabbah, in his flowing gold and burgundy robe, up to the gate, where border policemen waited to clang it shut behind him.

According to the Jerusalem Center for Jewish-Christian Relations, there are an estimated 170,000 Christians in Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

In the Gaza Strip, the mood was much more somber than in Bethlehem. Festivities in the poverty-stricken territory's tiny Christian community of 3,000 were decidedly muted.

For decades, Christmas had been marked by an enormous, lavishly decorated tree in Gaza City's main square, colored lights strung across the plaza and Christmas carols ringing out from loudspeakers. Shopkeepers did a brisk business selling decorations, cards and gifts, but all this cheer evaporated with the outbreak of fighting between Israelis and Palestinians in late 2000.

The grimness only deepened this year with the assassination of a prominent Christian activist, Rami Ayyad, after Islamic Hamas militants overran the coastal strip. There were few outward signs of celebration, and an austere midnight mass was planned at the city's only Roman Catholic church.

Hamas has denied involvement in Ayyad's killing and vowed to find those responsible for his slaying in October.

Early Monday, hundreds of Gaza Christians lined up at the passenger crossing between Gaza and Israel, hoping to be allowed to cross over to the West Bank to celebrate in Bethlehem. Many of those who hoped to leave said they didn't plan to return.

Israel said it would allow in 400 Christmas celebrants from Gaza.

Labels: Bethlehem, Christmas, Dalia Nammari, Gaza, Hamas, Jesus

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Sunday, December 23, 2007

"The star in the East"

By TOM COYNE, Associated Press Writer
Thu Dec 20, 12:01 PM ET

SOUTH BEND, Ind. - It's long been a puzzle for Christian astronomers, and now a professor from the University of Notre Dame thinks he has it figured out — almost, anyway.

His quest: discovering just what "the star in the East" was that led wise men to travel to Bethlehem 2,000 years ago.

As a theoretical astrophysicist, Grant Mathews had hoped the answer would be spectacular — something like a supernova. But two years of research have led him to a more ordinary conclusion. The heavenly sign around the time of the birth of Jesus Christ was likely an unusual alignment of planets, the sun and the moon.

The star, though, has long been immortalized in Christmas songs, plays and movies. Astronomers, theologians and historians for hundreds of years have been trying to determine exactly which star might have inspired the biblical writing. German astronomer Johannes Kepler proposed in 1604 that the star was a conjunction of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn in 7 B.C.

The advantage Mathews has over Kepler and others who have pondered the question is that he had access to NASA's databases.

"In principle, we can see any star that was ever made from the beginning of time if we knew where to look. So the question is, could we find a star that could be a good candidate for what showed up then?" he said.

The Gospel of Matthew indicates Jesus was born in Bethlehem when Herod was king. Roman historian Flavius Josephus wrote that Herod died after an eclipse of the moon before the Passover. Mathews said among the possibilities are 6 B.C., 5 B.C., 1 B.C. or 1 A.D. The star could have appeared up to two years before the wise men arrived in Jerusalem, he said.

Mathews believes that means the Christmas star could have appeared anywhere from 8 to 4 B.C.

Among the characteristics written about the star was that it appeared before sunrise and that it appeared to "rest in the sky." Mathews also found writings from Korean and Chinese astronomers of an event about 4 B.C. which described a comet with no tail that didn't move.

Using that set of facts, Mathews found several possibilities, including supernovas, novas and planetary alignments.

Mathews found two possible supernovas in the right period, but said one was probably too low on the horizon to be seen. The other supernova is known as Kes 75. But it was 60,000 light years away and may not have been particularly spectacular.

"There's no real convincing evidence this happened right at 2000 years ago, but it could be in the range of being right because it's in the right location," he said.

He also found a number of nova that also could have been the Christmas star. The one he thinks is the most likely candidate is known as Nova Aquilae V603. The problem with novas and comets, though, is that they were believed in ancient times to be a sign of disaster, not a portent of good things to come.

For that reason, Mathews believes the Christmas star is most likely an alignment of planets. He said there are three likely times for this:

_Feb. 20, 6 B.C., when Mars, Jupiter and Saturn aligned in the constellation Pisces.

_April 17, 6 B.C., when the sun, Jupiter, the moon and Saturn aligned in the constellation Aries while Venus and Mars were in neighboring constellations.

_June 17, 2 B.C., when Jupiter and Venus were closely aligned in Leo.

Mathews believes the April 17, 6 B.C., alignment is the most likely candidate. It makes sense because he believes the wise men were Zoroastrian astrologers who would have recognized the planetary alignment in Aries as a sign a powerful leader was born.

"In fact it would have even meant that (the leader was) destined to die at an appointed time, which of course would have been significant for the Christ child, and may have been why they brought myrrh, which was an embalming fluid," Mathews said. "Saturn there would have made whoever was born as a leader a most powerful leader because Saturn had the strength to do it, in their view."

Labels: Bethlehem, Christmas, Jesus, Magi, star, Tom Coyne

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Monday, December 10, 2007

Boycotters ask, 'What Would Jesus Buy?'

Religion News Service

That's the mind-set of Americans who can't stomach exchanging holiday presents. They aren't grinches or scrooges. They just reject what they consider the wastefulness and stress of the season.

"Over the years, I have watched as the gift-exchanging part of the family Christmas slowly became more and more the reason to get together and how it eventually seemed to become the showcase event of the day," said Lora-Lee Blalock, 42, a homemaker and artist in Austin, Texas.

Blalock's childhood memories of the holiday radiate warmth: "We'd all travel from our homes and gather at my grandparents' house to spend the day eating, playing games, making music together, watching Christmas specials on the TV and just spending time talking and being a family." Gifts were secondary.

Blalock said that in recent years she pestered her family to drop the gifts. This year, they're trying it.

Pam Frese, an anthropologist at the College of Wooster in Ohio, said the practice seems to be a dismissal of commercial obsession. "The consumer culture doesn't mean anything to them," Frese said.

That's the Rev. Billy's message. No, beneath the blond pompadour and white suit, he's not a real pastor, but he does preach with a Jimmy Swaggart lilt about what he calls the "Shopocalypse." The New York-based performer-activist travels the country with his Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir — evangelizing uninvited at chain stores — and is the subject of the new film, What Would Jesus Buy?

Rev. Billy (aka Bill Talen) says corporate gluttony has whipped holiday sentiment into an obligation to spend on gifts recipients might not even want, generating "the opposite of excitement, which is dread."

"This year, we need to take Christmas back," the self-proclaimed minister said. "Let's have a creative Christmas."

The Parsons family has made that a goal.

Last year, Noah and Sabrina Parsons of Eugene, Ore., were disgusted by the mounds of wrapping paper and packaging encasing their two young sons' gifts, which required a trip to the dump. The Parsonses, who run a software company for small businesses, decided no presents this year.

"At the end of the day, you really don't feel you've gained anything with all this stuff," said Sabrina Parsons, 34.

This Christmas, the couple and their children, Timmy, 3, and Leo, 15 months, will funnel what they would have spent on gifts into a family trip to Mexico. It's the kickoff to what they hope becomes a holiday tradition.

The parents figure they'll start now, so when their sons are old enough to start asking questions, Mom and Dad can respond: "You're not going to get gifts, but you're getting to go to the beach or getting to go skiing or you're going to this really cool place you've never been to before," said Noah Parsons, 33.

Besides, the Parsons boys would be hard-pressed to recall what they got last year.

Gift amnesia strikes adults, too. Online polling may not be scientific, but consider this: 41% of Americans 18 and older polled via the Web said they couldn't remember their best holiday gift from last year. San Francisco-based Zoomerang conducted the survey in November for Excitations, a Sterling, Va., company specializing in experience-oriented gifts, including hang gliding.

From a religious standpoint, some are put off by how gift-heavy the holidays have become.

Sister Mary Louise Foley, campus minister at the University of Dayton, said worshippers should reflect: What is your perfect Christmas? Then try to come as close as possible. If that means no gifts, so be it.

If you wake up stressed about Christmas preparations, Foley said, think about "what does a woman in Iraq feel like as she gets up this morning? It makes some of our worrying so small in comparison."

With Hanukkah so close to Christmas, the Jewish holiday has become subject to the same purchasing pressures.

"Hanukkah was a very minor celebration in terms of gifts and hoopla," said Rabbi David Fass of Temple Beth Sholom in New City, N.Y.

It's OK for families to exchange gifts during Hanukkah, Fass said, as long as the children know the genesis of the holiday — it marks the victory of Jewish rebels over the Syrian-Greeks and the rededication of the temple in Jerusalem — and do not regard it as just a time for presents.

Professing appreciation for a sense of community during the holidays, some have shaped their aversion to frenzied gift-giving into a tongue-in-cheek crusade.

Nina Paley, 39, an animator in New York, said her no-gifts awakening happened about 15 years ago, when she produced a comic strip called "Nina's Adventures" for alternative weekly papers. One holiday season, she based one of her strips on a friend who plunged further into debt buying presents.

From this, Paley's Christmas Resistance Movement arose. Its website —www.xmasresistance.org— proclaims, "No Shopping — No Presents — No Guilt!" The campaign is equal opportunity, applying to Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or any holiday when people might feel compelled to give gifts.

Paley herself grew up in a secular Jewish home, though her family did exchange presents for Hanukkah. Whatever the occasion, mandatory offerings cheapen the moment, she said.

Obligatory "material gifts often function as a distraction from love — or lack thereof — rather than a conduit," Paley said. "By making material gifts representations of love, love itself becomes a commodity. How can that not make one feel empty and hollow?"

Labels: Americans, Christmas, commercialism, gift, Hanukkah, Jesus, presents, religion, stress

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Saturday, December 08, 2007

Britons who don't know where Jesus was born

By Jonathan Petre
08/12/2007

The extent of Britons' ignorance about the Christmas story is illustrated today in a new report which shows more than a quarter of adults do not know where Jesus was born.

A survey found 27 per cent of Britons aged 18 and over were unable to identify Bethlehem as Jesus's birth place, while the figure rose to 36 per cent of people aged between 18 and 24.

The poll also found that more than one in four people - 27 per cent - were unaware that an angel told Mary that she would give birth to a son, with some saying she was informed by the shepherds.

Most people surveyed believed that Joseph, Mary and Jesus fled to Nazareth rather than Egypt when they escaped from King Herod, and a few even said the holy family's destination was Rome.

Only 12 per cent of adults could answer all four questions about the Christmas story correctly.

The results of the survey, conducted among 1,015 adults last month, are likely to refuel the debate about the secularisation of Christmas.

The poll found that people's knowledge dips significantly with age, with only seven per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds able to answer all four questions correctly. Middle aged people, aged 55 to 64, knew the most, with 18 per cent getting all the questions right.

The findings followed research by the Sunday Telegraph last weekend showing that only one school in every five was planning to stage a traditional Nativity play this year.

Paul Woolley, the director of Theos, the theological think-tank which commissioned the survey, insisted the survey showed the Christmas story, in its classic formulation, was still "very much" in the "cultural bloodstream" of the nation.

"The fact that younger people are the least knowledgeable about the Christmas story may reflect a decline in the telling of Bible stories in schools and the popularity of Nativity plays," he said.

"No one seriously thinks that being a Christian or a member of the established Church is the same thing as being British today.

"But, at the same time, if we are serious about social cohesion we can't afford to ignore the stories that have bound us together as a culture for a thousand years.

"Any attempts to down-play the Christmas story in order to help social cohesion are likely to be counterproductive."

Unsurprisingly, Christian churchgoers knew the story best, with 36 per cent answering all questions correctly, compared with only five per cent of those describing themselves as atheists.

The questions

1. According to the story in the Christian Bible, where was Jesus born?

73 per cent correctly said Bethlehem. Of the 27 per cent who were wrong, 10 per cent said Nazareth and 9 per cent said Jerusalem.

2. Who told Mary that she would give birth to a son?

73 per cent correctly said an angel. Of the 27 per cent who were wrong, six per cent said the wise men, five per cent said the shepherds and four per cent said Joseph.

3. Who was Jesus' cousin?

48 per cent correctly said John the Baptist. Of the 52 per cent who were wrong, 12 per cent said Peter, six per cent said Luke and six per cent said James. 26 per cent said they did not know.

4. Where did Joseph, Mary and Jesus go to escape from King Herod when Jesus was a young child?

22 per cent correctly said Egypt. Of the 78 per cent who were wrong, 52 per cent said Nazareth, five per cent said Babylon and one per cent said Rome.

Labels: Britain, Christian, Christmas, Jesus, Jonathan Petre

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Charlie Brown Christmas Tree

A nice respite from Christmas overload...Hark, the Herald Angels Sing!!!

Labels: Charlie Brown, Christmas, Jesus, tree, video

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Wednesday, November 14, 2007

A force for good

For a growing movement of believers, an activist faith means more than proselytizing about Jesus and stoking the fires of our culture wars. Welcome to the new (and yes, liberal) world of evangelical Christianity.

By Tom Krattenmaker

A passerby might not have known: Was this going to be a church service or a concert by an alternative rock band? The set-up on the stage suggested the latter — a drum kit, guitars on stands, several microphones, and large screens flashing iconic Portland scenes — and so did the look of the young, urban-hip crowd filling up the auditorium.

Then the band hit the stage with a loud, infectious groove, the front man singing passionately about God, and it was clear that the Sunday gathering of Portland's Imago Dei Community was both alt-rock concert and church service, or neither, exactly. So it goes in the new world of alternative evangelical Christianity, better known as the emerging church.

Like the postmodern philosophy it embraces, the emerging church values complexity, ambiguity and decentralized authority. Emergents are quite certain about some things, nevertheless, especially Jesus and his clear instruction about the way Christians are to live out their faith — not primarily as respectable, middle-class pillars of status quo society, but as servants to the poor and to people in the margins. In the words of Gideon Tsang, a 33-year-old Texas emergent who moved himself and his family to a smaller home in a poorer part of town, "The path of Christ is not in upward mobility; it's in downward."

Nothing to resent

According to best estimates, several hundred emerging church congregations, or "communities," have sprung up around the country. Although some are quite large, with memberships well into the thousands, emergents are still bit players on the national religious stage. But the emerging church is making its presence felt, with new groups forming rapidly and major secular and religious media outlets chronicling its influence and potential to dramatically change religion in this country.

Like mainstream evangelicals, emergents believe in spreading the Gospel and in the necessity of believers having a personal relationship with Jesus. The difference lies in how faith is applied — the way it's acted out "in the culture," as emergents typically put it. In the eyes of the emerging church, Christianity lived out in the respectable confines of megachurches and suburbia is fading into irrelevance as a new generation comes of age with a passion for healing society and a reluctance to shout moralistic dogma.

Emergents tend to be more tolerant than establishment evangelicals on issues such as abortion and homosexuality. Do emergents believe in heaven and hell? Yes, McKinley explains, but according to emergent theology, the point of being Christian is not solely to achieve heaven in the next life, but to bring some heaven to this life by doing the work of Jesus.

Serve the community

The "downward mobility" cited by the Texas emergent applies as well to the church-growth strategy, or lack thereof, of emerging communities. Unlike the megachurches of mainstream evangelicalism, emerging groups do not emphasize attracting new members (although it seems to happen anyway) or constructing church buildings. Some emerging groups meet in rented auditoriums, some in people's homes, some in pubs. There is less emphasis, too, on programming for members. In their view, the church exists not primarily to serve members but to serve the community.

Typical of the movement's critics, Falwell accused the emerging church of trying to "modernize and recreate the church so as not to offend sinners." That's probably code for "liberal," a shoe that would certainly fit.

Writer Scot McKnight, a supporter of the movement, says emergents are seen as "a latte-drinking, backpack-lugging, Birkenstock-wearing group of 21st-century, left-wing, hippie wannabes. Put directly, they are Democrats."

As is so often the case with religious movements in this country, the emerging church is both old and new: Old, in that Christianity in America has seemingly always been in a state of re-invention in response to the ever-changing culture; and new, in that we see in the emerging church a group of Jesus followers who reject the social conservatism modeled by Falwell and many other leading evangelicals this past quarter-century.

Is the emerging church compromising biblical truth for the sake of being hip? That debate won't be resolved here. Whatever the case, there is something hopeful about the appearance of a youthful, idealistic form of faith focused more on healing broken neighborhoods than accumulating members and political power.

For those hoping religion can more consistently serve as a force for kindness, unity and society's renewal — and not so much as an argument-starter — the verdict seems simple: Let the emerging church, and its larger ideals, continue to emerge.

Labels: Christianity, emergents, Gospel, Jesus, Tom Krattenmaker

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Monday, October 29, 2007

Judas Wasn't Even a Gnostic Hero

By Jay Tolson
Thu Oct 25, 1:03 PM ET

Remember all the hoopla about the Gospel of Judas, the long-lost Gnostic text that depicted Judas not as wicked villain but as the Messiah's favorite, who was given the nasty job of betraying him because he understood Jesus's special mission better than anybody else did?

Well, now it turns out that that might not be what the Gospel of Judas was saying at all. If April De Conick, a professor of biblical studies at Rice University, is right, the English translation that was sponsored by the National Geographic was so flawed in crucial places that it reversed what the text was actually saying: that Judas was just as nasty as all the traditional orthodox Christian accounts said he was.

The problem, De Conick says, is that the translation was based on very incomplete reconstructions of the original Coptic text. In the October 15 entry of her Forbidden Gospels Blog, she explains that the mistakes were so bad that she was inspired to write a book, the newly published Thirteenth Apostle, to rectify them:

"What does the Coptic really say? The Coptic says that Judas is a demon, that he will be instrumental in bringing about Jesus' sacrifice, that this was the worst thing he could do. Jesus tells Judas that he will not go to the Kingdom, that he is working for the demiurge Ialdabaoth-Nebruel, that he will lament and grieve his terrible fate. Furthermore, the text says that Jesus will tell him the mysteries of the Kingdom not so that he will go there, but so that Judas will lament greatly his actions within the cosmic drama. Judas is separated from the holy generation. He is the thirteenth demon, which means he is to be associated with Ialdabaoth, the "thirteenth" archon or ruler in Sethian Gnosis."

" ... The problem is that now the world thinks that Judas is a Gnostic hero when in fact the Gospel of Judas says nothing of this. In fact, it says the opposite. My translation is of the actual Gospel of Judas.""

What De Conick's translation of the Gospel of Judas might say about the Gnostic Christians more generally is hard to say. But on the question of Judas, it seems that these so-called heretics were closer to the orthodox position than many Christian scholars would like to think. And perhaps closer than many latter-day Gnostics would like to think, as well.

Labels: April De Conick, Coptic, Gnostic, Jay Tolson, Jesus, Judas

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Thursday, September 06, 2007

Is West Seattle’s Skate Church an Open-Minded Extension of Religion’s Embrace of Secular Culture?

Or a classic bait and switch?
By Maggie Mertens

The sun is hanging low over the water at Alki Beach, casting streaks of pink and gray that sparkle off the waves as they crash into the sand. Guitar chords float over the crowd of teenagers who have gathered here on a Wednesday evening in late summer. The area around them is littered with guitar cases and skateboards, as a 17-year-old named Jono stands and speaks over the quiet guitar riff.

"I don't know where you are in your walk with God right now, but if you have any doubts, just look at that," he says, turning and pointing at the now-glowing horizon. "Looking at that, there is no way there could be no God; there is no way scientists or whoever could be right about us being created from some blast in space. That should be all the proof you need."

Jono is a member of Skate Church, a West Seattle congregation that hosts youth-focused events ranging from skateboarding to rock concerts to paintball excursions. "We believe having fun is not a sin," says 20-year-old Pastor Brennan Pebbles, when asked what makes Skate Church different from most youth groups today.

Pebbles can be found most days at TORN, an Alaska Junction skate shop that doubles as Skate Church's sanctuary. The rectangular store has couches instead of pews, energy drinks and candy instead of coffee and doughnuts, and a drum set and several amps in its worship center. Pebbles wanted to create a place where teens would choose to come and hang out, and not just once a week. He believes "just coming together on Sundays is not church, because church should be something that is happening all the time." To keep the congregation coming back the rest of the week, the store also contains a PlayStation video game console, skating footage projected on a huge hanging screen, and skateboard decks and related paraphernalia for everyone to drool over and consider purchasing.

After bouncing from space to space for about five years in search of a place that would play host to their youthful vision, Skate Church's founding pastor, Serena Wastman (a parent of one of the youth congregants), hooked up with the open-minded Foursquare denomination, which agreed to help the congregation find a permanent home. Foursquare, which was founded by Aimee Semple McPherson in 1923, has a fairly tolerant faith doctrine, and church planting and missionary work are among its foremost goals.

On June 22, TORN opened its doors on California Avenue, selling skateboarding products at discount prices, thanks in no small part to the church's nonprofit status and all-volunteer staff. Here, name-brand skate decks go for up to $20 less than at the store's secular counterparts, and flyers advertise TORN as the best place for candy and energy drinks because the shop is "cheaper than 7-11...closer than Safeway."

Like the handful of churches that are experiencing youthful population growth right now, Skate Church is giving teens what they want: life answers, an accepting peer group, and plenty of energy drinks to boot. Says 16-year-old member Chris Redman, "When we started thinking about starting a church, skating was just starting to blow up, and we thought...kids will just, like, flock to us."

If this sounds like a church only a teenager could dream of, that's because it is. But while their alternative looks may suggest the sort of open-minded beliefs usually associated with the skating scene, chip away to Skate Church's conservative ideological core, and the whole pierced-eyebrow facade begins to look a lot like a classic bait and switch.

Among the photos that plaster the walls of TORN, one stands out. It shows a picture of a boy dressed like Marilyn Manson: the long hair, the piercings, the makeup, the black leather. The words next to this portrait read: "What is wrong with this picture?" Underneath that: "Absolutely nothing."

Youth pastor Pebbles goes on to explain Skate Church's cultural tolerance thusly: "Jesus says you should be in the world, but not of the world. We should be hanging out with the druggies on the street, but not like them. And sure, I love all the crazy music out there.If you start doing what the music says, though, that's another story."

In the words of Katie Corcoran, a Ph.D. student who teaches sociology of religion at the University of Washington, Skate Church "can give [young people] the best of both worlds: a strong religious identity, but also allow them to be a part of that secular world that is so important to youth of today."

While Jono hopes people will become more tolerant of the clothes his congregation dons and encourages people to "look on the inside," this mind-set apparently only holds for certain societal deviants. These Christian teens may be clamoring to escape what they deem "conservative" churches, but don't think that means the religious right is going to topple any time soon—it's just getting a face-lift.

One Sunday evening at a Skate Church service, Wastman, the senior pastor, encourages the young evangelists not to "believe for one minute what I have to say, or what any televangelist has to say. You go home and you look it up." Wastman then holds up her Bible, emphasizing her belief that open-mindedness ends somewhere between the books of Genesis and Revelation.

A well-respected granddad to the Seattle skating scene, Inner Space Indoor Skatepark owner Mike Martinez has watched Christian groups embrace skateboarding for the last decade to varying degrees. And while he feels some of these organizations are mostly harmless, he adds, "Skateboarding is a cool thing because it's artistic and kind of free. To use it as a tool to get people into religion, I don't really support that."

On the other hand, one of Martinez's best friends, Scott Yamamura, is a skater for West Coast Christian skating group Boarders for Christ. Martinez even hosts BFC events at his park, explaining that the group doesn't use skating as an evangelical tool. "When they throw a contest, it's just a regular contest," he says. "It's not really preaching; they are just supporting skateboarding."

Recently, though, Martinez attended a skating event in Redmond that he knew was being put on by a Christian skating group. He assumed it to be like the BFC events: mostly skating, not so much praying. Martinez says he was more than appalled by what he found when he got there.

"It felt like it was a cult," Martinez says, sounding genuinely disturbed as he describes the fenced-off, deserted area surrounding the event, the booths of preachers and groups of kids praying and preaching, and the skating gear being sold that was designed to look just like popular skating brands—but actually contained Christian messages. His language grows colorful as he remembers the image that greeted him when he first walked in: "Big huge posters of aborted fetuses, not just one, but five in a row.[They're] the first thing you see, and I'm thinking, 'Holy shit! What the hell is going on?'"

But for the most part, skaters aren't fazed anymore by the Christian involvement in their sport. Martinez, who witnesses the skating demographic daily at his park, agrees. "There is definitely a section of skateboarding that is Christian, but it's not as dominant as [Christians] would want it to be. Most kids are just like, 'Fuck that shit. Whatever.' A lot of kids laugh at that stuff."

Chris Redman is playing with his skateboard under his feet at the front desk of TORN. Redman came to Christianity without any prior religious experience; in fact, he came because he was falling in with a bad crowd. A few years ago, he was spending his time hanging out with a group of skaters who were into vandalism, drugs, and drinking, and after getting arrested a couple of times himself for vandalism, Redman followed a friend to Skate Church.

"When I was, like, 13, I had to look up what being baptized was. I wasn't exposed to anything until I started going to youth group," he says. Today, Redman takes that experience of knowing what troubled teens are looking for to the streets, and to skateboard parks. "We don't try to slam kids with a whole bunch of church stuff. We just hang out, maybe skate, and become friends [with them]; then we'll do what we do...[and] that gives them a choice whether they want to follow us and follow God, or just watch."

Reaching out to the younger generation is a goal many churches have found themselves struggling with of late. The "old people in pews" stereotype that Roberts refers to at more traditional churches may become a reality as the young-adult age group dwindles.

Pastor Don Horrell at Haller Lake Baptist Church in North Seattle describes his congregation as "the mostly 55 and better crowd." Haller Lake holds two services on Sundays, the people sit in pews, and congregants are promised "a welcome smile and a warm handshake," as well as "traditional coffee time" after services.

Facing the problem of disappearing youth, Horrell has begun to blend the traditional hymns sung at Sunday service with a few contemporary Christian songs, but without much benefit. When it comes to secularism, though, Horrell draws the line deep, without even considering touting music that isn't found in the "Christian music" section as acceptable. "Rock music can be Christian music; we can certainly use Christian rock music," he says. "There is nothing inherently right or wrong about that."

While churches like Haller Lake struggle to reach out to the youth generation without giving up their traditional theologies, churches like Mars Hill in Ballard (with a satellite congregation in West Seattle), which employs elements of popular culture in its sermons and puts on edgy Christian music concerts, and South Seattle's Christian Faith Center, which podcasts youth sermons on its Web site and has youth services that look more like rock concerts, have two of the largest youth congregations in the Seattle area.

According to UW's Corcoran, churches that embrace secular culture are becoming increasingly popular as a way to reach out to youth. "In the past, groups have had very conservative theologies that haven't really ever attracted youth, specifically if it says you can't listen to rock music," she says. "Now they are keeping their theologies the same but are changing the packaging and saying that [youth] can still listen to rock music or skateboard, but can do so in a way that's still religious."

Skate Church's teaching pastor, 16-year-old Jackson Neumiller, experienced this antipathy for the traditional Christian setting at a young age. She often tells people, "I did grow up going to church, but I didn't like it. I was the kind of kid who skipped Sunday school.I never came to Christ when I was younger because I couldn't relate to a 59-year-old man in a robe."

Neumiller wasn't the only one contemplating religious rebellion at age 10. Her good friend Natalie Wastman and a group of skating seventh-graders all felt as if they were a burden to the rest of the church they were attending at the time. Their old church may not have realized the role secularism played in their unhappiness, but Serena Wastman, Natalie's mother and current senior pastor of Skate Church, sure did.

Wastman, a retired Microsoft employee, fits right in with the young congregation. A woman of small stature with a youthful, pretty face, she walks around the TORN store barefoot. Folding her legs under her on the couch next to Natalie and her friends, she joins in on jokes about explosives on the Fourth of July and discusses horror movies.

"This is completely run by the kids," she insists, before pausing for a moment and smiling at the group around her. "But, you know, we have to have adults around, just to make sure nothing insane happens."

Jono rings up a boy for a snack-size bag of Cheetos and a Dr Pepper at the TORN cash register during West Seattle Summerfest. Around TORN, Jono is a leader: He knows the products they sell, organizes people at events, and wants to go to school to become a youth pastor and a cop. His jovial personality and sweet demeanor peg him immediately as the lovable, high-school class-clown type. He was a skater when the group was just beginning, but later shattered his ankle, an injury from which he is still recovering.

While having to quit skating didn't keep Jono from his Skate Church friends, it had other impacts on his social life. "I used to have a whole bunch of friends [who were skaters but not Christian]," he says. "[But] over the years, I lost connection with them. Those friends did a whole bunch of stuff I just wasn't into."

Having to make social sacrifices is one thing, but when it comes to religion, many kids face resistance at home as well. "My parents say they're Christian, but you know, they don't go to church or anything," says Jono. "My dad thought I was being brainwashed or something."

For teens who see other kids getting themselves in trouble every day, the ability to choose Jesus over drugs is a lot easier when you have a group of friends who will support your decision. Shiloh Mulkin, 17, goes to Chief Sealth, a school he describes as "very nonreligious." But even when he is laughed at or turned down when he invites people at school to Skate Church events, he still stands strong in his desire to change the skater image for the benefit of his, as well as future, generations. "A lot of the skating scene that I've witnessed is drugs and stuff, and we're just trying to give kids a different alternative," he says. "We don't want people to see just smoking and doing drugs and skating, and see them as all together."

Different churches are treating secular influences with varying degrees of acceptance. "It is probably healthier to find out where it is that God is moving and get in on that, rather than saying, 'This is where the culture is at, let me get in on that,' and bring God there," says Seattle First Covenant Church's pastor, Mark Nilson.

Serena Wastman and her Skate Church charges, however, know exactly where the culture is moving and aren't afraid to incorporate it into their religion. Pebbles remembers thinking when they first had their vision of a youth church that catered specifically to skaters, "We could reach out to the more lost or harder to reach—skaters, alcoholics, those type of people who love music—[then] develop a way to draw them in by [using] events, demos, and heavy-metal music."

Pebbles himself was a skater when the church started, and like many of the other founding members, he had a desire to become the shepherd for their "more lost" skater friends. Catering to this crowd, however, means the leaders of Skate Church don't expect perfection. One afternoon, a group of teens are gathered at TORN, and a boy playing PlayStation screams, "Oh man! What the hell was that!?" as his character dies on-screen.

Natalie Wastman, Neumiller, and Roberts don't even flinch at this outburst. Natalie explains that at Skate Church, things like swearing are accepted—even encouraged, if that's how you would normally act. "We always say who you are away from church is who you should be at church, too," she says. "So if you swear outside of church, then you should feel comfortable to swear here. Then we work on our problems together, here, as a group.

These youth might tell you it is God's choice as to what words come out of their mouths, but regardless of what they say, naturally these lessons of faith will be a lot more credible to other teens when they hear them from people their own age.

The elder Wastman welcomes everyone to service, while behind her the worship team begins to play music, and she opens in enthusiastic prayer. "We pray that thy kingdom come, here on earth as it is in heaven," she says. "We lift up Jesus as a banner; Lord God be glorified in every way. We lift you up, we give all glory and honor to you, Lord Jesus; we lift you up. In Jesus' name, Amen." She then cues the worship team: "Let's rock! Amen."

Chris Redman pounds the drum set in front of him, closing his eyes at times while his lips move to the lyrics of the Christian song. The pounding syncopation and piercing electric guitar inspire a moshlike atmosphere in the front two rows. Pebbles encourages the congregation to "lose it for God," saying God won't answer them unless they clap and raise their hands energetically.

Serena Wastman joins the crowd, barefoot and full of energy, jumping up and down and throwing her hands in the air. Whooping along to the music, she runs circles around the rest of the congregation, which claps and sings, rocking out for Jesus.

Labels: God, Jesus, Maggie Mertens, religion, Seattle, Serena Wastman, Skate Church, teenagers