Eternal Life and Death- Part Nine

We are Stardust

Why I couldn't be a liberal/progressive Christian

The Kingdom was not to come with observation, but was a state of mind, a oneness with God.  I found that it was difficult to pin down what this whole thing (Christianity) was about anymore.

Especially what the whole Jesus thing was about.

If the kingdom of God was within us, what did Jesus have to do with that?


Several months before all this started,  a friend had blogged that her husband had blogged about some atonement theory that I had never heard of. When looking into that I was surprised to find that Penal Substitution (which is what I learned pretty much from the start) was not one that was always believed and that, really, there had been several ideas to come out of theological minds (and scripture) as to why Jesus had to die.

Did God demand blood or did Jesus offer it?

Was Jesus's death a payment for sin or a ransom to Satan?

Was He a martyr or a victim?

To get us back to the Garden or to save us from Hell?


(One could pick any one of these ideas and run with it, but what was the TRUTH?)

I began to venture out into the sites of liberal/progressive Christians. As much as I enjoyed the non-judgmental love and the great social justice ideas something was off. For the most part progressives are for gay marriage rights and the ordination of women and many are even pro choice, but what did the bible say about these things?




Many would point to the red letters only. Okay, I get that idea, but if these same letters were in the same canon with all this other stuff, what was true and what was not?  And even so, Jesus said that if one divorces, it constitutes adultery. ????? How many churches are still clinging onto that one? Even in a metaphorical sense, Jesus says a lot of things that many Christians ignore:

 (I know this video is quite irreverent, forgive me)



It started to occur to me that just about all of us pick and chose what we think Jesus's words mean.  I found many of the things he said so unsettling that I was thrilled when Pauline dispensationalism entered my life years before.


So in looking into these red letter words more closely and very seriously for the first time (if this was the only part of the bible we could really count on) something was becoming more and more clear.



The whole thing (including the red letters) was full of contradictions, or at least it seemed to me.  At that I began to look into these contradictions objectively without running to apologists to comfort me. I also began to wander outside the boundaries of Christianity and explore what the other faiths had to say about spirituality.




Next Part

Too Busy to Write

But I am anyway.



I do plan to finish up the series on losing Hell and deconversion, but I'm getting into territory that is a bit hard to explain and the last post generated a whole lot of discussion and I have been busy, honestly just too busy.



I was on my way to work Saturday and I saw a pair of  LDS missionaries walking down the street. You can't miss them, white shirts, book bags, clean cut. Plus we live practically across the street from an LDS church. I felt immediately very very sad for them. How old were these boys (young men)..19? 20? The day was absolutely beautiful and they are trapped and they probably don't even know it ...yet. The neighborhood they were headed toward was not the best either.


On my way home, down that same street were a pack of kids probably out doing things they shouldn't be. One girl was kind of dancing around. They were out too late, but they were living.

Grumpy Rant and Randomness

I'm trying to get doctor's appointments and dentist appointments, and shots and meetings with schools and on top of that figure out what to feed the kids when I am at work and when to do the grocery shopping now and keeping up the housework...bah!

Anyway, I ran into a snag yesterday when trying to register my son for the hybrid school. They rejected all the homeschool information that I gave them. I called to figure out what they wanted, they told me, I sent it over, problem solved, I thought.

Rejected again.


So I call this morning and tell myself I am not going to be crappy with these people. As I explained the situation to the guy on the phone, I felt it coming on. I was becoming vocally irritated with him and I was downright crappy. When it became clear to me that I was probably sounding like a crazy person, I apologized, thanked him, and hung up. I now get to try to send over what they say they want now.



We'll see... (and now I'm probably the one they call the crazy lady).



On a totally different note:




We finished watching Lost last night on Netflix and I have to say for someone who missed it the first time around, I was very impressed. Lots of spiritual stuff and I found myself crying more than I thought is probably necessary during many episodes. So any Lost fans out there, let's chat about it and theorize away.

Why Does Every Intelligent Christian...

Disobey Jesus?

He asks some really good questions, although I wouldn't necessarily agree with his conclusion. I find that there are a great many ways around the direct statements of Jesus and I implemented almost all of them over the years.


Thoughts?


* Note:  Please do not think that I consider Christians to be unintelligent (maybe the video maker does, I don't know for sure) but this is meant to pose some honest questions especially to those who tell me that my experiences were not real. There are very considerate and intelligent people of faith who read and post here without continually telling me I am of the devil;) One commenter in particular is adamant in the fact that I was never saved.

Eternal Life and Death- Part Eight

Waiting for the Sun

What If Jesus Isn't Really Coming Back?

(In the way we think, I should say.)



Easter is THE BIG one holiday wise for the Catholic church. Christmas has nothing on it. On the first Easter I spent as a freshly baptized Christian (at age 28 for anyone who missed the first series), just minutes after being washed in the waters of regeneration, we participated in a Vigil ceremony. In fact, the night before Easter is just that, a watch for the coming of the Lord on Sunday morning.


Christ has died,
Christ is risen,
Christ will come again.



We said that every Sunday. The Faithful had been saying that every liturgy for hundreds of years. Generations of Christians had come and gone, lived and died, fought and killed, all in the name of Jesus. But where was he? I mean, it has been a long long time. Why didn't he come soon like he said?




Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more.



Over the next few weeks, I wrestled with the idea that there would be no Great Tribulation, no Rapture, no End Times as I had spent the last 19 or so years looking for. The millennium itself proved troublesome to reconcile with either past events or my new found conviction that God was indeed done pouring wrath onto the world. And why shouldn't it? Church theologians throughout history have had a heck of a time figuring out what the 1000 years meant. I'll admit, I still don't know, but it was beginning to not matter to me as my thinking drifted into more spiritual territory:


The Kingdom of God is within you...

It Comes Not With Observation

Jesus said so in the gospel of Luke. I couldn't believe I had missed (or most likely ignored) that for all the years I had studied the Bible. Another parable that I had often wondered about was this one:

He spoke another parable to them: The kingdom of the heavens is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal until it had been all leavened. (Matt. 13:33)

No one sees the action of the leaven in a huge dramatic way. It happens gradually, over time and does permeate the whole. As a bread baker myself, I know that there is never a part of the lump that is unaffected by the yeast.  The kingdom of God leavens all....eventually. Now, I had always been taught that leaven was a bad symbol (the leaven of the Pharisees and all that.) But this seemed to be saying just the opposite. The kingdom of God was like leaven?


Yes.


And this fit right in with my Universalist views. Cool.


It was not coming with observation. It was an individual thing.

We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto you do well that you take heed, as to a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:

 I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.

The Day Star rising in our hearts. 

The Kingdom of God within me, you, all of us.

God all in all. 

I began to look into Gnostic teaching* and found that I had much more in common with them than I had though before.

*My boldness in searching out Gnostic teaching was due to the fact that I was no longer afraid of being led astray by the devil. "There in no fear in love," as John said. For better or worse, I truly believed that I had nothing to fear my honestly turning over every stone.



Part 9