Evolving Christianity - continued
As we said in our previous remarks, even the most ardent atheist agrees that Jesus preached an ethical and humanist philosophy. The concept of love and sacrifice that embraces a committed community is as relevant today as it was in the day it was first preached. How then do we continue to preach the Gospel so it can reach beyond the faithful?
It is important to separate my previous remarks from the philosophy of post modernism as preached by Brian McLaren. (A new kind of Christian) When it comes to the Bible, literal interpretation as the only way of accepting God's word and the complete rejection of the possibility of any objectivity when trying to understand the truth, are the two extremes.
While the message of complete love and sacrifice that Christ taught during his time on earth was radical for His time, surely. He would have understood the need to have the meaning of his words to be understood within the context of each evolving generation, rather than unyielding, never changing dogma as it related to the historical times in which he lived. If we accept this - faith becomes the relevant issue.
For me the question becomes: Can you still retain the objectivity of the truth of the bible and at the same time accept the veracity of God’s word to come to us in metaphors and parables? At what point does intent trump dogma? In fact, the legitimate question is – do they have to actually be different. These two concepts should be able to coexist without changing the word of God in any way.
It seems to me that our current Catholic Pope, Francis, is struggling with this issue and encountering the same difficulties that always arise when focusing on intent as your source for primary meaning. One could legitimately ask – is not the concept of interpreting the intent subjective in and of itself? If the answer is yes as fundamentalist proclaim - there is no room for further discussion.
Again, I come back to the same position every time. Would an all-knowing and loving God not leave room for the evolution of human conscious so that each succeeding generation could understand the Gospels within the context of their time? Would that change the meaning of the intent of the word of God? I do not believe it does and here is why.
The same faith that fundamentalists bring in proclaiming the unchanging word of God can also be used as the basis of reinterpreting the Gospels from an evolving and updated view of the Word. If an all-knowing God is aware of the inevitable evolution of human consciousness would not that God enable future generations to come to the identical conclusions that the people of Jesus’s time understood?
Is this any less legitimate as a means for using faith as the criteria for your conclusion? Is it not as valid as the faith used by fundamentalist who insist on an unbending dogma created for people of a different time?
How then does this separate me from the philosophy of the new evolving, purely subjective Christianity that is now being preached by modernist?
For one, I believe as an act of faith that a loving God would allow for the correct, objective interpreting of the Word by the people of each millennial as we continue to evolve into the future. It is also important to remember that the faithful who lived at the time the New Testament was being formulated believed in the imminent end of the world as they knew it. We still concede the world can end, but obviously in God’s good time, not ours.
It should also occur to all of us, that the world ends for millions of people individually each day. Is that any less the end of the world for them? I think not. When this happens, as it will for each us, our personal faith will be all that we have left.
In the final analysis maybe *Kierkegaard's concept of Christian existentialism was right to begin with.
Brother Franco
opd 1016
*http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/philosophy/kierkegaard.html
Intent verses dogma – a continuation
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OPD 12/15
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