tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post7070102025369291400..comments2024-03-28T11:33:16.271-05:00Comments on Adventus: In God We Trust. All others pay cash.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-27300968623502368672019-10-22T08:41:11.536-05:002019-10-22T08:41:11.536-05:00I have gone through your blog and it was very usef...I have gone through your blog and it was very useful for me to grow spiritually. Kindly post more like this. GOD BLESS YOU<br /><a href="https://www.jesussavesheals.org/" rel="nofollow">JESUS SAVES HEALS</a>Livingston Philipshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13532888018995605015noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-74271048084997286042019-10-22T08:38:02.246-05:002019-10-22T08:38:02.246-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Livingston Philipshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13532888018995605015noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-62261176059758359472019-10-22T08:34:36.197-05:002019-10-22T08:34:36.197-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Livingston Philipshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13532888018995605015noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-22284961504360129432013-04-16T16:46:16.392-05:002013-04-16T16:46:16.392-05:00Not that you got to. Just seems to me that scrubbi...<i>Not that you got to. Just seems to me that scrubbing all reference to salvation out of the Christian scriptures leaves them pretty thoroughly bowdlerized. Even the brevity of the Nicene Creed sees salvation as the purpose of the incarnation.</i><br /><br />"Savior," as I noted in an earlier post (linked above) is a very loaded term. It isn't limited to "savior from our sins." Nor was it taken as such in the gospels. It can actually be linked to the crucifixion, in as much as proclaiming Jesus to be a savior (or Lord, for that matter) was a political issue for Rome. Nobody got crucified in Rome for religious controversies.<br /><br />As for bowdlerizing the Scriptures, you have to read salvation into them; you don't read it out of them. The scriptures stand quite well without it, and salvation works quite well without damnation as the only alternative.Rmjhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06811456254443706479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-11862751574537417002013-04-16T16:15:16.808-05:002013-04-16T16:15:16.808-05:00"I ain't buyin' it."
Not that y..."I ain't buyin' it."<br /><br />Not that you got to. Just seems to me that scrubbing all reference to salvation out of the Christian scriptures leaves them pretty thoroughly bowdlerized. Even the brevity of the Nicene Creed sees salvation as the purpose of the incarnation. <br /><br />But, yes, if there's nothing to save us from, no point in a savior.<br /><br />rick allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07612435616018593956noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-72801574263275728642013-04-16T15:20:00.675-05:002013-04-16T15:20:00.675-05:00What do you make of the argument (I know I've ...<i>What do you make of the argument (I know I've heard it before, I just cannot remember where well enough to provide a link/citation) that the focus, by some elements of the Reformation, on individual salvation, was an important step in the development of the notion of individual rights and liberties that we all hold so dear? </i><br /><br />Seems to me it's a kind of chicken or egg question: which came first, the culture, or the doctrine? Luther's Reformation, for example, was supported by German princes anxious for change. His challenge to Rome was propitious. Did he change the culture, or catch the <i>zeitgeist</i>?<br /><br />So with individual importance. I don't really see it rising until the Romantic era, but the society small enough and simple enough to produce the culture of <i>Beowulf</i> was already immeasurably more complex by Chaucer or <i>Piers Plowman</i>; and it was more complex again by the Industrial Revolution, when the importance of the individual took off. Each of those changes diminished the power of the elite and emphasized, however slightly each time, the importance of individual action and choice (consider the tale of the Wife of Bath, for example). But even the Romantic revolution was presaged by the Enlightenment; so...<br /><br />Which came first? As I found myself saying in an earlier post (much earlier; much, <i>much</i> earlier), when the question is between culture supporting the movement or the movement changing the culture: bet on the culture.Rmjhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06811456254443706479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-56691538999920141392013-04-16T15:13:59.796-05:002013-04-16T15:13:59.796-05:00Hell is not someplace that God arbitrarily sends p...<i>Hell is not someplace that God arbitrarily sends people. </i><br /><br />I disagree. Seems to me the very act of damnation is arbitrary. And the primary theory of soteriology is equally arbitrary: the blood atonement for the sin of Adam which can only be paid with the blood of Christ. The very doctrine of Original Sin means I have sinned <i>ab initio</i>, from the moment of my birth, before I even had a chance to have a choice in the matter. If that isn't arbitrary, what is?<br /><br />Soteriology arose out of a need to explain the crucifixion in other than mere human terms. In part, that deflection was political: had the Gospel writers living under Rome condemned Rome for the death of their spiritual and political leader, they'd have all gotten the same, and their readers with them. In part, that deflection is spiritual: how is it God can be so powerless as to be killed by us? And so the powerlessness of the Cross becomes the ultimate power of the cosmos.<br /><br />I ain't buyin' it. I can set aside salvation and damnation and still see and try to live in the kingdom of God, the unbrokered kingdom that I do not enter by my merits, that I "earn" only by being open to it, that I choose only by accepting its reality.<br /><br />And that acceptance is all the grace of God I need to know in this world. As for the next? Well, I don't presume the Platonic soul is also the Xian "eternal life." Especially since the Greek version of the original Aramaic is "life into the ages." Which might not mean an eternity in heaven (or not hell) at all.<br /><br />But I have my hands full now. What comes after will take care of itself.<br />Rmjhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06811456254443706479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-57957169258420969662013-04-16T12:41:57.691-05:002013-04-16T12:41:57.691-05:00"If I profess a soteriology now, it is a sote..."If I profess a soteriology now, it is a soteriology of life, not an after-life."<br /><br />Again with the either/ors!<br /><br />If it is my life here, and my life in the world to come, the connecting thread is my life, and what saves me (and us) here saves me (and us) there. What I am today is a combination of choices I have made, plus the grace I've received, unearned. Why should the future be any different?<br /><br />The very name of Jesus means "Yah saves." The angel said that it was because he would save his people from their sins. Sin is the corruption of the good. If it can bring about hell on earth now, why not in the world to come? <br /><br />Hell is not someplace that God arbitrarily sends people. But we can choose to go there, say "no" to grace, as we do here everyday. Jesus can get us out of hell in various ways, and I very much appreciate it. <br /><br />There are indeed various theologies trying to account for how that help arises outside of the structures of the Church. But that we can't entirely adequately account for them doesn't mean they aren't there, or haven't long been recognized.<br /><br />I guess this goes back to the social/spiritual dichotomy, which I would maintain is another necessary both/and. Jesus' parable of the sheep and the goats is undoubtedly both. And though it's no small thing to provide for our wants, thinking about something like the community envisioned in Brave New World (which I happened to be glancing at last month) rather drives home the point that everyone's material wants could conceivably be met in a community that was humanly and spiritually dead. We live both in the present and under the aspect of eternity. I don't see how we jettison one without eventually losing the other; it's all one life.rick allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07612435616018593956noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-18189718454507581352013-04-16T11:21:02.232-05:002013-04-16T11:21:02.232-05:00I was gonna jump in on the last thread, but I figu...I was gonna jump in on the last thread, but I figure that I'd jump in here in this shiny new thread instead:<br /><br />What do you make of the argument (I know I've heard it before, I just cannot remember where well enough to provide a link/citation) that the focus, by some elements of the Reformation, on individual salvation, was an important step in the development of the notion of individual rights and liberties that we all hold so dear? And that this focus was also important in empowering individuals to accomplish more, which helped build Western civilization (because people who are motivated do more things which means we can have more good stuff: like technological do-dads, better sanitation and roads, etc.)?<br />DASnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-90235863544428699662013-04-16T10:36:16.225-05:002013-04-16T10:36:16.225-05:00But without that questioning we"ll never evol...<i> But without that questioning we"ll never evolve away from an understanding of Christ's message as a religion of idols and explore instead the awareness of the Kingdom as our shared connection with and in the Absolute and with each other and the radical compassion that requires of us.</i><br /><br />Struggle as I do to name it and clarify my thinking on it, this indeed is the center of my theology.Rmjhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06811456254443706479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-18714872194030891172013-04-16T10:18:39.760-05:002013-04-16T10:18:39.760-05:00Wow, this was a powerful essay, RMJ. You hint at t...Wow, this was a powerful essay, RMJ. You hint at the awful impulses behind the desire to divide others into sheep and goats, which is the great historical shame of Christendom. I've honestly never read a Christian piece quite as brave as this one to question the central precepts of soteriology, which may as well be the third rail of Christian inquiry. But without that questioning we"ll never evolve away from an understanding of Christ's message as a religion of idols and explore instead the awareness of the Kingdom as our shared connection with and in the Absolute and with each other and the radical compassion that requires of us.<br /><br />WindhorseAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com