Still More on the Slippery Slope (3)

So what did Jesus mean when he talked about the preference for "old wine"? Was he talking about their preconceived ideas? Long held beliefs? Perhaps their cherished prejudices? Their spiritual inertia? Most of us prefer the old wine, the familiar...the home sweet home of our religious beliefs.

Recently I've come across several quotes and articles that talk about the Bible...inerrancy...literalism etc. Since this is an area where many are leery of new wine, I thought I might delve into it a bit in this haphazard "series."

I came upon an interesting quote, by happenstance, in the writings of Preston Eby. The quote was by Paul Mueller

There is a wonderful truth that is about to break in upon the minds and hearts of the Lord's elect, and that is the blessed truth that it is God's intention to write His complete word upon the tables of our hearts. The entire scripture, including the Gospel of Christ and the inspired word of truth divinely ordained for our growth unto perfection, the manifestation of the sons of God, and the propagation and administration of the kingdom of God, is all to be written upon the tables of our hearts. The fact is, the Bible as we now know it will one day become obsolete for us. The blessed book that we carry around, study and sometimes memorize, is to be imparted into our lives so that we are truly 'epistles...known and read of all men.' This is not to downgrade the Bible or to denigrate its effectiveness, authority, and inspiration. The book we call the Bible is, for the most part, the inspired word of God, and we are truly and deeply grateful for all it means to us. However, our respect for the Bible will not alter the great truth that it is God's intention that we become His living word. Every truth that has been given by the Spirit will eventually become a part of our lives, so that we will not need to turn to chapter and verse for guidance and truth, but rather, that truth will be written and engraved upon our lives so that we do by nature all the truth the Bible contains to the glory of God. From Preston Eby's The Lamb's Book of Life Part 1

Did you catch the part that declares that the Bible is...FOR THE MOST PART...the inspired word of God. Hmmm....so what "part" IS NOT the inspired word of God...and how do we tell the difference?

I mean, after all, if you start to throw out the parts of the Bible you don't like you might as well throw out the whole thing. Can you really pick and choose? And what if the parts that are not inspired are actually our beloved pet verses? The ones we cherish...the verses that go right to the heart of our beliefs?

I came across a blog post last night on The Christian Universalist called Father Forgive Them. The blog is well worth checking out. It is owned by Logan Geen, a very smart young man who has interesting, well researched opinions about a lot things and he writes about them articulately. In this particular post, he talked about some writings he'd come across on the web that dispute whether the words of Jesus from the Cross...as recorded in Luke..."Father forgive them for they know not what they do" were actually spoken. He listed links to several articles...seemingly unbiased (like the Net Bible) which explore this loaded question.

Bottom line...this oft repeated phrase from Jesus is not found in some of the earliest manuscripts. Some think it was added by a scribe to go along with the words spoken by Stephen when he was being stoned. Logan says the following...

I don't know if I'm being intellectually honest here or if what I say makes sense-whether I have a case for accepting the verse or am simply keeping it just because I "like it" and "I just don't know from a historical POV, but I do know the spiritual depth behind those words is indeed very real."

And all of what I just said reminds me of another essay written by Fred Plumer, the guy who wrote the essay that birthed this series. It is entitled " Don't Go There" and we will talk more about it....tomorrow.....

Progressive Faith and the Slippery Slope 2

I am going to start today's post with a snippet from yesterday's post....

The point is that it is always easier not to question or doubt. It is usually easier to ignore the truth if it requires that we change. It will often be easier to stay in the same place.

Uh huh...but how often does God call us to the easy place? Does he ever allow us to stay in the same place or is he always beckoning us to grow. Is there such a thing a "ssdd" with God?

Ever hear of the theory of inertia?

I read the following on Wikipedia...

The law of inertia states that it is the tendency of an object to resist a change in motion. An object will stay at rest and or stay in motion unless acted on by an external force, whether it results from gravity, friction, matter, or some other source.

Another definition...

The tendency of an object to continue in motion at the same speed and in the same direction, unless acted upon by a force.

Which brings to mind a quote...

Lest he should wander irretrievably from the right path, he stands still." William Hazlitt

Get the picture? Camping out on our island is a kind of spiritual inertia. Unless acted upon by some other source we might be content to stroll the beaches of our island forever.

Is this what Jesus was talking about in Luke 5 when he said:

"But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one, after drinking old wine wishes for new; for he says, `The old is good enough."' NAS

Two commentaries on this verse…

And beside, men are not wont to be immediately freed from old prejudices. John Wesley’s Explanatory Notes

"The prejudiced person will not even try the new, or admit that it has any merits. He knows that the old is pleasant, and suits him; and that is enough; he is not going to change" This is Christ's picture of the reactionary Pharisees. Robertson’s Word Pictures

As Fred Plumer noted in his essay we might have to "let go of the need for dogma or inflexible belief systems" and to "learn to move with the flow of the spirit,"

More tomorrow....

The Slippery Slope of Progressive Religion

Jim posted something from another group on EU last weekend. A quote by Karl Rahner...within the post... caught my eye....so I googled it. (What else does one do these days to find information?) And as so often happens...it was the first step in that proverbial journey of a thousand miles...around the vast expanse of the world wide web. I was everywhere....all over the place...and found so much blog fodder, mental musings, and so many interesting places to visit. I love technology!!

Anyway, the quote....

"...what is called knowledge in everyday parlance is only a small island in a vast sea that has not been traveled... Hence the existential question for the knower is this: Which does he love more, the small island of his so-called knowledge or the sea of infinite mystery?

I found the whole article at the website of The Center For Progressive Christianity  (note to self...check this site out more thoroughly. Lots of stuff there) The article was written by Fred Plumer, entitled Progressive Faith vs. the Illusion of Control. Following are some excerpts from the writing and, of course, some comments from me...the peanut gallery.

So Mr. Plumer reiterates the question Rahner poses in his quote...

Do we love the small island of knowledge more or do we care to sail the "sea of infinite mystery"? It is far easier and certainly more comfortable to stay on the small island of knowledge and be an expert in a familiar paradigm than it is to venture out into the unknown.

Ya' think? So what are my options again? Do I want to stay here on my cozy little island...my home sweet home where I am safe and comfortable...or do I want to set out on a rickety, ramshackle raft without a map, headed for an undisclosed destination through possibly turbulent, treacherous, shark filled waters?

The author thinks that is why many cling to fundamentalism...that in fact that is why fundamentalism was birthed. The unknown is just so....unknown. No telling what might happen if we even think about venturing there.

A progressive faith is one that is willing to challenge the assumptions and to test the paradigm under which we are operating. It is not afraid to ask hard questions and to admit to doubt.

Are we talking atonement theories here? The inerrancy of scripture?

My own experience has demonstrated for me that if I ask God or the Ultimate Spirit a question, I may not get the answer but I will be led in a direction where the answer becomes apparent. It is usually my anxiety from worrying about not having an answer to an important question that keeps me from discovering that if I had relaxed, I already had the answer.

But, Mr. Plumer, I have found the answer is sometimes a very, very long time in coming and that in fact God may ease the frenzy to know long before he actually answers the question.

The point is that it is always easier not to question or doubt. It is usually easier to ignore the truth if it requires that we change. It will often be easier to stay in the same place.

Progressive faith is like learning to ski down a slippery slope. Some of us just do not like that sense of movement under our feet no matter how much fun others seem to be having. We are not comfortable, even frightened, with the pull of gravity down a slope because we feel like we have little or no control. But people who have become proficient skiers will tell you that with practice, skiers gain control by leaning forward into the tips of their skis, actually releasing to the pull gravity. This movement is opposed to everything that seems natural to most people. Most of us would rather sit back on our skis and drag our buttocks on the ground for control. Could it be that the mystery of God is like the pull of gravity encouraging us to lean into the tips of our skis, letting the pull of the mystery lead us into an incredible journey?

It is an exciting time to be alive. I believe that if we follow Jesus’ example and let go of the need for dogma or inflexible belief systems, and if we learn to move with the flow of the spirit, we just might have the dynamic experience of being launched into the "sea of infinite mystery".

Progressive faith may be scary, but it will always be exciting.

More on this...yep...tomorrow.

Happy Whatever You Wanakkah Revisited….

I recently wrote about the Gap’s Happy do whatever you wanukkah commercial. For anyone interested in learning more about the history of Christmas and the origination of some of our “Christian customs” check out the History Channel’s Christmas page.  Keith found this and sent me the link.

More From Shane Claiborne....

I really like Shane Claiborne...

I came upon another one of his writings yesterday called What If Jesus Really Meant That Stuff? And so..here we go....without further ado…and with, perhaps, a few comments of my own thrown into the mix…

To all my nonbelieving, sort-of-believing, and used-to-be-believing friends: I feel like I should begin with a confession. I am sorry that so often the biggest obstacle to God has been Christians. Christians who have had so much to say with our mouths and so little to show with our lives. I am sorry that so often we have forgotten the Christ of our Christianity.

Forgive us. Forgive us for the embarrassing things we have done in the name of God.

A recent study showed that the top three perceptions of Christians in the U. S. among young non-Christians are that Christians are 1) antigay, 2) judgmental, and 3) hypocritical. So what we have here is a bit of an image crisis, and much of that reputation is well deserved. That's the ugly stuff. And that's why I begin by saying that I'm sorry.

I want to invite you to consider that maybe the televangelists and street preachers are wrong — and that God really is love. Maybe the fruits of the Spirit really are beautiful things like peace, patience, kindness, joy, love, goodness, and not the ugly things that have come to characterize religion, or politics, for that matter. (If there is anything I have learned from liberals and conservatives, it's that you can have great answers and still be mean...

Well, isn’t that the truth and I think I will just leave this as is...and invite you to check out the rest of the article here....

Tony Campolo and Max Lucado on Hell...

This is sort of an afterthought about yesterdays post. I recently posted excerpts from a discussion between Shane Claiborne and Tony Campolo about interfaith dialogue. Within In the course of the discussion Tony said the following...

Catholicism would say that at the moment of death every person is confronted in that split moment with Christ and is given the opportunity of saying yes or no. To say otherwise is to say God has got to be a pretty unfair deity, to condemn three quarters of the human race to hell without them ever having a chance.

Max Lucado says something quite similar in his book Traveling Light

What of those who die with no faith?  My husband never prayed.  My grandpa never worshiped.  My mother never opened a Bible, much less her heart.  What about the one who never believed?

How do we know he didn’t?

Who among us is privy to a person’s final thoughts?  Who among us knows what transpires in those final moments?  Are you sure no prayer was offered?  Eternity can bend the proudest knees.  Could a person stare into the yawning canyon of death without whispering a plea for mercy?  And could our God, who is partial to the humble, resist it?

He couldn’t on Calvary.  The confession of the thief on the cross was both a first and final one.  But Christ heard it.  Christ received it.  Maybe you never heard your loved one confess Christ, but who’s to say Christ didn’t?

We don’t know the thoughts of a dying soul, but we know this. We know our God is a good God. He is “not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”  2 Peter 3:9 NKJV

He wants your loved one in heaven more than you do. And he usually gets what he wants.

 Grace for the Moment, Volume II Originally excerpted from

Traveling Light

Max is not a universalist…for sure….he makes it very clear in his book 3:16 The Numbers of Hope…but this is pretty close…or as Shane Claiborne says: " If those of us who believe in God do not believe God's grace is big enough to save the whole world... well, we should at least pray that it is.”

It is Shane…it is….

The Gates of Hell - Claiborne and Rohr...

While surfing...er....researching....... recently, I came upon comments from two preacher/teachers about hell. These guys might appear, on the surface, to come from different worlds (galaxies?)

The theme song from the Patty Duke show comes to mind when I think about these two.....

One pair of matching bookends, Different as night and day.

Shane Claiborne...modern day Jesus Freak hippie living in inner city Philadelphia founder of the New Monastic Community, The Simple Way. The other...Richard Rohr...a contemplative Franciscan friar, founder of the Center for Contemplative Action. One young...the other a bit past middle age. Do a search on google images and you will find pictures of these guys....one balding, the other with long hair....even long dreadlocks. But they both seem to...in their own way....to have taken to heart the "red letters" in the New Testament. Red Letter Christians.

So anyway, as I was scurrying here and there all over the world wide web the other day I came upon an article written by Shane Claiborne about The Gates of Hell. And later, in another corner of the internet, I came upon a quote by Richard Rohr....on one of the anti cult, "sound the warning trumpet blast" web sites.

Again, I would like to thank them and all the anti-cult, defenders of the "true gospel" web sites for providing the absolute best quotes....quotes that must take a lot of digging and searching. They provide gems that would take countless hours of searching web sites, reading books, listening to audio, watching videos. They post the quotes to prove heresy...but for heretics like me, they are a huge blessing. Just goes to show that sometimes God uses us in spite of ourselves...and not at all in the way we plan to be used. But I digress.

Let's start with Richard Rohr.....

From an interview with Stephen Crittenden of The Religion Report on ABC Radio National:

Stephen Crittenden: Let me just finally give another example from the opposite side of the ledger. There’s a great term called universalism. And I guess at base it’s the idea that in the end, no-one’s in hell, everyone’s going to heaven, that the crucifixion ultimately saved everyone and God’s mercy will gather everyone according to some .even Judas and Satan in the end will be saved. Often hearing John Paul II I thought to myself Actually at base, he’s a Universalist. Some of the things Benedict has written suggests the same. I think the vast majority probably of Australian Catholics these days are Universalists.

Richard Rohr: In effect, yes. Well, you know -

Stephen Crittenden: Which doesn’t mean they know they’re going to heaven, but they hope that everybody, including the Buddhists and the Hindus and the Jews and the Muslims, everybody will be saved.

Richard Rohr: Isn’t that a marvelous act of trust in the mercy and victory of God. If we say God is victorious, what else would God’s victory be? Is God so small that God’s victory can only win over a few? I think that’s the sad commentary on much of Christian history, but the wonderful thing is, that we find a constant sub-text, starting in the scriptures themselves, starting in Isaiah, of language of all, of language of everybody. It’s called apocatostisis in Greek, which means universal restoration. It was believed by any number of the early fathers of the church, taught in various forms, subtle forms very often, but you can see that it was a hope, it was a desire, it was the yearning of the spirit that God’s victory has to be this great, and has to be this big. It’s interesting, that like we in the Catholic Church have officially proclaimed many people to be in heaven, we call them saints. We have never proclaimed a single person to be in hell. Now that’s rather telling. We never said we are sure Hitler’s in hell, we are sure Judas is in hell, we’ve never said that. That reveals something; and I think it’s the hope planted in us by the Holy Spirit of the nature of God’s love. Is grace is true; we’ve got to take it to its logical conclusion. If you and I are loved, in spite of ourselves, then what’s the cut-off point of worthiness and unworthiness? Now I have to receive that, I have to surrender to that, but I think God has led all of us to surrender in spite of ourselves. So for God to allow that, God to do that, in death, after death, that’s easy for me to trust.

And now Shane Shane Claiborne on ministering to those trapped in hell on earth. I found this article on a blog called Out of Ur

I figure anytime you are about to talk about hell it's good to start with a joke, so here we go?.It was a busy day in heaven as folks waited in line at the pearly gates. Peter stood as gatekeeper checking each newcomer's name in the Lamb's Book of Life. But there was some confusion, as the numbers were not adding up. Heaven was a little overcrowded, and a bunch of folks were unaccounted for. So some of the angels were sent on a mission to investigate things. And it was not long before two of them returned, "We found the problem," they said. "Jesus is out back, lifting people up over the gate."

Yep…that sounds like something Jesus might do :-)

Shane talks about his views on the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats...and the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus....neither of which I totally agree with...but the point of this post is to talk about what I do agree with....

Nowadays many of us spend a lot of time pondering and theologizing about heaven on earth and God's Kingdom coming here (and rightly so!), but it seems we would also do well to do a little work with the reality of hell. Hell is not just something that comes after death, but something many are living in this very moment? 1.2 billion people that are groaning for a drop of water each day, over 30,000 kids starving to death each day, 38 million folks dying of AIDS. It seems ludicrous to think of preaching to them about hell. I see Jesus spending far more energy loving the "hell" out of people, and lifting people out of the hells in which they are trapped, than trying to scare them into heaven. And one of the most beautiful things we get to see in community here in Kensington, is people who have been loved out of the hells that they find themselves in - domestic violence, addiction, sex trafficking, loneliness.

So according to Shane, hell is not just an afterlife concept...but alive and flourishing in the land of the living. There truly is a hell on earth. And it is not just the ones listed above...the addicts, the abused, the exploited...the lonely, the hungry, the sick....but it is also those who have too much...who live in suburbia, in their own little selfish world of Me, Myself and I. He talks about the gates of hell.

Jesus reassures Peter: "The gates of Hell will not prevail against you."

He talks a bit about what he used to think this phrase meant...and what he thinks it means now.

Gates are not offensive weapons. Gates are defensive - walls and fences we build to keep people out. God is not saying the gates of hell will not prevail as they come at us. God is saying that we are in the business of storming the gates of hell, and the gates will not prevail as we crash through them with grace.

And now the part about suburbia....

Just as we are building walls to keep people out of our comfortable, insulated existence, we are trapping ourselves in a hell of isolation, loneliness and fear. We have "gated communities" where rich folks live. We put up picket fences around our suburban homes. We place barbed wire and razer-wire around our buildings and churches. We put bars on our windows in the ghettos of fear. We build up walls to keep immigrants from entering our country. We guard our borders with those walls - Berlin, Jerusalem, Jericho. And the more walls and gates and fences we have, the closer we are to hell.

Let us pray that God would give us the strength to storm the gates of hell, and tear down the walls we have created between those whose suffering would disrupt our comfort. May we become familiar with the suffering of the poor outside our gates, know their names, and taste the salt in their tears?

And in the New Jerusalem, the great City of God, "on no day will its gates ever be shut." The gates of the Kingdom will forever be open. (Revelation 21:25)

I wrote about this a while back on another post...about, in part, universalism.

Eventually everyone straggles though the gate.....every knee bows, every tongue confesses and every tear is wiped away.

In Revelation chapter 22 .... which is the very last “that’s all she wrote” chapter of the Bible, verse 17 says

The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost.

Huh? To whom is this invitation extended? Aren’t all God’s people already included in the “bride”? Could it be the ones still “outside”...the dogs, the sorcerers, the immoral, the murderers, the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices lying? The ones from verse 15? Who else would they bid, “Come”? Come and drink...without cost."

And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost.

And the invitation remains open until the last “each in their own order” hold out straggles through the Gates...weary knees finally bow....joyful proclamations that Jesus is Lord. Tears of joy and repentance gently wiped away. Behold, he makes all things new.

The offer never expires, the invitation is never withdrawn, the welcome mat is never rolled up and put away, the Gate is never closed. The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.”