Earlier this year, several blogs participated in a review tour for Stephen Prothero’s book, God is not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Rule the World and Why Their Differences Matter. Here’s a quote from the introduction.
To claim that all religions are the same is to misunderstand that each tradition attempts to solve a different aspect of the human condition. For example:
- Islam: the problem is pride / the solution is submission
- Christianity: the problem is sin / the solution is salvation
- Confucianism: the problem is chaos / the solution is social order
- Buddhism: the problem is suffering / the solution is enlightenment
- Hinduism: the problem is the endless cycle of reincarnation / the solution is release
- Judaism: the problem is exile / the solution is our return back to God and to our true home
When we gloss over these differences we fail to appreciate each religion on its own terms.
The book appears to be a survey and not an apologetic. This Lutheran reviewer said she wanted more from the Christianity chapter “wishing I could add to further clarification regarding . . . consequences that 95 theses had on the world.” Unfortunately, the list of blogs doesn’t link directly to the reviews, save one. So here’s a link to a review from someone who disagrees with the book’s central premise.
The true kinship of faiths may be best found in their mystical traditions. Here is a brief quote from my my e-book:
Mysticism seeks to join, or unite, our inner self with the divine by spiritual disciplines of devotion, knowledge, selfless service, and/or meditation. What you do matters greatly to what you will become: that is divine justice. How you do it, through Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, or outside these faiths is important when it is the right way for you: that is divine law. One is Truth: true Reality transcends the boundaries of our beliefs. Thou art That: you are in the divine essence; you must be dedicated to fully realizing it.
Our religion may be right for us, nevertheless that does not mean billions of others are wrong. What of the 100 billion people who lived outside of our faith since the origin of our species? Religions do differ in approach, beliefs and practices, although the divine Reality they seek is the same. Their mystics used the words and concepts understood by followers of their faith, but these are just alternate ways of trying to express the One underlying Truth.
[Note: For mysticism in the Mahayana replace the divine with the Dharmakaya, or Buddha-essence.]
Ron, in spite of your broadminded attitude, you misunderstand us because you assume we all have the same goal–spirituality. Phil and I are not interested in spirituality. We are interested in Jesus. Jesus only. Jesus said He was the way, the truth, and the life, and we believe that. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and hell itself is full of spiritual people.
“Thou art That: you are in the divine essence; you must be dedicated to fully realizing it.”
That’s a doctrine I can’t accept. It’s far different than understanding we have been made in God’s image, designed for his worship and service.
Lars and Phil,
Thank you for posting my comment even though you do not agree with it. That is broadminded of you.
Jesus was a spiritual person throughout his life on Earth. He lives on in spirit in Christ consciousness.
I can’t imagine a true Christian who is not spiritual. All people are united in the Holy Spirit. Too few of us realize that.
Ron, your brief statement has helped me understand why I have always been uneasy with mysticism.
Your definition of seeking to unite with the divine through spiritual disciplines reveals that the goal of mysticism is amazingly similar to the temptation that led to Satan’s dismissal from heaven when he sought, as the Day Star to set his throne next to God’s and make himself like the Most High. (See Isaiah 14:12-16)
It’s the same temptation Satan used with Eve when he told her in Genesis 3:5 that she would be like God if she ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Our problem is not that we are unlike God in Essence or Spirituality. Our problem is that we are not like God in Character and Behavior. In other words, sin has separated us from God. Fortunately, God has provided a means of reconciliation, faith in Jesus Christ.
On the other hand, Succumbing to the temptation of seeking spirituality rather than seeking reconciliation with God through faith in Christ is behind all the evil in the world, beginning with the rebellion of Satan and the fall of Adam and Eve. It’s the core of original sin and a violation of the First Commandment to have no other God’s before Him.
My last comment is a personal observation, not meant as disrespect to your beliefs.. You are true Christians in your commitment to Jesus whether or not spirituality is part of it.
Greybeard,
I mostly agree with your statement that Our problem is not that we are unlike God in Essence or Spirituality. Our problem is that we are not like God in Character and Behavior. In other words, sin has separated us from God. Fortunately, God has provided a means of reconciliation, faith in Jesus Christ.
In a chapter called “Mystic viewpoints” in my e-book, I said:
There are matters which are important within most religions’ orthodoxy, to their leaders and to many followers, but are viewed differently by mystics. Mysticism often interprets them based on their effects in aiding or impeding search for union with the divine.
Evil and deliverance. Many orthodox religions personify evil as Satan, the Devil, Iblis, Mara, or other demonic forces. Most mystics hold us responsible for our own evils, not an external source. Some say that evil exists only in rejection or lack of awareness of good, or to balance good in the apparent dualities of this life…not in unitive eternal life. Mystics have to eliminate personal wrongs to realize divine oneness. Deliverance comes by overcoming the selfishness of our egos, ignorance of our minds and stubbornness of our senses.
Sin and atonement. Christianity believes humans are born in sin because of the fall of Adam. Sin within Islam is an offense against God; in Judaism it is rejecting God’s will. Buddhism and Hinduism believe that the consequences of sin can be carried over from our past life. Most mystics say that each of us is born with the essence of the divine; sin is our separation from the divine, ignoring or not seeking our soul. Mystics view atonement as accepting at-one-ment; it is reuniting with our soul and the One divine essence in All.
PS Unlike your moniker, I am 71 with (almost) no grey and no beard.
I don’t think we’re offended at all. Thanks for being sensitive to it. You’re right that Christians are spiritual people. We’re religious people too, though some don’t like that word either. But though we are spiritual, we don’t embrace everything that could be properly called spiritual. Religious or spiritual abuse is a real and present danger.
I can’t agree that we are all united in the Holy Spirit. See Romans 1 to read a description of people throughout history, and when you speak of Christ, you are merely co-opting Christian words. There is no Messiah, no Christ, no Redeemer apart of the man Jesus of Nazareth.
I’ll tell you my problem with generic spirituality like this and the idea that all roads lead to the same heaven. If the living God cannot communicate clearly enough to teach us the way to life with Him or through His good will, how can we rely on him for anything? I will argue that He has spoken clearly, and the whole Bible is His wonderfully clear and reliable message.
I agree that Religious or spiritual abuse is a real and present danger. It was prevalent in the past and, although better disguised, is present today in most parts of the world. Pretenders everywhere are seeking followers, usually for their own self-aggrandisement. True spiritual directors, who genuinely want to assist people, are usually self-effacing.
I comment on the blogs of many faiths, and some secular, and often find people convinced they are following “the one true way.” If that seems right for them then they should follow it. All religions accept converts; Christianity and Islam actively seek them. I never try to convert people to mysticism, but am happy to help those who are interested in it.
My own upbringing was as a Congregationalist. I was baptized, attended Sunday school and church weekly, sang in the choir, and was confirmed. Never was the word “mysticism” mentioned. Even today, most Protestants shun it. In 1959 I met a Nobel astrophysicist who first told me that my childhood experiences were mystical. He introduced me to Vedanta, the most philosophical division of Hinduism. I had two prominent mentors who assisted me and studied in India on a Carnegie grant.
My career has been in the travel industry (airlines, hotels, etc.) and I met 19 true mystics of five faiths in 12 countries who inspired my e-book. 20 religious leaders and scholars across the USA reviewed the manuscript before it was posted on the Internet in 2009. It is free because all of those wonderful people freely contributed their time in assisting me.
Phil: If the living God cannot communicate clearly enough to teach us the way to life with Him or through His good will, how can we rely on him for anything?
Ori: God could certainly have communicated clearly with us. However, I believe He hasn’t. We wouldn’t have so many religious arguments between people of good will if He had. Even if you follow the Protestant Bible(1), should you be Lutheran, Calvinist, or Mennonite?
I don’t know why God did it that way, but I’m sure He had a good reason.
(1) “Bible” is not clearly defined, even for Christians. Catholic Bibles contain books that Protestant Bibles do not. IIRC, Greek Orthodox Bibles contain books that even Catholic Bibles don’t.
The “apocryphal” books have never (I believe) been held by Christians to have the same importance as the canonical books. Protestants eventually dropped them from their Bibles altogether, not because they contradicted the rest of scripture, but because they contained nothing not better said elsewhere in the canon.
Lars, I think that Catholics do consider those books to be canonical (see, for example, the Catholic Encyclopedia).
A Jewish mystic said that we should read the white of the Torah to understand its spiritual meaning, not just a literal reading. When Jesus said “the Kingdom of God is within you.” he was referring to our innermost being.
One of my favorite quotation is from St. John of the Cross: “The soul lives by that which it loves rather than in the body which it animates. For it has not its life in the body, but rather gives it to the body and lives in that which it loves.”
Ori: “Canonicity” was probably a poor choice of words. The Catholic canon and the Protestant canon are different, as I understand it. But the Protestant view is that we get nothing in the Apocrypha, aside from bare historical information, that adds to our knowledge of God and His will. In terms of the question of whether God has spoken clearly or not, I am saying that keeping or discarding the Apocrypha makes no difference.
Ron: The problem with “spirituality” (in the modern sense) for a Christian is, and always will be, the cross of Christ. If you say that the cross is a good way to God for Christians, but other ways are just as good for others, then Jesus was a fool, most especially in the spiritual arena. He needn’t have gone through all the pain of crucifixion, if He could have just told His followers, “Be good Jew,” or “Meditate,” with the same results. Far from being a spiritual giant, Jesus would then be a spiritual moron.
You can say “Well, you can have Jesus’ teachings without the atonement of the cross. His teachings are the point. The cross was just an unfortunate event.”
But if you say that, you have shifted your ground of argument. You are no longer saying that Christianity is equal to all other religions. You are saying that Christianity, alone among all the religions, is wrong about its central belief. Because the atonement is our central belief.
The apostle Paul said the cross was a stumbling block, and it remains a stumbling block today. You can’t smooth it over without changing Christianity into a different religion entirely.
Kudos to this last statement. Thank you, Lars. Jesus Christ crucified is really the only thing we have.
Lars,
Shame on you for calling Jesus a “spiritual moron” (just kidding).
Although we disagree, at least we have tried to understand each other’s position. Too many people wouldn’t even do that. I’ve encountered those who don’t even want to hear an alternative view.
Let me try to summarize, albeit simplistically, our differing perspectives:
Lars Ron
There is one Truth and that is Jesus. Truth is One; people call it by many names.
Humans are born in sin (Greybeard) The divine is in us at birth*; sin comes later.
The crucifixion leads us to atonement. Mysticism can lead to at-one-ment.
*This agrees with Phil’s earlier statement: “We have been made in God’s image.”
I am quite sure that not many Christians agree on every aspect of their religion. The same is true of believers in other faiths. Unfortunately, most people in the mainstream of religion misunderstand their tradition of mysticism. While trying to rectify that for those who are interested, I expect few who follow orthodox, conventional dogmas and doctrines to be convinced.
Sorry about the spacing. How do you make columns? Trying again:
Lars>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Ron
There is one Truth and that is Jesus.>>>>>>Truth is One; people call it by many names.
Humans are born in sin (Greybeard)>>>>>>The divine is in us at birth*; sin comes later.
The crucifixion leads us to atonement.>>>>>Mysticism can lead to at-one-ment.
Lars: But the Protestant view is that we get nothing in the Apocrypha, aside from bare historical information, that adds to our knowledge of God and His will. In terms of the question of whether God has spoken clearly or not, I am saying that keeping or discarding the Apocrypha makes no difference.
Ori: But would a Catholic agree with you about the value of the Apocrypha? I assume if they kept it in canon, they believe it is valuable as more than history.
However, lets assume for the moment we just compare Protestant churches. If God had spoken clearly in the Bible, honest Christians from all those churches should agree on anything that matters. Do Lutherans agree with Mennonites about when violence is permissible? Or with Calvinists about whether a person can resist conversions(1)?
If you disagree on such important matters, it implies either that God has not spoken clearly about them, or that all members of all but one denomination are not serious enough about their Christianity to get it right. I find it hard to accept the second one.
(1) I cheated with Wikipedia here. Sorry, I’m not that good at Christian Theology.
Lars: If you say that the cross is a good way to God for Christians, but other ways are just as good for others, then Jesus was a fool, most especially in the spiritual arena. He needn’t have gone through all the pain of crucifixion, if He could have just told His followers, “Be good Jew,” or “Meditate,” with the same results.
Ori: Wow, that’s deep. Did I mention how much I appreciate discussing stuff like this with you?
However, you do make a jump here from “the Cross was necessary for somebody” to “the Cross was necessary for everybody”. Would Jesus have suffered the pain of crucifixion if some people could have just been told “be a good Jew”, some could have been told “meditate”, and some needed to see how much He loved them? As a father, if I need to die to save one of my kids I’ll do it – even if the other kids don’t need it. And I’m a very imperfect parent.
Ron, what does “truth is one” mean? Are you saying there is only one truth or that the truth exists? Are you saying something specific is true?
Ori:
1. Christians differ on many points of doctrine. But all Christians (I exclude sects who reject the truths of the creeds) believe the same things about the essential points of how salvation has been provided. The old formula (source seems to be disputed) was, “In the essentials, unity. In non-essentials, liberty. In all things, charity.” That’s an ideal, of course, too rarely attained in practice. But I do insist that all Christians do agree on the essential thing, which is the way of salvation. Differences on lesser points are to be expected.
2. It would appear to me that a theology that said that some of God’s children required God’s death for the atonement of their sins, while others require only an “I’m sorry,” would imply a difference among the “nations” that, to me, seems abhorent on its face. The more so, as the difference would seem to be based on one’s bloodline, rather than one’s behavior.
That is a teaching from the Rig Veda. There is one absolute Truth, but people call it by many names, e.g. Allah, (celestial) Buddha, God, ha-Shem, Ishvara, Godhead, al-Haqq, Brahman, Dharmakaya, Nirvana, Ein Sof, and other words. In this discussion, Lars and Phil would probably say Jesus is Truth.
What we call Truth does not change what it is.
Lars:
1. So you’re saying God communicated clearly the essentials, but not the rest? That makes sense.
2. I didn’t think about atonement. Sorry, I think of God primarily as a father and a teacher, not a sacrifice. I know, intellectually, that Christians view the crucifixion as a sacrifice, but it just doesn’t register with me.
Basing it on nations in abhorrent. But what if it is based on other things, such as a person’s sins? Do you really think yourself no lesser sinner than Stalin whose orders killed millions, for example?
Ori,
There are different degrees of sin just as there are of most things in this life. Are you saying that all sins have equal significance?
Ron, I’m not saying that all sins have equal significance. I’m saying that it looks like Lars does, as he believes everybody’s sins require the crucifixion for atonement.
Ori, I can theoretically understand the idea that sins might be classified as “death-worthy” or “not-death-worthy.” But your classification (as I understand you) would make Jewish sins, by definition, not-death-worthy, while at least some Christian sins would be death-worthy. And if some Jewish sins were death-worthy, then that Jew would need Jesus, which, as I understand it, is not consistent with your system.
Christians believe (and I know you know this) that any sin, even the least, places a gulf between the sinner and God, which only the death of Christ can bridge.
The Torah says that some sins are death-worthy and some aren’t. Murderers get executed, thieves pay a fine or become slaves. But the worst the Torah prescribes is a quick, painful death. Nothing is bad enough to merit crucifixion.
I am not an Orthodox Jew, and what I am about to write would be heresy in their view (whatever, I’m intermarried, I’m already pretty much a bad Jew anyway).
I know that many Jews have become Christians since Christianity began, starting with the apostles. For all I know, they felt they needed Jesus because they did need Jesus. I don’t feel I need Jesus, and I honestly believe that if God wanted me to be Christian he would have made me feel that need. Therefore, I believe some people need Jesus, and some don’t.
I cannot tell why this is the case. But I believe God is working on drawing each of us as near to Him as we would be willing to go, so I assume different people are drawn to God in different ways.
I don’t believe that all paths lead to God. But I believe that God is near to all who call on him truthfully (Psalm 145:18). Even if they have wrong and really stupid ideas about Him.
18 The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. Ah, there is that word truth again.
Lars,
You are Norwegian and I am a Swede; no wonder we clash (who said all Scandinavians are alike). Here is my post on a Swedish blog about Prothero (he rejected the one I sent to you):
http://www.dagen.se/blogg/utrikesbloggen/2010/07/bar-alla-vagar-till-rom#kommentarer
Ori, no comments about the Walker or Krumpos names; those are the other side of our families. We are Vikings in our blood.
Just for fun, here’s another one in Bulgarian (my father’s family is Czech; fairly close):
http://www.glasove.com/article-8640.php
It isn’t the sins we commit that separate from God. It’s the sin with which we are stained at birth. We disobey, rebel, and hate God naturally because we born in sin passed on from Adam and Eve, our first parents.
Ron, we don’t teach anywhere near the same things about various gods to give credibility to the idea that they are all the same thing, but I think that may be part of our disconnect. You seem to be talking about an impersonal force. We’re talking about a person–literally three persons in one being but that’s a hard doctrine we accept because the reliable Word of God teaches it, not because we really understand it.
Don’t take my word for it. Two other quotations from my e-book:
“The distinction between persons does not impair the oneness of nature, nor does the shared unity of essence lead to a confusion between the distinctive characteristics of the persons. Do not be surprised that we should speak of the
Godhead as being at the same time unified and differentiated…diversity-in- unity and unity-in-diversity.” St. Gregory of Nyssa
“The Divine Being is at once impersonal and personal: it is an Existence and the origin and foundation of all truths, forces, powers, existences, but it is also the one transcendent Conscious Being and All-Person of whom all conscious beings are the selves and personalities; for He is their highest Self [soul] and the universal indwelling Presence.” Sri Aurobindo
Well, you won’t get that from the Bible, not even the Apocrypha, which used to be called uninspired (in Biblical terms) but great devotional literature.
Phil,
For you, apparently, the Bible is the end of revelation. For most mystics, their scared scriptures are just the beginning.
Let us just agree to disagree. I wish you the best.
Sure, we can let it go, and I wish you well too, but let me one more thing. The reason Christians call back to the Bible often is that others are proposing new revelation that contradicts it. The Bible is a full, complete divine revelation from the one, true God. How could anything new contradict it? I don’t believe it could.
I tried to think about what I wrote in comment 28 from a Lutheran perspective. Can you tell me if what I write makes sense?
If a person is elect, that person may or may not get to heaven. So it makes sense for God to give such a person the yearnings that desires that would be conducive towards that goal. But if a person is not elect, the way to heaven is barred anyway. So there’s no point in having that person, for example, feel the need for Jesus.
I’ll be damned if this is the truth, but it is the only explanation I can think of that would make sense given Lutheran theology.
Ori, I’m an ex-Lutheran…. I never got the “elected” part. (Please! No offense intended, Lars and Phil!!) For a Baptist, we understand “elected” to just be God, being who He is, has pre-knowledge of who is/has been/will be saved and will enter Heaven. There is no set number…God knows… we won’t know until we get to Heaven. (God has not put a “good house-keeping seal of approval on our foreheads at birth and indicates we are “elected” as worthy to be Heaven-bound.)
My church believes that once you decide to accept God’s invitation; you confess your sins and ask Jesus to run your life from now on… well, once saved, always saved. You can’t lose your salvation in our denomination.
Now, as a Baptist, (NOT Southern!!) We like to refer to John 3:16. “God so loved the world, (insert YOUR name here), that He gave His only Son, that whoever, (insert name here), believes in Him shall have eternal life and never die.”
If you believe in Jesus, you are NOT condemned. If no belief, you ARE condemned.
The points of the Gospel are;
1. There is one God…in three…Father, Son and Spirit.
2. Jesus is the Son of God as well as God.
3. God the Father sent Jesus to us as a human, devoid of all His Godly powers…He was like us.
4. Jesus lived and was crucified for us ALL. (He would prefer we all are saved.)
5. After dying on the cross for our sins, He entered Hell, taking all our sins, past, present and future on Himself…after a time there, He arose and entered Heaven. This is the most important part. He arose! If he’d just been martyred, He’d be no different than any other human who claimed some kind of divinity.
The bottom line; God gives us the invitation. Since we have free will, we can choose to accept or reject His free gift.
So says me………..and I believe the Bible…
Ori: Do you really think yourself no lesser sinner than Stalin whose orders killed millions, for example?
Greybeard: The Ten Commandments do not speak to Quantity, merely to Quality. While Stalin had opportunity to do evil to millions, if I only have opportunity to do evil to a handful, does that make me a better person? No. Both my breaking of God’s Commands and Stalin’s breaking of God’s commands reflect the corruption of the human heart. The issue is that corruption moreso than the outcomes of that corruption. God told Samuel that he looks at the heart while man looks at the outside. Jesus clarified this when he said in Matthew 5:22 “But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.”(ESV)
Greybeard, not having the opportunity to commit evil does not make you a better person. But the fact you haven’t availed yourself of opportunities you did have does.
At least, that’s the Jewish view. So Christians (or at least Protestants) think God does not distinguish between different levels of evil?
An image I’ve heard used is that of a jumping-from-California-to-Japan contest. A well-conditioned athlete will jump a lot farther than I would in such a contest. He’d “win” in the sense of getting farther than me.
But if the goal of the contest is jumping to Japan, neither of us will reach the goal. One is unquestionably better than the other, but neither is adequate to the ultimate purpose.
Lars, please forgive this pun.
I have jumped to Japan seven times; it was called “jumping on a flight.”
My wife did it more than 100 times; she was called a “flight attendant.”
(yes, I am following this, but keeping mum)
On SAS I once sat in the “jump seat” in the cockpit landing in Stockholm. My wife and I sat in jump seats behind the pilot of a Thai Airways cargo flight between Bangkok and Phuket.
Maybe there is an analogy here. One difference between a mystic and a fundamentalist of any religion is in the way you jump (and I was going to keep quiet).
I’m the Calvinist here, so let me say something about election. In short, the elect will believe. No question about that. So Ori, the way you describe it doesn’t happen. No one who is elect will be condemned. We argue this because of verses like Ephesians 1:4-5,
Paul’s salvation theology in Romans makes this point.
So the application is to urge each other, Christian and non, to seek the Lord honestly, relying on Scripture.
Re: evil. The man who kills and the man who hates enough to kill but doesn’t out of fear or weakness are equally evil, but these sins do not to keep us from our Creator. They are the fruit of what keeps away, that being our sinful nature. We sin because we are sinful, and it doesn’t matter for salvation purposes how we sin.
This is liberating, if you think about it. No one can claim to have sunk to such depravity he cannot be saved by the Almighty God. As Spurgeon said, the bridge of grace has born the weight of many terrible sinners and is strong enough to carry many more. No one’s sins are too heavy to break that bridge.
The movie “To End All Wars” is good story on this point.
Phil, I think this is one of the differences between Lutheranism and Calvinism, the ability of the elect to renounce God.
However, that brings me to something I really don’t understand about Christianity, or at least Protestant Christianity. The human concept of fairness is part of what C. S. Lewis called “The Tao”, natural law, presumably put in our hearts by God.
But the idea that the doors of heaven are barred, and only some people can get in, goes against that.
This is a difficult doctrine, which is why Christians will argue over it, but I believe it is what the Bible gives us as how a person is saved. It isn’t that the heavens are barred to anyone though. It’s that only the elect–or the chosen and adopted to use the words from Ephesians above–will enter.
Everyone, because of our sinful being or due to original sin, has rejected God. You can think of it as pride or self will. The result is that we want to be autonomous, but the Lord insists on being our King. Greybeard referred to this earlier as the sin that got Satan thrown from heaven. Yahweh is the Lord, and there is nor can there be any other.
As Lewis said in another place, at the end of time, there will be two kinds of people: those who say, “Thy will be done,” and enter heaven, and those to whom the Lord says, “Thy will be done,” and leave heaven which is what they have wanted all of their lives, because heaven isn’t unearthly retirement to do as you please. Heaven is living with God Almighty.
Thanks for explaining “election”….
It sounds like we are talking pretty similar there.
Stupid question # 2: If God is only “electing” a certain bunch of people into Heaven, why does the Bible say God want ALL people to be saved?
I have a stupid question #3, but I don’t wish to over-whelm anyone with my stupidity at one time….
That’s not a stupid question. I’ll answer you a little later today. What’s your other question?
Ok, I’m trying to do too much today. To answer your question, John, I believe most of the verses saying God would have all people saved mean essentially “all types of people,” directly answering the cultural complaint of the day that the Jews were God’s chosen people and the Gentiles were objects of wrath. That’s the idea that almost got Jesus stoned more than once. So the Bible makes it clear in many places that a person’s background, ethnicity, and lifestyle cannot prevent him from being redeemed by the Almighty God. Everyone who hears and receives the truth by faith can be saved.
Phil,
Thanks again. We’re still pretty close here.
#3; I’ve always had a problem with the “office of the keys”. Having a pastor get up, make the sign of the cross and tell me my sins are forgiven bothers me. The two verses I’ve been told about that backs this up just don’t read that way to me……
My sins are forgiven by God, (Jesus did that for me on the cross.) I confess to God and He forgives me. I confess to anyone I’ve sinned against and he/she can forgive me. How can a pastor forgive me when he’s not even connected to all that went on, nor has heard my confession? He’s up there forgiving en mass, the whole congregation. This doesn’t seem to follow what I’ve read in the Bible.
#4…should be an easy one…So I’ll include it here.
What is your feelings on the Geneva Bible, circa 1560? My teacher in our men’s group at church thinks its the best there is…to me, really hard to read…..
thanks
#4 Your teacher is a fruit loop.
#3 I can’t back that up the office of keys. My tradition makes a point that there is no priest or official between us and God, and I tend to think the book of Hebrews argues against it too.
#4 I don’t have any thoughts about the Geneva. I’ve read it has some strong marginal notes which rail against Roman Catholicism, but I haven’t read the translation or notes. I think John Bunyan did though. I also don’t cotton to notions that Bibles 400 years old are the best ever.
So Phil good fellow,
It was good of you to follow up with answering my questions. We seem to be right on top with similar outlooks.
Ah! I feel so good I could eat some chicken katsu…. in fact, I shall.
Thanks so much!
I read part of Dante’s Inferno over Shabbat, and I realized that he also had the idea of non-elect to whom the path to heaven is barred. His limbo seems to be full of precisely the kind of people who didn’t get to heaven because they didn’t know Christianity (Aristotle, Virgil, etc.), along with a few post-Jesus characters who weren’t part of Christian societies such as Saladin.
The Keys of the Kingdom are promised in Matthew 16:19, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (ESV)
Jesus said this to Peter in response to Peter’s confession of faith, that Jesus was the Christ, the son of the living God. Taken in that context, the key to the kingdom is faith in Jesus. We also note here that the key must be used here on earth in this life. There is no redo in the next life if the door has not been opened here.
In declaring absolution as a Lutheran pastor, I am not choosing to open or close the kingdom of heaven for anyone. Rather I am declaring the promise of God’s Word so that the congregation may believe and have assurance of salvation that if they have confessed their sin and believed in the Lord Jesus Christ then their sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake. Often I merely cite 1 John 1:9 That if we confess our sins God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness.
(Note: Other Lutherans may explain the office of the keys differently.)
Thanks, Greybeard.