Untied Dyslexic Church of Dog


In the 16th century the Christian Church, which had been the source of
much of the stability of the western world, entered a period of
internal and violent upheaval. In time this upheaval came to be called
the Protestant Reformation, but during the violence itself, it was
referred to by many less attractive adjectives. The institution that
called itself the body of Christ broke first into debate, then
acrimony, then violence and counter-violence and finally into open
warfare between Protestant Christians and Catholic Christians. It
produced the Hundred Years War and the conflict between England and
Spain that came to a climax in the destruction of the Spanish Armada
in 1588. That destruction was widely interpreted as a defeat for the
Catholic God of Spain at the hands of the Protestant God of England.

Yet, when looking at that ecclesiastical conflict from the vantage
point of more than four hundred years, there is surprise at how
insignificant were the theological issues dividing the two sides.
Neither side was debating such core teachings of Christianity as the
doctrine of the Holy Trinity, Jesus as the incarnate son of God, the
reality of heaven and hell, the place of the cross in the plan of
salvation or the role of such sacraments as Baptism and Communion.
These rather were faith assertions held in common.

Of course this conflict was not without theological issues, though
they seem quite trivial in retrospect. Protestant Christians and
Catholic Christians disagreed, for example, about whether salvation
was achieved by faith alone, as Luther contended, or whether faith
without works was dead as the Vatican, quoting the Epistle of James,
argued. There was also debate over the proper use of scripture and the
role of ordination. Despite the hostile appellations of "heretic"
hurled at Protestants and "anti-Christ" hurled at Catholics, anyone
viewing this debate from the vantage point of this century would see
that, while an acrimonious and unpleasant fight, it was nonetheless a
fight that pitted Christian believers against Christian believers. The
Reformation was not an attempt to reformulate the Christian faith for
a new era. It was rather a battle over issues of Church order. The
time had not arrived in which Christians would be required to rethink
the basic and identifying marks of Christianity itself.

It is my conviction that such a moment is facing the Christian world
today. The very heart and soul of Christianity will be the content of
this reformation. The debate which has been building for centuries has
now erupted into public view. All the past ecclesiastical efforts to
keep it at bay or deny its reality have surely failed and will
continue to do so. The need for a new theological reformation began
when Copernicus and Galileo removed this planet from its previous
supposed location at the center of the universe, where human life was
thought to bask under the constant attention of a humanly defined
parental deity. That revolution in thought produced an angle of vision


were formed.

Before that opening salvo of revolution had been absorbed, Sir Isaac
Newton, who charted the mathematically fixed physical laws of the
universe, weighed into the debate. After Newton the Church found
itself in a world in which the concepts of magic, miracle, and divine
intervention as explanations of anything, could no longer be offered
with intellectual integrity. Once more people were forced to enter
into and to embrace a reality vastly different from the one employed
in the traditional language of their faith tradition.

Next came Charles Darwin who related human life to the world of
biology more significantly than anyone had heretofore imagined. He
also confronted the human consciousness with concepts diametrically
opposed to the traditional Christian world view. The Bible began with
the assumption that God had created a finished and perfect world from
which human beings had fallen away in an act of cosmic rebellion.
Original sin was the reality in which all life was presumed to live.
Darwin postulated instead an unfinished and thus imperfect creation
out of which human life was still evolving. Human beings did not fall
from perfection into sin as the Church had taught for centuries; we
were evolving, and indeed are still evolving, into higher levels of
consciousness. Thus the basic myth of Christianity that interpreted
Jesus as a divine emissary who came to rescue the victims of the fall
from the results of their original sin became inoperative. So did the
interpretation of the cross of Calvary as the moment of divine
sacrifice when the ransom for sin was paid. Established Christianity
clearly wobbled under the impact of Darwin's insights, but Christian
leaders pretended that if Darwin could not be defeated, he could at
least be ignored. It was a vain hope.


Darwin was followed by Sigmund Freud who ****yzed the symbols of
Christianity and found in them manifestations of a deep-seated
infantile neurosis. The God understood as a father figure, who guided
ultimate personal decisions, answered our prayers, and promised
rewards and punishment based upon our behavior was not designed to
call anyone into maturity. This view of God issued rather into either
a religious mentality of passive dependency or an aggressive secular
rejection of all things religious. After Freud, it was not surprising
to see Christianity degenerate into an increasingly shrill biblical
fundamentalism where thinking was not encouraged and preconceived
pious answers were readily given, but where neither genuine questions
nor maturity were allowed or encouraged. As Christianity moved more
and more in this direction, contemporary people, who think with modern
minds, began to be repelled and to drop out of their faith commitments
into the Church Alumni Association. Between these two poles of
mindless fundamentalism and empty secularism are found the mainline
churches of Christendom, both Catholic and Protestant. They are
declining numerically, seem lost theologically, are concerned more
about unity than truth, and are wondering why boredom is what people
experience inside church walls. The renewal of Christianity will not
come from fundamentalism, secularism or the irrelevant mainline
tradition. If there is nothing more than this on the horizon then I
see no future for the enterprise we call the Christian faith.

My sense is that history has come to a point where only one thing will
save this venerable faith tradition at this critical time in Christian
history, and that is a new Reformation far more radical than
Christianity has ever before known and that this Reformation must deal
with the very substance of that faith. This Reformation will recognize
that the pre-modern concepts in which Christianity has traditionally
been carried will never again speak to the post-modern world we now
inhabit. This Reformation will be about the very life and death of
Christianity. Because it goes to the heart of how Christianity is to
be understood, it will dwarf in intensity the Reformation of the 16th
century. It will not be concerned about authority, ecclesiastical
polity, valid ordinations and valid sacraments. It will be rather a
Reformation that will examine the very nature of the Christian faith
itself. It will ask whether or not this ancient religious system can
be refocused and re-articulated so as to continue living in this
increasingly non-religious world.

Martin Luther ignited the Reformation of the 16th century by nailing
to the door of the church in Wittenberg in 1517 the 95 Theses that he
wished to debate. I will publish this challenge to Christianity in The
Voice. I will post my theses on the Internet and send copies with
invitations to debate them to the recognized Christian leaders of the
world. My theses are far smaller in number than were those of Martin
Luther, but they are far more threatening theologically. The issues to
which I now call the Christians of the world to debate are these:

1. Theism, as a way of defining God, is dead. So most theological
God-talk is today meaningless. A new way to speak of God must be
found.
2. Since God can no longer be conceived in theistic terms, it becomes
nonsensical to seek to understand Jesus as the incarnation of the
theistic deity. So the Christology of the ages is bankrupt.
3. The biblical story of the perfect and finished creation from which
human beings fell into sin is pre-Darwinian mythology and
post-Darwinian nonsense.
4. The virgin birth, understood as literal biology, makes Christ's
divinity, as traditionally understood, impossible.
5. The miracle stories of the New Testament can no longer be
interpreted in a post-Newtonian world as supernatural events performed
by an incarnate deity.
6. The view of the cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world is
a barbarian idea based on primitive concepts of God and must be
dismissed.
7. Resurrection is an action of God. Jesus was raised into the meaning
of God. It therefore cannot be a physical resuscitation occurring
inside human history.
8. The story of the Ascension assumed a three-tiered universe and is
therefore not capable of being translated into the concepts of a
post-Copernican space age.
9. There is no external, objective, revealed standard written in
scripture or on tablets of stone that will govern our ethical behavior
for all time.
10. Prayer cannot be a request made to a theistic deity to act in
human history in a particular way.
11. The hope for life after death must be separated forever from the
behavior control mentality of reward and punishment. The Church must
abandon, therefore, its reliance on guilt as a motivator of behavior.
12. All human beings bear God's image and must be respected for what
each person is. Therefore, no external description of one's being,
whether based on race, ethnicity, gender or ***ual orientation, can
properly be used as the basis for either rejection or discrimination.

So I set these theses today before the Christian world and I stand
ready to debate each of them as we prepare to enter the third
millennium.

In the mind of Christ,
Michael


..

A preacher is the blind
leading the blind...

The Last Church
http://www.thelastchurch.org
michael@thelastchurch.org

alt.religion.thelastchurch
alt.religion.the-last-church

church porter

--Yawn--I'm sorry, did you say something? Church Porter

church porter

Oh, I see. You were the One given the only set of Spiritual keys for true
understanding. As a result of that, you are solely and uniquely qualified
to dispense that knowledge to the Christian masses. Your purpose is really
not to debate but rather to get everyone else to completely give over to
your "special insight" and "come around." Your wisdom is of the world, but
God has already made foolish that kind of wisdom.

Church Porter

Not at all. I just mean you would not understand what you did not
read. And you would not see what you do not want to see.
Michael


..


A preacher is the blind
leading the blind...

The Last Church
http://www.thelastchurch.org
michael@thelastchurch.org

alt.religion.thelastchurch
alt.religion.the-last-church

church porter

Ah, truer words were never spoken. However, permit me to ask you a two-part
question. Did you completely type up your original post, or was it a part
of some prior work? It is difficult for me to imagine that this was only
some spontaneous message. If this, in fact, is a previous work, then it
would only indicate that you are not very likely to budge, even one inch,
from your thesis/dissertation, which was presented as if it were a mere
message post. Consequently, I see little point in one trying to dissuade
you from preconceived ideas that are obviously so deeply entrenched into
your core faith/belief system.

Of course, others might be willing to take up your challenge for "debate",
but I only see utter folly in that idea. Church Porter

I was dead for Quite some time as in flat line dead and
by communication with the spirit of Christ, I came to
the knowledge of the truth. I must do what God
Wills so no, you will not change that. But, there are others
reading and they may find truth in your reply to the original
post and others may benefit from your reply so feel free to
Take it apart and play with it.

In the mind of Christ
Michael


..

A preacher is the blind
leading the blind...

The Last Church
http://www.thelastchurch.org
michael@thelastchurch.org

alt.religion.thelastchurch
alt.religion.the-last-church