Reducing God to Bumper Stickers

Sigh, I was in the car today and stuck in a long line at a stop light. While waiting for my turn to creep through the green light, I started to read the variety of bumper stickers on the cars around me. Among them:

Support our Troops

Bring our Troops Home

God Loves You

Life is Better with Jesus

Jesus For King ’08

Intellectual Honesty or Jesus?

It seems today that when it comes to religion, many people confront an unfortunate dichotomy. The choice is between intellectual honesty and Jesus. Many believe there is no way to reconcile the two.

The purpose of me writing this post is not for me to say why my interpretation is superior, but instead to present an alternate view that often goes unnoticed… too often different views can be silenced by the surprisingly large fundie presence online (i.e. the blog-o-sphere).

If you were in a room of 100 Christians, and asked, “how many of you knew someone that grew up in a religious environment and then walked away from their faith upon leaving for college?” then you would see 100 hands raised in the air.

Let me suggest why I believe this happens.

Analyzing Jesus: Scientific Evidence for being Jewish Messiah

Analyzing Jesus
Part Three: Scientific Evidence for being Jewish Messiah

So far in this series I have covered that Jesus did in fact exist (despite some conspiracy theories), and also the likelihood that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah given all the prophecy he has fulfilled (and the probability of doing so). Today’s post I will continue with the idea of Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, and hopefully successfully address some major questions.

The first issue I will address is a question that I posed at the end of the last part in this series. It was the following:

“couldn’t have all the stuff about Jesus fulfilling prophecy have just been added by zealots after his death?”

Quite a valid question, in fact, many people ask it today. I mean, how can it be possible for one man to actually fulfill every single one of the prophecies written over 1,000 year span? Someone HAD to change the prophecy around right?! Not necessarily.

Analyzing Jesus: Was he really the Jewish Messiah?

Analyzing Jesus
Part Two: Was he really the Jewish Messiah?

In Part One of this series, we analyzed Jesus as a historical figure in history. The second part of this series is to address if Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, but in order to do that, we need to understand what Messianic Prophecies are. Scholars (Jewish and Christian) believe that the Bible (Old Testament) contains over 300 predictions about the Jewish Messiah. These predictions do not come from one source, but are from multiple authors in a variety of books ranging about 1,000 years. In other words, what we have here is an enormous “library” of statements made about the Jewish Messiah (what he will be like, what he will do, and so on).

Analyzing Jesus: The Historical Figure

Analyzing Jesus
Part One: The Historical Figure 

It’s about that time again. Time for me to start up a new series regarding religion/faith/Christianity. I can already tell that this series will be a long one, so get ready for the long haul. I will address Jesus on a variety of different fronts, trying my best to be objective (like a lawyer). Granted, I cannot completely rid myself of my preconceived biases, but I hope that you can, at the very least, respect my investigative reasoning.

a Christian on the Sidelines

Below is a post that I did for an atheist website I contribute for… enjoy.
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Christian Commentary 

Well I have a bit of a confession to make to this website…I have been struggling as of late as to what to contribute (especially since traffic has exploded the past couple weeks). During my time on the sidelines, I have enjoyed reading the various posts and people’s reactions to them. I admit that I have not jumped in as frequently as I once did due to an upcoming move I am preparing for.

It was during my time on the outskirts of this forum that I began to ponder the (for lack of a more sensitive term) “point” of atheist websites such as de-conversion. Now this is not meant to be an insult, but maybe more of a sociological question and hypothesis. To do a comprehensive study on the posts of this blog would take a substantial amount of time. However, in my informal examination, I came a few conclusions.

Agnostic and Atheist contributors/commentors usually come from one of two backgrounds (I apologize for the dichotomy, but the simpler the better). In one camp, there are the individuals who lost their faith because of resentment towards Church establishments. These individuals could not deal with the hypocrisy of their particular religious institution and began to turn away from their faith – and who could blame them? The unfortunate corruption of scripture (through the travesty of strict literalism) has put a big black spot on “religion”. Not too long ago, a post was done on this blog that criticized people for saying they were “spiritual”, not “religious”. I think that this distinction has to made given the nature of “religion” today (particularly by the 20th century Christian fundamentalist movement.) In the effort to avoid digressing too far, I will just say that separating spirituality from religion coincides with Jesus’ irreligion purpose:

“…How terrible it will be for you experts of religious law! For you crush people beneath impossible religious demands and you never lift a finger to ease the burden.” (Luke 11:46)

“How terrible it will be for you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest part of your income, but you ignore the important things of the law – justice, mercy and faith…” (Matthew 23:23)

It is clear that many Agnostic/Atheists walked away from Christianity (or whatever religion) because they were tainted by the hypocrites, and were burdened with “impossible religious demands” (perhaps aA falls into this category as I recall him once saying how free and clear his conscience felt once he renounced his faith). Sadly, religious fundamentalists tend to avoid the “important things of the law- justice, mercy, and faith”. Agnostic/Atheists in this group are often angry, and their writing/comments reflect their displeasure with corruption.

The second camp of agnostic/atheists are usually individuals who feel that it does not make sense logically, scientifically, etc. for the events that are recorded in say, the Bible, to have occurred. Posts by these contributors tend to create interesting “online debates” in the comments section. Naturally though, there is a distinct flaw within having such “debates” because, in most cases, definitions are improperly defined and there are too many assumptions made on both sides. In other words, the paradigms of the individuals are holding back any real progress in regards to Atheists and Theists. The Agnostic/Atheist is attempting to explain religion through empirical methods while Theists attempt the same by using theology. The mixing of these concepts into the other field is a clear injustice to both disciplines.

If you can recall, the purpose of this post was to try to figure out the point of such forums like this one… it is quite apparent that the main goal is to provide a haven for like-minded (and sometimes “unlike”-minded) individuals to have a community to fall back on…hm, kind of sounds like a Church . In other words, everyone wants to know others who believe the same. Yet what is it that Atheists and Agnostics believe? If the “De-Conversion Wager” on the side menu bar is an indicator of anything, then it appears that perhaps Atheists and Theists are not that different. Beyond the corruption, close-mindedness, and ignorance of both the religious and a-religious camps lies a similar desire. Boiled down, it looks as if the only difference that remains is determining where that “desire” comes from…and frankly, it doesn’t matter, because Atheists and Theists alike still have not fully embraced the concepts of love, mercy, compassion, and tolerance.

Christ or Christianity…it can’t be both

It’s either one or the other, but rarely can it be both. Today there is a distinct difference between choosing Christ or choosing Christianity. One is following the divine wisdom of Jesus, while another is adhering to a religious, man-made institution. Too often people defend Christianity over defending Jesus. However, there has been an emergence as of late. Many times you will see that people would rather define themselves as “spiritual” instead of “religious”. Naturally, this has to do with the negative connotations that accompany ‘religion’.

This may be due to the fact that Jesus told us of the harmful dangers of “religion”.

“…How terrible it will be for you experts of religious law! For you crush people beneath impossible religious demands and you never lift a finger to ease the burden.” (Luke 11:46)

“How terrible it will be for you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest part of your income, but you ignore the important things of the law- justice, mercy and faith…” (Matthew 23:23)

American Christianity has faltered quite a bit from the original intent of Jesus. Does this mean there is zero gain to going to Church? No, but it means relying on Church alone for spiritual development will leave you…well…under-developed.

We owe it to ourselves to read beyond surface considerations of Jesus’ teachings in the effort to find the spiritual truths God wishes us to discover for ourselves, for it is a truth that will eliminate the burdens of religion, law, guilt and death.

How to Practice Faith at Work Without Offending Others

 I ran across this little article and thought it was interesting. Here’s how some employers integrate religion into the workplace without offending others (and of course, facing some outrageous lawsuit). I was not aware of these initiatives, but I suppose I may see them a bit more as I enter into the corporate world upon leaving graduate school.

What do you out there think of religion in the work place?

CLICK HERE TO READ STORY

I need some feedback on this Idea…

I’m in the process of creating an online community for clergy to utilize for their blogging.  I feel that there needs to be a centralized place for these individuals for discussion and support.  Anyway, let me know what you think.  I’m playing around with a logo and a name (Clergy Blogs, Pastor Blogs, Minister Blogs)…Something along those lines.  The community will also provide advice on how to promote the blog to the public and/or Church community.

 Let me know your thoughts…

PR for the Pope’s Recent Comments

[This is a follow-up to my post entitled, "Jesus doesn't save - the Pope does"]

After I wrote the post I went through and read the comments you all suggested. One of you (Justin II) went ahead and sent me an official “Q and A” released by the Vatican in response to the backlash that resulted from Pope Benedict’s decision that Catholicism is the true church of God/Jesus.

I went ahead and read the document. I was happy to see that some of my questions were asked and that the Vatican was making an effort to answer some of the issues caused by the Pope’s religious assertions. I’ll admit that I came off kind of harsh in my last post, and the document sent to me helped me approach the issue with more of a level head.

However, despite the helpful PR handout that “Justin II” gave to me, I still found myself shaking my head (with a hint of disgust) at the actions of the Vatican. I took the liberty of pulling out a few areas that I found concern with.  If you want the full document, please email me via the Contact section.

So let’s begin.

In the intro of the PR document (as I will call it from this point forward), it says the following

“Given the universality of Catholic doctrine on the Church, the Congregation wishes to respond to these questions by clarifying the authentic meaning of some ecclesiological expressions used by the magisterium which are open to misunderstanding in the theological debate.”

I can agree to an extent about the “universality” of the Catholic doctrine on the Church [I interpret "Church" as believers in Christ]. Still, what is meant by “universality”? If they are referring to various rituals like the Eucharist, then they are only half right as many churches don’t view this the same way despite going through the same routines. For example, Catholics believe in transubstantiation while others believe it is a ritual based on symbolism. In fact, many sects emerged because of beliefs behind the Eucharist alone.

Moving on from the introduction, I was particularly interested in the answer to question two. The question was the following:

Second Question: What is the meaning of the affirmation that the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church?

The response to this question was quite lengthy, so I am only going to pull out certain parts. Here is the first part I want to address:

Response: Christ “established here on earth” only one Church and instituted it as a “visible and spiritual community,”[5] that from its beginning and throughout the centuries has always existed and will always exist, and in which alone are found all the elements that Christ himself instituted.[6] “This one Church of Christ, which we confess in the Creed as one, holy, catholic and apostolic []. This Church, constituted and organised in this world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the successor of Peter and the Bishops in communion with him.”[7]

Now when I read this, the part that stuck out the most was the reference to Christ establishing one Church being a “visible and spiritual community”. I agree 100%! The church is spiritual (all of those in Christ) and it is a obviously a community (i.e. Christians). The problem emerges because the Catholic church is asserting that their religious institution is the “one Church”. However, I strongly contend that Jesus was not about establishing religions, He came to abolish it; to free humankind from its oppression. Hierarchies within any denominations involve politics, a human invention.

I should also note that all the numbers in the brackets reference a decision made at a Vatican council. It looked like this:

SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL, Dogmatic Constitution, “Lumen gentium,” 8.2.

This was disappointing because when I saw the numbers, I thought they would reference actual Biblical passages for support.

In the effort to further answer the second question, the following answer was included:

“It is possible, according to Catholic doctrine, to affirm correctly that the Church of Christ is present and operative in the churches and ecclesial Communities not yet fully in communion with the Catholic Church, on account of the elements of sanctification and truth that are present in them.[9] Nevertheless, the word “subsists” can only be attributed to the Catholic Church alone precisely because it refers to the mark of unity that we profess in the symbols of the faith (I believe… in the “one” Church); and this “one” Church subsists in the Catholic Church.[10]“

 Again, for one to accept this argument, they must accept that the Vatican Councils are divinely inspired, that is, the hand of God. If one does, then concluding that the Catholic church is the “one” Church would be quite easy. I still contend that the “one” church still exists, but as those spiritual in Christ (and note that not all who profess Jesus are of His Church…as He quite clearly lays on in the Gospels).

Last, I want to look at question five. The question and part of the answer are below:

Fifth Question: Why do the texts of the Council and those of the Magisterium since the Council not use the title of “Church” with regard to those Christian Communities born out of the Reformation of the sixteenth century?

Response: “According to Catholic doctrine, these Communities do not enjoy apostolic succession in the sacrament of Orders, and are, therefore, deprived of a constitutive element of the Church. These ecclesial Communities which, specifically because of the absence of the sacramental priesthood, have not preserved the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic Mystery[19] cannot, according to Catholic doctrine, be called “Churches” in the proper sense.[20]“

What bothers me the most is that the Catholic Church is claiming that other sects “have not preserved the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic Mystery”. Again, this goes back to what I said in response to the first question I analyzed. It makes me wonder what they meant by the “universality” of Catholicism, because this statement excludes those who do not believe in transubstantiation.

To put it simply, the Catholic Church is saying that the way you view the Eucharist (eating bread and drinking wine) dictates whether you are part of the true body [Church] of Christ. Very sad reasoning indeed.

Like I said, I am happy to have gotten this document from “Justin II”. It did clarify some things that I may have misunderstood, and it allowed me see the Catholic side of the story.

So perhaps I have not lost “all” respect for the Pope…maybe just a “great deal” of respect.