Posted by Carol on August 07, 2004 at 12:08:14
In Reply to: Re: Some personal reflections posted by OldtimerToo on August 06, 2004 at 09:29:27:
I never experienced disappointment with the God of the Bible because of my exposure to The Family.
I experience disappointment with the God of the Bible as interpreted by certain religious activists with a right-wing political agenda who seem intent on overturning the boundaries between church & state. I also experience disappointment with the God of the Bible when people who identify themselves as Christians claim to have property rights on that God and the truths that are revealed in scripture.
Finally, I experience disappointment with the God of the Bible because people who say they believe in that God tend to confuse the masculine image or androcentric idea of a Heavenly Father with the reality of God, the direct apprehension of Which is beyond any conception we mortals can contain.
The difficulty I have with acknowledging my Christian identity has no direct relationship to my experience in TF between 1972-1974. The difficulty I have with my Christian identity has to do my personal understanding of who Jesus Christ is for me. I have no trouble accepting Christ's presence in my own day-to-day experience of suffering, death and resurrection, but I have a lots and lots of trouble accepting the traditional, Bible-based soteriology worked out by Paul of Tarsus (largely under the influence of Aristotle) and a long line of church fathers after him, including Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Wesley.
My problem with accepting traditional Pauline salvation theology developed after I studied lots and lots of real science. Unless you have an advanced degree in science, I'd prefer not trying to discuss this intellectual conflict in any detail. Maybe that sounds snotty, but I really have trouble listening to people who have no training in science try to tell me what they know about my problem with a specific dogma of Christian theology.
Before studying lots and lots of real science, I studied lots and lots of philosophy, theology & scripture in an undergraduate and master's degree program at a Catholic women's college. I was what you might call an evangelical or Bible-believing Catholic. I used to teach scripture study in a Catholic high school.
Before I become ever became a Catholic or a member of The Family, I attended a Baptist missionary secondary school in Hawaii, where I was introduced to scripture study and learned the theology of being "born again". At age 19--before joining TF--I had what evangelical Christians call a "born again" experience as a consequence of reading the Gospel of St. Luke. I guess that means I'm "saved" if you say so. I'm not sure that I would agree with you, and my opinion about the state of my soul (if I have a soul) is really the only opinion that matters to me.
The more I learned and studied and the longer i live and reflect on my experience and make my daily walk of faith, the more certain I become that I don't know very many things with any great certainty. I am the kind of person who can live happily without having a lot of certainty that I possess answers to the deepest mysteries of life. In fact, the more I let go of thinking I know anything, the greater my serenity. And for all I know, I'm in the early stages of Alzhiemer's dementia and my Higher Power is total figment of my imagination.
It is my walk of faith to live with no more than a present trust in the lovingkindness of my Higher Power and a simple hope that "all shall be well" (source is Dame Julian of Norwich).