I went to Bible school in my early 20's but had a lot of secret sins, so left the faith completely. For 20 years I ha no intention of ever returning, yet 2 years ago, circumstances came together in an almost deterministic way where I had to return. Hebrews 6 had been a continually frightening verse for me. I am not sure how I made it back. It really only was by God. I was searching for Him through meditation, prayer, and all sorts of reading, but for years thought Christianity didn't work. The cold rationalism of the c.o.C. repelled me until Jesus gave me nearly no choice but to return. Now I am back and will never leave.
In American churches of Christ, largely, the emphasis of importance has been put on a perfect understanding of how to achieve salvation, presented as a puzzle that only we know how to put together. Our soteriology is extremely logical, which is a good thing. However, this scrupulosity can be obsessive, spending much energy defending our position. This is at the expense of other valid ways to view scripture. It also forfeits touching on other valid emphases of the Christian life: sanctification, grace, devotion, contemplation, charity, spiritual practice and spiritual experience. The "cold rationality" is one of the big reasons so many are leaving c.o.C. for Orthodox and Catholicism. In those traditions your soul's purpose isn't to do the Bible perfectly. The emphasis is more on devotion, experience, and personal transformation
Great series, thanks! I don't always agree with you, but I love what you say and how you say it.
In this case, I really like the open and relational theology take on salvation, as I understand it anyway. God respects our free will completely. If we want to be in God's community, then we are in (even before we're perfected, if we ever are). If we don't want to be, then God respects this and we are outside and will have to endure life without God and God's love and the love of God's community. All of this extends beyond death. Would anyone resist forever? It seems unlikely. Why deliberately choose suffering when love and community are available through a mere change of heart and mind? But if someone does choose separation forever, God will (reluctantly) accept that. It would even be possible to have changes of heart in both directions time and again throughout eternity (be saved, be lost, be saved again, be lost again), but again, it's hard to imagine anyone falling away from utterly loving community once they've had a good taste of it.
The idea of high handed sin was something I found liberating later in life, even though I was raised in the Wesleyan tradition. Willful violation, Wesley's term, is a helpful understanding. And Wesley knew there were other definitions of sin, speaking in one of his standard sermons of 'sins of surprise' for example. This has been a great series. Many people seem to either struggle with a lack of character on one hand, or morbid scrupulosity at the other extreme. Your balanced approach is spot on. Thank you.
We are not created “children of God.” God does not create from nothing. God does not run out to a workshop every morning and create something that never existed. There is only God Herself. All that emanates from Source, the Logos, that which evolves in this Universe, in all dimensions of Universes, is an emanation a Word of God. Every thing... atom, element, energy, light, matter, visible and invisible, life forms, is a Word of Source.
We are not things that God creates. We are emanations of God Herself, in bite size pieces, Divine Sparks, who volunteered to experience emanation of this Universe, in this Milky Way galaxy, in this solar system, on this planet Earth, so that Source Herself could have a myriad of experiences in what Her Cosmic Emanation, this Universe, feels like through billions and billions of human conscious and physical experiences.
Before being incarnated we each agreed to and accepted some limitations, that our cosmic intelligence would be suppressed, reduced and stuffed into a very small human body, with a three pound wetware sensorium processor between our ears. We also accepted amnesia, masking who we really are, when we enter this reality through our mother’s birthing canal.
That amnesia also diminished our memory of what our mission in this reality is, to awaken to who we really are, fractals of Source. Upon reawakening, our purpose and mission is to assist others to awaken from their own amnesia and collectively be birthers of God in this dense reality.
We are not given a prepared script to follow via the life situations we experience, spiritually, physically, cosmically. Our life journey is all improv theater from the very beginning as we evolve in consciousness. It is our mission to wake up, evolve to and meld into the Christ Consciousness that is awaiting each of us to recognize and embrace within ourselves as our spiritual growth progresses in our present Incarnation.
We are each “unique” pieces of Source evolving through higher levels of consciousness in journeying back to Source with our stories and experiences to share.
The only “sin” is refusing to wake up to who we really are and not fulfill our mission.
I went to Bible school in my early 20's but had a lot of secret sins, so left the faith completely. For 20 years I ha no intention of ever returning, yet 2 years ago, circumstances came together in an almost deterministic way where I had to return. Hebrews 6 had been a continually frightening verse for me. I am not sure how I made it back. It really only was by God. I was searching for Him through meditation, prayer, and all sorts of reading, but for years thought Christianity didn't work. The cold rationalism of the c.o.C. repelled me until Jesus gave me nearly no choice but to return. Now I am back and will never leave.
Can I ask what you mean by “the cold rationalism of the c.o.C”?
In American churches of Christ, largely, the emphasis of importance has been put on a perfect understanding of how to achieve salvation, presented as a puzzle that only we know how to put together. Our soteriology is extremely logical, which is a good thing. However, this scrupulosity can be obsessive, spending much energy defending our position. This is at the expense of other valid ways to view scripture. It also forfeits touching on other valid emphases of the Christian life: sanctification, grace, devotion, contemplation, charity, spiritual practice and spiritual experience. The "cold rationality" is one of the big reasons so many are leaving c.o.C. for Orthodox and Catholicism. In those traditions your soul's purpose isn't to do the Bible perfectly. The emphasis is more on devotion, experience, and personal transformation
Good post, Richard. It upholds the goodness of God.
Dana
Helpful and well-explained. I really appreciate the ties you draw between the OT and the NT.
As a Southern evangelical it seems that others make the determination that you are separated before you or God do.
Great series, thanks! I don't always agree with you, but I love what you say and how you say it.
In this case, I really like the open and relational theology take on salvation, as I understand it anyway. God respects our free will completely. If we want to be in God's community, then we are in (even before we're perfected, if we ever are). If we don't want to be, then God respects this and we are outside and will have to endure life without God and God's love and the love of God's community. All of this extends beyond death. Would anyone resist forever? It seems unlikely. Why deliberately choose suffering when love and community are available through a mere change of heart and mind? But if someone does choose separation forever, God will (reluctantly) accept that. It would even be possible to have changes of heart in both directions time and again throughout eternity (be saved, be lost, be saved again, be lost again), but again, it's hard to imagine anyone falling away from utterly loving community once they've had a good taste of it.
The idea of high handed sin was something I found liberating later in life, even though I was raised in the Wesleyan tradition. Willful violation, Wesley's term, is a helpful understanding. And Wesley knew there were other definitions of sin, speaking in one of his standard sermons of 'sins of surprise' for example. This has been a great series. Many people seem to either struggle with a lack of character on one hand, or morbid scrupulosity at the other extreme. Your balanced approach is spot on. Thank you.
We are not created “children of God.” God does not create from nothing. God does not run out to a workshop every morning and create something that never existed. There is only God Herself. All that emanates from Source, the Logos, that which evolves in this Universe, in all dimensions of Universes, is an emanation a Word of God. Every thing... atom, element, energy, light, matter, visible and invisible, life forms, is a Word of Source.
We are not things that God creates. We are emanations of God Herself, in bite size pieces, Divine Sparks, who volunteered to experience emanation of this Universe, in this Milky Way galaxy, in this solar system, on this planet Earth, so that Source Herself could have a myriad of experiences in what Her Cosmic Emanation, this Universe, feels like through billions and billions of human conscious and physical experiences.
Before being incarnated we each agreed to and accepted some limitations, that our cosmic intelligence would be suppressed, reduced and stuffed into a very small human body, with a three pound wetware sensorium processor between our ears. We also accepted amnesia, masking who we really are, when we enter this reality through our mother’s birthing canal.
That amnesia also diminished our memory of what our mission in this reality is, to awaken to who we really are, fractals of Source. Upon reawakening, our purpose and mission is to assist others to awaken from their own amnesia and collectively be birthers of God in this dense reality.
We are not given a prepared script to follow via the life situations we experience, spiritually, physically, cosmically. Our life journey is all improv theater from the very beginning as we evolve in consciousness. It is our mission to wake up, evolve to and meld into the Christ Consciousness that is awaiting each of us to recognize and embrace within ourselves as our spiritual growth progresses in our present Incarnation.
We are each “unique” pieces of Source evolving through higher levels of consciousness in journeying back to Source with our stories and experiences to share.
The only “sin” is refusing to wake up to who we really are and not fulfill our mission.