It has been emphasized in the two classes I've attended of the study of Koran with John Walker, our discussion leader, that we are to use Muhammed's life as our exemplar, according to Islam doctrine.
I raised the point that we cannot do so, since we live in the Twenty-Second Century A.D. and Muhammed lived centuries ago. The fiction that one can essentially carry out the habits and routines of a person living in another age is preposterous, not worthy of intellectual discussion.
In Christianity, we are given the exhortation from Jesus to take up our cross and follow Him. But this edict is not to be taken literally; and no Christian thinks so, it would seem.
Monday, July 11, 2016
CD at St. Clement's: Fear to be bold and courageous for God
Father Rick on the staff delivered the sermon 7/10/16. He claimed that Christians must be bold and fearless to act according to God's Will for them, even as the Good Samaritan did the unusual thing of stopping to help someone in distress.
The notion that this act of the Good Samaritan, helping one in urgent need, requires reaching out to another person one doesn't know--an act of love and kindness. It implies abandoning one's ordinary routines in life to make this act realized. What courage! (as Paul Tillich, American Theologian, would contend.)
The notion that this act of the Good Samaritan, helping one in urgent need, requires reaching out to another person one doesn't know--an act of love and kindness. It implies abandoning one's ordinary routines in life to make this act realized. What courage! (as Paul Tillich, American Theologian, would contend.)
CD at St. Clement's: The Love of the Disciples for Jesus
During the Anchor Club meeting this past Sunday, I theorized that the disciples of Jesus must have been hugely discouraged with the death of their leader at the cross. But wonder of wonder, it was Paul who converted to Christianity on the road to Damascus who came upon the scene to encourage them to carry on. For Peter, the leader of the Christian Church in Jerusalem, Paul's encouragement included financial gifts to support the church there. We think of the disciples as the backdrop of Jesus' ministry, since the Gospels do not relate their real function as ministers to Jesus, to encourage him to do bold and wondrous acts on behalf of His Father. Nevertheless, they supported, i.e., did what they could to help, Jesus carry out his mission.
Wednesday, May 11, 2016
Christian Theology of Peace & Well-Being
This is a new Christian philosophy-theology, taking its foundations in German philosophy of the 19th Century, originating in the writings of Professor F. Hegel and in English philosophy of the 20th Century, through Alfred North Whitehead's process philosophy.
There are 3 points or premises about which this Christian theology is formed: its Scriptural foundations, its cosmological underpinnings as revealed through history; and its development in a personal identity of each Christian believer.
I. Scriptural Foundation
The underlining metaphysical premise of this theology is that the world's Prime Mover is love. This love is the principle of attraction by which all things--stars, planets, and even persons--are bound together through the creative, physical force of love.
We are told in John 3:16 that "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son..." It is through Jesus that we become members of the mystical Kingdom Of God, bestowed with the gift of eternal life. Truly, in the Kingdom we exist forever more.
The keys to this kingdom, the New Testament claims, is just two rules or commandments believers are committed to follow. These are exemplified in the kind of love that binds us in holy fellowship: (1) love God as the Creative force pervasive in the universe; and (2) love each other and other beings in Creation as one loves oneself. In loving oneself, man comes to know himself as a creature of God's creation; and from that love is expressed one's place in God's plan for one's life.
II. Manifestations of our love for God
Because we are members of the Kingdom of God in which the love of God is a pervasive force, we strive to effectuate love in our dealings with one another and with other entities in God's universe. Meaning, we seek to express that love in what we do and say.
For instance, when dealing with others, we strive to do the loving thing. As cited in the Scriptures, Jesus sought to meet the spiritual and physical needs of His followers. When the crowd needed food,or drink, He worked miracles to produce the food. That presupposes His empathizing with His people in order to feel their desires. Similarly, a Christian believer must display an attitude of concern for others so as to relate to their situation. He must ask the ever-present question "How can I express God's love in my dealings with another?" If, for instance, he determines that his brother is in need of a job, can he find something the brother can do for him, if only on a part-time basis? Or could he ask of his friends whether they know of anybody who's hiring a jack-of-all-trades person?
Indeed, it is the hallmark of Christian peoples to extend to the poor and helpless physical and mental relief. This tendency in evidence since the days of the Early Church.
But this desire to express the love of God in our daily lives is manifest in the way we look upon the world in general. As believers in the God who so loved the world that He gave His son, we go out of our way to find the paths of love open to us to preserve God's creations, including maintaining an environment conducive for mankind to live and prosper in. We want to know the bounds of God's love in His Creation and so wander to foreign lands and alien worlds. The result of our striving to express God's love is new knowledge by which we gain greater control of our environment.
IIa. The Historical Record of our Journeys to express the love of God through our interactions
It was the great German philosopher Hegel of the 19th Century who proclaimed the epochs of history as Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis. These allude to the times in which man strives to reach historical pinnacles of human achievement in the world, met with resistance by those counteracting a purpose or aim, thereupon resulting in a period of chaos and strife--necessarily followed by a period of reconciliation of these two antithetic historical forces in a period of Synthesis (that has lasting duration). In this way, God's will becomes the world's destiny.
IIb. Fundamental affirmation of Christianity: Our expressing God's love through what we do and strive to do produces world peace and harmony among all peoples
The ultimate aim of world and universal order is achieved by striving to express God's love in all that we do. This is the theology of peace that passeth all understanding!
III. Personal Well-being
Each of us must live with oneself. That is, we must come face to face with who we are in contradistinction with who we wish we were or who we desire to be!
IIIa. The question of self-identity. Jesus would ask His disciples: 'Who do they (i.e., the crowd) say that I am?' And He received back the labels--"teacher," "rabbi," etc., but never "The Christ!" It would take the event of Jesus' crucifixion to attain that appellation from those who knew Him.
So too, each one of us is in search of hearing the identity from those around us that is what we want to be known as: "a good father," "a sharp lawyer," and so on.
Note that Jesus told His disciples the identity each of them would become, namely, fishermen of mankind. It was each's identity as members of the Kingdom of God, since each would live up to His calling.
IIIb. As members of the Kingdom of God, each should strive to maintain a balance between the emotional highs and lows, an equilibrium that enables him to tackle life's stresses and achievements equally well, Indeed, Jesus cautioned those who followed Him, to neither delight that He ranks among the spiritual greats, e.g., Moses, nor to become depressed over the death of a dear friend. Simply, he urges, accept today's encounters and remain prepared to cope with whatever befall in the future. This emotional state of equilibrium is known in Greek Philosophy as the Doctrine of the Mean.
IIIc. Withal, the believer who does what should earn him the true self-identity for which he seeks knows with certainty already that his spiritual journeys through life merit him God's blessing; and so he declares with confidence: "it is well with my soul."
There are 3 points or premises about which this Christian theology is formed: its Scriptural foundations, its cosmological underpinnings as revealed through history; and its development in a personal identity of each Christian believer.
I. Scriptural Foundation
The underlining metaphysical premise of this theology is that the world's Prime Mover is love. This love is the principle of attraction by which all things--stars, planets, and even persons--are bound together through the creative, physical force of love.
We are told in John 3:16 that "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son..." It is through Jesus that we become members of the mystical Kingdom Of God, bestowed with the gift of eternal life. Truly, in the Kingdom we exist forever more.
The keys to this kingdom, the New Testament claims, is just two rules or commandments believers are committed to follow. These are exemplified in the kind of love that binds us in holy fellowship: (1) love God as the Creative force pervasive in the universe; and (2) love each other and other beings in Creation as one loves oneself. In loving oneself, man comes to know himself as a creature of God's creation; and from that love is expressed one's place in God's plan for one's life.
II. Manifestations of our love for God
Because we are members of the Kingdom of God in which the love of God is a pervasive force, we strive to effectuate love in our dealings with one another and with other entities in God's universe. Meaning, we seek to express that love in what we do and say.
For instance, when dealing with others, we strive to do the loving thing. As cited in the Scriptures, Jesus sought to meet the spiritual and physical needs of His followers. When the crowd needed food,or drink, He worked miracles to produce the food. That presupposes His empathizing with His people in order to feel their desires. Similarly, a Christian believer must display an attitude of concern for others so as to relate to their situation. He must ask the ever-present question "How can I express God's love in my dealings with another?" If, for instance, he determines that his brother is in need of a job, can he find something the brother can do for him, if only on a part-time basis? Or could he ask of his friends whether they know of anybody who's hiring a jack-of-all-trades person?
Indeed, it is the hallmark of Christian peoples to extend to the poor and helpless physical and mental relief. This tendency in evidence since the days of the Early Church.
But this desire to express the love of God in our daily lives is manifest in the way we look upon the world in general. As believers in the God who so loved the world that He gave His son, we go out of our way to find the paths of love open to us to preserve God's creations, including maintaining an environment conducive for mankind to live and prosper in. We want to know the bounds of God's love in His Creation and so wander to foreign lands and alien worlds. The result of our striving to express God's love is new knowledge by which we gain greater control of our environment.
IIa. The Historical Record of our Journeys to express the love of God through our interactions
It was the great German philosopher Hegel of the 19th Century who proclaimed the epochs of history as Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis. These allude to the times in which man strives to reach historical pinnacles of human achievement in the world, met with resistance by those counteracting a purpose or aim, thereupon resulting in a period of chaos and strife--necessarily followed by a period of reconciliation of these two antithetic historical forces in a period of Synthesis (that has lasting duration). In this way, God's will becomes the world's destiny.
IIb. Fundamental affirmation of Christianity: Our expressing God's love through what we do and strive to do produces world peace and harmony among all peoples
The ultimate aim of world and universal order is achieved by striving to express God's love in all that we do. This is the theology of peace that passeth all understanding!
III. Personal Well-being
Each of us must live with oneself. That is, we must come face to face with who we are in contradistinction with who we wish we were or who we desire to be!
IIIa. The question of self-identity. Jesus would ask His disciples: 'Who do they (i.e., the crowd) say that I am?' And He received back the labels--"teacher," "rabbi," etc., but never "The Christ!" It would take the event of Jesus' crucifixion to attain that appellation from those who knew Him.
So too, each one of us is in search of hearing the identity from those around us that is what we want to be known as: "a good father," "a sharp lawyer," and so on.
Note that Jesus told His disciples the identity each of them would become, namely, fishermen of mankind. It was each's identity as members of the Kingdom of God, since each would live up to His calling.
IIIb. As members of the Kingdom of God, each should strive to maintain a balance between the emotional highs and lows, an equilibrium that enables him to tackle life's stresses and achievements equally well, Indeed, Jesus cautioned those who followed Him, to neither delight that He ranks among the spiritual greats, e.g., Moses, nor to become depressed over the death of a dear friend. Simply, he urges, accept today's encounters and remain prepared to cope with whatever befall in the future. This emotional state of equilibrium is known in Greek Philosophy as the Doctrine of the Mean.
IIIc. Withal, the believer who does what should earn him the true self-identity for which he seeks knows with certainty already that his spiritual journeys through life merit him God's blessing; and so he declares with confidence: "it is well with my soul."
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