Why the need for a bible of contemporary religious knowledge?
1. The clergy find it difficult to sermonize over passages of Scripture written in pre-technological civilizations and cultures.
2. Parishioners are dwindling, I believe of the difficulty for people in our generation to understand explanations and accounts of events occurring thousands of years ago. The rise of science is also part of this causal effect: people just can't understand the events as purported.
3. Nevertheless, there's a Christian message that has endured for these many centuries that the many witnesses will attest to.
Format of the book:
1. Present the means by which religious knowledge is ascertained today. In the church setting, the Eucharist or Mass is commonplace to provide the aura whereby the power of God is experienced by churchgoers. There are innumerable ways that God has communicated with man as reported by the Christian mystics.
1a. Means of getting in touch with "one's still small voice" in the Jewish tradition is also a vehicle to experience God. These personal experiences are detailed in William James' book, Varieties of the Religious Experience written a century ago.
2. Present topically an individual's account where God has provided direction and inspiration to achieve God's will in his or her own life. These will be edited to permit vocal reading of such accounts in church services--edited for literary and poetical purposes to maintain the solemnity during which these are read in Christian churches.
Withal, these passages of personal experience in which God has led mankind will attest to the continual testimony of religious faith in human existence.
3. A cross reference of items and persons will form the third portion of the opus.
additions: 12/ /19
Monday, November 18, 2019
Saturday, November 2, 2019
There's a crying need for new paradigms in religion!
Each major religion of today--Christianity, Judaism, Muslim--uses the stories of centuries ago as paradigms to show the relevance of living in society today --a really preposterous thing to do! We can't well relate sowing seeds for harvest and enriching our plates today any more than we can think of our wearing a toga to work on Monday morning.
The point is that religion would do well to end the controversies dividing them because one religion thinks it must establish a kingdom here on earth--even if it be in a desert--while another thinks its kingdom can wait until the end of time, as we know it. All these controversies miss what is invaluable to religious insight: how we can relate to forces and Being beyond what we can see around us through its material presence in the physical world.
The point is that religion would do well to end the controversies dividing them because one religion thinks it must establish a kingdom here on earth--even if it be in a desert--while another thinks its kingdom can wait until the end of time, as we know it. All these controversies miss what is invaluable to religious insight: how we can relate to forces and Being beyond what we can see around us through its material presence in the physical world.
Wednesday, April 24, 2019
Prior to His arrest, Jesus was praying to God, while Peter, tired, was sleeping!
The story of Jesus, just prior to His arrest and trial, is illustrative, how the believer must push the body to perform its normal limits of endurance for the sake of being prepared to accomplish God's plan in our life.
Indeed, Jesus scolded Peter that he should be alert rather than yield to his bodily want for rest.
But for the human being to accomplish great things for the sake of principle and right, we all must maintain a steadfast readiness. It was Abraham Lincoln, who sensing the great need to preserve the Union during the Civil War, he stood for the just cause that won out in the end.
We must push our bodies to perform to the utmost for the sake of justice, freedom and religious rectitude. At this Easter season, let us rededicate ourselves to God's will in our lives.
Indeed, Jesus scolded Peter that he should be alert rather than yield to his bodily want for rest.
But for the human being to accomplish great things for the sake of principle and right, we all must maintain a steadfast readiness. It was Abraham Lincoln, who sensing the great need to preserve the Union during the Civil War, he stood for the just cause that won out in the end.
We must push our bodies to perform to the utmost for the sake of justice, freedom and religious rectitude. At this Easter season, let us rededicate ourselves to God's will in our lives.
Friday, March 22, 2019
And God declared the Seventh Day, a day of Reflection and Evaluation
At the Episcopal Church St. Stephens and the Incarnation, the Priest Martin Smith recently delivered a sermon on the meaning of the Sabbath in the eyes of God. To him, it is a day when God rested, having completed the creation of the universe.
Well, yes, God is reported to have rested on that day, but only after having taken stock of what HE had done! For He claimed at that juncture, "it was good"--the whole had truly been, magnificently and wonderfully, done!
The importance of HIS evaluation is that we, too, need a chance to reflect upon how we're making progress toward the goals in projects we're involved in for HIS sake. We need that time to take stock of things.
Personally, I note my forward progress every Sunday while at the altar to receive the Eucharist. It is during those moments before the Cross that I remember what Jesus hath wraught, and how thankful I am for having a part--howbeit tiny--in doing God's work on earth. At that time, I also implore God to unleash His mighty power through the Holy Spirit so that I continue on to pursue a life filled with the adventure of working my part in God's accomplishing HIS will for the world.
Well, yes, God is reported to have rested on that day, but only after having taken stock of what HE had done! For He claimed at that juncture, "it was good"--the whole had truly been, magnificently and wonderfully, done!
The importance of HIS evaluation is that we, too, need a chance to reflect upon how we're making progress toward the goals in projects we're involved in for HIS sake. We need that time to take stock of things.
Personally, I note my forward progress every Sunday while at the altar to receive the Eucharist. It is during those moments before the Cross that I remember what Jesus hath wraught, and how thankful I am for having a part--howbeit tiny--in doing God's work on earth. At that time, I also implore God to unleash His mighty power through the Holy Spirit so that I continue on to pursue a life filled with the adventure of working my part in God's accomplishing HIS will for the world.
Thursday, March 21, 2019
Cultural Reforms in Religious Theology--Badly Needed Today
Theological treatises must be developed and promulgated according to the culture in which the particular religious faith is professed. Here are some prominent principles that should be incorporated into the articles of their respective religions.
I. Cultural Reform in the Christianity of Today
Those believers of the Western nations are concerned with:
1. Climate Change. Ignoring the issue would make Christianity irrelevant to the Christian's life in our Century. We must get away from fossil fuels, especially.
2. Concern over the sanctity of human life implies the need to prevent unwanted pregnancies and avoidance of responsibility for lives that come into the world. There must be a statement of the woman's right to exercise birth control procedures.
II. Cultural Reform in the Islam of Today.
1. Muslims must learn to respect the professed faith of one another! Specifically, as have the Christians several centuries ago, they must not turn the sword on one another. Those Muslims in need of food and clothing must be attended to peacefully and with religious concern. The Sunnais and the Shia'a must embrace one another as devotees of a common core of beliefs and practices.
III. Cultural Reform in the Hinduism of Today
1. Human life should be more highly valued than any other living biological thing! That means cows and lower forms of animal life ought to be given a lower status in God's creation. The waters of the rivers must be made pure for human consumption, including that of the Ganges.
In sum, the believer ought to make his religion applicable to his cultural values in ways that support human life. God made man in His image!
I. Cultural Reform in the Christianity of Today
Those believers of the Western nations are concerned with:
1. Climate Change. Ignoring the issue would make Christianity irrelevant to the Christian's life in our Century. We must get away from fossil fuels, especially.
2. Concern over the sanctity of human life implies the need to prevent unwanted pregnancies and avoidance of responsibility for lives that come into the world. There must be a statement of the woman's right to exercise birth control procedures.
II. Cultural Reform in the Islam of Today.
1. Muslims must learn to respect the professed faith of one another! Specifically, as have the Christians several centuries ago, they must not turn the sword on one another. Those Muslims in need of food and clothing must be attended to peacefully and with religious concern. The Sunnais and the Shia'a must embrace one another as devotees of a common core of beliefs and practices.
III. Cultural Reform in the Hinduism of Today
1. Human life should be more highly valued than any other living biological thing! That means cows and lower forms of animal life ought to be given a lower status in God's creation. The waters of the rivers must be made pure for human consumption, including that of the Ganges.
In sum, the believer ought to make his religion applicable to his cultural values in ways that support human life. God made man in His image!
Tuesday, March 12, 2019
Realm of Religious Theology (RT): Overview
The topic is: Realm of Religious Theology.
In this section, I shall be advancing ideas to be incorporated into modern theologies of specific extant faiths. Older versions of theologies are products of human minds of religious persons expressing their faith in the Supreme to peoples who have gone before us.. They are products of cultures and civilizations that contain knowledge and faith of that particular period of mankind's development. We know now so much more about the Creation of the world and universe. I believe we should periodically "reform" the tenets of each major religion to stand for the faith of our fathers recast in contemporary life. This section represents only my attempt at making our religious faith vital in a particular contemporary age: faith cast and practiced in a modern lifestyle.
In this section, I shall be advancing ideas to be incorporated into modern theologies of specific extant faiths. Older versions of theologies are products of human minds of religious persons expressing their faith in the Supreme to peoples who have gone before us.. They are products of cultures and civilizations that contain knowledge and faith of that particular period of mankind's development. We know now so much more about the Creation of the world and universe. I believe we should periodically "reform" the tenets of each major religion to stand for the faith of our fathers recast in contemporary life. This section represents only my attempt at making our religious faith vital in a particular contemporary age: faith cast and practiced in a modern lifestyle.
Saturday, September 29, 2018
CD: The Fundamental Purpose of the Eucharist (i.e., the Mass)
Catholics and Protestants alike are fascinated with the Eucharist, performed in pulpits by laity and clergy alike. Why is it so popular?
The service is divided into several parts: 1) the call to worship, 2) a statement of its avowal of the Christian message, 3) prayer for all who should heed its proclamations and addresses, 4) identification of the community of believers who are participating in the service; 5) gathering of those who are to participate in the ceremony; 6) the supplication of participants for divine intervention in the affairs of mankind, 7) the receiving of the transformed bread and wine into the mind and body of each participant; and 8) the exhortation to Christianize the world around us, ie., to do God's work among us.
What ties each part to the whole is the underlining belief that we Christians will make a mark in the world only with God's help. Our supplication is to invoke God's handiwork upon us so as to accomplish HIS will.
We cannot act on our own and achieve what God has in store for us to do. The communion service with the symbols of God's divine presence in the bread and wine in which we partake is the recognition of our dependence upon God to rise above our self-centered aims and purposes to achieve a universality to our actions--for which at the close of the service we praise God for His faithfulness to us, so as to protect and guide us to do better than we could if just lowly human beings.
Why these noble aims to do God's work on earth? Because, as we announce in 4), we are the people of God, the creatures of Peace, the progenitors of Justice and Righteousness in the universe.
The service is divided into several parts: 1) the call to worship, 2) a statement of its avowal of the Christian message, 3) prayer for all who should heed its proclamations and addresses, 4) identification of the community of believers who are participating in the service; 5) gathering of those who are to participate in the ceremony; 6) the supplication of participants for divine intervention in the affairs of mankind, 7) the receiving of the transformed bread and wine into the mind and body of each participant; and 8) the exhortation to Christianize the world around us, ie., to do God's work among us.
What ties each part to the whole is the underlining belief that we Christians will make a mark in the world only with God's help. Our supplication is to invoke God's handiwork upon us so as to accomplish HIS will.
We cannot act on our own and achieve what God has in store for us to do. The communion service with the symbols of God's divine presence in the bread and wine in which we partake is the recognition of our dependence upon God to rise above our self-centered aims and purposes to achieve a universality to our actions--for which at the close of the service we praise God for His faithfulness to us, so as to protect and guide us to do better than we could if just lowly human beings.
Why these noble aims to do God's work on earth? Because, as we announce in 4), we are the people of God, the creatures of Peace, the progenitors of Justice and Righteousness in the universe.
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