Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write off the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Tuesday, June 15, 2021

Similarities and Differences Between Christianity and Islam


Similarities and Differences Between
Christianity and Islam

by Stephen Bedard
May 18, 2002




Christianity and Islam are the two largest religions in the world today. There are aspects of these two religions that are similar and that are different.

The purpose of this post is not to prove one better than the other. However, I am a Christian and so I do have a bias. Still, this is meant to be a historical comparison.

Similarities
  • Both are monotheistic religions who believe in one eternal creator God.
  • Both are steeped in the traditions of the Old Testament.
  • Both began in the Middle East.
  • Both are religions that are book-based.
  • Both have divided into smaller groups. The two largest Christian groups are the Roman Catholics and Protestants. The two largest Muslim groups are the Sunni and Shia. Each religion has many smaller groups.
  • Both have at different periods become wedded to governments and shaped empires.
  • Both have persecuted heretics as well as people of other religions.
  • Both have used forced conversion.
  • Both have a conservative and liberal spectrum of believers.

Differences
  • The Qur’an doesn’t have the same status as the New Testament. A more accurate comparison for the two religions would be Jesus and the Qur’an.
  • The Bible contains more of a historical narrative than the Qur’an.
  • The central event in Christianity is the death and resurrection of Jesus, while the central event for Islam is the revelation of the Qur’an.
  • Islam’s first few centuries included growth by military conquest. Christianity’s growth was as a persecuted minority.
  • Both have a radically different understanding of who Jesus was and what he did.
  • Islam honours Jesus but Christianity doesn’t honour Muhammad.

What other similarities or differences do you see between these two religions?


* * * * * * * * * *


What is the Foundation of Christianity?

by Stephen Bedard



I recently had an interesting conversation about the foundation of Christianity. It began with a response to a pastor’s statement that the foundation of Christianity is not the Bible but is Jesus. Some people were deeply concerned about this statement.

What is the foundation of Christianity? Jesus or the Bible?

In terms of the Bible, we must acknowledge its extreme importance. What we know about Jesus comes primarily from the Bible. When we want to know Jesus better, we dig into our Bibles. I would never deny that.

But does that make the Bible the foundation of Christianity?

I am concerned by how some people seem to raise the Bible above Jesus. I have had conversations with Christians about inerrancy and I was surprised by the results. They admitted that they could see how Jesus could make (non-theological) errors but could not see how the Bible could make (non-theological) errors. They were willing to give the Bible a higher degree of inerrancy than Jesus!

Here are some of my thoughts of why the Bible is not the foundation for Christianity....



Bible

The earliest Christians did not have access to the Bible as we know it. What would they have in the first century? Those who had the money may have had access to the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint). We do not know exactly when the Gospels were written, but even with the early dates, not enough copies would have been made for most Christians in the first century to have access. Paul’s letters? We see from 2 Peter that they were being collected in the first century. But you still have the problem of copying them and distributing them to the various cities where churches existed.

What did the early church have? They had oral traditions and creeds. First Corinthians 15 3:7 would be an example of this. But you can’t equate oral traditions with the Bible. Some oral traditions made it into the Bible, some did not. The Bible contains some of these creeds but includes other original material as well.

What about Christians today? Is it possible for a person to become a Christian without access to the Bible? There are people who become Christians by hearing the simplest form of what Jesus did without any actual quotes. There are others that have become Christians through dreams and visions and who do not encounter the Bible until later.

What if the Bible was not inspired (don’t worry I believe it is inspired)? What if the Gospels were simply accurate traditions about who Jesus is and what he did? Even without the inspiration, people could put their faith in Jesus and become Christians.

I am not dismissing the importance of the Bible. But the Bible is important because it points us to Jesus, the true foundation of the Christian faith. The earliest creeds of the Church were not about the importance of the Bible, but that Jesus is Lord.

I am reminded of this passage:
“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” (John 5:39–40 ESV)

 

Jesus

Jesus’ opponents thought life was to be found in the Scriptures but in reality, life is to be found in the one the Scriptures point to.

Paul also teaches, “For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 3:11 ESV)

The Bible is important but it is not the foundation of the Christian faith. The Bible points to and teaches about the true foundation, that of Jesus Christ.


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