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

Showing posts with label God's Idolatry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label God's Idolatry. Show all posts

Monday, October 11, 2021

We Worship a God of Love, Not a God of Wrath - Part 2


 

The Good Samaritan

Luke 10 (NASB) - 30 Jesus replied and said, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he encountered robbers, and they stripped him and beat him, and went away leaving him half dead. 31 And by coincidence a priest was going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 Likewise a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan who was on a journey came upon him; and when he saw him, he felt compassion, 34 and came to him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them; and he put him on his own animal, and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 On the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I return, I will repay you.’ 36 Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ hands?” 37 And he said, “The one who showed compassion to him.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do the same.”

We Worship a God of Love,
Not a God of Wrath - Part 1
Part 2

by R.E. Slater


After years of looking at how to interpret the bible for living out Christian beliefs LOVE is the best hermeneutic I could find...

It is the easiest to teach and share...

The most sublime reason for engaging God at all...

Of a God who is fully, freely, and willingly, a God who LOVES...

Though classic theologies would teach a half-and-half God the bible, through Jesus in the NT, corrects those OT mis-theologies by removing religious man's fear, imperfect view of God, and need for violence...

Jesus taught us that God is loving, good, tender, beauty, and joy...

God is a God without wrath...

God is a without judgment...

God is a God without hell...

Our sin brings these darknesses upon us...

Not a God of atoning redemption who brings loving salvation to mankind...

A God who does not send sinners to hell but saves sinners from the hell of being themselves filled with wrath, hate, and the hot winds of religiousity...

A God who can change unfeeling, unloving, indifferent societies from being the worse possible versions of themselves...

A God who writes beauty and wellbeing everywhere...

A God who redeems our darkness to make all light...

A God who is not a God of darkness, wrath, or judgment...

But a God who is only, and always, a God of LOVE...

Through and through and through and through....

This is the God of the bible, not the wrathful God of religious men of the bible...


R.E. Slater
October 11, 2021

* * * * * * * * * *


Stories of Love & Compassion
by Hill Carmichael

A few years ago, a seminary professor of mine decided to use the parable of The Good Samaritan to make a point about how fear influences the decisions we make. He turned to Luke chapter 10 and began to read. I zoned out for a few minutes. I know – best seminary student ever and something you never want to hear a pastor say. But it’s a familiar story. One we’ve all heard a million times. In fact, it’s become somewhat of a cultural norm to point to the Good Samaritan in everyday life. I use it regularly with my boys. I imagine you’ve used it as well in an attempt to convey what it means to be kind in a hurting world. So, I took a little mental break in class. No harm, no foul, right?
.
After my professor finished reading, he looked up and said, “This is not a story about being nice. This is a story about the transformation of the world.” All of the sudden I was paying attention again. And then he went on to explain that Jesus is responding to a question by sharing that there are three types of people along the road between Jerusalem and Jericho.
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The first type are the robbers, whose ethic suggests that “what is yours is mine at whatever cost”. And the robbers will take whatever they need through violence, coercion and whatever means necessary. These are the people who will leave us physically, mentally and emotionally beaten and bruised along life’s road with nothing left but our shallow breath.

The second type of person to walk along the dangerous road between Jerusalem and Jericho is represented by the priest and the Levite, whose ethic suggests that “what is mine is mine and I must protect it even if it means you get hurt in the process”. They aren’t bad people. Both the priest and the Levite are deeply respected in their communities. They very likely follow all the societal rules and norms. They sit on local boards. They pay their taxes on time and likely coach their son’s or daughter’s teams. They also show a great deal of love to those within their immediate communities, but because of what crossing the road to help might cost them, they put their head down and go about their business. So, without even recognizing it, they do more harm than good. Their focus is inward toward their needs and the needs of those who are most like them. It’s an ethic that leads the good and decent priest and Levite toward a life of valuing their reputations instead of relationships. And it often results with them choosing their own individual rights over the health and well-being of their neighbors. Unfortunately, this is the category where I fall most often throughout my life. And if we’re all being honest, I’d say it’s the category that most of us fall into more than we care to admit.

Then there is the Samaritan, whose ethic is love. And along one of the most dangerous roads in all of history seems to live by a code that says “what is mine is yours…if you have need of it”..
  • My safety is yours…if you have need of it.
  • My security is yours…if you have need of it.
  • My resources are yours…if you have need of them.
  • My health is tied to your health.
  • My well-being is tied to your well-being.
Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. preached on this text often and once said that the real difference between the priest and the Levite from the Samaritan is the question that each must have asked. The priest and the Levite likely asked, “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?”. The Samaritan likely asked a very different question - “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”

Fear has a way of making us all behave badly. It was true for the priest and the Levite, and it is still true for us today. When fear is the ethic of our lives, we tend to cling to our own safety and our own individual rights. When fear is the ethic of our lives, we retreat, mind our own business and rarely cross to the other side of the road to help. And when fear is the ethic of our lives, we end up placing our hope in mottos like “We Dare Defend Our Rights” or “Don’t Tread On Me” as opposed to Jesus’ greatest commandment to “Love God and Love Your Neighbor”.

It doesn’t take looking out the window for very long to know that we are all on a road somewhere between Jerusalem and Jericho right now. It’s dangerous out there. The heart-break and exhaustion are real. It’s not just the virus. It’s everything. It’s layers and layers of being beaten and bruised along a dry, hard road these past 18 months.

So, we have some choices to make. We can choose to make our decisions with an ethic of fear. And for a time, choices based on fear have a way of making us feel safe, but that is fleeting at best.

The other choice is to cross the road to help our neighbor. When we cross to the other side, we’ll get a glimpse of something Jesus talked an awful lot about. We’ll see what transformation looks like. We’ll finally understand who we are called to be. And best of all, we’ll finally encounter the Kingdom we’ve been longing for.


Sunday, October 10, 2021

We Worship a God of Love, Not a God of Wrath - Part 1




We Worship a God of Love,
Not a God of Wrath - Part 1

by R.E. Slater

GOD

We worship a God of love, not a God of love and wrath.

God is one in His being and essence, not two.

His love instructs His responses.

His attributes.

His actions.

God is not a dipolarity. Not two psychic polar ends of the the same God.

God is love through and through and through and through.

Western Christianity requires a binary system good and bad, love and wrath, hope and despair.

But Christianity is a singularity through and through and through and through.

God is not dipolar. God is One.


THE BIBLE

If one reads a literal bible with a God of love and wrath this is classic theism.

If one reads the bible as a collection of narratives of people asserting who God is based upon their experiences than you're reading a bible full of conjectures where some are more right than others.

A non-literal bible is neither spiritualized, symbolized, or iconized in its reading. It's the common sense reading of ancient beliefs about God and God's action in the world. 

In this sense, we read the bible as redactors attempting to find the common thread of a complicated idea through the moral and mortal eyes of collected beliefs of ancient societies.

It is too easy to discount the bible as ancient Hebrew myths and legends. The bible is a collection of literary beliefs about God no more nor less than the religious collections of beliefs about God today.

Beliefs require redacting.

Beliefs are only true if we make them so. But many beliefs are untrue, harming, and inaccurate.

Theology is the art of deciphering beliefs - whether true or not; whether pointing to the right way or not.

Theology is not a literal reading of the bible but a redactive reading of the bible.


DIVINE INSPIRATION

Inspiration is God speaking to all kinds of people in all kinds of ways.

God didn't speak only to the premetal and metal ages (bronze, iron, steel) of the BC/BCE eras.

God has been speaking to all of creation... including mankind, throughout the entirety of it's existence.

Discerning the bible is no different from discerning the inspiration of preachers, podcasters, commentators, or public figures today.

They all claim to speak for God just as prophets, priests, kings, and biblical narratives did in the days of the bible.

But we are non-literal readers of people. We hear what they say but test their words and actions to know if what they say and do is honest and integral to who they are, what their intentions are, and how they wish to form the tomorrows of our societies.

The question must then be asked, "Who speaks for God?"

"How are they speaking for God?"

"What is the outcome of their words in actions and policies because of the God they speak of?"

God's speech today is no less than God's speech eons ago.

We call it revelatory, but I call it normal.

God is communicating everyday in everyway possible because humanity comes in a polyplural package of varieties with a variety of needs, wants, personal and social environments, experiences, and histories.

The Art of the Commonplace aptly describes the Inspiration of God to mankind today.

It is no less, nor no more, in the bible even as it is today.

They are the same.

But even more so! Today's Godly inspiration is magnified because of our lived experiences of religious beliefs.

God's inspiration today may therefore be the more clearer with better theology today.


THEOLOGY

God is One.

God is Love.

God is speaking today as God did in yesteryear.

Where the bible people saw God as a God of wrath based upon their cultural upbring, religions, and beliefs, Jesus comes along and shows us a God of Love, Hope, regeneration, and beauty.

When Jesus speaks, He may speak to the people's beliefs. But when He speaks and acts, Jesus always shows us a God of love, love, love, love.

Process Theology rejects Western Christianity's classic theistic portrayals of a dipolar God.

Process Theology tells of a God of love alone without wrath.

A God who speaks into a world of agency where wrath and evil result from the misuse, abuse, and inaction of freewill.

The wrath and evil this world's experiences are not of God but of sin.

Process Theology therefore speaks of a panentheistic world where God is Savior, Redeemer, Reclaimer, Restorer, Lover, Hope, Beauty, and Joy.

A Process Christian rests in these truths:

That God is a God of Love.

God is not sin, evil, corruptible, contemptible, or horrible.

God is not wrath, hell, or judgment.

God is LOVE.

I worship therefore a God of LOVE.


R.E. Slater
October 10, 2021















Wednesday, March 17, 2021

Forgive Me but I Disagree - LGBTQ Christians and Vatican Prouncements




LGBTQ CHRISTIANS in a
Universe of Christian Anathemas


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


"In God's love all are worthy." - R.E. Slater


Proposal: "Can We All Just Learn To Get Along," said Rodney King after he was Beaten by Police

Yes, I get it, having been raised in fundamentally conservative Christian fellowships with all their anathemas

As the church saying goes, "We proclaim who we are by proclaiming what we're against." But the LGBTQ community are people too, and the last time I read the bible God says, He loves everybody, not just those prideful few who declare themselves Christians by judging everyone else around them as less worthy of God than themselves.






Of course, by extending this argument I can be just as guilty of intolerance and unloving acts as my Christian brothers and sisters who proclaim that part of the church - their gay brothers and sisters - aren't worthy of God's love. So let's not do this. I cannot agree with the church's LGBTQ stance against gays without first recognizing a few things the recent Vatican ruling on March 16, 2021, had neglected....

What are they? Here's a few to start. Perhaps you might come up with a few more...

First Disagreement: Civil Democracies Cannot Exclude Societal Distinctions

On the matter of refusing fellowship with the LGBTQ community I would disagree with all similarly outcomed Catholic and Protestant rulings. Here's why....

Rather than splitting hairs over personal conduct our responsibility is to love and respect one another giving full equality of rights to every individual in a civil democracy.

But one might answer that the church isn't a civil democracy. And yet, isn't the church to take in all men and women in the gospel of Christ without distinction? To love all of God's children?

Since when is the church allowed to make a distinction of who is worthy for heaven and who is worthy of hell? I see a lot of heaven-bound Christians preaching and acting in hellish-bound ways. And this is the tragedy of Christian faiths which have become all about condemning rather than receiving and bringing in lost sheep to their folds.

This kind of Christian faith appeals to its legalistic heart, which is never a good thing to promote.


Second Disagreement: But the Bible Has Many Verses on Gay Sex

Yes it does. But was it the act, or the usury, of the other which the bible is protesting? And if the latter, since when do straight people get away with misusing or abusing one another in sexually addicted or unhealthy ways? A pure relationship is one which doesn't use the other for self-gratification.

I remember reading a gay Christian once who had reviewed at length every one of the major "gay sin verses" in the bible. He was quite thorough. His conclusion? Not quite what the typical conservative Christian would come up with.

Here's several starter stories which I have found to be helpful over the years: "Ask a Gay Christian" by Rachel Held Evans; "Tearing Down Walls of Oppression, Part 2/2," by Shane Claiborne; and, here, "Index - Homosexuality and Alternative Lifestyles".


Third Disagreement: Do We Emphasize the Act or the Relationship?

Rather than concentrating on the sexual act I might suggest we concentrate on the relationship - whether it is one of loving faithfulness or not. The attitude of love should spill over into how we treat one another.

However, one who is plagued by sexual addiction cannot easily rid themselves of its abusive mindedness (whether of one's self or of another). There is a world of pained psychosis, psyche, and suffering out there. Common morality rules fall apart with such individuals trying to survive themselves and their environments.

Sexual addiction is a long term problem involving perhaps one's self-worth, of feelings of worthlessness, of childhood abuse, of deep trauma, and so on. But sexual addiction and the condition of being a gay person are two different things. They are not even close to being in the same category too many of us foolishly lump together in our Christian dialectics.

To accuse a gay person of being a sex addict is both unbecoming, ignorant, unhelpful, and deeply divisive. I believe Christians can be wiser and more longsuffering towards both the gay communities and their harmed sisters and brothers than to bluntly state their personal biases and intolerance.




"Fall in love with God as the Fountain of all things.
Cultivate the virtue of compassion." - Thomas Merton


Fourth Disagreement: Are Straight, Heterosexual Relationships Any Less Different Than Gay Relationships?

If any sexual relationship is abusive, addictive, perverted or unhealthy in some way then let's generally agree that the individuals involved are working through some fairly complex issues in their lives. That mere external judgment cannot help or serve in any way as adequate replacements for constructive repair of the internally injured soul.
"For what we judge for one we must judge for all... even ourselves. Jesus said, 'First look to the plank in your own eye before attending to speck in the other's eye'" (Matthew 7.3).
"Isolating the gay act alone in judgmental huff-and-puff is unhelpful." - re slater

Fifth Disagreement: Faithfulness speaks to Covenant Fidelity.

If fidelity is warranted for heterosexual couples than it should be professed by gay couples as well - which is as true for those gays who do practice fidelity towards one another as they are similarly untrue for those heterosexuals who don't practice fidelity towards one another.

We should admit that there's plenty of failure on both sides of the aisle in this matter. But again, let's not overly focus on the sexual act but on the corporeal relationship between one another....

And why? Because all these disagreements are meant to lift one another up in welcoming embrace and love without distinction of personages. Thus, marriage, preaching, church ministries are to be encouraged and supported both for faithful gay and faithful non-gay couples. If it's good for one then its good for the other, and vice versa.

One last thought pertaining to unmarried couples... perhaps we should stretch out our definition of marriage a bit to those couples - whether same sex or straight - who do not marry but who remain in faithful fellowship to one another. 

There are many reasons people do not marry. And as many reasons for gay couples who do wish to marry but cannot and are prevented from marriage.

So apart from the civil contract, let's be a bit more understanding of one another and a lot less judgmental in our opinions. Christians are a judgmental lot when taken together. Let's unlearn these attitudes we have too easily accepted into our holier-than-thou circles of fellowship, shall we?


Sixth Disagreement: The Legal Status of Civil Unions Do Not Provide the Fullest Legalese Needed

We all know, or should know, that the legal status of civil unions do not provide the broadest possible legal protections and societal uplift as do monogamous gay marriage licenses under the law. From hospital rights to inheritance, from personal property settlement to societal acceptance, recognized civil unions are less robust than marital unions between couples.

In a civil democracy there should never be any status difference in relational covenants - whether gay or straight. We all know civil unions are not covered as broadly financially, tax-wise, medically, or legally as are marital rights as component structures of societal inclusion symbols.

The marital title is a more broadly accepted status over that of a civil union. It simply provides far more protection and safeguard. As such, gays wishing to marry must be wholly acceptable within a civil democracy to allow for their fullest civil and marital protections. And this should also include a church's positive doctrinal stances to err on the side of fellowship AND ministry within the body of Christ. In God there should never be a "distinction of personages."


Seventh and last Disagreement: Evolutionary Drift and Biological Outcome

Let's consider one last, and I think, one very substantial argument as a universal difference maker between gays and straights. This greatly will apply to the Trans-gay population who are caught betwixt-and-between sexual identities (cis, binary, non, neutral, etc).

That of evolutionary drift....
"Evolutionary drift recognizes nature's experimental differences between the human psyche, spirit, mindset, and physiology of one another. The LGBTQ community tells many stories, but the biological one is another story which should be considered. Do not accuse someone of something outside of their control." - re slater
When a person is born differently, as in the sexually amorphous, or the inspecific sexual identity sense of oneself, society must generously make allowances for the "acts of God" presented through nature which often creates a challenged universe for those gifted recipients.

These dear ones should be regarded as specially as we do ourselves. The simplest response we must have is the one deeply bearing love, kindness, respect, and understanding.

We are all driven by differing makeups and backgrounds. In a civil democracy we seek unity not division. And in religious faith, we should be seeking loving embrace over condemnatory acts of damnation.
"Learn to err on the side of compassion. It makes both society and your church all the better for the promise-keepers each communion avows to the other in a spirit of toleration with one another." - re slater
And forget the counseling component, unless its really needed.

The Christian organization Exodus learned a hard lesson when attempting to revoke, reduce, or remove an individual's biological makeup. It learned that no amount of counseling can help change another from being who they are.

More the rather, Exodus' well-intentioned ministries drove those loved ones to greater acts of anger, inconsolation, grief, guilt, even suicide. The lessons learned? "Never force one's religious views or dogmas on to another."
"God's love is not about force but about walking with one another through life's many challenges." - re slater

Alan Chambers and his wife, Leslie, respond to survivors of ex-gay therapy.
Exodus International Apologizes to LGBT Community


More probably the counseling lies with those of us who think we are the more whole than those different from us, whom we would judge as less fitting to our social or religious moral universe. Jesus said something along these lines when he said, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick," (Mt 9.12).
"The sick Jesus was referring to were the self-righteous and legalistic religious leaders who deigned to judge men they believed as unholy and condemned by God. Ironically, it was these same religious  leaders who could not see their own unholy offenses before God as they stood condemned in their own condemnations.
"Such moralists were known as hypocrites, saying one thing but doing another, as they went about speaking death into those around them. Learn to speak life into others instead. Do not be a hypocrite." - re slater

 

Learn then to live in peace with one another.

Even today's churches are trying to find their way through the vernaculars of past condemnatory creedal faith formulas as reported here in the Vatican news below. Yes, the Vatican failed its greater church fellowship by not recognising, nor receiving, gay fellowships into their ranks.

In time, perhaps, this may change, but for now, like their Protestant Church brethren, the Catholic Church stayed with its older, unrelenting attitudes against the LGBTQ community.

Lastly, I might suggest we rework our unhealthy religious statements and dogmas drilled into our heads and hearts in light of what we know of a loving God.... As versus an unloving God of judgment we too quickly proclaim to our shame along with our ungodly, ill-considered responses.

Peace, my friends, Peace. Learn to pursue Peace.

R.E. Slater
March 17, 2021

* * * * * * * * * *


Pope Francis celebrates mass on the occasion of 500 years of Christianity in the Philippines, in St. Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican, Sunday, March 14, 2021. (Tiziana Fabi/Pool photo via AP)


Vatican bars gay union blessing, says God ‘can’t bless sin’

by Nicole Winfield


ROME (AP) — The Vatican declared Monday that the Catholic Church won’t bless same-sex unions since God “cannot bless sin.”

The Vatican’s orthodoxy office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, issued a formal response to a question about whether Catholic clergy have the authority to bless gay unions. The answer, contained in a two-page explanation published in seven languages and approved by Pope Francis, was “negative.”

The note distinguished between the church’s welcoming and blessing of gay people, which it upheld, but not their unions. It argued that such unions are not part of God’s plan and that any sacramental recognition of them could be confused with marriage.

The note immediately pleased conservatives, disheartened advocates for LGBT Catholics and threw a wrench in the debate within the German church, which has been at the forefront of opening discussion on hot-button issues such the church’s teaching on homosexuality.

Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, which advocates for greater acceptance of gays in the church, predicted the Vatican position would be ignored, including by some Catholic clergy.

“Catholic people recognize the holiness of the love between committed same-sex couples and recognize this love as divinely inspired and divinely supported and thus meets the standard to be blessed,” he said in a statement.

The Vatican holds that gay people must be treated with dignity and respect, but that gay sex is “intrinsically disordered.” Catholic teaching says that marriage is a lifelong union between a man and woman, is part of God’s plan and is intended for the sake of creating ew life.

Since gay unions aren’t intended to be part of that plan, they can’t be blessed by the church, the document said.

“The presence in such relationships of positive elements, which are in themselves to be valued and appreciated, cannot justify these relationships and render them legitimate objects of an ecclesial blessing, since the positive elements exist within the context of a union not ordered to the Creator’s plan,” the response said.

God “does not and cannot bless sin: He blesses sinful man, so that he may recognize that he is part of his plan of love and allow himself to be changed by him,” it said.

Francis has endorsed providing gay couples with legal protections in same-sex unions, but that was in reference to the civil sphere, not within the church. Those comments were made during a 2019 interview with a Mexican broadcaster, Televisa, but were censored by the Vatican until they appeared in a documentary last year.

While the documentary fudged the context, Francis was referring to the position he took when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires. At the time, Argentine lawmakers were considering approving gay marriage, which the Catholic Church opposes. Then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio instead supported providing legal protections for gays in stable unions through a so-called “law of civil cohabitation.”

Francis told Televisa: “Homosexual people have the right to be in a family. They are children of God.”

Speaking of families with gay children, he said: “You can’t kick someone out of a family, nor make their life miserable for this. What we have to have is a civil union law; that way they are legally covered.”

In the new document and an accompanying unsigned article, the Vatican said questions had been raised about whether the church should bless same-sex unions in a sacramental way in recent years, and after Francis had insisted on the need to better welcome gays in the church.

It was an apparent reference to the German church, where some bishops have been pushing the envelope on issues such as priestly celibacy, contraception and the church’s outreach to gay Catholics after coming under pressure by powerful lay Catholic groups demanding change.




In a statement, the head of the German bishops’ conference, Bishop Georg Bätzing, said the new document would be incorporated into the German discussion, but he suggested that the case was by no means closed.

“There are no easy answers to questions like these,” he said, adding that the German church wasn’t only looking at the church’s current moral teaching, but also the development of doctrine and the actual reality of Catholics today.

Bill Donohue, president of the conservative Catholic League, praised the decision as a decisive, non-negotiable “end of story” declaration by the Vatican.

“The Vatican left nothing on the table. The door has been slammed shut on the gay agenda,” Donohue wrote on the League’s website, calling the document “the most decisive rejection of those efforts ever written.”

In the article, the Vatican stressed the “fundamental and decisive distinction” between gay individuals and gay unions, noting that “the negative judgment on the blessing of unions of persons of the same sex does not imply a judgment on persons.”

But it explained the rationale for forbidding a blessing of such unions, noting that any union that involves sexual activity outside of marriage cannot be blessed because it is not in a state of grace, or “ordered to both receive and express the good that is pronounced and given by the blessing.”

And it added that blessing a same-sex union could give the impression of a sort of sacramental equivalence to marriage. “This would be erroneous and misleading,” the article said.

Esteban Paulon, president of the Argentine Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transsexuals, said the document was proof that for all of Francis’ words and gestures expressing outreach to gays, the institutional church wouldn’t change.

“Saying that homosexual practice — openly living sexuality — is a sin takes us back 200 years and promotes hate speech that unfortunately in Latin America and Europe is on the rise,” Paulon said. “That transforms into injuries and even deaths, or policies which promote discrimination.”

A similar note of exasperation was echoed in the Philippines, Asia’s largest Roman Catholic nation, where gay rights leader Danton Remoto said it simply wasn’t worth it to fight an old institution. “I keep on telling LGBTQ's to just have their civil unions done,” Remoto said. “We do not need any stress anymore from this church.”

Other critical commentators noted the Catholic Book of Blessings contains blessings that can be bestowed on everything from new homes and factories to animals, sporting events, seeds before planting and farm tools.

Juan Carlos Cruz, a Chilean survivor of sexual abuse who is gay and close to Francis, said the document was out of step with Francis’ pastoral approach and was tone deaf to the needs and rights of LGBT Catholics.

“If the Church and the CDF do not advance with the world ... constantly rejecting and speaking negatively and not putting priorities where they should be, Catholics will continue to flee,” he warned.

In 2003, the same Vatican office issued a similar decree saying that the church’s respect for gay people “cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behavior or to legal recognition of homosexual unions.”

Doing so, the Vatican reasoned then, would not only condone “deviant behavior,” but create an equivalence to marriage, which the church holds is an indissoluble union between man and woman.

Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of the U.S.-based NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice and an advocate for greater LGBTQ inclusion in the church, said she was relieved the Vatican statement wasn’t worse.

She said she interpreted the statement as saying, “You can bless the individuals (in a same-sex union), you just can’t bless the contract.”

“So it’s possible you could have a ritual where the individuals get blessed to be their committed selves.”

___

AP writers David Crary in New York, Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin, Almudena Calatrava in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, contributed to this report.


Friday, July 12, 2013

Paul Tillich's "God Above God" and the "Restlessness of the Human Heart"


 
 Apparently Tillich is imminently quotable... and worth the read. This week's High Gravity group explored Paul Tillich's "God above God" in the face of radical doubt and a religionless Christianity: "The God who is absent is present as the source of restlessness." Here's another: "The separation of the holy from the secular is a symptom of man's estrangement from himself." Thinking through these quotes you quickly understand my intrigue. Here are some more quotes that I've more-or-less have culled from readings and restated in mine own fashion:
 
- Like any man, atheism tries to transcend the religious images of God by removing the crimes and misery religion has caused mankind. Seeking critical honesty in the face of religious traditions. But once indoctrinated, a religious man cannot break from his symbolic past, finding it hard to see the God he would love.
 
Ideally, Christian theology is able to show in its own symbolism the truth about the God above God. If not, we are left with beggarly images of the God we think we know.
 
The presence of spiritual restlessness, ache, doubt, all is due to God's presence in this life.
 
- God is the God of all - to both the secular man as to the religious man, each lost in their own turns.
 
Impossibly, we cannot resist to image God. Images which confuse His Being and Meaning whenever we do. The paradox of God is that this God is above all we would think and worship. For God is not an object. His being transcends the world of objects as well as every subject. And so must our images of God likewise be transcended lest we fail in our sight of our Creator-Redeemer.
 
You can see my intrigue by the statements above. And by saying less in today's post I hope to say more by allowing you, the reader, to think on these things. At-the-last, I leave with you an example of a fellow Christian caught-in-the-turns of a symbolic, relational Christianity that both fails and heals as best as it can in this brief life of ours.
 
Overall, my encourage is in knowing that our God is ever present in our lives. That He Himself is restless in joining our lives with His own. That goodness and light, life and love, should never be dimmed in the presence of evil we see everywhere abounding. Evil that rejects God, harms others, and states "Thus I have done, let it not be undone" in shouts against the divine will so patient, so open, so restless to bring judgment and justice to our world of woe.
 
R.E. Slater
July 12, 2013
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
by Michael Hildago
Issue 64: July/August 2013, Relevant Magazine
 
 
Several years ago, I left the Church.
 
My wife and I were deeply wounded by our closest friends and partners in ministry, rumors about us spread like wildfire and we felt abandoned. I said goodbye to God and the Church and, it was safe to say, I was never coming back. I thought the Church was a broken institution.
 
A year before that, I was a pastor. My congregation was filled with people who loved Jesus and had a passion to see His renewal come to this broken world. I never tired of hearing stories of brokenness followed by experiences of healing. Our belief was simple: the Church should be the last place you should find people who pretend to have it all together. I was having the church experience many people are blessed to have in their lives: one that was vibrant and exciting.
 
I didn’t know that not everyone agreed with my mind-set, and a few did all they could to ensure I would not be a pastor at that church for long. One morning, I was told I had to resign. As I looked around the room, I saw people who were more than friends—they were family. One of those in that meeting used to tell me I was “like a son” to him. But now, as one leader told me, I was simply “an issue that needed to be dealt with.”
 
There was no warning and no conversation; just a severance agreement I had to sign or else I’d get nothing. So I did. What followed was one of the most painful seasons of my life.
 
I walked out of that church, and no one from its leadership team ever reached out to my family again. Apparently their “issue” had been dealt with. But it wasn’t over for me. Our community, my career and our future with the church were all suddenly severed, and my wife and I were devastated. We’d had such a strong sense of spiritual purpose, and now we had no idea what to do with our lives. For years, I had met people who had been “hurt by the Church.” Now, I was one of them.
 
We are everywhere
 
The saddest part in all of this is my story is not unique. Many of us have had painful experiences with the Church, Christian ministries, organizations or universities.
 
My friend Rick worked at a Christian university for more than 15 years. He quickly became one of the most beloved and popular professors at the school. For many students, he served in a pastoral role, offering godly guidance. Rick challenged the comfortable Christianity of many students and invited them to truly make faith in Jesus their own.
 
Yet as his popularity with students grew, the concern of the trustees regarding Rick grew, as well. They believed his teaching went against the doctrinal statement of the college and even raised questions about his political viewpoints. After Rick had spent years giving everything to that university and caring for students, the trustees fired him without ever seeking to clarify what he believed or taught.
 
The people in the Church are broken, but we serve a Christ who is making all things whole.
 
Students protested, alumni wrote letters on his behalf, many called and emailed, asking the trustees to rethink their decision, but nothing worked. Rick was out, without so much as a “thank you” from the trustees of the university where he invested in the lives of so many. He told me he felt like “his heart was ripped out his chest.”

My friend Julie went through an experience where she felt totally rejected by Christian leaders. Her husband, Dan, was an alcoholic. As much as she begged him to get help, he never did. He believed he couldn’t talk about it because he worked for a Christian ministry. He knew if he told anyone of his addiction, he would be immediately fired.
 
After years of pleading with him to no avail, Julie found out Dan had been diagnosed with an inoperable tumor. Within months, his health deteriorated and he passed away. Julie finally opened up about Dan’s addiction to those in the organization where he worked. She was shocked at their response: They wanted nothing to do with her.
 
In her greatest time of need, those she had considered friends ignored her and gossiped about her and Dan. She had spent years suffering in her marriage, and now, after her husband died, she suffered more. The people she believed she could trust rejected her—all this from those who worked for a Christian organization.
 
These are not just stories. These are people like you and me. And we are everywhere—all of us wounded, not by the Church or a ministry, but by others who identify as Christians.
 
It’s Not the church that hurts you
 
Recently, a young man named Ryan told me how much he “hated the Church” because of how “the Church hurt his parents.” I met a woman named Melissa after one of our Sunday morning services. It was her first time in a church in more than six years. She said, “I was so hurt by the ministry I worked for.”
 
Speaking this way allows “the Church,” a ministry or a university to remain a faceless, impersonal organization. But a faceless, impersonal organization can’t hurt us the way friends and family can. The Church did not wound me, Rick was not fired by his university and Julie was not rejected by an organization.
 
The reality is, it’s not the Church that has hurt us. It is the people we loved and trusted, whom we associate with “the Church” to make it less personal, less painful. And yet that’s why it hurts so much—you can’t get hurt by someone you don’t love.
 
If I had been conspired against by someone I did not know, I could have dealt with it. It would not have been personal. But I believed these people to be my closest friends—people I had worked alongside, people with whom I had shared life.
 
Those we love the most give us our deepest wounds. And when those who wound us are connected with the Church or a ministry, it’s easy to depersonalize the injury by attributing it to the entire institution.
 
The longer we hold on to those feelings of hatred and the more we speak of being hurt only by an organization, the less chance we have of actually addressing our wounds. The best thing we can do is speak honestly about what happened—which can be the hardest part of healing.
 
It’s not easy to speak of our pain and the names of those who caused it. At times, it can feel like we are reliving the entire experience. However, if we are to find healing and return to wholeness, this is exactly what we must do. Healing and forgiveness will find it’s way into the cracks in our heart where truth is present and spoken.
 
This kind of honesty is truly terrifying. When we share our pain and open up our wounds with the truth, we take the chance of being hurt again. For, in those moments, we place our trust in another. Therein lies the risk. But in the risk lies the chance for healing; and not just healing for us, but healing for others, too.
 
Becoming the Hands and Feet
 
Years ago when Julie’s friends rejected her, she spoke of her wounds and those who caused them. Now, by the grace and goodness of God, she is able to speak of her wounds and the God who has healed them. It’s the same for Rick and for me, too.
 
It’s not because we are anything special. Rather, it’s because we met others who had been wounded, and they helped us find healing. They were the ones who came alongside us and helped every step of the way. One might say they were like Jesus for us in our time of need.
 
When God saw the suffering and pain in our world, He sent His Son headlong into it to suffer with us. God could have done anything He wanted in response to the mess humanity got itself into. He could have snapped His fingers and made everything better or, with a wave of His hand, banished all evil from the world, allowing only good to flourish.
 
But He didn’t do any of that.
 
God’s decision was to share in our wounds, take up our pain and bear our sorrow. It’s in the suffering of Jesus that we find our hope. The God who suffered on the cross for us is the same God who suffers with us today. Because of this, we have the opportunity to be like God for those who are wounded.
If you’ve been wounded, betrayed, stabbed in the back or victimized, in that very moment, you look more like Jesus than you did before.
 
This is what Paul was getting at when he called the Church the “body of Christ.” We are the embodiment of God in this world. There are some who describe being the body of Christ by saying “we are his hands and feet.” I can think of no better description—especially when we are hurt ourselves.
Jesus’ hands and feet bear the marks of crucifixion—which means if you’ve been wounded, betrayed, stabbed in the back or victimized, in that very moment, you look more like Jesus than you did before. Our scars allow us to be more like Jesus to others and lead them toward healing.
 
The Church is not a bunch of people who have it all together. It’s a bunch of broken and bruised people who know about getting hurt and causing hurt themselves. But it’s also people who know about healing. And while we should never diminish the seriousness of our pain, it’s in our pain that we encounter the suffering servant who died for us. It’s in our pain and our healing from that pain that others can find hope.
 
Perhaps this is why Rick Warren tweeted recently, “I only hire staff who’ve been hurt deeply. People who’ve never suffered tend to be shallow and smug about other’s pain.” Our pain is the very thing that allows us to share in the pain of others and their journeys to healing. Because when you have scars and someone shares their wounds with you, it makes you weep.
 
When others shared in my pain, they didn’t always have amazing wisdom or brilliant insight. They didn’t quote the perfect verse at the perfect moment. Many times, they struggled to find the right words for encouragement. But they bore scars that spoke of their pain and, most importantly, of God’s grace and goodness that healed them. And I learned that was often the only thing I needed.
 
Finding Healing in the Brokenness
 
Years after swearing I would never return to the Church, I have not just returned—I am a pastor. And, as a pastor, I can say that the people in the Church are certainly broken, but we serve a Christ who is making all things whole. And because He is making all things whole, the institution of the Church is alive and well. Surely only our God could orchestrate such a paradox—a broken people being sustained and built and re-created into something whole.
 
Because the building of the Church is Christ’s alone, we know His work is not broken. This is what we affirm and celebrate every time we participate in communion. We remember that the Church was birthed in the broken body and spilled blood of Jesus. He was broken for broken people. This is the mystery of the Eucharist: Our wholeness is found in Christ’s brokenness. God knew the Church would live in this tension, this paradox, and yet be a place where He is still King.
 
And so, Jesus took the bread and the wine and said, “This is my body broken for you and my blood shed for you.” And when we eat the bread and drink the wine, we not only remember His death, but we also participate in being broken open and poured out for our broken world.