This quiz might help you find the right denomination

My Personal Observations

by R.E. Slater

I took the quiz below in quick-and-shorthand fashion and then afterwards thought it should be passed along for two reasons. One, it may help the interviewee see where they lean in preferences and dogmas. Two, it may also help in understanding our particular preferences for reading the Bible in the way that we do. When taking the quiz remember that it is not exact, scientific, or rigorous.

For myself, I took it without a lot of thought about it (taking it on-the-fly, as it were) and found several areas of my own personal indifference. With one question I found I had no preference at all. With a half-dozen or so questions I answered "maybe". And in the "agree/disagree" column I would've liked more leeway in the way the question was asked. (Note: It's important to show the scale of your "agreement" or "disagreement" to the stated question).

Overall, my background is (Regular) Baptist and Reformed Calvinism. But that revered heritage had always felt forced and contrived to my overall personality and temperament. However, more recently - as in the past dozen years or more - I have steadily been moving away from my inherited faith. Though with a deep appreciation for my education and religious background. But also with a newer mindset and introspective heart that has become broader, and more patient with, my past conservative training. I now find myself more in sympathy with Wesleyans (re God's love and human freewill), the Charismatics (re all things Spirit), and the Anglicans (re their liturgy, symbolism, creedal, and historical church orthodoxies). Though in hindsight, elements of those faiths had always been present even in my earliest youth and faith expressions because they were more in line with who I was and am today. Even so, according to the quiz, I resonate most predominantly with Southern Baptists! Horrors! LOL  :)

By way of a short explanation for my predilections, in Wesleyanism I find a more proper balance between the "love of God' and "man's free will" (arminianism v. calvinism). One that admits to God's love in all relational aspects to His creation - even to that of man's being and spirit, his circumstances and events in his life, and the openness of our future towards purposeful redemption.

In Charismatic preference I would not classify myself as a strict practitioner, or definitionists, re tongues, prophecies, and healing, but one who definitely attests to the Holy Spirit's ready activity in the affairs of this world. Especially as the Spirit invokes God's Word and redemptive power. Hence, I view (i) tongues not as "heavenly" but as a means for practical and effectual communication with those different from ourselves.  (ii) Prophecy as a forth-telling rather than fore-telling activity (even as it was in both the Old and New Testaments). My reason for saying this is based upon my view of the openness of the future. One that even God cannot know, much less ourselves. But also one that God does inform through His plan of redemption and salvation. And it is in this way that prophecy is more a forth-telling than fore-telling activity. And, (iii) healing more in terms of the spiritual person - and humanity at large in its societies. Especially as it connects Jesus to personal, social, or community behavior and redemptive outcome.

And lastly, I resonate more with the Anglican faith because of its broader implications for doctrine and theology based upon its connectedness to the past orthodoxies of the Christian faith before its split from Rome during the time of the Reformation. More so, the more I study Christianity and the Bible, the more I find myself leaning towards a progressive evangelical faith (or even a post-evangelic Christian faith). And perhaps one that is more conservatively neo-orthodox than it is classically orthodox as I come to understand what these present elements may mean for Christian living, ministry, and witness. As such, I yearn for a more lively, more open-ended faith of God. One that is God-filled rather than man-filled by a religious faith bounded by stricter dogmas and folklore-based teachings. Whose edges are more rounded (if present at all). That is less logical and analytic - and more questioning and at peace with its unknowing. That is more mystical than knowing. And one allowing of doubt and uncertain to reside in the same breath with absolute faith and belief. This is the type of faith that would best define both myself and my God. It is not for everyone because within it must reside a tension and doubt alongside a more surer faith and belief. But it works for me.

And so, in addition to perhaps allowing the reader to determine their own personal religious predilections I thought I should be forthright in my own journaling here at Relevancy22 so that we each know where the other stands. But I should forewarn the reader that my background is eclectic, and that I will consider other beliefs than my own baptistic ones to inform me. To better help me find a line of direction for a common (or "catholic") spiritual communion with the Redeemer God of the universe. A God whom I know as Jesus Christ of  the Bible who was the exact expression and very Spirit, Person, and Being, of the Hebraic "unnamed" God YHWH. It is a journey I am willing to share with others who also wish to explore "another side" of their Christian faith than a Vulcanized form of Reformed theology with its expressionless logic and the analytical barrenness. It has its place for some to be sure, but I would rather discard its classical structures while searching within its frame for its more foundational elements expressed in terms of relational, process, and open theology. Peace.

R.E. Slater

May 8, 2014

Continue to -

Index to past articles on "An Open Faith and Open Theology"

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This quiz can might help you find the right denomination

http://churchmousec.wordpress.com/2011/01/07/this-quiz-can-help-you-find-the-right-denomination/

The Church Mouse

January 7, 2011

Many of us wonder why we’re dissatisfied with the church we attend. For some, this might be because the clergy displace biblical teachings in favour of more worldly, including political, ones. However, others might be attending church in a denomination which might not suit their theological beliefs.

So, how do we know what denomination might be correct for us? Here’s a 24-question multiple-choice quiz that can help clarify which church might be best for you, the Christian Denomination Selector. It’s free and you don’t need to register or leave an email address in order to discover the results.

Be warned — you might well be surprised at what your answers to these questions tell you! I certainly was.

R.E. Slater's top match for Christian Denomination Selector is:  Southern Baptist

Your Complete Results:

Default order is alphabetical, Mike Hopkins determined the order.  URL: http://selectsmart.com/FREE/select.php?client= christiandenom Link: Christian Denomination Selector

			Southern Baptist (100%)
			Assemblies of God (94%)
			Episcopal/Anglican Church (94%)
			Methodist/Wesleyan Church (87%)
			Free Will Baptist (85%)
			Mennonite Brethren (85%)
			Reformed Baptist (85%)
			Seventh-Day Adventist (85%)
			Presbyterian Church USA (79%)
			Church of Christ (77%)
			Orthodox Quakerism (77%)
			Presbyterian Church in America/Orthodox Presbyterian Church (70%)
			Reformed Churches (70%)
			Evangelical Lutheran Church (64%)
			International Church of Christ (62%)
			Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (55%)
			United Pentecostal Church (55%)
			Liberal Quakerism (24%)
			Eastern Orthodox Church (16%)
			Mormonism (16%)
			Roman Catholic Church (16%)
			Jehovah's Witness (9%)
			Unity Church (7%)
			Unitarian Universalism (0%)

The Mission: Love, Penance, Forgiveness, Restoration

The Mission - Trailer - (1986) - HQ

Related: "Whispers in a Dream" (a poem)
by R.E. Slater

The Mission - Gabriel's Oboe (Full HD)

Gabriel's Oboe(Nella Fantasia)

Robert DeNiro reads 1 corinthians 13

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmUxkdTZY18&feature=related

1 Corinthians 13

English Standard Version (ESV)

The Way of Love

13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; itis not irritable or resentful;[b] 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Footnotes:
1 Corinthians 13:3 Some manuscripts deliver up my body [to death] that I may boast
1 Corinthians 13:5 Greek irritable and does not count up wrongdoing

E. Morricone-1986 The Mission [Full Album ]

Ennio Morricone "The Mission"

Sound Track Remix

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kghJGeMYI3U

"Whispers in a Dream," a poem by R.E. Slater

Tony Jones - Five Reasons You Probably Shouldn’t Attend a Christian Seder

Five Reasons You Probably Shouldn’t Attend a Christian Seder

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tonyjones/2014/04/15/five-reasons-you-probably-shouldnt-attend-a-christian-seder/#more-9936

by Tony Jones

April 15, 2014

The Seder plate at Rabbi Joseph Edelheit’s home, including oranges, olives, and tomatoes.

It’s Passover until this evening, and lots of Christians — especially evangelicals — are attending Passover Seder dinners. But they’re not traditional Seder dinners, with Jews. No, they’re a co-opted rite, sometimes hosted by a “messianic” Jew, and sometimes just by Christians who’ve read a Wikipedia entry.

I’ve been to a Seder for the past couple years. My family and I have been hosted by Rabbi Joseph Edelheit, a sometime contributor to this blog, and a dear friend. In his role as director of the religious studies program at St. Cloud State University, Joseph has hosted Seder dinners for Christian students — at the Lutheran campus ministry for instance — but the difference is that he’s really Jewish. He’s a rabbi. He’s not play-acting. This is really his thing.

Many Christians, particularly evangelicals, are drawn to primitive Christianity. They want to follow Jesus like those first Christians did, before Constantine and Charlemagne mucked everything up with Christendom. I personally think that’s a noble goal, and I’m not totally averse to it. However, having a Seder meal at your church or Christian college is not the way to do here. Here’s why:

1) We know very little about Jesus’ Passover meal. The Gospels themselves equivocate on the meal — either it took place on Passover, or on the night before Passover. In the Synoptics (and Paul), there is bread and wine, but in John only a cup into which both Judas and Jesus dipped their hands. Bread and wine, blessed and passed, was common for any Sabbath meal with family or friends. The Passover meal in the first century surely featured meat, but there’s no mention of that in the Gospels or Paul.

2) The Seder meal as we know it developed well after Jesus lived. Before 70 CE, Passover was a festival celebrated by going to Jerusalem, to the temple. That’s why Jesus and the disciples went there. It wasn’t until after the temple was razed that modern, rabbinic Judaism was born, and along with it the practices and rites we know now as synagogue worship and home-based practices like the Seder dinner. In other words, Jesus didn’t eat horseradish or sip salt water.

3) Early Christian eucharistic meals were not patterned after the Seder, but after the Greco-Roman symposium meal. At a symposium, family and friends would gather for a meal to discuss philosophy, the gods, government, and the like. Social distinctions were temporarily ignored; men and women ate together. The eucharistic meal in the early church took this concept and amplified it, even allowing slaves to join the company.

A funeral banquet

4) The early church often met for eucharist in cemeteries. In the Roman world, friends and relatives of a deceased person would meet at the person’s grace in the necropolis on the 3rd and 30th day after death and have a feast on the sarcophagus. The party was called a refrigerium, meaning “refreshment” for the dead, and the top of the sarcophagus even had a hole to pore food and wine into the casket.

Early Christians, often persecuted for gathering together, took up this practice because Roman officials had so much respect for the dead that the church could meet unmolested in the cemetery. So successful was this rite, that Christians began celebrating the anniversaries of martyrs by meeting at their graves and having an all-night party — one of the only times when women were allowed to be out past dark in the ancient world. The practice was still common in the late 4th century, so much that both Ambrose and Augustine preached against it, but to no avail.

5) How would you feel if a rabbi or imam performed a mock baptism? That’d be pretty weird, right? That’s pretty much how it is when Christians take a practice that is central to Judaism and attempt to recreate it with Christian meaning. Virtually every Jew I’ve ever asked about this finds the practice offensive.

So, if you want to recreate an early church practice, pack a lunch and bottle of wine and go have a party in a cemetery. Or hold a Greek symposium, inviting people who come from different races and classes than you. That’d be a great way to be true to the early church, without stepping on the practice of another religion.

Blinded By Our Own Ideologies

Osteen, Driscoll and the Masking of our Ideology

http://peterrollins.net/2014/03/olsteen-driscoll-and-the-masking-of-our-ideology/

by Peter Rollins

March 21, 2014

I once attended a conference where a religious presenter attempted to defend authentic marriage. In his argument he referred to a problem he felt was created by the kind of celebrity marriages witnessed on TV. He argued that these take away from the depth and authenticity of true marriage by giving people unreasonable expectations concerning both the day and what will happen after it. As part of his defense he even evoked the name of Jean Baudrillard (author of Simulacra and Simulation).

But the approach taken by the presenter was actually a perfect case of what Baudrillard was arguing against. The logic of Baudrillard is not that celebrity marriages mask or eclipse some authentic marriage ritual, but rather that they actually help support the idea that there is such a thing as an authentic marriage ritual.

The obviously fanciful spectacle, in other words, enables people (like this presenter) to argue that there is an authentic alternative located in reality.

“Real” or “authentic” marriage ceremonies are themselves a form of contrivance that can encourage unrealistic expectations and demands. The ancient rituals such as the exchange of rings, declaration of vows, or giving of the bride are all performances taken from religious systems that have simply been around for longer than the type of thing we might witness on the fantasy of reality TV.

Places like Disney World are problematic in the same way because the very fantasy they create actually sustains the idea that the way we structure our lives outside that space is somehow the way things really are, rather than itself an expression of fantasy. The very fact that we can easily discern that Disney World is ideological means that we are more likely to forget that we ourselves are immersed in ideology in our daily life.

One of the main problems with the extravagant forms of religious ideology we see played out in figures like Joel Osteen and Mark Driscoll might not lie in their own obviously ideological character, but in the way that they solidify the idea that there is a non ideological community beyond them (one somehow not immersed in Western Values etc.).

Witnessing their overt ideology thus plays into the hands of those who would like to ignore their own ideological saturation.

The Walt Disney World of Osteen’s church and the Hell House adventure of Driscoll’s communities are then dangerous precisely because they can prevent us from seeing the political and cultural constellation of our own positions.