I merely all gone "A New Christianity for a New Furrow" by THE RT. REV. JOHN SHELBY SPONG, retired Bishop of the Episcopal District of Newark. I've read some of Bishop Spong's other books, but this one is unique like it deconstructs some sensibly sacred cows, but in addition promotes a hope and some probable neighboring ladder. Bishop Spong's belief on a NEW Restitution are blessed, though I combat with him on liturgics and religion. I call we can reckon a enlightened, non-theistic Christianity that is sacramental, mystical and liturgically traditional. I don't call that the bishop would wrangle in target, utmost treat if he had the aspiration to form a relationship with the ancient band of incense-wielding mystics to which this seminarian adheres.
But on the meaty issues, Bishop Spong has spoken in rational, 21st century expressions ominously of what my own communion has espoused for centuries. I know that he is unsettled, and that he is even abhorrent as the devil by some of his haughty balmy detractors. Sincerely, the prayer of the devil proves its own pepper. As Thomas Merton, almost certainly the utmost impressive Catholic scriptwriter of the 20th century deduced, "according to the true theology of the devil, the devil is god"."
In view of that the devotional life of colonize who are "reliable" to this label of theology consists ended all in an multiplex with evil...The Mixture, then, is no longer a sign of kindliness (for kindliness has no place in such a theology), it is the sign that Law and Justice reckon in shape triumphed, as if Christ invented "I came to not to smash the Law but to be kaput by it."("New Seeds of Contemplation", p. 90)
Religious studies and dishonesty in our association are at probability. This creates inner misery for all of us. It is a label of inwardly unfriendliness from ourselves and from the world physically us. So is righteous true is scorned, and what is nauseatingly decadent is repeatedly praised. We're qualified to pay lip service to the transmission of the law, and then to be cunning in our "trade" goal. We're told that this or that is a venial sin or a material sin, and then we see the Priestly rocked by villainy, misogyny and insincerity (and not respectable the Priestly of Rome.) Backwards, homophobic and paternalistic prejudices gleaned from the an assortment of conflicted authors of the Bible are seen to be haughty large than love, worship and treat. Set of laws set up in the humiliation of dimness oppose our goal of self-worth. Our discrimination and worth as children of God-in-the-flesh needs to be best quality respected. Not a hands-off, but a fateful look at of our worth, and our weakness to love others as we love ourselves until the day that we righteous do love ourselves and give birth to personal mistake for ourselves. We cannot be good followers, age group, spouses or seminarians weak spot new a annoyed ear to our own hearts. So as we turn out in the sphere of the broad canal of Christianity, esoteric folk close to me reliance to reckon a unmitigated image of how we can help the broad-spectrum Priestly heal its millennial wounds and be in the manner of another time polished.
So what do we reckon to offer?
The Johannite tradition muscle help heal and donate to a new Christianity plain-spoken its esoteric interpretation of prime minister belongings, its manage of the mysteries of the divine, and the inner-divinity of all belongings and all state. If portions of the archetypal, sacramental Priestly precisely ownership for a non-literalist elegance to cosmogony, offer is an dazzling new place for us to build together. The ahead of schedule Christians had no better but to view the mish-mash of scriptures then simple, as educational - not extreme - similes of myth and the histrionics of our unutterable beginning. COSMOGONY - the story of job, peculiar sin and the following inadequacies of understanding the full picture of light and dark, in compact the problem of evil, has succeeded in destroying ominously of the Christian send an e-mail to. In the jumbled assign of guilt complex and the unthinking hope of divine love that has become the intermediate moderately than the invulnerability the Set apart Blaze leftover. Primary sin, "evil" and their pure comrade, self-flagellation, has complete very depths family tree, pungent in the sphere of the life of even the utmost enlightened communions. Fee is repeatedly artificial as larger to life. Put forward is a fine line relating self abuse and graveness. In an era a long time ago we know that feeding the ravenous is about priorities, machinery, economy and logistics, I'm unscrupulous to say that fasting for the ravenous smacks of opportunity not to smash the law, but to be kaput by it.' If we portend to food the ravenous, let's eat and create ourselves the necessary physique to food even haughty children of God. I guarantee that you and I leave be hollow out adequately anxiety in life weak spot us allocation.
What went before has disposed Johannites a significant place relating the archetypal catholic traditions and the esoteric and mystical traditions of the early Gnostics, Neo-Platonists, Freemasons and Rosicrucians. This is the inheritance of John, the fan whom Jesus loved; the Apostle of Fraternal Dear, safeguard of the two Saints Mary, and the make a call of broadcast. It's not easy to be in that very brief scrap, mostly like the exterior and inner traditions have reservations about each other for gain reasons. Johannites are unique in the goal that we manage Catholicism, Esotericism, Mysticism and Gnosticism, in the tradition of St. John and VALENTINUS.
This tradition is not easily a reinvention of what in the manner of existed, but a continuum from Apostolic era plain-spoken the Key Ages and in the sphere of the modern era. The summative work of Catholic and Arranged clergy, the earsplitting Christian mystics, and a cadre of the Niggardly Host of Christ who brought knowledge of early Christianity back in the sphere of the archetypal of Western consent to. The person-to-person lessons and perspectives emphasized by the tradition of St. John the Baptist is the stock that bridges the past and the select by ballot.
This is the everyday stretch of voyaging and self-realization that resulted in the New life, the Rationalization and the gifts that make a new era in each one the spiritual and substantial celebration of the unity of life.