Faith Journey Continued

Most of this entry is direct paraphrase or even quotes from a New Kind of Christianity by Brian McLaren - I am using a Kindle version and will not even try to cite the pages.  This entry comes from Chapter 2.

Question #3 - the God question:  Is god violent?  It seems that all monotheistic religions seem to be hell-bent on inspiring people to kill each other.  Why does God seem so violent and genocidal in many Bible passages?  Does God play favorites? Does god sanction elitism, prejudice, violence, or even genocide?  Is God incurably violent and is faith capable of becoming a stronger force for peace and reconciliation than it has been for violence in the past?

Question #4 - The Jesus question: Who is Jesus and why is he important?  Jesus appears to be a victim of identity theft.  Contemporary Christians can't agree with one another and these portraits of Jesus could hardly be more different from the four gospel portraits in the Bible.  What accounts for the differences in understandings of Jesus?  Which versions of Jesus are more trustworthy than others?  How can we tell?  Why does it matter?

Questions #5 - The gospel questions:  What is the gospel?  Some see it as how to avoid hell and go to heaven after death.  Some see it as a message of liberation and transformation for select people in this life.  Some see it as a message of liberation and transformation for all people and all creation.  Who's right and why is there such a divergence of opinion of this essential matter?  Why does Jesus's gospel of the kingdom of God seem to morph into another gospel - that of justification by faith - in other parts of the New Testament? Are the gospels of Jesus and Paul (and other apostolic writers) different and opposed to one another?

Question #6 - The church question:  What do we do about the church?  this question has to be grappled with and understood in local faith communities in light of the new understandings opened up by the previous questions.  What must changed for the church - local, denomination, world-wide community? How are we to conceive of God's Spirit at work in the church and in the world?  How do we cooperate with God's work in, through, outside-of, and in spite of the church?


Question #7 - The sex question:  Can we find a way to address human sexuality without fighting about it? Anxiety about human sexuality may be related to our discomfort with our humanity.  Why does the issue of homosexuality polarize and divide to the extent that there is an unwillingness to tolerate disagreement in spite of the fact that diversity of opinion is tolerated on many other important issues - pacifism, nuclear war, torture, wealth and poverty, consumptive affluence.Why is this issue so hot now?  How do the provious questions open up new ways to thing about homosexuality, gender identity and sexuality in general?  Can we move beyond paralyzing polarization into constructive dialogue about the whole range of challenges we face regarding human sexuality?


Question #8 - The future question:  Can we find a better way to viewing the future?  Eschatology (theology of the future and what lies beyond this life) sells books, raises money and influences foreign policy (the US and Iran come to mind).  If eschatologies are self-fulfulling prophecies, what kind of eschatology will contribute to a more just and joyful future? [many people I know would disagree with the statement that these are self-fulfilling prophecies]  How will a new kind of Christianity develop a new kind of eschatology?


Question #9 - The pluralism question - How should followers of Jesus relate to people of other religions?  We wake up each day in a world whose very future is threatened by inter-religious fear, hatred, and violence.  Many of us wonder if there is a way to have both a deep identity in Christ and an irenic (formal aiming at peace), charitable, neighborly attitude toward people of other faiths.  So we ask:  Is Jesus the only way?  the only way to what?  How can belief in the uniqueness and universality of Christ be held without implying the religious supremacy and exclusivity of the Christian religion?


Question #10 - the what-do-we-do-now question: How can we translate our quest into action?  What happens next?  How can we on this quest pursue truth and hope ina loving spirit when our quest is opposed or ignored by many of our fellow Christians?  How can we learn from history to introduce needed new ideas without also introducing needless division?  How does our search for a new kind of Christianity relate to a renewed kind of spirituality?  What new questions open up for us once we begin grappling with these?  How can the kind of reflection we have engaged in be translated into reflective practice and action?


These ten questions are, to recall Dylan's epic line, blowing in the wind around us.  Even if we've never heard them articulated, they have been hovering just outside our conscious awareness.  they trouble our conventional paradigms of faith just as the ten plagues of frogs, gnats, flies and hail plagued the Egyptians in the Exodus story.


When people tell us to be quiet and accept the conventional answers we've been given in the past, many of us groan like the ancient Hebrews...we cry out to God, "Please set us free!" ... "Let us go!  Let us find some space to think, to worship God outside the bars and walls and fences in which we are constrained and imprisoned. We'll head out into the wilderness - risk hunger, thirst, exposure, death - but we can't sustain this constrained way of thinking, believing, and living much longer.  We need to ask the questions that are simmering in our souls."


We are driven out of familiar territory and into unmapped terra nova by ten questions stirring in our hearts.


The author reiterates that the book is full of promising responses he has cobbles together on this journey- and that responses are not answers with the goal that they start the interplay and get things rolling. the goal is not debate an division..but questioning that leads to conversation and friendship on the new quest.


I am excited to be on this journey!  I know that these questions, or something similar, have been "blowing in the wind" around me for many years.  Seminary only gave voice to questions that have been in my brain for a long time.  I just read an article about a book written by Kinnamon called "You Lost Me" which sites studies of why young adults are leaving the church more today than ever before. One of the reasons mentioned is the inability to ask the hard questions without getting pat answers or feeling ostracized.  This looks like a good place to start.  Let's ask the questions and civilly talk about what God had in mind in sending Jesus Christ.  This is a journey that I need to take.