Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!mips!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: jag@cello.mc.duke.edu (John Graves) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Checking your mind at the door Message-ID: Date: 1 Oct 90 00:39:09 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Duke University Medical Center -- Durham, NC Lines: 76 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu [John Graves had summarized the gospel by quoting various passages from John 1, saying that no one comes to the fatehr except by the Word. Then he said the following >>What was the Word. >>That ye should honor God and love your neighbor as yourself. >>Any religion that teaches the Word but had another prophet would >>be coming to the Father through Jesus, the Word, manifested in human >>form to the Hebrews but all proclaimed by Moses, Buddha, Confuscius, >>Sequoia, and any other who proclaimed that love is all. >>A humble love that does justice and shows mercy. Ronald Grham wasn't sure what this meant, but he asks whether it meant that Buddha, Confucius, and Sequoia all proclaimed the same gospel --clh] You read it incorrectly. The gospel is not the same, the motivation and message are unique to their faith communities, but they all draw on the Word for their message. The spirit comes to them as to the apostles or to any Christian who preaches. The Hellenistic Jew Christian author of the Gospel of John taught the concept of the Word and for that I am greatful but I donot believe in the inerrancy of the Bible. I do not believe in the special divinity of the human Jesus of Nazareth what I believe in is the special humanity of a man who came to understand our relation to the one God. >of Christ. While I cannot dispute that these individuals espoused justice, >love, and mercy, I will dispute the other claim. Somehow, Mr. Graves, you >have managed to mix in somebody's sermon notes with Scripture and are trying >to get it all to jive together. This is not a good practice for someone who >claims his denomination does not force one to check one's mind at the door. I made the mistake of assuming that you would know that I left the biblical summations at the point of therefore (understood) which comes after the summation of Jesus's commandments: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and will all thy mind. And the second is like unto it, namely this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. I also believe as a Christian (my definition applies, not yours) that I and others have the ability to prophesy. You may disagree with our UU prophesy but you cannot deny that we can do it except by clinging to your definition of Christian and prophesy, a position which will get you nowhere with me. >Christ also espoused justice, love, and mercy, just as the other individuals >you mentioned. He further said he was God. And that through him alone >could man achieve a relationship with God. His version of final truth and >those of Buddha and Confucius are either mutually exclusive, or Jesus is >showing (arrogance or insanity, pick one) beyond measure. You mix us Jesus the human, and Jesus the prophet and the Word that he prophesies. Jesus said he was God but in defending his use of the word, in John 10:34 Jesus says "Is it not written in your law, I said, you are gods' If he called them gods to whom the word of God came (and scripture cannot be broken), do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world "you are blaspheming? because I said 'I am the Son of God?'. Unitarians do not recognize that the son of man, the son of god, is God the father but that god is in all of us, in all creation, that we are all sons and daughters of God. Jesus experienced knowing God the father. Yet even he on the cross asked why God had forsaken him. Jesus spoke with authority because he believed in the loving God, a personal close God. THis was a major paradigm shift. The one God that each of us can know. The kingdom of God is within. > >RG John Allan Graves *Unitarian Universalism* jag@cello.cellbio.duke.edu A church where you don't have to Duke Divinity School check your mind at the door! disavows anything I say! [If this discussion is going to continue, I would ask you to drop the personal animosity that appears to be right under the surface in both RG's posting and this response. --clh]