I believe life is a journey of humility.The more I know the more I seem to not know. I believe faith grows as we work it out in our daily lives (that it is more than what we think or say but how we live).
I believe that we are all ok...in this sense that we are all on a journey. I believe that by seeking truth, we'll find it (when we seek it with all our hearts).
At the same time, I believe that we are all not ok... that there is a brokenness in this world, in everyone and that all things break down over time. I believe that there is a general cry for wholeness and satisfaction, for community and purpose.
I believe in Jesus' redeeming love for the whole word. I strive for his perfect kingdom to come and his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, daily. I believe this means a right relationship again with God,my creator, and a right relationship with other people and with creation as it was meant to be in the beginning.
It's not all that I believe because I'm afraid to go to hell or that I'm trying to out weight my bad deeds with good...I want to have a growing relationship with Jesus because when I give him control of my life, trust that he is all-knowing, powerful and good, life is better- more full of love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness and self control.
I am still trying to figure out a lot of things but it helps to believe in something bigger than myself, consistent and gracious. This world is a sad place and I don't know what I would do without the hope that I've found in Jesus.
Adriel
Friday, November 13, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Is God speaking today?
I am a religious person because of a spiritual experience I had in response to a prayer. I have spiritual experiences fairly often, actually.
I am not alone. The PEW forum on religion and public life reports in their June 2008 Religious Landscape Survey that 49% of the United States adult population receive definite answers to specific prayer requests at least several times a year. 34% have experienced or witnessed a divine healing, 52% experience a sense of spiritual peace or well-being at least once a week, and 79% believe that miracles still occur today.
This information directly counters the argument that God is silent, doesn't exist, or is dead. Jesus Christ said that God will teach us through the Comforter, which will give us a sense of peace:
Considering that over half of the adults in the United States feel a sense of spiritual peace or well-being at least once a week, I would argue that God is actively trying to communicate with us. The question is whether or not we are listening or recognizing what God is trying to say.
Daniel
I am not alone. The PEW forum on religion and public life reports in their June 2008 Religious Landscape Survey that 49% of the United States adult population receive definite answers to specific prayer requests at least several times a year. 34% have experienced or witnessed a divine healing, 52% experience a sense of spiritual peace or well-being at least once a week, and 79% believe that miracles still occur today.
This information directly counters the argument that God is silent, doesn't exist, or is dead. Jesus Christ said that God will teach us through the Comforter, which will give us a sense of peace:
But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. (John 14:26-27)
Considering that over half of the adults in the United States feel a sense of spiritual peace or well-being at least once a week, I would argue that God is actively trying to communicate with us. The question is whether or not we are listening or recognizing what God is trying to say.
Daniel
A Christian's Non-Art of Proselytizing
The subject of proselytizing, or recruiting, various people we as social workers may come into contact with has been brought up as a major concern in our discussions. If we, as members of an active faith based religion, as would might be the case in evangelicalism, are compelled to exonerate our views upon clients, how would we refrain from doing such a thing?
I can personally speak from my theology training as well as my own experience. I am a baptised Christian, an active member of a Lutheran community in Ann Arbor, having the goal of graduating from the MSW program and becoming a impassioned servant for others. Will I witness to this fact? Yes because I cannot operate my life without acknowledging my faith life. But witness and proselytizing are two distinct terms.
Based in the Greek, the Koine Greek New Testament uses the word euengellion as evangelical, meaning the "good news" or simply "good news." The word gospel comes from this word. Witness was derived from martyriew, and yes, you guessed it, martyr. Proselytize is closely related to disciple or follower, hence a pupil. Then there is the word angel which means messenger. All of these words and ideas are very closely related, but they are far from being the same. And it might explain why I would not, and have not, felt compelled to proselytized anyone, except myself.
To evangelize is to report good news in the midst of daily living. Good news is in context contradictory to bad news. It pinpoints and exercises hope for the future. It can be applied to any situation. For example,if your personality is positive and all your comments, ideas, etc are upbeat, you are said to be evangelizing just by being positive especially if your environment and the people in it with you are mostly negative. Your positive attitude becomes the gospel by which you draw on good news authority. It is on display, good or bad, for all to see and to observe for
themselves. Martyr, or witness, is a pretty strong word and it means that you will stop at nothing to maintain and share the good news. So if I am positive and upbeat, only speaking about people nicely, then I will be able to adhere to positive criticism concerning my understandings of my peers. I would have no problem making room for more positive aspects and I would tend to interject, for example, at the water cooler when a group of people are putting someone down. I would instead as a martyr add in the positive.
That gets tricky because one can fall prey to the rumor treadmill at a cost. But you will bear the consequences, though they may be extremely hurtful. I am that persons angel, as you might say, because I have brought good news about the person who was being talked of negatively and I have evangelized my gospel once again. The key here through all this word framing is to demonstrate that we impact a person's opinion of our faith everyday just by the way we act, serve or do not serve a person who comes
to us in need, without uttering a single word about God, or spirit, or whatever. All of us witness. The proselytiser is a student of a particular bend and in this case, learning more about his or her peers so that when the time comes, they can be spoken of in a positive light.
(Proselytizing also denoted physical form, as in bending over and bowing on postrate, or humbly and severely giving respect reserved for a "god." The act of it emphasizes the extreme willingness by which you will accept knowledge from a teacher).
Therefore, since I have argued that we are a witness to our faith, or non-faith, is a matter of default. We will do it without uttering one word! That is why St Paul writes about guarding the tongue and thought, and deeds, being careful of what you do because your on display 24-7. And then I do not have to go out of my way to word my faith as it is unnecessary and will happen naturally. Of course, there are bad and horrible implications to this idea because if you do verbalize your faith to a client in or out of context, whether they asked for it or not, might demonstrate a very huge contradiction. For example, if you say this and that about grace, etc and
then in the social work process fail miserably to apply it to them (your fault or not), grace will be seen as an idea, but not a reality.
Within this context I would like to conclude that no where in the Christian Bible does God ask us to convert someone. That is the business of the Holy Spirit. As I have always believed and said if Christianity is true in all its belief and writing, then the Holy Spirit would be active, correct? I mean, if Christianity is not true, then the Holy Spirit will not move in zehr word, rendering conversion impossible. Truth has a way of impacting us in ways which we have no control over.
So, if you ask me a direct question about faith an what it means to me and what I believe I will point blank tell you. I will not look for an opportunity in which to "convert" say Muslim to Christianity because I do not have to. I am already....
Just a thought
Dani Lugo
I can personally speak from my theology training as well as my own experience. I am a baptised Christian, an active member of a Lutheran community in Ann Arbor, having the goal of graduating from the MSW program and becoming a impassioned servant for others. Will I witness to this fact? Yes because I cannot operate my life without acknowledging my faith life. But witness and proselytizing are two distinct terms.
Based in the Greek, the Koine Greek New Testament uses the word euengellion as evangelical, meaning the "good news" or simply "good news." The word gospel comes from this word. Witness was derived from martyriew, and yes, you guessed it, martyr. Proselytize is closely related to disciple or follower, hence a pupil. Then there is the word angel which means messenger. All of these words and ideas are very closely related, but they are far from being the same. And it might explain why I would not, and have not, felt compelled to proselytized anyone, except myself.
To evangelize is to report good news in the midst of daily living. Good news is in context contradictory to bad news. It pinpoints and exercises hope for the future. It can be applied to any situation. For example,if your personality is positive and all your comments, ideas, etc are upbeat, you are said to be evangelizing just by being positive especially if your environment and the people in it with you are mostly negative. Your positive attitude becomes the gospel by which you draw on good news authority. It is on display, good or bad, for all to see and to observe for
themselves. Martyr, or witness, is a pretty strong word and it means that you will stop at nothing to maintain and share the good news. So if I am positive and upbeat, only speaking about people nicely, then I will be able to adhere to positive criticism concerning my understandings of my peers. I would have no problem making room for more positive aspects and I would tend to interject, for example, at the water cooler when a group of people are putting someone down. I would instead as a martyr add in the positive.
That gets tricky because one can fall prey to the rumor treadmill at a cost. But you will bear the consequences, though they may be extremely hurtful. I am that persons angel, as you might say, because I have brought good news about the person who was being talked of negatively and I have evangelized my gospel once again. The key here through all this word framing is to demonstrate that we impact a person's opinion of our faith everyday just by the way we act, serve or do not serve a person who comes
to us in need, without uttering a single word about God, or spirit, or whatever. All of us witness. The proselytiser is a student of a particular bend and in this case, learning more about his or her peers so that when the time comes, they can be spoken of in a positive light.
(Proselytizing also denoted physical form, as in bending over and bowing on postrate, or humbly and severely giving respect reserved for a "god." The act of it emphasizes the extreme willingness by which you will accept knowledge from a teacher).
Therefore, since I have argued that we are a witness to our faith, or non-faith, is a matter of default. We will do it without uttering one word! That is why St Paul writes about guarding the tongue and thought, and deeds, being careful of what you do because your on display 24-7. And then I do not have to go out of my way to word my faith as it is unnecessary and will happen naturally. Of course, there are bad and horrible implications to this idea because if you do verbalize your faith to a client in or out of context, whether they asked for it or not, might demonstrate a very huge contradiction. For example, if you say this and that about grace, etc and
then in the social work process fail miserably to apply it to them (your fault or not), grace will be seen as an idea, but not a reality.
Within this context I would like to conclude that no where in the Christian Bible does God ask us to convert someone. That is the business of the Holy Spirit. As I have always believed and said if Christianity is true in all its belief and writing, then the Holy Spirit would be active, correct? I mean, if Christianity is not true, then the Holy Spirit will not move in zehr word, rendering conversion impossible. Truth has a way of impacting us in ways which we have no control over.
So, if you ask me a direct question about faith an what it means to me and what I believe I will point blank tell you. I will not look for an opportunity in which to "convert" say Muslim to Christianity because I do not have to. I am already....
Just a thought
Dani Lugo
Monday, November 9, 2009
Religion and Me
I liked some things about being a fundamentalist Christian. I liked, probably most of all, the camaraderie that you get when you are a member of a close-knit group of fellow travelers, like how you might feel toward other Americans when you're in some remote location abroad. "You're from the States? Where?" "Texas." "Texas! I'm from Wyoming!" "Wyoming! Alright!" Like that makes you practically cousins. That's how it is, sometimes, when you are among fellow believers, in a world hostile to the Gospel. And then, being a Bible-believing Christian as the end of the world nears, and thinking about what's going to happen when all the believers are raptured. That was pretty exciting stuff. And the hymns at Christmas, and the feeling that I had a Friend, and the special meanings in everything. There were a lot of things to like.
On the other hand, I disliked some things about being a fundamentalist Christian. I disliked the feeling of obligation to save souls - to harass people about Jesus, in effect, when I knew they had absolutely no interest in hearing it. I disliked the confusion that I experienced, and that I certainly saw in the lives of others around me, as we tried to reconcile our hope that God was on our side with the reality that, too often, things were just not working out as advertised. After all the allowances for God's superior wisdom and so forth, the uncomfortable fact remained that we were forever inventing ad hoc justifications on his behalf, as if he were an abusive father for whom we needed to make excuses, lest the outside world find out what a cluster our family life actually was.
I especially disliked the dishonesty of trying to portray the Bible as being consistent when it was weaving around like a drunk sailor, and as being a source of guidance when it was obviously wrong and even dangerous. I disliked that my religion seemed, historically, to have been on the negative side of everything, as if God wanted us to be dragging our feet and giving people a hard time whenever they wanted to dance, drink, and play bingo. It was as if God did not want us to acknowledge equal rights for women, or to reject slavery even if St. Paul did condone it, or to understand dinosaur bones, or to inform kids about sex - and so on, ad nauseum. I disliked the fact that Christians of the sixth century cut off the ears of Christians who disagreed with them, and that Christians of the twelfth century found it important to take Jerusalem from the people who lived there, and that Christian faith seemed to provide an important fault line underlying innumerable other wars and atrocities - dividing Byzantine from Roman Christendom, and Roman Catholics from Protestants, and Presbyterian Protestants from Lutheran Protestants, and Missouri Synod Lutheran Protestants from Wisconsin Synod Lutheran Protestants, and so forth. I definitely disliked seeing how Christians avoided taking responsibility for the assumption of superiority that keeps being used to justify such behavior, century after century.
Lots of Christians would tell me, right off, that their religious practices and beliefs are not like that. And that's the nature of religion: keep moving. Keep 'em guessing. If something has been publicly rejected as one of the worst aspects of your faith, make sure that you join everyone else in condemning it, and redefine your religion as something that would never behave in such a way. It's just commonsense marketing.
Liberal Christianity was my case in point: it freed me from much of the heavy baggage of my fundamentalism. As a liberal Christian, I could have a much more educated sense of superiority, there in my nice clean clothes on Sunday morning, surrounded by all those other nice-smelling middle-class suburban white people. It wasn't about the Bible anymore, per se; it was about the undeniable importance of compassion and giving. These, I think, were the kinds of Christians to whom Bertrand Russell would have been referring, in Britain in 1927, when he wrote these words:
Liberal Christian belief and Unitarianism, with which I flirted after some years away from religion altogether, gave me company in my mild, patronizing scorn for the fundamentalists among whom I had counted myself previously. Actually, it gave me company, period, as I socialized with other religiously indifferent but socially concerned individuals. But then, alas, the socializing gave way to subgrouping, gossip, and misunderstanding, and I understood that his would probably always be one of the defining features of the Body of Christ.
I couldn't have said for sure what I was supposed to be believing during this phase. I do remember that, during a visit to a Unity church, I was struck by the many references to "the Christ in you." Those references reminded me of the advertisement I was hearing on the radio at about the same time: "I like the Sprite in you." Neither, I surmise, was intended on a literal level; but in what figurative sense I should construe such sentiments, I cannot say. In any event, I sensed that my days as a liberal Christian were numbered when I found myself thinking, during a visit to a new church, that it was a pretty cool place, except for all the talk about Jesus and such.
I never got around to becoming Jewish, except to the extent of being married to a Jewish person whose religion consisted of lighting the candles and singing the prayer, and then dissolving into laughter halfway through because that was all she remembered. But I picked up a fair amount during my dozen years in New York, half of which I spent at a school where, it was said, the three major religions were equally represented: Orthodox, Conservative, and Reformed.
As far as I can tell, Judaism is more or less like Christianity, on a smaller scale. You have your extreme fundamentalist conservatives, who make things miserable for themselves and everyone else. You have your totally assimilated liberals, who don't much know or care what their putative religion is about. In the middle, you have people who occasionally become overbearingly self-righteous about some particular issue, or who otherwise have a somewhat identifiable culture of their own, but who generally seem like they get along better and are happier to the extent that they can control their religion, rather than having it control them.
Other religions seem, to me, to follow relatively similar lines of thinking. There are the Brahmins at the top in India, and the upper-class Muslims in various nations, and I imagine I would find, if I looked into it, that there were social classes among the Incas as well; and in all cases, no doubt, the lower-income people are expected to fight and die to defend the upper-income people of their religion - even if they actually have more in common with the lower-income infidels they're shooting at.
Nowadays, I've begun to think that may be the nature of the difference between religion and spirituality. If you're religious, you'll pick up that gun and shoot that person - your former neighbor, perhaps - because of the religion s/he belongs to. Or, to put it differently, you probably wouldn't be shooting him/her if s/he were of your own religion. You may think you would never do that, but then the social pressure and the law and the fear kick in, and after a couple of months of military training, you become like all the others, before you, who said and then did exactly the same things.
It's somewhat different with atheists, who never seem to have armies of their own. For them, the righteous zeal tends to come out in other ways - in, for instance, the racist e-mails I get from some atheist intellectuals, educating me about the stupidity of Bible-belt rednecks. This literature is ironically reminiscent of the sacred spam I get from my few remaining Bible-thumper friends.
Spirituality, I think, is not a matter of imagining that your elevated feelings of a "higher" reality are anything more than funky chemicals in your skull. It's also not a question of whether God exists. His existence or nonexistence does not make anyone spiritual. I think, much to the contrary, that it may be more spiritual to simply admit that you don't have privileged knowledge about Truth. Spirituality, in my working hypothesis, begins with daily renunciation of transcendentalist hubris - with, if you will, the recognition that, if the gods had wanted us to know more, they would not have played games with us; they would have told us plainly.
On the other hand, I disliked some things about being a fundamentalist Christian. I disliked the feeling of obligation to save souls - to harass people about Jesus, in effect, when I knew they had absolutely no interest in hearing it. I disliked the confusion that I experienced, and that I certainly saw in the lives of others around me, as we tried to reconcile our hope that God was on our side with the reality that, too often, things were just not working out as advertised. After all the allowances for God's superior wisdom and so forth, the uncomfortable fact remained that we were forever inventing ad hoc justifications on his behalf, as if he were an abusive father for whom we needed to make excuses, lest the outside world find out what a cluster our family life actually was.
I especially disliked the dishonesty of trying to portray the Bible as being consistent when it was weaving around like a drunk sailor, and as being a source of guidance when it was obviously wrong and even dangerous. I disliked that my religion seemed, historically, to have been on the negative side of everything, as if God wanted us to be dragging our feet and giving people a hard time whenever they wanted to dance, drink, and play bingo. It was as if God did not want us to acknowledge equal rights for women, or to reject slavery even if St. Paul did condone it, or to understand dinosaur bones, or to inform kids about sex - and so on, ad nauseum. I disliked the fact that Christians of the sixth century cut off the ears of Christians who disagreed with them, and that Christians of the twelfth century found it important to take Jerusalem from the people who lived there, and that Christian faith seemed to provide an important fault line underlying innumerable other wars and atrocities - dividing Byzantine from Roman Christendom, and Roman Catholics from Protestants, and Presbyterian Protestants from Lutheran Protestants, and Missouri Synod Lutheran Protestants from Wisconsin Synod Lutheran Protestants, and so forth. I definitely disliked seeing how Christians avoided taking responsibility for the assumption of superiority that keeps being used to justify such behavior, century after century.
Lots of Christians would tell me, right off, that their religious practices and beliefs are not like that. And that's the nature of religion: keep moving. Keep 'em guessing. If something has been publicly rejected as one of the worst aspects of your faith, make sure that you join everyone else in condemning it, and redefine your religion as something that would never behave in such a way. It's just commonsense marketing.
Liberal Christianity was my case in point: it freed me from much of the heavy baggage of my fundamentalism. As a liberal Christian, I could have a much more educated sense of superiority, there in my nice clean clothes on Sunday morning, surrounded by all those other nice-smelling middle-class suburban white people. It wasn't about the Bible anymore, per se; it was about the undeniable importance of compassion and giving. These, I think, were the kinds of Christians to whom Bertrand Russell would have been referring, in Britain in 1927, when he wrote these words:
There is another point which I consider excellent. You will remember that Christ said, "Judge not lest ye be judged." That principle I do not think you would find was popular in the law courts of Christian countries. I have known in my time quite a number of judges who were very earnest Christians and none
of them felt that they were acting contrary to Christian principles in what
they did.
Liberal Christian belief and Unitarianism, with which I flirted after some years away from religion altogether, gave me company in my mild, patronizing scorn for the fundamentalists among whom I had counted myself previously. Actually, it gave me company, period, as I socialized with other religiously indifferent but socially concerned individuals. But then, alas, the socializing gave way to subgrouping, gossip, and misunderstanding, and I understood that his would probably always be one of the defining features of the Body of Christ.
I couldn't have said for sure what I was supposed to be believing during this phase. I do remember that, during a visit to a Unity church, I was struck by the many references to "the Christ in you." Those references reminded me of the advertisement I was hearing on the radio at about the same time: "I like the Sprite in you." Neither, I surmise, was intended on a literal level; but in what figurative sense I should construe such sentiments, I cannot say. In any event, I sensed that my days as a liberal Christian were numbered when I found myself thinking, during a visit to a new church, that it was a pretty cool place, except for all the talk about Jesus and such.
I never got around to becoming Jewish, except to the extent of being married to a Jewish person whose religion consisted of lighting the candles and singing the prayer, and then dissolving into laughter halfway through because that was all she remembered. But I picked up a fair amount during my dozen years in New York, half of which I spent at a school where, it was said, the three major religions were equally represented: Orthodox, Conservative, and Reformed.
As far as I can tell, Judaism is more or less like Christianity, on a smaller scale. You have your extreme fundamentalist conservatives, who make things miserable for themselves and everyone else. You have your totally assimilated liberals, who don't much know or care what their putative religion is about. In the middle, you have people who occasionally become overbearingly self-righteous about some particular issue, or who otherwise have a somewhat identifiable culture of their own, but who generally seem like they get along better and are happier to the extent that they can control their religion, rather than having it control them.
Other religions seem, to me, to follow relatively similar lines of thinking. There are the Brahmins at the top in India, and the upper-class Muslims in various nations, and I imagine I would find, if I looked into it, that there were social classes among the Incas as well; and in all cases, no doubt, the lower-income people are expected to fight and die to defend the upper-income people of their religion - even if they actually have more in common with the lower-income infidels they're shooting at.
Nowadays, I've begun to think that may be the nature of the difference between religion and spirituality. If you're religious, you'll pick up that gun and shoot that person - your former neighbor, perhaps - because of the religion s/he belongs to. Or, to put it differently, you probably wouldn't be shooting him/her if s/he were of your own religion. You may think you would never do that, but then the social pressure and the law and the fear kick in, and after a couple of months of military training, you become like all the others, before you, who said and then did exactly the same things.
It's somewhat different with atheists, who never seem to have armies of their own. For them, the righteous zeal tends to come out in other ways - in, for instance, the racist e-mails I get from some atheist intellectuals, educating me about the stupidity of Bible-belt rednecks. This literature is ironically reminiscent of the sacred spam I get from my few remaining Bible-thumper friends.
Spirituality, I think, is not a matter of imagining that your elevated feelings of a "higher" reality are anything more than funky chemicals in your skull. It's also not a question of whether God exists. His existence or nonexistence does not make anyone spiritual. I think, much to the contrary, that it may be more spiritual to simply admit that you don't have privileged knowledge about Truth. Spirituality, in my working hypothesis, begins with daily renunciation of transcendentalist hubris - with, if you will, the recognition that, if the gods had wanted us to know more, they would not have played games with us; they would have told us plainly.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Faith Activity
Yesterday we had an interfaith discussion on faith where several different perspectives were represented. We ended up talking about lots of insteresting aspects of faith. For some people, faith was more of a cultural identity than necessarily having anything to do with God or belief in a set of specific doctrines. Others thought of faith as knowledge of things that aren't seen but are true. Topics of conversation ranged from the question of how do Christians balance their desire/commandment to proselyte or evangelize and practicing or learning in a secular setting. We also touched on a range of topics from Kosher laws, the difference between the term "Latter-day Saint" and "Mormon", and someone's personal journey from a more conservative Lutheran denomonation to a more liberal one. It was an excellent discussion (at least in my view) and I learned a lot. I'm sure the others there would say the same and I would be interested in hearing what they thought of the activity.
We would like to continue having events like this and we would like your input on how to make them better. What topics do you think would be interesting to discuss in an interfaith discussion? What questions have you wanted to ask someone of a different faith that you haven't been able to? What would motivate you to go to an interfaith discussion (food, schedule, topics, format, or otherwise)?
We would especially like to hear from people who may have felt like the last topic wasn't relevant or interesting to them. What types of topics would motivate you to attend an interfaith discussion?
Let us know by commenting on this post or e-mailing swinterfaithalliance@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you and seeing you at our next discussion!
Daniel Curtis
President of the Social Work Interfaith Alliance
We would like to continue having events like this and we would like your input on how to make them better. What topics do you think would be interesting to discuss in an interfaith discussion? What questions have you wanted to ask someone of a different faith that you haven't been able to? What would motivate you to go to an interfaith discussion (food, schedule, topics, format, or otherwise)?
We would especially like to hear from people who may have felt like the last topic wasn't relevant or interesting to them. What types of topics would motivate you to attend an interfaith discussion?
Let us know by commenting on this post or e-mailing swinterfaithalliance@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you and seeing you at our next discussion!
Daniel Curtis
President of the Social Work Interfaith Alliance
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)