religious question

Jesus loves all the little children of the world.

 

Red and yellow, black and white.

 

The Father, Allah, Yahwey. Different names for the same deity. The differences arise not in the deity, but in the way people worship said deity.

 

Not to my knowledge (and no, I'm not ordained).

She's trying to convince you Christianity is wrong because she's convinced that Christ isn't God. At the risk of being biased, I think Jesus' question, "Who do you say I am?" is one of the most pivotal in all of human spirituality. If you say He is who He claimed to be, then your options narrow considerably. If you say He's just another great teacher/humanitarian in a long line of historical greats, then the spectrum of choices of what you can choose to believe is still very, very wide. Of course, that doesn't take into account the pursuit of object Truth.

 

I'm not ordained, but I've got a seminary education (M.Div - Candler School of Theology, Emory Univ.). My ministry is working with the homeless, not pastoring a church. I'm pursuing ordination as a Deacon in the United Methodist Church.

Re: your Jewish friend - I would add to what hasbeen wrote that some non-christians look at the concept of the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) and see it as polytheism hiding as monotheism.

Re: why are there so many darn religions - That's a darn good question. Karl Rahner, one of the greatest theological minds in the 20th century in Catholicism struggled with that, and whether there can be any connection between Christianity and other religions (as a side note to any Catholics reading this, Rahner was one of the most important if not THE most important theologians behind the shift in Catholic thinking that came with Vatican II). Rahner asserted that God has planted within each person a natural, subconscious orientation towards God, or more simply, a hunger for God. Out of that desire for connection to something divine, different religions have arisen. Rahner believed that other religions contained partial revelations or partial truths about God, while only Christianity contained the full revelation of God through the embodied word of God that came in the form of Jesus. All other religions were distant perceptions or glimpses of God, while Christianity was based upon God taking human form and being encountered directly by people.

Rahner may be right. Maybe not. I took a class on Christian encounters with Hinduism, taught by an Indian Christian. He grew up in a rural village in India that was 100% Christian, and hardly ever encountered anyone that was not Christian.When he went to college, he discovered that the majority of the people in his country were not Christian, and daily lived the encounter of multiple religions. He expressed a conundrum that to this day he has not satisfactorily solved. He looked at his Hindu friends, and could not deny the validity and integrity of their lived out and expressed faith. On the other hand, he could not just ignore the specificity of Christianity. That is, Christianity makes specific claims about true revelation only coming through Jesus Christ.

I personally tend towards Rahner's thinking, but I don't think it really matters that much. I believe true faith is an encounter with the self-giving love of God. Such an encounter begins a transformation from selfishness to selfless-ness. True faith is love of God/the Creator and love of all creation. I personally believe there are people in other religions that are more "Christian" than many persons who label themselves Christian. In Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus oversees the judgment of all people, and separates them into "sheep" and "goats." The "sheep" go to heaven and the "goats" are cast into the lake of fire. The only criteria given for separating the people into the two groups is whether or not the fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and visited those who were sick and in prison. There's no questions about what someone's theology was or if they went to church, etc.

 

That's another can of worms to open. I'll throw out a few things.

First, if you look closely, there's no real mention of heaven and hell in the Old Testament, only Sheol. Not much is said about it, except for it being a place of rest/sleep. Ecclesiates, I believe, talks of people and animals going to the same fate (I personally have alot of questions/issues when reading that book). There is some mention of division between good and bad in Sheol in some of the later writings of the OT.

There is the very interesting story of King Saul and the Witch (or more acurately, Medium) of Endor found in I Samuel 28:3-25. The prophet Samuel has died, and Saul has the Medium summon the spirit of Samuel. Samuel's spirit first asks why Saul has disturbed him by "bringing" him up, and then goes on to make a prophesy.

Second, there's the issue of a loving God condemning people for all eternity to suffering in Hell. Some see it excessively cruel for God to punish people for eons for what they did in a lifetime that lasted typically less than 80 years.

Third, there are supposed encounters with the "other side" of death, whether through near-death experiences or encounters with "ghosts." If you want to look into the near-death stuff, I would recommend reading some books, rather than doing internet research - much of the internet near-death stuff is sensational fluff, at least according to my father-in-law (a retired Methodist Minister) who has done a bit of reading on the topic. Of course, many so-called ghost experiences have been disproven, and there is an argument that near-death experiences are just the brain's attempt to interpret the chemical process that occurs in the brain when one is dying/severely lacking oxygen. It is interesting to note, however, that there have been different types of near death experiences, with a small minority being "hellfire" experiences. While in seminary, I did briefly pastor a church (for 2 years) and one of my parishoners shared a previous near-death experience with me. I believe her experience was a real encounter with the divine, but I won't go into detail because she was very personal about the experience, only sharing it with a handful of people.

Fourth, no real faith should be fire insurance. I think it's valid for people to seek faith out of a desire to not go to Hell or some horrible fate, but I think the result when one encounters the divine is much more deep than beliving and doing things to stay out of hell. I have a friend who is Christian and does not believe in Hell. He loves to bring the issue up, especially with conservative Christian types, and then assert that he lives his life of faith and service out of love and giving towards God, while they do so in order to get something from God - a pass from Hell. Perhaps he should be on TBR, it seems lots of people here like to say things to get a rise out of someone else.

 

I highly recommend Where God Lives: The Science of the Paranormal and How Our Brains are Linked to the Universe, by Melvin Morse. Here's a link to Amazon.com's description:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061095044/qid=1137044148/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/104-7260865-7494333?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

 

You gotta love people that make this statement. I think people that do just don't want to accept the fact that Jesus is the Son of God. Why would someone claim to be God, then get sacrificed for that reason only to not be God but yet be labeled a good teacher? I think you either need to accept Him as the Son of God or call Him dellusional.

 

Who do I say that I am?

 

Egg zachary.