[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]

Re: Christianity

At 08:34 PM 5/14/96 -0500, you wrote:
>I stumbled across your sight tonight when things were moving too slowly at my usual Christian chatsight 
>*smile* and was pleased to find someone who seemed to share some of my concerns about the narrowness of 
>the organized Christian community.

Gary,

I too am pleased whenever I get affirming notes such as yours.  I hope that what I have offered here (as "non-graphic" as it is,  and still as incomplete as it is) can do for many others what you expressed:  that is,  to point to the many dimensions of the church that have not given in to various cultural and socio-economic pressures to water down the gospel.  

I have found it so difficult to find people who can find their way through the messages we are bombarded with to recognize that the gospel questions nearly all that we have learned,  particularly a lot of what we have learned "in church" and from Western theology.  


  I am not a theologian, but I have tried to pay attention to the 
>writings that I have believed the Holy Spirit sent my way and have been deeply influenced by C.S.Lewis, 
>M.Scott Peck, and Hannah Hurnell. In my almost 20 years as a Christian, I have seen so much emphasis on 
>correctness of doctrine and so little on the Love of Christ; my own son is repulsed by the very word 
>"Christian" simply because of the ugliness he has seen within the Christian community.

I too,   see many acquaintances with similar revulsions toward the church as they have known it


  Because I believe 
>in the concept of the Body of Christ, and the need for the fellowship of believers, I have struggled to 
>remain within the only representation of that Body that has been available to me (the Church) but it has 
>been very difficult

I hear and deeply identify.  If you look at some of the material I have written on "Servant Leadership School" I have been involved with since last fall,  you will get a glimpse of what I have experienced as my one and only "Community" (in the face to face sense) over the past 5 years since I left Seminary.  Although I stay in contact with Seminary classmates and teachers,  and have met face to face with my online classmates on a couple of occasions,   nothing else of a sustained,  regular nature like that I envision that the Church should provide has been present for me.  http://www.iac.net/~dlature/cmcenter/slsbroch.html   describes the Servat Leadership School as it was presented to me last fall,  and at http://www.iac.net/~dlature/cmcenter/slgroup.html
I describe a bit of my hope that this face to face group will help me to root my online community efforts in the realities of face to face relationship struggles in listening to others,  discerning theirs and our own gifts,  and both enabling others and allowing ourselves to  be enabled by others.   


, and I generally either have to keep my beliefs to myself or risk offending and 
>alienating those I consider my brethren.  I am not familiar with the writings of Mr.Fox, but I do believe 
>that Christ is someone much bigger than the ideas I hear expressed in church.

Yes,  for me,  Fox has articulated quite well the concept of spirituality as "more than" or "beyond" the bounds in which we normally,  often narrowly confine,  the experience of the center of all being.  I would heartily encourage your investigating a book such as "Coming of the Cosmic Christ",  "Creation Spirituality" and his latest,  a biography called "Confessions: The Making of a Post-Denominational Priest"

  In fact, I recently shocked 
>a fellow chatter by saying that I often feel closer in spirit to some of the pagans who enter the 
>Lighthouse (chatroom - I turned to the chatroom hoping to find more openmindedness than I have found in my 
>congregation) than to many who call themselves Christian.

I resonate with that one as well.  It is certainly true for me.  (Although I am very fortunate to have quite a few in line who have helped to bring me to the point where I can see the beauty and spirituality of the "non-believers" (as the narrowly-evangelistic so often refer to them).
 

  I find witness in my spirit with many of the 
>things you said, and I wish you success.  May God's blessing go before you.

Gary,   thank you again.   I hope you will check back and stay in dialogue.  I really believe this online rush is going to help broaden the reach of community (and it will also ,  paradoxically,  move others further into isolation).   I believe that many who have been "stifled" in some way by the church can discover online some community with others like them whom they can find by "searching" (in a spiritual sense AND  a technological/software sense through tools such as Yahoo,  WebCrawler,  Excite,  etc.)

Dale