The 'imagination' needed to see that essentially 'all the Abrahamic Faiths are one' even although they may differ in some aspects is the same as the 'imagination' needed to see that all human beings are essentially related to one another, even although they may be of differing sizes, shapes, colours, genders, ethnicities, languages , cultures AND religions.
That there is one God, creator of everything, is a shared belief among Christians, Jews, and Muslims.
Just because all these groups believe in a single God, doesn't necessarily mean they grant any level of legitimacy to the fact that any of the other groups believe in a single God. This can run the gamut of a kind of agnostic ambiguity, through believing that some other group gets the attributes of God wrong enough to render any kind of belief invalid, through to the conviction that another group actually believes in a false God.
In the Christian traditions that is probably true among conservative Protestants, especially those who are busy waging the culture war. The official position of the Roman Catholic church is that all monotheists worship the one God, - though non-Christians are wrong to believe there is only one Person.
Thomas Aquinas, hardly a trendy liberal, asserts that the being whose reality is shown in various ways is that which all peoples call god.
Hearkening back to the OP (since we've stretched a full page already), I think there's merit in the idea that while Christianity can claim to be available to everyone, it's not necessarily for everyone. That may well be b/c God chose to provide other vehicles that grant different accesses (read: religion is cultural and geographical). Or, it may be b/c like so many other things throughout human history, Christianity has a shelf life, and it doesn't resonate all that richly any more b/c it's well beyond its use-by date.
Well, Gandhi didn't seem to think it'd even been attempted in the first place ...
Christendom is past its sell-by date. How Christianity survives the collapse of Christendom (or Christendoms) and in what form is an interesting one.
There are those who'd seek to revive it of course, and in the form they think it should take. See Putin. See the various forms of Christian Nationalism in the US and places like Poland and Hungary.
You confuse me. how and why do you think Christianity is past its sell-by date? Are you thinking only of the Western world?
And there's probably a conversation to be had about the whole image of "selling"-- but all in all, I'd rather go back to discussing Christ rather than Christianity, as I'm not at all sure we mean the same thing by Christianity.
Well, Gandhi didn't seem to think it'd even been attempted in the first place ...
Christendom is past its sell-by date. How Christianity survives the collapse of Christendom (or Christendoms) and in what form is an interesting one.
There are those who'd seek to revive it of course, and in the form they think it should take. See Putin. See the various forms of Christian Nationalism in the US and places like Poland and Hungary.
How can Christianity survive, as in endure, Christendom? How has it in 1,700 years? Where? What has it achieved despite Christendom?
You confuse me. how and why do you think Christianity is past its sell-by date? Are you thinking only of the Western world?
And there's probably a conversation to be had about the whole image of "selling"-- but all in all, I'd rather go back to discussing Christ rather than Christianity, as I'm not at all sure we mean the same thing by Christianity.
Well, that's a big part of the problem, right? Christianity hasn't managed to keep itself coherent across the centuries. 30k-40k distinct sects today and counting.
Okay, let me get this straight. You think that because we include any number of different organizational groups, that means we're ... what? Wrong? Outdated? destined for the landfill?
You confuse me. how and why do you think Christianity is past its sell-by date? Are you thinking only of the Western world?
@Gamma Gamaliel said Christendom is past its sell-by date, not Christianity. He can, of course, answer for himself, but I took him to mean “Christendom” in the sense of the Church (in whatever form) connected to and supporting/supported by secular authority.
Okay, let me get this straight. You think that because we include any number of different organizational groups, that means we're ... what? Wrong? Outdated? destined for the landfill?
I'm not getting the logic here.
If this is directed to me, I will say that my own take is that yes, Christianity, in the macro, continues to slide into irrelevancy, and that one of the reasons why is the unbounded broadness with which it seems to be inclusive, though not necessarily on the part of its many adherents. Lord knows the wider church's history is replete with one group excommunicating another, one group proclaiming another to be heretical, denominational splits, etc. Take the low number of 30,000 distinct sects. Is everyone with skin in the game really able to say that all 30,000+ are Christian in common standing? What about these good saints? How many more sects can fit under the straining Christian umbrella? 60,000? 90,000? 120,000? And I'd wager that this goes back to the OP insofar as rather than consider a decidedly different religion, people are much more likely to gently recast a faith in their own image. Hard to know how many times that can happen to a faith before its central tenets are functionally lost, but I'd say Christianity is well on its way. And that's just the infighting.
All this and yet Christendom survives. As mentioned this is a very Western view. When I went to Ghana it was everywhere.
The church has survived several death knells. As I see it there has been a refining. It is no longer the thing you do. So those who do are more dedicated to it.
Sorry for the double post, even if there have been a couple of hours in between. Just wanted to toss out there that at one time I really thought that I'd be better suited to Reformed Judaism than my then United Methodist/Episcopalian association. I enjoyed a number of significant musical engagements with more than one congregation over a handful of years, and they resonated with me very deeply and have stuck with me over time, though never to the point that I ever converted, and not enough to prevent both a nearly full discernment process for the Episcopalian priesthood (which faltered at the penultimate step), and an eventual deconstruction altogether.
Understanding that not everyone views a move from one monotheism to another a bone fide change of religion, I wonder if anyone else would like to share more specific musings about or actions taken toward other faiths.
Also, as trite as it may sound, I have also just recently purchased a book about basic teachings of Buddhism, mostly to try to remedy my glaring ignorance of it, but partly to see what's there.
Well, Gandhi didn't seem to think it'd even been attempted in the first place ...
Christendom is past its sell-by date. How Christianity survives the collapse of Christendom (or Christendoms) and in what form is an interesting one.
There are those who'd seek to revive it of course, and in the form they think it should take. See Putin. See the various forms of Christian Nationalism in the US and places like Poland and Hungary.
How can Christianity survive, as in endure, Christendom? How has it in 1,700 years? Where? What has it achieved despite Christendom?
Those are good questions.
Christianity gave rise to Christendom of course. Eusebius was delighted when the Emperor Constantine converted as it looked like persecution was over and Christianity was taking over the Empire.
It's hard for us to imagine a pre-Christendom Christianity but it did exist and it did spread and grow remarkably quickly.
@Nick Tamen got what I was trying to say. Incidentally, I'm not one of those who believes that Christendom was all bad, but equally I'm very wary of Caesaro-Papism - or Caesaro-Putinism. And the kind of Christian Nationalism discussed on that thread.
I do believe there are good grounds for the idea that Christianity did gradually change the mindset of antiquity into what we might call a more liberal humanist outlook over time. Weare all products of Judeo-Christian influence. And I don't just mean that we've stopped having gladiatorial combat and no longer expose unwanted infants on rubbish tips as the Romans did.
'Could do better' would appear on all our school reports.
None of us are free of our culture or societal backgrounds and expectations. Independent groups that trumpet that they aren't part of Christendom or are not 'religious' are deceiving nobody but themselves.
But somehow we have to be - or become - counter-cultural, to be in the world but not of it.
I've started a few threads recently to explore what that might look like.
Just as you may be in a state of glaring ignorance about the teachings of Buddhism it is also likely that you really know very little about some of the fringe groups which claim to be representatives, and sometime the only representatives of authentic christianity. but I had never heard
I can only understand a little of the many Christian groups in my own area,but I had never heard if the 'good saints' whom the Riv mentions. Each one of us who has a religious faith will inevitably believe that 'our' faith is an authentic one, even if we are not convinced that it is the only true one.
For those who put their faith in Christ they will know that everything boils down to loving God and loving one's neighbour. It is the same for Judaism and for Islam.
Of course culture and politics of 'Christendom' have added much to the mix and Christians,just like Jews and Muslims, have sometimes misunderstood the importance or the lack of importance of certain ideas and customs which have sometimes become woven into the generally accepted traditions in certain countries.
Whatever the teachings of Buddhism and Hinduism and other world religions they will have achieved this status by offering to their faithful the idea of a better way of life.
I would leave out this those groups which have not achieved the status of 'world religions' because they can be seen to be simply perversions of the original which they claim to represent (such as the 'good saints' mentioned by the Riv.
Just as you may be in a state of glaring ignorance about the teachings of Buddhism it is also likely that you really know very little about some of the fringe groups which claim to be representatives, and sometime the only representatives of authentic christianity. but I had never heard
I can only understand a little of the many Christian groups in my own area,but I had never heard if the 'good saints' whom the Riv mentions. Each one of us who has a religious faith will inevitably believe that 'our' faith is an authentic one, even if we are not convinced that it is the only true one.
True enough -- I cannot tell you exactly what the differences are among the 30,000+ sects of Christianity. I only know there are differences, and that they're categorized as Christian. They're easy enough to find, though, I'm sure.
For those who put their faith in Christ they will know that everything boils down to loving God and loving one's neighbour. It is the same for Judaism and for Islam.
Of course culture and politics of 'Christendom' have added much to the mix and Christians, just like Jews and Muslims, have sometimes misunderstood the importance or the lack of importance of certain ideas and customs which have sometimes become woven into the generally accepted traditions in certain countries.
These issues seem to be part and parcel of the faith since its earliest days. Would that it were not so.
Whatever the teachings of Buddhism and Hinduism and other world religions they will have achieved this status by offering to their faithful the idea of a better way of life.
Indeed, which is why changing religions may not matter as much to those who aren't hung up on doctrine and dogma -- that is, if the "truth" of all religions is the same.
Just as you may be in a state of glaring ignorance about the teachings of Buddhism it is also likely that you really know very little about some of the fringe groups which claim to be representatives, and sometime the only representatives of authentic christianity. but I had never heard
I can only understand a little of the many Christian groups in my own area,but I had never heard if the 'good saints' whom the Riv mentions. Each one of us who has a religious faith will inevitably believe that 'our' faith is an authentic one, even if we are not convinced that it is the only true one.
True enough -- I cannot tell you exactly what the differences are among the 30,000+ sects of Christianity. I only know there are differences, and that they're categorized as Christian. They're easy enough to find, though, I'm sure.
For those who put their faith in Christ they will know that everything boils down to loving God and loving one's neighbour. It is the same for Judaism and for Islam.
Of course culture and politics of 'Christendom' have added much to the mix and Christians, just like Jews and Muslims, have sometimes misunderstood the importance or the lack of importance of certain ideas and customs which have sometimes become woven into the generally accepted traditions in certain countries.
These issues seem to be part and parcel of the faith since its earliest days. Would that it were not so.
Whatever the teachings of Buddhism and Hinduism and other world religions they will have achieved this status by offering to their faithful the idea of a better way of life.
Indeed, which is why changing religions may not matter as much to those who aren't hung up on doctrine and dogma -- that is, if the "truth" of all religions is the same.
Love is the truth of religion. The measure of it. Which means how it influences politics. Let me know when you see any.
The second verse of the Didache, an early Christian teaching document says, "The way of life is this: first, you shall love God who created you; second, your neighbour as yourself; all those things which you do not want to be done to you, you should not do to others."
In Micah 6.8 we read, "and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"
Personally those two statements are enough "religion" for me, requiring a lifetime of moment by moment repentance and faith, to even come close. The only thing about them is that they aren't specifically Christian, they could be said with equal conviction by a Jew, a Muslim or a Hindu. believe in Jesus Christ as God Incarnate, but I believe God to be incarnate in all His creation, and that Jesus was a fully realised Incarnation of the divine. I don't necessarily see Him as the only one ever.
While there's some doubt whether or not Lord Krishna was a historical figure, many scholars think he was. In the Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna is deified into the supreme incarnation of Brahman. Yet many Hindus, even of the nondual tradition of Advaita Vedanta, are happy to worship him devotionals.
So, for the same reason, I'm perfectly comfortable worshipping our Creator God through Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom He has been revealed to us. I just don't go in for the exclusive claims of some Christians that theirs is the only way. This of course goes on both between various Christian denominations, as well as between Christianity on the rest of the world. I don't believe God gives exclusive revelation to a tiny minority and condemns the rest of the world to darkness.
Micah 6:8 isn't Christian. The Babylonian Counsels of Wisdom - "Do not return evil to the man who disputes with you; requite with kindness your evil-doer... smile on your adversary." - predate Jesus by 1200 years at least. And Judaism by possibly many centuries.
Love is the truth of religion. The measure of it. Which means how it influences politics.
Some of the best Christian works of love I have seen on this continent are among Christians who work from outside politics. The final result may be social change that includes political change, but they focus on influence from below, confronting systems and politics.
It's hard, slow and may seem counterintuitive. But it is a work of real love.
Love is the truth of religion. The measure of it. Which means how it influences politics.
Some of the best Christian works of love I have seen on this continent are among Christians who work from outside politics. The final result may be social change that includes political change, but they focus on influence from below, confronting systems and politics.
It's hard, slow and may seem counterintuitive. But it is a work of real love.
Just as it did for the its first three hundred years.
Just as you may be in a state of glaring ignorance about the teachings of Buddhism it is also likely that you really know very little about some of the fringe groups which claim to be representatives, and sometime the only representatives of authentic christianity. but I had never heard
I can only understand a little of the many Christian groups in my own area,but I had never heard if the 'good saints' whom the Riv mentions. Each one of us who has a religious faith will inevitably believe that 'our' faith is an authentic one, even if we are not convinced that it is the only true one.
True enough -- I cannot tell you exactly what the differences are among the 30,000+ sects of Christianity. I only know there are differences, and that they're categorized as Christian. They're easy enough to find, though, I'm sure.
For those who put their faith in Christ they will know that everything boils down to loving God and loving one's neighbour. It is the same for Judaism and for Islam.
Of course culture and politics of 'Christendom' have added much to the mix and Christians, just like Jews and Muslims, have sometimes misunderstood the importance or the lack of importance of certain ideas and customs which have sometimes become woven into the generally accepted traditions in certain countries.
These issues seem to be part and parcel of the faith since its earliest days. Would that it were not so.
Whatever the teachings of Buddhism and Hinduism and other world religions they will have achieved this status by offering to their faithful the idea of a better way of life.
Indeed, which is why changing religions may not matter as much to those who aren't hung up on doctrine and dogma -- that is, if the "truth" of all religions is the same.
The problem is that this becomes a very solipsistic, individualistic version of "truth." I used to be something like a perennialist and felt that all religions are true and that the Truest True would be found through engagement with all of the faiths. I came to think of this approach as wrongheaded and arrogant. It seems to me now that truth is much more communal and much more precious. A group of people work together in discovering the truth, in refining it, and eventually in passing it along. If there is a Truest True then I think it would come out of a set of propositional truths that have to be meditated upon and understood, but those propositional truths are localized and particular and can only be realized within the the confines of one particular truth community.
@Thomas Rowans
As someone who is still a perennialist, I think the danger of moving closer to the confines of one particular truth community, is that the more dogmatic and particular you get, the more people you leave beyond the pale. The Catholic Church has always taught extra ecclesiam, nulla salus. Although the definition of outside the Church was softened at Vatican II, it still stands as doctrine.
My Protestants including my late father who was a born again Baptist, believe Catholics and Orthodox Christians practice magic ceremonies and idolatry. Any convert to Orthodoxy is required to repent of having worshipped in a Church broken off from original Christianity. So most Christians won't even accept other Christians who do things differently from themselves, let alone the rest of the world.
However we define God, He has communicated truth to all people and cultures, dependent on their ability to receive Him. Those enlightened beings who have communicated this to the world have had their teachings obfuscated, fossilised into dogma and misunderstood by their followers, usually in pursuit of power. Fortunately enough truth still shines through if we are prepared to look for it with open minds.
@Thomas Rowans
As someone who is still a perennialist, I think the danger of moving closer to the confines of one particular truth community, is that the more dogmatic and particular you get, the more people you leave beyond the pale. The Catholic Church has always taught extra ecclesiam, nulla salus. Although the definition of outside the Church was softened at Vatican II, it still stands as doctrine.
My Protestants including my late father who was a born again Baptist, believe Catholics and Orthodox Christians practice magic ceremonies and idolatry. Any convert to Orthodoxy is required to repent of having worshipped in a Church broken off from original Christianity. So most Christians won't even accept other Christians who do things differently from themselves, let alone the rest of the world.
However we define God, He has communicated truth to all people and cultures, dependent on their ability to receive Him. Those enlightened beings who have communicated this to the world have had their teachings obfuscated, fossilised into dogma and misunderstood by their followers, usually in pursuit of power. Fortunately enough truth still shines through if we are prepared to look for it with open minds.
I'm going to push back on the claim that the Catholic Church has always taught there is no salvation outside the church. The doctrine as it developed in the Fathers was limited to particular circumstances, and they also had a very large understanding of what constituted the church. Origen wrote approvingly of that doctrine, but he was also a universalist, so that gives an indication of just how differently the Fathers thought about the matter. Aquinas makes allowances for salvation outside the precise confines of the church as well, although the later Thomist tradition reworks that.
What does it mean to evaluate a truth claim divorced from a community that subscribed to that truth and presented it? For sure, all religions contain truth, but what those truths precisely are is difficult to determine.
How would you evaluate this? You have a god's eye view of everything?
By evaluating. Why do you ask that second question?
To claim to evaluate all of the truth claims of all of the religions and find them all equivalent would require the evaluator to understand the claims within their particular instantiations and then understand those particular instantiations against the universal picture of reality that we all live and move in. It seems like a big claim, but I'm probably misunderstanding what it means to evaluate such claims.
What argument? All distinctly religious truth claims are equally false by definition. None can be more false than any other can they?
Indeed, what argument! As far as I can tell, no argument has been advanced to show that all "distinctly religious truth claims are false by definition." So, an impasse.
It may be a tangent but, based on my own experience, it seems possible to make journeys in faith and change one’s mind about received truth. Where I am now is largely a result of reading James Barr’s book “Fundamentalism”, which did a pretty good job of shooting holes in many of the beliefs I was taught were true. I discovered what I had been growing aware of, that conservative evangelicalism was the wrong religion for me. And for about 2 years I gave up on church and Christianity.
But Christianity hadn’t actually given up on me! So I began a process of rediscovery, which has led me to where I am today. I am happy to have tossed out the bath water but remain convinced there’s still a baby there!
I’m happy to describe myself as Christian. The church where I worship is far from perfect, but noticeably kind. Christian agape love is still to be found there, still practised there.
I’ve recently discovered a new term, from a book by Sarah McCammon, entitled “The Exvangelicals” in which she describes her own journey of escape from the bath water. It reminds me of the late Rachel Held Evans whose writings describe a similar journey.
A Baptist minister observed that as a result of his own journey he now believed less than he once did. But what he now believed, he believed more profoundly. I relate to that. I think part of growing up in the faith is important for all of us. As a result we may make surprising connections with people of other faiths and none.
If Christianity (for some value of "Christianity") is true then it must work for everyone.
Could you flesh this out, please? I guess I would need to know what you mean by "true" and "work for" and maybe also "everyone." Well, ok. Even "Christianity".
Aargh. Like many philosophical concepts it is easier to use those concepts than to explain them.
To be true is to say of reality what is real and the case. If something is true then it is the case independent of the believer (except in those cases where it is about the believer). I think it's fundamental to the concept of truth than it holds for everyone.
By everyone I mean all human beings, but presumably also any aliens, paranormal entities, artificial intelligences, and so on that may exist. If something is the case then it is the case. (Caveats about whether if lions could talk we could understand them apply: if a creature has a completely different form of life it might just not be able to grasp the concepts we apply to the world and vice versa.)
By work for, I take KarlL to mean aid in achieving the human good or human fulfilment. If Christianity is true and the end goal of human life is to know and love God, then that is the end goal of all created things in so far as they are able to do so.
As for what is Christianity, well, that's a whole thread in itself. I wouldn't want to endorse Christianity as white American nationalists understand it to be, for example.
And after about a week, Kendel, American of course, emerges from left field. Sorry. There are 3 (I think it's 3) similar threads going on at the same time. I hope this hasn't all been covered in one or the other. I can't keep track.
There's a lot on my mind lately.
I wanted to come back to "work for":
By work for, I take KarlL to mean aid in achieving the human good or human fulfilment. If Christianity is true and the end goal of human life is to know and love God, then that is the end goal of all created things in so far as they are able to do so.
which I think must be tied to what Christianity is.
(Which is not "christian" nationalism of any kind).
Your description of Christianity "working for" someone sounds very much like the way I think about health (and "health") treatments. If homeopathy, chiropractics, aspirin, antibiotics, etc. are "true," they will work for their prescribed uses at least most the time. Understandably, there are factors in health treatments that affect outcomes. But faith should not be a factor in medicine. Assuming I actually receive it, homeopathy works or not, whether I believe it does or not.
But is Christianity entirely like that? You mentioned a few things:
aid in achieving the human good or human fulfilment
the end goal of human life is to know and love God
If the end goal of human life is to know and love God, doesn't that imply a relationship? I think that would involve something other than an individual submitting to "treatment" and the relationship "working." For a relationship to exist there needs to be some understanding of the other person and desire to be in relationship with that person. In the case of Christianity (as I know it) an individual has to have some kind of faith that God exists and find that a relationship with God is desirable. Doesn't she?
Your description of "work for" as "aid in achieving the human good or human fulfillment" strikes me as impersonal, particularly the first part, particularly, because I think there is a relationship involved. I think it's normal to pursue all sorts of relationships because they are fulfilling, hopefully mutually so. So this makes sense to me. Maybe I'm not sure what is meant by human good.
I know that none of this gets to answering KarlLB's question. And I'm sorry that I don't have a solution for him, or anyone else I've ever known who's been frustrated in the same way.
What's interesting about that is I'd say one of the things that absolutely doesn't work for me is the concept of knowing God. You need dialogue for that, dialogue where you don’t get to make up both sides in your head; dialogue where one side doesn't consist of Bible quotes dragged into play, but real dialogue.
That's the missing bit. And that's why I ask the question about whether it *really* works for everyone.
I understand what you're talking about, @KarlLB -- probably every post of yours that I've read. I wish I had a way to solve this that I could share with you. I don't.
I would be terrified, if I thought I heard God speaking to me. I know people who do seek it, and believe they have heard God's voice or spoken with heavenly languages themselves. This is not me. I'm stuck with biblical texts. I'm not a fan of "proof texting" like we're opening fortune cookies. I just keep studying and trying to learn and understand.
I wish I could recommend something that works for you.
'Knowing God' ™ is a belief. Is a projection of an idealized self. Not to somebody in your head who isn't you. Although it feels like it is. We've all been there.
'Knowing God' ™ is a belief. Is a projection of an idealized self. Not to somebody in your head who isn't you. Although it feels like it is. We've all been there.
It's an interesting view. But Jung argued that it projects the Self, (big self) which sounds reasonable to me. Some Zen teachers draw a circle with a dot in middle, dot is you, circle is cosmos. However ...
My lived experience of God has been fleeting moments of insight observing demonstrations of love and and an experience where I felt called to minister.
I "know" these things in the sense I know things about how I feel about members of my family. It is not scientific knowledge but it is the kind of knowledge I build my life around. Way more so than my knowledge about roughly how far aways the sun is in light years.
Nor is it really a choice, in the sense that I choose a career.
'Knowing God' ™ is a belief. Is a projection of an idealized self. Not to somebody in your head who isn't you. Although it feels like it is. We've all been there.
Even from within belief, I think "projection of an idealized (or otherwise) self", is part of it, as I think is true of any relationship - even with humans we know best. We fill in the gaps without noticing, creating people according to our own inclination. As I do with all of you -- incomplete, skewed portraits.
If one is inclined, as I am, to seek what might be known about God from the texts I use, I have to recognize all sorts of factors involved, including the texts, their nature and history, as well as the nature of enculturated reading and human psychology. Fundamentalism has been impossible for me for a long time.
If God is a projection of an idealised self then why do so many believers seem to have such a harsh view of God?
There's been a lot written about this, not so much about God as the harshness some people show and believe in. Apart from harsh parents there is also the projection of the child's rage. Why rage? Long story.
If God is a projection of an idealized self, then it’s sure as hell not MYself. For one thing, he comes up with stuff that I never would have imagined in my wildest dreams. I took the latest of these … disconcerting replies?… to the counselor I’m seeing for Issues™ related to my childhood, and without prompting she too commented on the very unexpectedness of his (very rare) comments. In fact she uses that quality as a marker that it wasn’t her own mind popping up something. In my experience they’re almost always super short, absolutely in the money once you think for a bit—but totally out of left field. FWIW.
Comments
Thomas Aquinas, hardly a trendy liberal, asserts that the being whose reality is shown in various ways is that which all peoples call god.
Christendom is past its sell-by date. How Christianity survives the collapse of Christendom (or Christendoms) and in what form is an interesting one.
There are those who'd seek to revive it of course, and in the form they think it should take. See Putin. See the various forms of Christian Nationalism in the US and places like Poland and Hungary.
And there's probably a conversation to be had about the whole image of "selling"-- but all in all, I'd rather go back to discussing Christ rather than Christianity, as I'm not at all sure we mean the same thing by Christianity.
How can Christianity survive, as in endure, Christendom? How has it in 1,700 years? Where? What has it achieved despite Christendom?
Well, that's a big part of the problem, right? Christianity hasn't managed to keep itself coherent across the centuries. 30k-40k distinct sects today and counting.
I'm not getting the logic here.
If this is directed to me, I will say that my own take is that yes, Christianity, in the macro, continues to slide into irrelevancy, and that one of the reasons why is the unbounded broadness with which it seems to be inclusive, though not necessarily on the part of its many adherents. Lord knows the wider church's history is replete with one group excommunicating another, one group proclaiming another to be heretical, denominational splits, etc. Take the low number of 30,000 distinct sects. Is everyone with skin in the game really able to say that all 30,000+ are Christian in common standing? What about these good saints? How many more sects can fit under the straining Christian umbrella? 60,000? 90,000? 120,000? And I'd wager that this goes back to the OP insofar as rather than consider a decidedly different religion, people are much more likely to gently recast a faith in their own image. Hard to know how many times that can happen to a faith before its central tenets are functionally lost, but I'd say Christianity is well on its way. And that's just the infighting.
The church has survived several death knells. As I see it there has been a refining. It is no longer the thing you do. So those who do are more dedicated to it.
Understanding that not everyone views a move from one monotheism to another a bone fide change of religion, I wonder if anyone else would like to share more specific musings about or actions taken toward other faiths.
Also, as trite as it may sound, I have also just recently purchased a book about basic teachings of Buddhism, mostly to try to remedy my glaring ignorance of it, but partly to see what's there.
Those are good questions.
Christianity gave rise to Christendom of course. Eusebius was delighted when the Emperor Constantine converted as it looked like persecution was over and Christianity was taking over the Empire.
It's hard for us to imagine a pre-Christendom Christianity but it did exist and it did spread and grow remarkably quickly.
@Nick Tamen got what I was trying to say. Incidentally, I'm not one of those who believes that Christendom was all bad, but equally I'm very wary of Caesaro-Papism - or Caesaro-Putinism. And the kind of Christian Nationalism discussed on that thread.
I do believe there are good grounds for the idea that Christianity did gradually change the mindset of antiquity into what we might call a more liberal humanist outlook over time. Weare all products of Judeo-Christian influence. And I don't just mean that we've stopped having gladiatorial combat and no longer expose unwanted infants on rubbish tips as the Romans did.
'Could do better' would appear on all our school reports.
None of us are free of our culture or societal backgrounds and expectations. Independent groups that trumpet that they aren't part of Christendom or are not 'religious' are deceiving nobody but themselves.
But somehow we have to be - or become - counter-cultural, to be in the world but not of it.
I've started a few threads recently to explore what that might look like.
I can only understand a little of the many Christian groups in my own area,but I had never heard if the 'good saints' whom the Riv mentions. Each one of us who has a religious faith will inevitably believe that 'our' faith is an authentic one, even if we are not convinced that it is the only true one.
For those who put their faith in Christ they will know that everything boils down to loving God and loving one's neighbour. It is the same for Judaism and for Islam.
Of course culture and politics of 'Christendom' have added much to the mix and Christians,just like Jews and Muslims, have sometimes misunderstood the importance or the lack of importance of certain ideas and customs which have sometimes become woven into the generally accepted traditions in certain countries.
Whatever the teachings of Buddhism and Hinduism and other world religions they will have achieved this status by offering to their faithful the idea of a better way of life.
I would leave out this those groups which have not achieved the status of 'world religions' because they can be seen to be simply perversions of the original which they claim to represent (such as the 'good saints' mentioned by the Riv.
These issues seem to be part and parcel of the faith since its earliest days. Would that it were not so.
Indeed, which is why changing religions may not matter as much to those who aren't hung up on doctrine and dogma -- that is, if the "truth" of all religions is the same.
Love is the truth of religion. The measure of it. Which means how it influences politics. Let me know when you see any.
In Micah 6.8 we read, "and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"
Personally those two statements are enough "religion" for me, requiring a lifetime of moment by moment repentance and faith, to even come close. The only thing about them is that they aren't specifically Christian, they could be said with equal conviction by a Jew, a Muslim or a Hindu. believe in Jesus Christ as God Incarnate, but I believe God to be incarnate in all His creation, and that Jesus was a fully realised Incarnation of the divine. I don't necessarily see Him as the only one ever.
While there's some doubt whether or not Lord Krishna was a historical figure, many scholars think he was. In the Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna is deified into the supreme incarnation of Brahman. Yet many Hindus, even of the nondual tradition of Advaita Vedanta, are happy to worship him devotionals.
So, for the same reason, I'm perfectly comfortable worshipping our Creator God through Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom He has been revealed to us. I just don't go in for the exclusive claims of some Christians that theirs is the only way. This of course goes on both between various Christian denominations, as well as between Christianity on the rest of the world. I don't believe God gives exclusive revelation to a tiny minority and condemns the rest of the world to darkness.
Some of the best Christian works of love I have seen on this continent are among Christians who work from outside politics. The final result may be social change that includes political change, but they focus on influence from below, confronting systems and politics.
It's hard, slow and may seem counterintuitive. But it is a work of real love.
Just as it did for the its first three hundred years.
The problem is that this becomes a very solipsistic, individualistic version of "truth." I used to be something like a perennialist and felt that all religions are true and that the Truest True would be found through engagement with all of the faiths. I came to think of this approach as wrongheaded and arrogant. It seems to me now that truth is much more communal and much more precious. A group of people work together in discovering the truth, in refining it, and eventually in passing it along. If there is a Truest True then I think it would come out of a set of propositional truths that have to be meditated upon and understood, but those propositional truths are localized and particular and can only be realized within the the confines of one particular truth community.
I know that Micah is OT and therefore not Christian. I just point out that it's enough for me, being stripped of dogma, but a way of living.
As someone who is still a perennialist, I think the danger of moving closer to the confines of one particular truth community, is that the more dogmatic and particular you get, the more people you leave beyond the pale. The Catholic Church has always taught extra ecclesiam, nulla salus. Although the definition of outside the Church was softened at Vatican II, it still stands as doctrine.
My Protestants including my late father who was a born again Baptist, believe Catholics and Orthodox Christians practice magic ceremonies and idolatry. Any convert to Orthodoxy is required to repent of having worshipped in a Church broken off from original Christianity. So most Christians won't even accept other Christians who do things differently from themselves, let alone the rest of the world.
However we define God, He has communicated truth to all people and cultures, dependent on their ability to receive Him. Those enlightened beings who have communicated this to the world have had their teachings obfuscated, fossilised into dogma and misunderstood by their followers, usually in pursuit of power. Fortunately enough truth still shines through if we are prepared to look for it with open minds.
How would you evaluate this? You have a god's eye view of everything?
I'm going to push back on the claim that the Catholic Church has always taught there is no salvation outside the church. The doctrine as it developed in the Fathers was limited to particular circumstances, and they also had a very large understanding of what constituted the church. Origen wrote approvingly of that doctrine, but he was also a universalist, so that gives an indication of just how differently the Fathers thought about the matter. Aquinas makes allowances for salvation outside the precise confines of the church as well, although the later Thomist tradition reworks that.
What does it mean to evaluate a truth claim divorced from a community that subscribed to that truth and presented it? For sure, all religions contain truth, but what those truths precisely are is difficult to determine.
By evaluating. Why do you ask that second question?
To claim to evaluate all of the truth claims of all of the religions and find them all equivalent would require the evaluator to understand the claims within their particular instantiations and then understand those particular instantiations against the universal picture of reality that we all live and move in. It seems like a big claim, but I'm probably misunderstanding what it means to evaluate such claims.
What argument? All distinctly religious truth claims are equally false by definition. None can be more false than any other can they?
Indeed, what argument! As far as I can tell, no argument has been advanced to show that all "distinctly religious truth claims are false by definition." So, an impasse.
But Christianity hadn’t actually given up on me! So I began a process of rediscovery, which has led me to where I am today. I am happy to have tossed out the bath water but remain convinced there’s still a baby there!
I’m happy to describe myself as Christian. The church where I worship is far from perfect, but noticeably kind. Christian agape love is still to be found there, still practised there.
I’ve recently discovered a new term, from a book by Sarah McCammon, entitled “The Exvangelicals” in which she describes her own journey of escape from the bath water. It reminds me of the late Rachel Held Evans whose writings describe a similar journey.
A Baptist minister observed that as a result of his own journey he now believed less than he once did. But what he now believed, he believed more profoundly. I relate to that. I think part of growing up in the faith is important for all of us. As a result we may make surprising connections with people of other faiths and none.
And after about a week, Kendel, American of course, emerges from left field. Sorry. There are 3 (I think it's 3) similar threads going on at the same time. I hope this hasn't all been covered in one or the other. I can't keep track.
There's a lot on my mind lately.
I wanted to come back to "work for": which I think must be tied to what Christianity is.
(Which is not "christian" nationalism of any kind).
Your description of Christianity "working for" someone sounds very much like the way I think about health (and "health") treatments. If homeopathy, chiropractics, aspirin, antibiotics, etc. are "true," they will work for their prescribed uses at least most the time. Understandably, there are factors in health treatments that affect outcomes. But faith should not be a factor in medicine. Assuming I actually receive it, homeopathy works or not, whether I believe it does or not.
But is Christianity entirely like that? You mentioned a few things:
If the end goal of human life is to know and love God, doesn't that imply a relationship? I think that would involve something other than an individual submitting to "treatment" and the relationship "working." For a relationship to exist there needs to be some understanding of the other person and desire to be in relationship with that person. In the case of Christianity (as I know it) an individual has to have some kind of faith that God exists and find that a relationship with God is desirable. Doesn't she?
Your description of "work for" as "aid in achieving the human good or human fulfillment" strikes me as impersonal, particularly the first part, particularly, because I think there is a relationship involved. I think it's normal to pursue all sorts of relationships because they are fulfilling, hopefully mutually so. So this makes sense to me. Maybe I'm not sure what is meant by human good.
I know that none of this gets to answering KarlLB's question. And I'm sorry that I don't have a solution for him, or anyone else I've ever known who's been frustrated in the same way.
I understand what you're talking about, @KarlLB -- probably every post of yours that I've read. I wish I had a way to solve this that I could share with you. I don't.
I would be terrified, if I thought I heard God speaking to me. I know people who do seek it, and believe they have heard God's voice or spoken with heavenly languages themselves. This is not me. I'm stuck with biblical texts. I'm not a fan of "proof texting" like we're opening fortune cookies. I just keep studying and trying to learn and understand.
I wish I could recommend something that works for you.
It's an interesting view. But Jung argued that it projects the Self, (big self) which sounds reasonable to me. Some Zen teachers draw a circle with a dot in middle, dot is you, circle is cosmos. However ...
I "know" these things in the sense I know things about how I feel about members of my family. It is not scientific knowledge but it is the kind of knowledge I build my life around. Way more so than my knowledge about roughly how far aways the sun is in light years.
Nor is it really a choice, in the sense that I choose a career.
Even from within belief, I think "projection of an idealized (or otherwise) self", is part of it, as I think is true of any relationship - even with humans we know best. We fill in the gaps without noticing, creating people according to our own inclination. As I do with all of you -- incomplete, skewed portraits.
If one is inclined, as I am, to seek what might be known about God from the texts I use, I have to recognize all sorts of factors involved, including the texts, their nature and history, as well as the nature of enculturated reading and human psychology. Fundamentalism has been impossible for me for a long time.
But you know all this already, @Martin54 .
Potty training.
There's been a lot written about this, not so much about God as the harshness some people show and believe in. Apart from harsh parents there is also the projection of the child's rage. Why rage? Long story.