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One Love
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| Posted 12/20/2009 12:34 PM (GMT -6) |   | | Tash from "Narnia"
Emeth, who expects Tash to smite unbelievers with heavenly fire, goes searching for Tash in Aslan's Country, but instead meets Aslan. Aslan tells Emeth 'all the service thou hast done to Tash, I accept as service done to me' and further explains 'no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him'. He explains that Emeth's pious devotion was really to Aslan, rather than to Tash, although Emeth had not been aware of this, and Emeth finds great happiness in this revelation.
Let's do the "God's economy" remix...
Swami Kabir, a practitioner of Bhakti Yoga who expects Krishna* to show up, goes searching for Krishna in Christ's Country, but instead meets Christ. Christ tells Kabir 'all the service that you have done to Krishna, I accept as service done to me' and further explains 'no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him'. He explains that Swami Kabir's pious devotion was really to Christ, rather than to Krishna, although Kabir had not been aware of this, and Kabir finds great happiness in this revelation.
*"Fill thy mind with Me, be My devotee, sacrifice unto Me, bow down to Me; thus having made thy heart steadfast in Me, taking Me as the Supreme Goal, thou shalt come to Me."
--Krishna
Does this work? If not, why not?
I. D. G. A. F.
Christ is All.
"God resists the proud, and give His grace to the humble." | | Back to Top | | |
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Asher
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| Posted 12/20/2009 8:58 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 12/20/2009 11:18 PM (GMT -6) | | Cool. 
Anyone else?
I. D. G. A. F.
Christ is All.
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One Love
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| Posted 12/21/2009 11:59 AM (GMT -6) | | Well, if post-mortem evangelism is true...AND...if God's economy towards the "unchurched" can be likened unto that granted to the Church ("economy according to leniency" in the case of accepting the baptism of non-Orthodox)...
Then I could easily see God doing what the Church does: Accepting one's religious activity, not in and of itself, but as demonstration of the HEART TOWARDS GOD demonstrated. God is then "lenient" and let's them into his kingdom.
If EO can let "unbaptized" people into the Church with their old "baptisms", then what? Is the Church more graceful than God Himself?
I. D. G. A. F.
Christ is All.
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One Love
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| Posted 3/4/2010 1:58 AM (GMT -6) | | | Mahatma Ghandi
"The Way to God"
I loved the first part...Ghandi's grandson writes...
When Grandfather confessed to his Christian friends how much he was impressed by the Sermon on the Mount he was asked. "Why don't you become a Christian?" "When you convince me that all Christians live according to the Sermon on the Mount, I will be the first to change my religion," he responded.
You know, some Christians actually believe that this man is going to some eternal hell away from God for being a Hindu. I think Piper would say that. Hmmm...
If Ghandi's not a "Emeth" type situation...I don't know who is.
Post Edited (One Love) : 3/4/2010 1:12:23 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 3/4/2010 3:46 PM (GMT -6) | | Corey:
Just to prod this a little... doesn't the criteria he imposed ("convince me that all Christians live according[ly]" ) demonstrate something negative about his faith picture of God and his faith picture of man? Is this the sort of faith the pleases God?
I think he was saying something about religious practice and truth. If Christians cannot maintain their own standards (being like Christ), why should he step our of his religious practice, where he CAN (and did) be like Christ as far as he was able.
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Corey:
Speaking of "God is then 'lenient' and let's them into his kingdom." Ghandi apparently did not share this sort of faith: one that expects love, mercy, grace on sinful people. I suspect that sort of leniency would would have been quite unappealing to him; non-devout people ought not be considered "in".
Ghandi's own perspective about God...his own words.
8. His (God's) Infinite Mercy
God is, even though the whole world deny him. God embraces not only this tiny globe of ours, but millions and billions of such globes. How can we--little crawling creatures so utterly helpless as he has made us--how could we possibly measure his greatness, his boundless love, his infinite compassion? So great is his infinite love and pity that he allows man insolently to deny him, wrangle about him, and cut the throats of his fellow men. How can we measure the greatness of God, who is so forgiving, so divine?
He allows us freedom and yet his compassion commands obedience to his will. But if anyone of us disdains to bow to his will, he says: "So be it. My sun will shine no less for thee. My clouds will rain no less for thee. I need not force thee to accept my sway." Of such a God let the ignorant dispute the existence. I am one of the millions of wise men who believe in him and am never tired of bowing to him and singing his glory.
God is the hardest taskmaster I have known on earth. He tries you through and thorugh. And when you find your faith failing, or your body failing you and you are sinking, he comes to your assistance somehow or other and proves to you that you must not lose your faith, and that he is always at your beck and call, but on his terms. So I have found. I cannot recall a single instance when, at the eleventh hour, he has foresaken me.
As I see it, if post-mortem evangelism is true, it will just be revealed to Ghandi that all of the dedication that he gave to "Rama" from childhood up was accepted by the one Triune God as unto him. Just like Aslan accepted Emeth's service to Tash as unto himself. And I think that Ghandi would have "great happiness in this revelation." 
Post Edited (One Love) : 3/4/2010 2:53:24 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 3/4/2010 3:54 PM (GMT -6) | | | All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) This will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.
If the "requirements" are loving God with all one's heart...and loving the neighbor as oneself...I think Ghandi's expressed faith in God was pretty good on that. N'est pas?
But he's going to (IN?) hell because he was a self-proclaimed Hindu. Yeaaaaaah...
Post Edited (One Love) : 3/4/2010 2:58:38 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 3/4/2010 4:06 PM (GMT -6) | | I particularly like this. It's an interesting blend of self-interest and other(God)-centeredness. Also in "The Way To God"
Service Meant for Self-realization
I am here to serve no one but myself, to find my own self-realization through the service of these village folk. Man's ultimate aim is the realization of God, and all his activities--social, political, religious--have to be guided by the ultimate aim of the vision of God. The immediate service of human beings becomes a necessary part of the endeavor, simply because the only way to find God is to see him in his creation and be one with it. This can only be done through one's country. I am part and parcel of the whole, and I cannot find him (God) apart from the rest of humanity. My countrymen are my nearest neighbors. They have become so helpless, so resourceless, so inert that I must concentrate on serving them. If I could persuade myself that I should find him in a Himalayan cave, I would proceed there immediately. But I know that I cannot find him apart from humanity.
Ghandi seems on point...looking at Scripture...
"We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his [neighbor], he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his [neighbor], whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his [neighbor]."
"Whatever you have done for the least of these, you have done it for Me."
Post Edited (One Love) : 3/4/2010 3:11:14 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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| Posted 3/11/2010 10:10 PM (GMT -6) | | | What about the idea that those who seek God find Him? Doesn't that imply that seekers will receive revelation from God? Scripture is full of verses indicating that God DESIRES that we KNOW Him as intimately as possible. So I find it hard to believe that God would leave a genuine seeker in the dark. But truly if one acts virtuously, he/she will be better off in the judgment for that fact, whether or not they are seeking God in said virtue. That much seems obvious.
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Similitude
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| Posted 3/12/2010 12:12 PM (GMT -6) | | | D: If Christians cannot maintain their own standards (being like Christ), why should he step our of his religious practice, where he CAN (and did) be like Christ as far as he was able.
J: Just curious; did Ghandi consider his practice more Christ-like than that of the average professing Christian?
I guess my thing is that the Christian faith is not about a practice; it's about who is Lord. The practice follows FROM that belief of who is Lord. For if Christ is not Lord, what difference does it make what he said--either directly or indirectly via his apostles (or to use Christ's words, "why call ye me "lord, lord," and do not what I say?)? In that case his words should be considered critically in terms of our own inductive reasoning rather than taken as authoritative.
Obviously there is inductive reasoning involved in interpreting the meaning of one's words. But there is a difference between using induction to INTERPRET the meaning of one who you assume is authoritative and inductively judging the PLAUSIBILITY of the truth claims of one who you don't deem as authoritative. If Ghandi considered Christ authoritative, then it is hard to see how he could inductively infer that without taking as valid the claims of his lordship as well. The writers of the NT were either giving us significantly accurate accounts of what Christ said, or they weren't. It is not rational (inductively speaking) to pick and choose from witnesses based on one's own predilections.
But I definitely think there is SOME legitimacy to making inferences about what Christianity means from the practice of professing Christians if you don't have the source texts that those professing Christians are supposedly using to infer the correct practice. But if you DO have those source texts, it is irrational to judge Christ's teachings by something other than his own words. Just as it would be irrational for me to judge the practice taught by Mohammed by what terrorists do unless I can see in the Koran that such practice is enjoined by Mohammed, himself.
Post Edited (Similtude) : 3/12/2010 11:15:34 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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