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selah
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1210
| Posted 4/29/2005 6:19 AM (GMT -6) |   | Hi guys,
This is the most exciting stuff I think I've ever studied! You gotta read about it and let me know your thoughts.
I don't want to say too much, but I'll say this: WHY DO WE CONTINUE TO FOCUS ON PATHOLOGY WHEN WE COULD BE
FOCUSING ON THIS? (see article below)
Love IS the "Ground of Being" ...who can deny that? Really, I'm feelin' the passion...can you tell 
Also, please help me out if you can. What is distinctive about Christ if this is true? Anything? (this relates to my "problem" with universalism meph - help me out!) There's something in me that knows this research is IT (I'll probably sink my brain into it the rest of my life!!!), but there's also something in me that holds back from accepting the notion that all religious paths lead to the same reality of love...
What the heck IS that?
semi-limited love,
selah
Enjoy:
{bold mine}
Works of Love: A Newsletter from the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love
President's Corner
DEAR FRIENDS:
The Institute for Research on Unlimited Love was founded in 2001 with a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation. It focuses on love. Not any kind of love, mind you, but deeply unselfish love for others without exception - the kind of love enshrined in the golden rule, and encouraged by the world's great moral and spiritual traditions.
Approach: The Institute provides competitive awards for high-level scientific research; for course development in colleges, universities and secondary schools; and for essay and book publication. It convenes conferences that bring together exemplary practitioners of unselfish love, scientists, scholars, and educators to dialogue on the prospects for a better human future.
Research: Visionary research does alter the human future. Many of the major improvements in the human condition emerged from paradigm-shifting research. For example, once no one believed that polio could be prevented, but a small group of researchers went on to change human history. In a time when group conflict, rudeness, selfishness, and hatred are so evident in the world, and when the technologies of destruction are so vast, we owe it to the human future to bring the best methods of science to the study of that which is most good. It is urgent that we learn how to enhance the human potential for a love that affords for all humanity the full moral and spiritual significance that we otherwise acknowledge only for ourselves, or for those most like us.
With support from the Templeton Foundation, the Institute has funded nearly 50 scientific research projects at universities including Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton , and Case Western Reserve University . The questions being addressed are important to us all. How, for example, can we raise children who shape their lives around unselfish love and the service of humanity? How can we develop cultural and educational environments that foster such behavior? Is it true that kind and benevolent people generally experience higher levels of well-being, happiness, and health? How can love be made more lasting in marriage and family life? How do individuals whose loved ones have been killed or maimed manage not to succumb to hatred? Where does spirituality come into the practice of love and justice? Is unselfish love - understood evolutionarily, developmentally, and spiritually - the deeper and most fulfilling ground of human nature? How do catastrophies like 9/11 or the tsunami wave elicit such compassionate responses? Can we better understand rescuers who put their lives on the line for perfect strangers? Is love the "Ground of Being" that philosophers and mystics speak of perennially?
The Institute has recently moved forward with new research initiatives. First, several new research projects that examine the impact of helping behavior on the mental and physical health of adolescents have been initiated. These projects involve investigators at the University of Pennsylvania Center for Health Achievement Neighborhood Growth and Ethnic Studies; the Department of Society, Human Development and Health of the Harvard University School of Public Health; and the Search Institute in Minneapolis . Second, the Institute has received matching funding from the Templeton Foundation for a three-year research project in collaboration with the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Religion at Emory University . The project is entitled "The Best Love of the Child."
Education: In 2004 an international course competition for college and university professors attracted many applicants, from which 11 course awards were distributed. More than 20 of the science and theology faculty teaching these courses gathered at the Claremont School of Theology in April of 2005 to begin preparation of a text book to be used in future courses around the world. In addition, the Institute is collaborating with St. Paul 's School in Concord , New Hampshire , in a course competition at the secondary school level, culminating in an international leadership conference on the theme of love at the interface of science and theology, to be convened at St. Paul 's by Bishop Craig B. Anderson, Ph.D., Rector, in 2006.
Signs of Success: Recognized internationally, the Institute's achievements gained coverage in nearly 200 newspapers and magazines. These include the Boston Globe, the Toronto Star, the National Post (Canada), the Christian Science Monitor, and the Utne Reader. The Institute has been featured on more than 30 radio talk shows, including the NPR Christmas Eve "Talk of the Nation," NPR Weekend Edition, the BBC World News Easter Special, and Radio Australia. It was selected for a week of lectures at the Chautauqua Institution ( August 22-26, 2005 ) on topic of unselfish love, spirituality and the brain. An estimated 450 people from 33 countries attended our conference entitled Works of Love: Scientific and Religious Perspectives on Altruism in 2003. In addition to major funding from the Templeton Foundation, the Institute has attracted support from the Ford Foundation and the William T. Grant Foundation.
full article: http://jtfadmin.bm23.com/x/preview.php?id=59347_cc29fbb5_13707654_5875352b
1 Corinthians 2:1-5
When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.Post Edited (Selah) : 5/13/2005 12:52:06 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Laika
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433
| Posted 4/29/2005 6:55 AM (GMT -6) | | |
People all over the world (everybody)
Join hands (join)
Start a love train, love train
People all over the world (all the world, now)
Join hands (love ride)
Start a love train (love ride), love train
The next stop that we make will be soon
Tell all the folks in Russia, and China, too
Don't you know that it's time to get on board
And let this train keep on riding, riding on through
Well, well
People all over the world (you don't need no money)
Join hands (come on)
Start a love train, love train (don't need no ticket, come on)
People all over the world (Join in, ride this train)
Join in (Ride this train, y'all)
Start a love train (Come on, train), love train
All of you brothers over in Africa
Tell all the folks in Egypt, and Israel, too
Please don't miss this train at the station
'Cause if you miss it, I feel sorry, sorry for you
Well
People all over the world (Sisters and brothers)
Join hands (join, come on)
Start a love train (ride this train, y'all), love train (Come on)
People all over the world (Don't need no tickets)
Join hands (come on, ride)
Start a love train, love train
Ride, let it ride
Let it ride
Let it ride
People, ain't no war
People all over the world (on this train)
Join in (ride the train)
Start a love train, love train (ride the train, y'all)
People all over the world (come on)
Join hands (you can ride or stand, yeah)
Start a love train, love train (makin' love)
People all over the world ('round the world, y'all)
Join hands (come on)
Start a love train, love train
 Post Edited (Laika) : 4/29/2005 8:15:21 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 4/29/2005 7:35 AM (GMT -6) | | Selah:
This is the most exciting stuff I think I've ever studied! You gotta read about it and let me know your thoughts.
I don't want to say too much, but I'll say this: WHY DO WE CONTINUE TO FOCUS ON PATHOLOGY WHEN WE COULD BE
FOCUSING ON THIS? Love IS the "Ground of Being" ...who can deny that? Really, I'm feelin' the passion...can you tell
Also, please help me out if you can. What is distinctive about Christ if this is true? Anything? (this relates to my "problem" with universalism meph - help me out!) There's something in me that knows this research is IT (I plan to sink my brain into it the rest of my life!!!), but there's also something in me that holds back from accepting the notion that all religious paths lead to the same reality of love...
What the heck IS that?
Some things...
1) Are you studying in the program right now? I would absolutely LOVE to talk to you much more in depth about this. I am ALL OVER this! 
2) I think what holds us back is that we need a much more healthy theology of religions from a robustly trinitarian point of view. I genuinely think that this would solve at least half the problem. I believe that an EXCELLENT work on this is Amos Yong's "Beyond the Impasse: Toward a Pneumatological Theology of Religions" Long story short and terribly reduced, if we understand the ubiquitous working of the omnipresent Spirit of God , and the Spirit's inseparable link to the Christ (in all his universality and particularity), we have a MUCH easier time understanding how God is working in ALL historical activity, though not to the same degree. This, in turn, provides us with the theological resources that we need to understand that 1) there is some element of dynamic divine activity at work it all religious activity, though its effects on multiple levels may be very complex and 2) to affirm God's operation in other religious contexts is NOT to deny the particularity of Christ, by any means. I'm not doing the book justice, so when you get a chance, please read the book!
3) What is distinctive about Christ? From a Christian perspective, simply that Christ was the unique incarnation of this loving "ground of being", whose trinitarian activity on the earth demonstrated THAT our "ground of being" truly is love. Sent by the Father, empowered and resurrected by the Spirit, the anointed one, Jesus is the supreme demonstration and exemplification of unselfish love. What more distinctiveness do we need? It's VERY important to note that everything I've said can be true while at the same time affirming
1) the universal reconciliation to the reality of love that IS God
and
2) a disposition of unselfish love and compassion towards all others is appreciated by God REGARDLESS of the religious or cultural membership of a given person
Frankly, I find it funny...From the main page of the Institute for Unlimited Love...
(http://www.unlimitedloveinstitute.org/)
The Good Samaritan is a universal symbol of love for all humanity.
Hmmmm...yeah. So WHO is record as telling that parable, teaching from it, and saying "Go and do likewise"? Oh, yeah. That's right. I think it was Jesus. Funny.
"I've been converted three times. The first was to traditional Christianity; the second to honesty and the third was to the Love of God and man (humanity) The third was the real conversion. The first two were preliminary."
--Nels Ferre, a theologian speaking of his spiritual journey with the Triune God
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selah
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1210
| Posted 4/29/2005 10:02 AM (GMT -6) | | mephi
Some things...
1) Are you studying in the program right now? I would absolutely LOVE to talk to you much more in depth about this. I am ALL OVER this!
selah yep. Ok because I would absolutely LOVE to talk to you about this too!!
meph
2) I think what holds us back is that we need a much more healthy theology of religions from a robustly trinitarian point of view. I genuinely think that this would solve at least half the problem. I believe that an EXCELLENT work on this is Amos Yong's "Beyond the Impasse: Toward a Pneumatological Theology of Religions" Long story short and terribly reduced, if we understand the ubiquitous working of the omnipresent Spirit of God , and the Spirit's inseparable link to the Christ (in all his universality and particularity), we have a MUCH easier time understanding how God is working in ALL historical activity, though not to the same degree. This, in turn, provides us with the theological resources that we need to understand that 1) there is some element of dynamic divine activity at work it all religious activity, though its effects on multiple levels may be very complex and 2) to affirm God's operation in other religious contexts is NOT to deny the particularity of Christ, by any means. I'm not doing the book justice, so when you get a chance, please read the book!
selah WOW if that's what the book is about I'm buying, stacking, and prioritizing it asap. 
meph
3) What is distinctive about Christ? From a Christian perspective, simply that Christ was the unique incarnation of this loving "ground of being", whose trinitarian activity on the earth demonstrated THAT our "ground of being" truly is love. Sent by the Father, empowered and resurrected by the Spirit, the anointed one, Jesus is the supreme demonstration and exemplification of unselfish love. What more distinctiveness do we need?
selah Well, here's where I am. I think the way I understand Christ is relational. "I" relate to "love/Jesus" in various ways, but always understand him in the context of a very real relationship. This relationship is very intimate, specific and personal. I'm not sure I know how to relate to "love" in general. Now, if I could make sense of Sk's view of selfhood (the self is the relationship to the self ...or something like that) I'm sure that would better inform how I view my relationship to Christ. If we are indeed "participating in Christ" (2pet 1:4) then maybe we should really see our "selves" as spirit beings? If that is the case, then I guess I could see my self relating to the general Spirit of Love... or something like that... (clear as mud Tom?!) ha.
really, its just too much to type right now.. I'm not sure where to start!
mephi
It's VERY important to note that everything I've said can be true while at the same time affirming
1) the universal reconciliation to the reality of love that IS God
and
2) a disposition of unselfish love and compassion towards all others is appreciated by God REGARDLESS of the religious or cultural membership of a given person
selah sure. I'm just not there ...(yet?)
meph
Frankly, I find it funny...From the main page of the Institute for Unlimited Love...
(http://www.unlimitedloveinstitute.org/)
The Good Samaritan is a universal symbol of love for all humanity.
Hmmmm...yeah. So WHO is record as telling that parable, teaching from it, and saying "Go and do likewise"? Oh, yeah. That's right. I think it was Jesus. Funny.
selah
Right! Another hesitation I have about the unlimitedlove site is that they seem to want to embrace "counterfeit" love too. They have no problem trumpeting that their work is being mentioned in the Christian Science Monitor...for instance (ya. lots to say about that). Isn't it possible that what they want to embrace as love/loving is really nothing more than the enemy of love producing a counterfeit/distracting "love"...to move some away from Christ? How do you think cults do recruiting? via "love" that's how 
stepping off my soapbox now,
confusingly yours,
selah
So I guess my question for you Mephi is this: Is there such a thing as counterfeit love? How do we discern the difference between real love and counterfeit love? (I want to say the answer has to do with Christ/Truth) whatdoyoothink?
1 Corinthians 2:1-5
When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.Post Edited (Selah) : 5/1/2005 8:30:34 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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selah
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1210
| Posted 4/29/2005 10:18 AM (GMT -6) | | at the well
Hello darling person!
Not sure what to say to answer your post. I'm less than halfway through the class and many of the books! In other words, I know just enough to be confusingly dangerous...AND excited Remember being a new believer and it was just the best thing ever? Well, it was probably at that point (when we only had "milk" of the word) that we were both EXCITED and DANGEROUS! ha. That's how it is for me with this stuff. I feel like I HAVE to tell someone! yet, whatever I get out doesn't seem to do justice to the subject AT ALL. :( boo!
So, here are a couple books to add to meph's suggestion above. Well talk more after I nibble some toddler food, ok?
be blessed,
love
selah
Thomas Oord Science of Love: The Wisdom of Well-Being (2004)
i should be cleaning my house right now...
E. Sober and D.S. Wilson, Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior (1998)
Philip Sheldrake, Sprituality and Theology: Christian Living and the Doctrine of God (1998)
and for sure: Stephen Post et al., Altruism and Altruistic Love: Science, Philosophy and Religion in Dialogue (2002) ya. that one!
and my next : LeRon Shults, Reforming Theological Anthropology: After the Philosophical Turn to Relationality (2003) numero uno for me!
Oh ya...and this: John Polkinghorne (ed), The Work of Love: Creation as Kenosis (2001) I'm in process ... in fact, I better go be in more process RIGHT NOW! :D
1 Corinthians 2:1-5
When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power. | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 4/29/2005 1:45 PM (GMT -6) | | Selah:
So I guess my question for you Mephi is this: Is there such a thing as counterfeit love? How do we discern the difference between real love and counterfeit love?
When we are talking about unselfish, agape-type love for all human beings, I don't believe that there is a counterfeit version more than I believe there is an INCOMPLETE version. Any human being who is honestly living in unselfish, agape-type love for all human beings indiscriminately is living in real love. Regardless of their formal theological leanings. Think about it.
Romans 2:1-16
You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance?
But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God "will give to each person according to what he has done." To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For God does not show favoritism.
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.
Selah, if this means ANYTHING, it means that there are some things that "Gentiles" unbelievers can do that are actually pleasing to God...even though they are doing them in relative ignorance. And these "secrets" will be judged through Christ. Now, think about the Great Commandments. about what Jesus said about the Good Samaritan. If we have a person that is genuinely living out of that kind of love, do we REALLY think that God would hate on that? If Mother Teresa had been a devout HINDU, would her acts of selfless, all-encompassing love be of any less pleasure to the God of love...because she believed in other Gods? I would say yes...only to the degree that she was ignorant of Christ and his truly being the very unique, incarnation living instantiation of divine love. I still believe that her the Hindu Mother Teresa's love for people would be seen as genuine before God...even though she didn't know Jesus.
Here's where a robust trinitarian theology of religions helps! (Check that book out!) If I truly believe that the Spirit of God is everywhere working at some level, I cannot make the puerile claim that God CANNOT be working in the Hindu Mother Teresa just because she's not Christian. Nor can I separate this Holy Spirit's working from Christ's working because the two are inextricably linked. This obligates me to assume that God is somehow working in that environment to some degree and to try to DISCERN it's nature. I believe that the CRITERIA of our discernment is where we get screwed up. If part of our criterion for discerning divine activity is demonstration of unselfish, agape-style love for all human beings, then we would be able to say that God truly IS working through Mother Teresa through her genuine, but INCOMPLETE understanding of love. However, if our criteria is unnecessary parochial and particularistic (ie. "Unless they know Jesus as Lord and Savior, they cannot REALLY love") and not based on a robust trinitarianism, then we end up ruling things out of hand that may truly be works of God in other religious contexts.
What all this means to me is this: If we'd encourage all peoples to engage in unselfish, agape-style love...and understand that the ultimate reality truly is of this loving, compassionate quality, I think we will have gone a LONG WAY. Much longer than we would just trying to get someone to briefly say the "Sinner's prayer" How many people to YOU know whom this applies to:
(Taking creative liberties here!!...from Rom 2:17-28
Now you, if you call yourself a CHRISTIAN; if you rely on your knowledge of scripture and brag about your relationship to God; if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the Bible; if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, because you have in the Bible and your "knowledge" of the Lord Jesus the embodiment of knowledge and truth— you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idolatry, do you watch too much unhealthy tv? You who brag about the Word of God, do you dishonor God by breaking that same Word? As it is written: "God's name is blasphemed among the non-believers because of you."
Baptism has value if you follow God's commandments about living in love, but if you break those commandments all the time, you have become as though you had not been baptised. If those who are not baptised (that is, not BELIEVERS) keep the Lord's commandments to love one another, will they not be regarded as though they were baptised? The one who is not baptised physically and yet obeys the Great Commandment of loving the neighbor will condemn you who, even though you have the Bible and baptism, are a lawbreaker.
A person is not a Christian if he is only one outwardly, nor is baptism merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Christian if he is one inwardly; and baptism is foremost of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written words in the Bible. Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God.I know it applies to me. When I look at some unbelievers and how they love people, care for their community actively, and have a deep sense of reverence for life and human beings, I am at times put to serious shame. Theological conceptualizing of Christianity is NOTHING compared to living these things out on a daily basis from the heart. I cannot sit here and say that God would be MORE pleased with relationality with the world than he would with a Hindu Mother Teresa...just because I supposedly "know" Christ. So, that's a long answer for your question. 
"I've been converted three times. The first was to traditional Christianity; the second to honesty and the third was to the Love of God and man (humanity) The third was the real conversion. The first two were preliminary."
--Nels Ferre, a theologian speaking of his spiritual journey with the Triune God
Post Edited (MephEternal) : 4/29/2005 1:52:05 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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selah
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1210
| Posted 4/30/2005 12:09 AM (GMT -6) | | Here's some more -- http://jtfadmin.bm23.com/x/preview.php?id=59504_f15cfc76_13707654_5875352b
I'll be back to interact with your stuff asap meph and sahid. been going on 2-3hours of sleep a night lately...gotta stop that!
Let me know what you think about the "ways of love" from the above link. oh and mephi, I don't think it's about exclusivism and I certainly don't believe "Unless they know Jesus as Lord and Savior, they cannot REALLY love" (at least not anymore. shook that one about 10 years ago ) I DO think EVERYone is capable of real love...and that God likes it the same from everyone. Also, robust trinity...yep. love it. Believe it all the way. (more on that later!) I like your term 'incomplete love" too, but I still think there's such a thing as counterfeit love. Not sure how to describe it right now...maybe after some sleep. so, june!
love,
selah
1 Corinthians 2:1-5
When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power. | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 4/30/2005 9:21 AM (GMT -6) | | |
Mephi: …if we understand the ubiquitous working of the omnipresent Spirit of God , and the Spirit's inseparable link to the Christ (in all his universality and particularity), we have a MUCH easier time understanding how God is working in ALL historical activity, though not to the same degree. This, in turn, provides us with the theological resources that we need to understand that 1) there is some element of dynamic divine activity at work it all religious activity, though its effects on multiple levels may be very complex and 2) to affirm God's operation in other religious contexts is NOT to deny the particularity of Christ, by any means.
Tom: Hey, Mephi, have you ever sat with Amos Yong? Nice guy. I’ve only talked to him via email. His Dad I think is (or was) the head of the A/G in Malaysia I think. So it’s interesting too how his book expressing the Spirit’s presence and work from a Pentecostal point of view.
I don’t have Amos’ book. But I’m interested in your (1). Are you (or Amos) saying the Spirit is present “in all religious activity” in the sense that a) all religious activity in fact possesses or expresses some truth about God? or that b) the Spirit is active at some level in all that people do (religous activity included) attempting to win them? I asking this because SOME religious activity is demonic. So the Spirit’s presence would presumably be to PREVENT such activity, not to express some truth through it, in which case (a) is false; not all religious activity ‘expresses’ truth about God or points toward God in some way.
I’ve always thought that if “God does all God can to minimize evil and maximize good in the world given the factors he has to deal with” that this would extend to all religions as well, including their beliefs and rites. Since religions are all a mixture of right and wrong, helpful and harmful, good and evil, one ought to expect the Spirit to be present BOTH attempting to prevent what is harmful and to encourage truth and maximize goodness.
Elsewhere-
I don’t want to say that an atheist can’t really love his wife, that his ‘love’ is counterfeit because he’s not a believer, that true love at any level can’t be known by non-Christians. No. But neither do I want to say that an atheist (or any non-Christian) whose love is real at SOME in fact knows Christ anonymously or is an anonymous Christian.
Tom Post Edited (TGB) : 4/30/2005 9:28:11 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 4/30/2005 1:36 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
Are you (or Amos) saying the Spirit is present “in all religious activity” in the sense that a) all religious activity in fact possesses or expresses some truth about God? or that b) the Spirit is active at some level in all that people do (religous activity included) attempting to win them?
choice B
*****************
Tom:
I’ve always thought that if “God does all God can to minimize evil and maximize good in the world given the factors he has to deal with” that this would extend to all religions as well, including their beliefs and rites. Since religions are all a mixture of right and wrong, helpful and harmful, good and evil, one ought to expect the Spirit to be present BOTH attempting to prevent what is harmful and to encourage truth and maximize goodness.
Yep.
******************
Tom:
I don’t want to say that an atheist can’t really love his wife, that his ‘love’ is counterfeit because he’s not a believer, that true love at any level can’t be known by non-Christians. No. But neither do I want to say that an atheist (or any non-Christian) whose love is real at SOME in fact knows Christ anonymously or is an anonymous Christian.
No Christian imperialism here! Dr. Yong actually specifically warns against this in the book. The point is simply this: if one is living in unconditional, agape-style love for all sentient beings (loving the neighbor as self), that one is experiencing a genuine dimension of divine life...but in an incomplete form. A person does not have to know Christ to know what Christ-like love feels like. See the distinction I'm trying to make? I'm not saying that everyone who lives an agape-style loving life is a Christian, whether they know it or not. I'm saying that everyone who lives an agape-style loving life is experiencing a dimension of the Christian life, because authentic Christianity is grounded upon the unconditional agape-style love that emerges from the Heart of God.
"I've been converted three times. The first was to traditional Christianity; the second to honesty and the third was to the Love of God and man (humanity) The third was the real conversion. The first two were preliminary."
--Nels Ferre, a theologian speaking of his spiritual journey with the Triune God
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selah
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1210
| Posted 4/30/2005 6:13 PM (GMT -6) | | Meph
No Christian imperialism here! Dr. Yong actually specifically warns against this in the book. The point is simply this: if one is living in unconditional, agape-style love for all sentient beings (loving the neighbor as self), that one is experiencing a genuine dimension of divine life...but in an incomplete form. A person does not have to know Christ to know what Christ-like love feels like. See the distinction I'm trying to make? I'm not saying that everyone who lives an agape-style loving life is a Christian, whether they know it or not. I'm saying that everyone who lives an agape-style loving life is experiencing a dimension of the Christian life, because authentic Christianity is grounded upon the unconditional agape-style love that emerges from the Heart of God.
YES. I agree with this completely.
Now, is it enough for one to continually experience this agape-style love (as a genuine dimension
of divine life) or should a person seek something more -- namely Christ? WHY/WHY NOT?
love
selah
I think it has something to do with the fruit of the spirit. Love is only one angle/dimension of the Spirit (incomplete), joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, self-control, and gentleness are other dimensions perhaps...I don't know.
1 Corinthians 2:1-5
When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power. | | Back to Top | | |
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Sahid
Megistered Rember
Date Joined Jun 2004
Total Posts : 2013
| Posted 4/30/2005 7:08 PM (GMT -6) | |
Selah said...Now, is it enough for one to continually experience this agape-style love (as a genuine dimension of divine life) or should a person seek something more -- namely Christ? WHY/WHY NOT? love selah I think it has something to do with the fruit of the spirit. Love is only one angle/dimension of the Spirit (incomplete), joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, self-control, and gentleness are other dimensions perhaps...I don't know.
I think eternal life (or from the universalist perspective, getting to eternal life sooner) is kinda nice too.
Watch me fly. Freedom like wings and I will use them. Freedom like wings and I will spread them wide. - Stavesacre | | Back to Top | | |
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Corey
Five with a Four-wing
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1893
| Posted 4/30/2005 9:04 PM (GMT -6) | |
Selah said...... I certainly don't believe "Unless they know Jesus as Lord and Savior, they cannot REALLY love" (at least not anymore. shook that one about 10 years ago ) I DO think EVERYone is capable of real love...
I'm interested in this. I'm glad you've found a coherent path out of that place, but I myself am still there. I honestly don't know how to "do" this idea that people can genuinely love without Christ. "Apart from me you can do nothing" and "God shaped vacuums" and the fruit of the Spirit and all that.
I know I'm jaded in saying this, but it seems that most things that pass as "true love" in this world are just two ticks looking for a dog. Post Edited (Corey) : 4/30/2005 9:12:33 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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selah
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1210
| Posted 5/1/2005 8:24 AM (GMT -6) | | Hi Corey,
Easy. Just imagine being the mother of a child lost in the tsunami disaster... trust me, the pain she suffers is due to the true love she has for that child. Her religion is inconsequential. She could be an atheist and still have real, true, painful love...
I think,
love
selah
1 Corinthians 2:1-5
When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power. | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 5/1/2005 11:34 AM (GMT -6) | | Selah:
Now, is it enough for one to continually experience this agape-style love (as a genuine dimension
of divine life) or should a person seek something more -- namely Christ? WHY/WHY NOT?
The journey of discovering Truth is just that...a journey. Speaking for myself, I trust that if a unbelieving person is moving toward continually experiencing agape-style love as a genuine dimension of "spirituality"...AND if there are others around that person who, by their own lives of love, testify that Christ truly IS more complete understanding of the reality that they are only partially experiencing, then I fully trust the Holy Spirit will reveal the truth of Christ to that unbeliever in due time. So, yes, it IS enough...because I trust that God will do what God needs to do to bring them more towards Christ.
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Sahid:
I think eternal life (or from the universalist perspective, getting to eternal life sooner) is kinda nice too.
My thoughts. The historical life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Christ can give GENUINE REASON to hope for eventual eternal life for all people. The story of Jesus tells of a God who won't give up on human beings, won't tolerate sin, and won't let sin and injustice have the last world. If we lived in the story of Jesus by our love, compassion, and hope in God's ultimate victory for all, I honestly think that more people than we'd expect would be attracted to Christ.
*******************************
Corey: I'm interested in this. I'm glad you've found a coherent path out of that place, but I myself am still there. I honestly don't know how to "do" this idea that people can genuinely love without Christ. "Apart from me you can do nothing" and "God shaped vacuums" and the fruit of the Spirit and all that.
I know I'm jaded in saying this, but it seems that most things that pass as "true love" in this world are just two ticks looking for a dog.
Selah: Easy. Just imagine being the mother of a child lost in the tsunami disaster... trust me, the pain she suffers is due to the true love she has for that child. Her religion is inconsequential. She could be an atheist and still have real, true, painful love...
Selah, EXCELLENT example! Simply excellent.
I think it's far past time that we acknowledge our common humanity in this fact: We ALL need love, we all want to be loved, and we all can love others. I believe if ANYTHING is part of God's image in human beings, it is this ubiquitous trait. In our attempts to highlight the uniqueness of Christ (and his relationship to love), we are, IMHO, implicitlyDENYING a essential fact of our nature created in us by God. Do we not see this as a real threat to our witness?
"I've been converted three times. The first was to traditional Christianity; the second to honesty and the third was to the Love of God and man (humanity) The third was the real conversion. The first two were preliminary."
--Nels Ferre, a theologian speaking of his spiritual journey with the Triune God
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Corey
Five with a Four-wing
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1893
| Posted 5/1/2005 2:41 PM (GMT -6) | |
Corey: I'm interested in this. I'm glad you've found a coherent path out of that place, but I myself am still there. I honestly don't know how to "do" this idea that people can genuinely love without Christ. "Apart from me you can do nothing" and "God shaped vacuums" and the fruit of the Spirit and all that.
I know I'm jaded in saying this, but it seems that most things that pass as "true love" in this world are just two ticks looking for a dog.
Selah: Easy. Just imagine being the mother of a child lost in the tsunami disaster... trust me, the pain she suffers is due to the true love she has for that child. Her religion is inconsequential. She could be an atheist and still have real, true, painful love...
Selah, EXCELLENT example! Simply excellent.
I think it's far past time that we acknowledge our common humanity in this fact: We ALL need love, we all want to be loved, and we all can love others. I believe if ANYTHING is part of God's image in human beings, it is this ubiquitous trait. In our attempts to highlight the uniqueness of Christ (and his relationship to love), we are, IMHO, implicitlyDENYING a essential fact of our nature created in us by God. Do we not see this as a real threat to our witness? Yes, it's a good example and helps me to be concrete about this. I will agree with you that this mother truly loves her child, regardless of her religion, and that this capacity is something innate to being human. This kind of love is certainly not unique to being a Christian.
But don't you think there might be another category of love which is only possible by the work of Christ in and through us? Something that non-christians are not capable of? In a word, trinitarian-type love, the kind of love that fulfills the greatest and second-greatest command. This is what I have in mind when I think of "true love".
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Corey
Five with a Four-wing
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1893
| Posted 5/1/2005 3:15 PM (GMT -6) | |
MephEternal said...
I think it's far past time that we acknowledge our common humanity in this fact: We ALL need love, we all want to be loved, and we all can love others. I believe if ANYTHING is part of God's image in human beings, it is this ubiquitous trait. In our attempts to highlight the uniqueness of Christ (and his relationship to love), we are, IMHO, implicitlyDENYING a essential fact of our nature created in us by God. Do we not see this as a real threat to our witness? I affirm that we ALL need love, we all want to be loved, and we all can love others (at least in the way that Selah described). But as I've pondered John 17 (and other places), it seems that a big part of our witness to the world that Christ is indeed legit will be by our unity borne of love. Doesn't this imply that there is something unique going on here, something that the world is not capable of? Is not the basis of this unique unity a spirit-filled love for each other and God?
Help me out here. I really see this as the substance of our witness, not as a threat. | | Back to Top | | |
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selah
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1210
| Posted 5/1/2005 9:55 PM (GMT -6) | | ALSO, this would make sense out of the statement "you can't give what you don't have."
We need to receive Christ in us...before we can share Christ's love through us.
yep. Corey you are smart. | | Back to Top | | |
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AtTheWell
Registered Member
Date Joined Nov 2004
Total Posts : 133
| Posted 5/2/2005 12:53 AM (GMT -6) | |
Selah said...
ALSO, this would make sense out of the statement "you can't give what you don't have."
We need to receive Christ in us...before we can share Christ's love through us.
yep. Corey you are smart. Can't get it outta my head-- I had found this tidbit on a Quaker site, thought it would apply here (bold mine):
You go inward to wait upon and receive the word and support of God and then take this out to action in the world. To take the outward journey without the inward leads to ``burn out'' because the essential support is not there to be called upon. The Inward/Outward Journey is the practical application of Jesus' summary of the Law: ``Love God and your neighbor as yourself.''
Peace, ATW | | Back to Top | | |
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