Pah
Uber all member
I do not see God as a being, I cannot interpret Jesus as the earthly incarnation of this supernatural deity, nor can I with credibility assume that he possessed sufficient Godlike power to do such miraculous things as stilling the storm, banishing demons, walking on water, or expanding five loaves to provide sufficient bread to feed five thousand men, plus women and children. If I am to make a claim for the divine nature of this Jesus, it must be on some other basis than this. Nature miracles, I am now convinced, say volumes about the power that people attributed to Jesus, but they say nothing about literal occurrences.
I do not believe that this Jesus could or did in any literal way raise the dead, overcome a medically diagnosed paralysis, restore sight person born blind or to one in whom the ability to see had been physiologically destroyed. Nor do I believe he enabled one who was mute and profoundly deaf since birth to hear. Healing stories can be looked at in a number of ways. To view them as supernatural, miraculous events is, in my opinion, the least creditable of those possibilities.
I do not believe that Jesus entered this world by the miracle of a virgin birth or that virgin births occur anywhere except in mythology. I do not believe that a literal star guided literal wise men to bring Jesus gifts or that literal angels sang to hillside shepherds to announce his birth. I do not believe that Jesus was born in Bethlehem or that he fled into Egypt to escape the wrath of King Herod. I regard these as legends that later became historicized as the tradition grew and developed and as people sought to understand the meaning and the power of the Christ-life.
I do not believe that the experience Christians celebrate at Easter was the physical resuscitation of the three-days-dead body of Jesus, nor do I believe that anyone literally talked with Jesus after the resurrection moment, gave him food, touched his resurrected flesh, or walked in any physical manner with his risen body. I find it interesting that all of the narratives that tell of such encounters occur only in the later gospels. I do not believe that Jesus' resurrection was marked in a literal way by an earthquake, an angelic pronouncement, or an empty tomb. I regard these things too as the legendary traditions of a maturing religious system.
I do not believe that Jesus, at the end of his earthly sojourn, returned to God by ascending in any literal sense into a heaven located somewhere above the sky. My knowledge of the size of this universe reduces that concept to nonsense.
I do not believe that this Jesus founded a church or that he established an ecclesiastical hierarchy beginning with the twelve apostles and enduring to this day. I do not believe that he created sacraments as special means of grace or that these means of grace are, or can be, somehow controlled by the church, and thus are to be presided over only by the ordained. All of these things represent to me attempts on the part of human beings to accrue power for themselves and their particular religious institution.
I do not believe that human beings are born in sin and that, unless baptized or somehow saved, they will be forever banished from God's presence. I do not regard the mythical concept of the fall of human life into some negative status as constituting an accurate view of our beginnings or of the origins of evil. To concentrate on the fall of humanity into a state of sinfulness and to suggest that this sinfulness can be overcome only by a divine initiative that will restore human life to a pre-fallen status it never had are to me strange concepts indeed, serving primarily, once again, to build institutional power.
I do not believe that women are any less human or less holy than men, and therefore I cannot imagine being part of a church that would discriminate against women in any manner or even suggest that a woman is unfit for any vocation the church offers generally to its people, from the papacy to the humblest role of service. I regard the church's traditional exclusion of women from positions of leadership to be not a sacred tradition but a manifestation of the sin of patriarchy.
I do not believe that homosexual people are abnormal, mentally sick, or morally depraved. Furthermore, I regard any sacred text that suggests otherwise to be both wrong and ill-informed. My study has led me to the conclusion that sexuality itself, including all sexual orientations, is morally neutral and as such can be lived out either positively or negatively. I regard the spectrum of human sexual experience to be broad indeed. On that spectrum, some percentage of the human population is at all times oriented toward people of their own gender. That is simply the way life is. I cannot imagine being part of a church that discriminates against gay and lesbian people on the basis of their being. Nor do I want to continue to participate in ecclesiastical practices that I regard as based on nothing but prejudiced ignorance.
I do not believe that either skin pigmentation or ethnic background constitutes a matter of superiority or inferiority, and I regard any tradition or social system, including any part of the Christian church that operates on that assumption to be unworthy of continued life. The prejudices of human beings based on race or ethnicity are to me nothing more or less than a manifestation of past tribalism; they are negative biases that human beings developed in their struggle to survive.
I do not believe that all Christian. ethics have been inscribed either on tablets of stone or in the pages of the Christian scriptures and. are therefore set for all time. I am aware that "time makes ancient good uncouth and that prejudice based on negative cultural definitions has, through the centuries, been the basis upon which Christians have oppressed people of color, women, and those whose sexual orientation has not been heterosexual.
I do not believe that the Bible is the "word of God" in any literal sense. I do not regard it as the primary source of divine revelation. I do not believe that God dictated it,or even inspired its production in its entirety. I see the Bible as a human book mixing the profound wisdom of sages through the centuries with the limitations of human perceptions of reality at a particular time in human history. This combination has marked our religious convictions as a mixed witness, combining both slavery and emancipation, inquisitions and theological breakthroughs, freedom and oppression.
Source: A New Christanity for a New World, Bishop (ret.) John Shelby Sprong
I do not believe that this Jesus could or did in any literal way raise the dead, overcome a medically diagnosed paralysis, restore sight person born blind or to one in whom the ability to see had been physiologically destroyed. Nor do I believe he enabled one who was mute and profoundly deaf since birth to hear. Healing stories can be looked at in a number of ways. To view them as supernatural, miraculous events is, in my opinion, the least creditable of those possibilities.
I do not believe that Jesus entered this world by the miracle of a virgin birth or that virgin births occur anywhere except in mythology. I do not believe that a literal star guided literal wise men to bring Jesus gifts or that literal angels sang to hillside shepherds to announce his birth. I do not believe that Jesus was born in Bethlehem or that he fled into Egypt to escape the wrath of King Herod. I regard these as legends that later became historicized as the tradition grew and developed and as people sought to understand the meaning and the power of the Christ-life.
I do not believe that the experience Christians celebrate at Easter was the physical resuscitation of the three-days-dead body of Jesus, nor do I believe that anyone literally talked with Jesus after the resurrection moment, gave him food, touched his resurrected flesh, or walked in any physical manner with his risen body. I find it interesting that all of the narratives that tell of such encounters occur only in the later gospels. I do not believe that Jesus' resurrection was marked in a literal way by an earthquake, an angelic pronouncement, or an empty tomb. I regard these things too as the legendary traditions of a maturing religious system.
I do not believe that Jesus, at the end of his earthly sojourn, returned to God by ascending in any literal sense into a heaven located somewhere above the sky. My knowledge of the size of this universe reduces that concept to nonsense.
I do not believe that this Jesus founded a church or that he established an ecclesiastical hierarchy beginning with the twelve apostles and enduring to this day. I do not believe that he created sacraments as special means of grace or that these means of grace are, or can be, somehow controlled by the church, and thus are to be presided over only by the ordained. All of these things represent to me attempts on the part of human beings to accrue power for themselves and their particular religious institution.
I do not believe that human beings are born in sin and that, unless baptized or somehow saved, they will be forever banished from God's presence. I do not regard the mythical concept of the fall of human life into some negative status as constituting an accurate view of our beginnings or of the origins of evil. To concentrate on the fall of humanity into a state of sinfulness and to suggest that this sinfulness can be overcome only by a divine initiative that will restore human life to a pre-fallen status it never had are to me strange concepts indeed, serving primarily, once again, to build institutional power.
I do not believe that women are any less human or less holy than men, and therefore I cannot imagine being part of a church that would discriminate against women in any manner or even suggest that a woman is unfit for any vocation the church offers generally to its people, from the papacy to the humblest role of service. I regard the church's traditional exclusion of women from positions of leadership to be not a sacred tradition but a manifestation of the sin of patriarchy.
I do not believe that homosexual people are abnormal, mentally sick, or morally depraved. Furthermore, I regard any sacred text that suggests otherwise to be both wrong and ill-informed. My study has led me to the conclusion that sexuality itself, including all sexual orientations, is morally neutral and as such can be lived out either positively or negatively. I regard the spectrum of human sexual experience to be broad indeed. On that spectrum, some percentage of the human population is at all times oriented toward people of their own gender. That is simply the way life is. I cannot imagine being part of a church that discriminates against gay and lesbian people on the basis of their being. Nor do I want to continue to participate in ecclesiastical practices that I regard as based on nothing but prejudiced ignorance.
I do not believe that either skin pigmentation or ethnic background constitutes a matter of superiority or inferiority, and I regard any tradition or social system, including any part of the Christian church that operates on that assumption to be unworthy of continued life. The prejudices of human beings based on race or ethnicity are to me nothing more or less than a manifestation of past tribalism; they are negative biases that human beings developed in their struggle to survive.
I do not believe that all Christian. ethics have been inscribed either on tablets of stone or in the pages of the Christian scriptures and. are therefore set for all time. I am aware that "time makes ancient good uncouth and that prejudice based on negative cultural definitions has, through the centuries, been the basis upon which Christians have oppressed people of color, women, and those whose sexual orientation has not been heterosexual.
I do not believe that the Bible is the "word of God" in any literal sense. I do not regard it as the primary source of divine revelation. I do not believe that God dictated it,or even inspired its production in its entirety. I see the Bible as a human book mixing the profound wisdom of sages through the centuries with the limitations of human perceptions of reality at a particular time in human history. This combination has marked our religious convictions as a mixed witness, combining both slavery and emancipation, inquisitions and theological breakthroughs, freedom and oppression.
Source: A New Christanity for a New World, Bishop (ret.) John Shelby Sprong
