IS THE TRADITIONAL IDEA OF GOD ANY LONGER ESSENTIAL TO CHRISTIANITY?
Disclosure: This Diary has been written despite my having previously been given notice by a frequent DK Front Page writer to the effect of relating his (?) disapproval of my use of reference to data located at “Conservative Sites”. He admonished that DK readers know where to go to get access to Conservative View Points.
With this information in Ur minds, DK Readers are also admonished by me [me still puzzling over the above mentioned disapproval rational] to read on with caution since http://www. foxnews.com/opinion/2013/04/07/christians-why-were-losing-our-religion/?intcmp=obnetw is used as one reference by me in order to write this Diary. Indeed, you are urged to find UR OWN Conservative sites to read in order to avoid heaping onus on this Diary writer who assures said frequent front page writer that the data herein is written from a liberal religious “Free Thought” AND DEFINITELY NON CONSERVATIVE perspective.
This Diaries perspective is arrived at by my having attended a RECENT book review of the text “CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT GOD” written by Lloyd Geering [Sir Lloyd George Geering ONZ GNZM CBE, is a New Zealand theologian, who faced charges of heresy in 1967 for his controversial views ] and my subsequently accidentally coming across the article on “CHRISTIANS WHY ARE WE LOSING OUR RELIGION” by Craig Groeschel at the site referenced above.
The books review was presented by one David Rxxxx [to The Book Review sub Group of The Humanists of the Sarasota Bay Area”HUSBAY”] and coincidentally to an aspect of my (dollparty ) interests, I disclose here the fact that both the Foxnews Opinion writer and the book reviewer are church Ministers. Indeed, Rev. Groschel is the Minister in the second largest church, LifeChurch.tv in Edmond, Okla. As such he is no light weight in the Christian ministerial field and you as a reader of DK you can see above that Sir Geering [ who incidentally was found to be innocent of the charge of “Heresy”] is no light weight as a Theologian either.
So now I would like to lead you DK viewers from the Concept of GODS, through the Concept of A GOD and to then progress on to the concept of MAN as mankind relates to A God and to religion as I have gleaned it to be in what I write below and also quote from the book report.
So, follow below if U have any interest.
RELIGIOUS CLAIMS & THEOLOGICAL STATEMENTS * (Pls. note that words, numbers or phrases contained within parenthesis, that follow, are dollparty insertions.) Geering states that there “can never be more than human attempts to say something of (possible) ultimate importance”. Of such importance for Geering is his question, “ How can we be so sure that Christianity cannot exist without belief in God?”
He goes on to point out that, “the BUDDHIST tradition dispensed with the belief in God at the time of its origin (sometime between 4th & 6th centuries BCE.Ref.:Wikipedia.) yet Bhuddism is regarded as one of the major religions of the world. (He doesn’t say who it is that so regards it as such however a Iist of religions can be found through the website Dictionary.com and that list does include Buddhism as a religion. Further, the criteria for accepting Buddhism on that list of religions can be explored also through the Dictionary.com web site where I found that criteria for the List web site were adapted from Web Wisdom: How to Evaluate and Create Information Quality on the Web. This book provides general guidelines for evaluating web sites; the guidelines having here not only been adapted but also expanded to address the specific concerns of evaluating sites containing information on religions.) So at this point in this presentation we can see that “Buddhism is even older than Christianity and has existed all this time WITHOUT BELIEF IN ANY GOD. (Hence the DK reader can, if open minded, see that) “IT IS POSSIBLE FOR RELIGION TO EXIST WITHOUT BELIEF IN GOD. (I note here for the reader that by a definition ),” Religion is an organized collection of belief systems, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values.”(Ref.: Wikipedia) (and does NOT OF NECESSITY REQUIRE A BELIEF IN A GOD depending on a mindset that a person chooses to accept.) (Geering goes on to say that,) “ Theology, (read that as ) God Talk, is highly symbolic. (He makes the point of relating that,) “The reason why the prophets ridiculed the religious images which some of their contemporaries were worshiping stems from their conviction that AN IMAGE SHOULD BE RECOGNIZED FOR WHAT IT IS – A HUMANLY MADE OBJECT.” (NOTE:“Image” may be defined as,) ”a physical likeness or representation of a person, animal, or thing or, a mental representation; idea; conception or, from Psychology: a mental representation of something previously perceived, in the absence of the original ( conceived of)stimulus or, form; appearance; semblance.”Ref: Dictionary.com. (HENCE, as I , dollparty, interpret it the conventionally Christian held “image” of God is that of a humanly established object and as Geering continues to say), “Such objects may continue to be valued as symbols BUT whenever people venerate them or worship them for their own sake (such people) become idolaters.” ( My interpretation of that last sentence is that Geering sees THE CHRISTIAN GOD as naught but AN IDOL which is A SYMBOL for whatever people choose the two of them to be and, SINCE WHATEVER PEOPLE SO CHOOSE IS CONCEPTUALLY MAN MADE then), ”EVERYTHING IS OPEN TO REVIEW AND TO CHANGE”. (As such), “WE ARE FREE TO EXPLORE WHETHER OR NOT THE TRADITIONAL IDEA OF GOD IS ANY LONGER ESSENTIAL TO CHRISTIANITY”. (Rev. David, the Geering book reviewer, accepts that it [ God as being essential ] is not so and he seemingly accepts whole heartedly the concept of NATURAL RELIGION): ie.,“ Religion based on principles derived solely from reason and the study of nature. “ Rev. David concluded his book presentation with his statement that via the use of REASON, NATURE & SCIENCE that Christians will give up on the Christian God concept although he conceded that it just might take 500 years to do so.)
SO, WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY HOPED TO BE AFTER LOOSING ITS GOD? ( Just what is it that Sir Geering and Rev. David see as replacing the conventionally accepted concept of the Christian God? They point out that most religious scholars accept that Jesus was a historical figure and that), “Jesus did not talk much about himself at all; rather he talked about the Kingdom of God. When the roles of prophet, priest, and King were removed, the first fact that came to light was that JESUS WAS IN NO SENSE A DEVINE FIGURE BUT WAS TRULY HUMAN IN EVERY WAY. Jesus stood in the Wisdom Tradition of the Hebrews which has led one Robert Funk to say that "JESUS IS A SECULAR SAGE. Jesus parables and aphorisms all but obliterate the boundaries separating the sacred from the secular. When we read the parables of the kingdom we find they are pointing to, and sometimes describing, HUMAN ATTITUDES TO LIFE, THE NATURE OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS AND, THE KIND OF SOCIETY WHICH WE STRIVE TO BUILD."
(THOSE ARE THEN WHAT I [DOLLPARTY] CAME AWAY FROM REV. DAVID LEADING TO WHAT IN MY UNDERSTANDING CHRISTIANITY SHOULD BECOME AS A RELIGION THAT WILL HAVE LOST, THROUGH THE GIVING UP ON ITS DEVINE GOD, AND THUS BECOMING A CHRISTIANITY MINUS A GOD CONCEPT .)
(Geering says that), “Jesus taught people to look into the future with faith and hope, but he never encouraged people to let God take over their lives and make all their decisions for them as do some evangelicals today. Rather he (JESUS) TAUGHT PEOPLE TO TAKE FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR LIVES.” ( My O my, what a Secular Humanist that man was.)
(Finally from Geerings writing he says),”There is almost universal agreement that, THE MOST IMPORTANT THEME IN THE TEACHING OF JESUS IS BROTHERLY LOVE”. (This also I came away from Rev. David’s presentation with as my understanding for being an inclusive practice in Christianity, after Christianity has lost its God, and I conclude that indeed love is a sorely needed practice to be pursued in actual action in current Christianity, IMO).
(NOW HARKENING BACK TO THE FOX NEWS OPINION PIECE REFERRED TO AT THIS DIARIES BEGINNING.)
Rev. Groschel refers to recent research indicating that "the number of people who do not consider themselves a part of an organized religion is steadily on the rise.” ( Which is certainly true.) Ref:.http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/...
“Interestingly enough, though the number of those religiously unaffiliated is increasing, there is little to no trend in the number of those who express atheist or agnostic beliefs. People aren’t saying they don’t believe in God. They’re saying they don’t believe in religion. They are not rejecting Christ. They are rejecting the church.”
This begs his question: " WHY ARE WE LOOSING OUR RELIGION?" (My reaction to the above is that of a writer (Rev.Groschel) not willing to give easy concession to a “loosing” framing but is desperately striving to put an optimistic frame on his writing by using uplifting phrases such as “on the rise” and religiously unaffiliated “is increasing” rather than having it simply put and out in the open as the Berkely news center states it that :
"RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION IN THE UNITED STATES IS AT ITS LOWEST POINT SINCE IT BEGAN TO BE TRACKED IN THE 1930S."
“On American attitudes toward religion, UC Berkeley researchers found that 20 PERCENT OF A NATIONALLY REPRESENTATIVE GROUP reported NO RELIGIOUS PREFERENCE. That’s a jump from 1990 when all but 8 percent of Americans polled identified with an organized faith.” AND, (Of major import, IMO, is that,” More than one-third of 18-to-24-year-olds claimed “no religion” compared to just 7 percent of those 75 and older.” (Hence, 93% of those 75 and older can be assumed to be religion acceptors today and they seemingly are not being replaced by equal numbers of religion acceptors as the group of todays acceptor oldsters die off. Rather the group to die off in the not too distant future will likely be replaced in that future American society by a large group of aging non religion accepting youngsters.)
In the Fox news opinion piece by Rev. Craig Groeschel the Reverend states that, “I believe what Bill Hybels asserts: “The local church is the hope of the world.” But in order to reach the current generation and generations to come, WE MUST CHANGE THE WAYS THAT WE DO THINGS.” That’s why we like to say, “To reach people no one is reaching, we have to do things no one is doing.”
(Well there are some people "doing" by working via a markedly changed approach to the Christian Godhead and further, given the lessening of possible resistance to the idea of Christians giving up on their God concept via the lessening number of conventionally practicing Christians …the task of the "Christianity without God" workers should become progressively easier as time goes on.
(Indeed, If this "loss of Christianities God" movement, which I had never heard mention of before last week, can be analogized to the cooking of a Lobster by starting it off in a pot of cold water... then just perhaps as long as The Rev. Groschel and his contemporaries are now and do remain so focused on the issue of loosing church membership rather than loosing their God as is just perhaps the water will reach a boiling point before they pay any significant attention to it.)
(The two paragraphs immediately above serve as the lynch pin for me in being a connection with Rev. Groschel’s article, about “loosing” church members, and Rev. David’s work in having Christianity lose its God.)
( Rev. David, IMO, is certainly trying to change the way that church people do things in their churches, namely to lose their God, but also very importantly, in the process of doing so, for people to claim responsibility for themselves.)
(No longer, if he and others like him, is/are ultimately successful will the bible be said to be all that people need to guide them in how to live their lives. )
(Hopefully the bible also eventually will give way to being replaced too.... Replaced that is by Reason, Nature and Science as its God Concept is lost.)