Peter Sellick,
You are espousing philosophical religious dogma here more than you would care to admit. Though I agree with most of your points it is phrased in obscurity. It is obvious you mix among intellectuals stretching the perimiters of religious thought.

Being Christian is not merely believing all the right dogma or thought; but living the life demonstrating the spirit of God as we believe Chrit demonstrated. The reality of Christian faith is embodied in getting ones hands stained with the filth of human dirt by living in the spirit, character and attitude that is clearly revealed as being the very nature of God.

Following Christ Jesus is not attending a religious seminary but devotedly attending to acts of healing destroyed human beings; attending to the poor, the opressed, the weak, sich and distraught. Our own renewal comes as we meditate and admire the great character of God especially as revealed in the spirit of the man we believe perfectly expressed God.

I would prefer to admire the life of a simple man whose only theology is "God loves me and I want to joyfully share it by my actions". Jesus words were simple and understood by the uneducated, it is they who followed him not the many teachers of the law and prophets.

My suggestion next time write the article and before posting ask a normal 12 year old to explain what you have written [without tutoring or prompting].

Faustino,
You obvious know more about Buddhism than I. So perhaps you can correct me. I have thought that the goal of detachment was associated with insulating the self from pain or care. This had led some observers to remark that the killing fields in Cambodia may not have happened without a religious tradition that emphasized detachment. One can do all kinds of evil if one is detached, ask any serial killer. In other words I am not sure if this kind of detachment is a good thing at all.

There is a tradition in Christianity that includes detachment from the things of the world and all Christians are invited be detached from the hunger for money and power. However this is so that we can be fully involved in the world. We are called to be “in” the world but not “of” the world.

Narcissist and others.
It is just not good enough to fill these pages with your bile. What we want is genuine discussion that comes from a careful reading of the article in question. It is as if you and others like you purposely misunderstand in order to get on your little soap boxes and put the boot in to these silly Christians. Perhaps I should be pleased with these posts, perhaps they indicate that I have gotten up your nose, which is just my aim.

I know this was a difficult post and that this may have been because I was working our my ideas in it. Philo, the critique of a 12 year old will not do. The crisis in the church is an intellectual crisis and simple answers such as “ Jesus loves me” are just grist for the mill for our persecutors who are confirmed in their minds that we are simple minded.

The intellectual work that we have to do in theology comes from our place in history and the very bad theology that works against us at every move

Sells,
I can tell you that the man in the street is not impressed with the pure theologian who walks by on the other side in a pious frame of thought. However I can tell you he is impressed with the one who shakes his hand with a smile, sits and shares simple things and invites him for a coffee. If he needs a coat you will take him to St Vincents clothing shop and ask them to put it to your account.

The major negative impact that the Christian faith has had on society is its superior mystical theological attitude. It gives the impression that anyone who does not get its message is doomed. Love and forgiveness are action words not pure religious philosophy. People ought to know what a Christian is by their love and forgivness not by their religious dogma. Though right thinking creates right behaviour. You know this as well as I. More people are impressed with Father Chris Riley and his work than with any leading Christian theologian. Theologians do not change the world, as much as commited people of compassionate action.

That is the reason I suggest you write for persons who have the mentality of a twelve year old. We are not intending to indoctrinate simple minds; we are asking them do they understand? We do have the immature on this forum who have not grown up from their nightly prayers to their comfort teddy. Their level of understanding of abstract concepts and spiritual dimensions is limited to their adolesent experiences.

Sells, in one post, you wrote that “It is obvious that a culture that places so much emphasis on life after death will tend not to take this world seriously. Likewise, in Buddhism, detachment will produce a similar result.” In your next post, you wrote

“Faustino, You obviously know more about Buddhism than I. So perhaps you can correct me. I have thought that the goal of detachment was associated with insulating the self from pain or care. This had led some observers to remark that the killing fields in Cambodia may not have happened without a religious tradition that emphasized detachment. One can do all kinds of evil if one is detached, ask any serial killer. In other words I am not sure if this kind of detachment is a good thing at all.”

First, I may know more than you about Buddhism, but I’m not an expert. Buddhism is an organised religion, and I’m not a Buddhist. Nor do I immerse myself in Buddhist scripture - I follow the practice taught by the Buddha, which was not intended to initiate a sectarian religion but was a sharing of the path to enlightenment, to the highest spiritual goal.

My teacher, Goenka, is probably the leading current teacher of this practice, of Vipassana meditation. This is a path of purification and, as Goenka puts it, when all impurity is removed, what remains is purity. The pure mind is filled with loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, the qualities that all genuine religious teaching seeks to develop. The process of attaining purification involves detached observation of the reality of the present moment as it manifests within one’s own mind and body, observing the impermanent nature of existence, the constant arising and passing away of the physical and mental processes of which we are composed, understanding by experience this impermanent nature and in so doing losing your attachment to the imaginary I, me, mine which drives our reactions. Remaining equanimous in the face of both joy and adversity, success and failure, pleasure and pain, knowing that, like everything, they will pass. (more follows)

This is not “insulating” oneself, making a cocoon, it’s developing wisdom through understanding the nature of existence through direct experience. Removing the impurities, the mental conditionings created by our ignorant reactions to our circumstances, exposes the “Kingdom of Heaven within you,” the qualities of compassion etc.

And someone who is filled with these qualities will not “pass by on the other side”. On the contrary, their energies will be devoted to serving others, to helping those less fortunate than themselves – and doing so in a much better way because of their wisdom and lack of ego.

I was not being flippant in saying that you should see Goenka, you will find him a saintly person, one who has given over 50 years of selfless service. My image of saints from my Christian childhood was of remote, other-worldly beings, in fact saintly people are the most fully alive and engaged of all, filled with energy to help others. Their detachment from ego, from ignorance and delusion, frees them and leads them to help others to free themselves.

Goenka calls Vipassana “the art of living” – not the art of ignoring life!

Peter

Happy Easter to you - the Lord is Risen - alleluia

You are doing a good job.

In my station in life I am no intellectual, yet I am well read and have good discussion with associates who are very well qualified academically in Theology/Philosophy.

Through almost 30 years of thirsting for the Lord and formation once I was introduced to the Scriptures as prayerful reflective practice, I have come to appreciate what St Augustine talked of in the need for a balance of the personal, the intellectual and the institutional in one's spiritual development and exercise. One not balanced with the others leads to a comfort zone of a mix of religiosity, intellectualism, dogmatism, and ignorance.

God has been booted out of the public square by what I call the Giddites ( God is Dead - ites) and we are paying the price. Our response cannot be more life by formula, or "prayer saying", or silly "Jesus Saves" posturing.

A long Church tradition, based on Jesus's teaching, has been the call to lose oneself - to diminish one's worldly cravings for a desire of God. And as you say, in that losing, the only response is to immerse oneself in the world in service to the world. This is no self making; it is afforded by grace in response to the desire of God. And there is nothing ethereal in this; there is something tangible forsaken, and something tangible taken up in the stuff of life - most likely trouble and struggle, in joy and peace.

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