Dear Antiseptic,

<<If the church has a purpose it is to create a moral backdrop and foundation for society.>>

Another said, "If the church has a purpose it is to fill my pockets with gold".

Why should the church do either? One of the last things one can say about Jesus is that he was a social person!

There are plenty (too many in fact) social institutions already - better no church at all than a church serving the wrong master.

<<What is the purpose of the Word? Is it to try to teach us all how to be better people>>

Yes to be better, but not better people - to help us realise our full potential to recover our divinity.

Dear Individual,

<<So which of the countless religion's Gods is the right one then ?>>

Right one for what?
Right one for whom?

I cannot advise you about it without knowing about your particular background, circumstances and interests.

In relation to that you may also like to read my reply to Suseonline of 12 August 2013, 4:29:36 PM

Does God require a special language? Well, I'll be the mug, does he, she or it?

Which God does Sells refer to? I mean, there are thousands of gods in our world thanks to mankind's infinite imagination. They all have different names and they promise different things to their followers, you know: virgins or singing hymns forever.

I mean, if you have too much of Ra, the sun-god, you can be bloody Thor!

Yuyutsu, I think you've got the wrong end of the stick. The only thing we can do is to be people. I disagree completely that Jesus was not social. He was intrinsically social in every way. He had a large group of friends, he had a girlfriend, he had a large family, he spoke to lots of people and he gave himself completely to making people's lives better. How much more social do you want?

What he wasn't was institutionalised. He was a Jew who didn't get on with the Jewish authorities. He didn't like the rent-seekers ("moneychangers") who put themselves between people doing things that needed to be done and that used the structures of religion to do it. Hillsong and some other of the evangelical/charismatic organisations spring to mind.

As a result he fell foul of the authorities, but he did so because he was trying to show people that those authorities were flawed.

Peter's insistence on theology rather than humanity is intrinsically at odds with Christ's message, it seems to me. It's perhaps not unexpected from the Anglican tradition, though, which was founded because of the desire of a secular authority to dodge a fundamental obligation of marital fidelity in Christ's preaching.

George,
It may surprise you but I do not write for the commentators of OLO. Rather, I write for the many people who subscribe to the blog and others who have some level of theological education. My use of Barth was only an example, there are many traditional theologians I could of used who carefully guard talk about the being of God. Barth is one of the most recent examples.

Most of the people who comment on my stuff are just angry rationalists that refuse to think about an alternative view. I take little notice of them.

Peter, an excellent reason for the church to have no members.

You and the rest of your theological colleagues can talk to each other until you kick the bucket, but nobody is listening. So much for spreading the Word.

Sorry mate, but you represent all that Christ most despised. The pietistic elite that says "do as I tell you" but doesn't bother listening to what people actually say. What a tragedy.

Antiseptic,
Your previous post suggested that the function of the church was as a moral guardian. Morality is not the problem, we all know what is good, the problem is that we give ourselves to the wrong things and then morality is the problem. Jesus broke down more than he built up. He attacked the things that people give their lives to, country, religion, family, wealth etc. So you are right about him hating the kind of religion that just confirms the religious.

As to my replying to comments made here, all I need is a suggestion that someone is asking a real question instead of slagging me off and I will engage.