Arthur knows..

No matter which of the three Queens we choose to serve Mr Sellick, Excalibur must be returned to the lady of the lake, in our final quest for Camelot..
All is vanity and a striving after wind!

Christianity, of all the world's religions, provides for the most personal relationship between the individual and the deity. ("For where two or three gather together in My name, there am I with them.” Matthew 18:20).

Chritianity doesn't need a church, or a clergy. Armed with a Bible, the Chritianian can commune with his God independent of the official structures. Those structures grew because people weren't in a position to arm themselves with a Bible or to understand its meaning. People craved and crave leadership and The Answer. But Guttenburg and (almost) universal literacy have changed all that...or could change all that.

That a fundamentalist clergyman disagrees with a progressive clergyman ought to be neither here nor there. The church and its structures should be just about providing a venue and the wherewithal to allow the believers to congregate, commune and celebrate their shared core beleifs. A place where individual understandings of the faith can be debated, shared and pondered. Not a place where some 'learned' professional pronounces from on-high what people should believe about their religion.

The church is dying because its just another power structure in a world of competing power structures. Giving it back to the congregation is the way the movement can achieve salvation (pun intended).

Dear Mhaze,

«Christianity, of all the world's religions, provides for the most personal relationship between the individual and the deity.»

Where did you get this comparison?

In Hinduism, one worships a deity usually alone in the privacy of their home, constantly repeat its names, offers flowers and fruit at its feet, circles a light around it and dusts off its statue. How more personal can you get?