and BILLY GRAHAM said..... "I preach a simple Gospel for a sinful world" :)

Phew... Now you blokes who experienced 'brain hemmorage' at the linguistic gymnastics Sells used to explain some lofty ideas will understand why I AVOIDED the higher academic theology classes/courses at Bible College. I saw the demenour of some who did them as they morphed into "Young Ninja Academics" as they 'grappled with the high ideas and deeeeeep works' of the liberal Theologians like Bultmaan and Von Rad and others. I expected the 'Pipe' to appear in their serious mouths at any moment. I liked some of the Neo Orthodox like Joachim Jeremias and some of Karl Barth, "Christ and Time" is a great work. (Jeremias I think)

A theology degree aint worth squat if you are confronted by a real demonic possession. Only a living faith and the all triumphant name of Jesus, the Messiah will see one through.

If you know Christ as Savior and Lord, then you go an do a lengthy 4 yrs of Study to show.. "Yep... I'm no the right track" you end up where u began, but just speak an unintelligle language now :)

Yesssss yes.. I'm speaking a bit tongue in cheek. Its all good. But true selfhood, is that which we experience when our vertical (Love God with all your heart) and Horizontal (Love your neighbour as yourself) is acted upon, rather than just thought about.

Only one who can look 'back' to where they have come from can truly appreciate the grace, love and harmony, the joy and peace and unity of spirit and body and mind and direction, fulfillment and unutterable abundance of Life in Christ.

This is not to deny the impact of the harsher realities of life, being down about things at times.. but undergirding all this is a resilient, abiding,enduring settlement of mind about one's ultimate destination and relationship with the Creator.

("Pie in the sky when you die" I hear from someone ? :) NOOoooo..its a feast now, and a feast then.... Halelujah)

Coach, ritual is essential for faith... it's a discipline like any other which anticipates the coming action. Consider the eucharist, in which man is absolved of his sins because of the sacrifice of his saviour: by practicing the Eucharist as regularly as possible and doing so with feeling helps the believer to prepare himself for that time when he may conquer death through forgiveness of his failings. Faith without the rituals which reaffirm it is folly, because without the reaffirmation foudn in the rituals it becomes more difficult for end to be achieved. It's like sending a battalion into battle without having drilled them beforehand. Thus there is no suprise that the level of religious devotion amongst the faithful is low.

So let me get it right. Put on a straight jacket, ie. reduce one's joy of living by adopting certain rituals and dogmas suggested by some people living two or more millennia ago in a foreign part of the world, and then by that imposition, one's joy of life is actually enhanced? Did I miss something somewhere? Who is pulling whose leg?

So all this convoluted dialogue is necessary to obfuscate the fact, that to enjoy life, one has to limit one's freedoms by some ritual? Will I now get some obfuscated convoluted mythology thrown back?

Mythology led to the burning at the stake for heretics who dared challenge it (eg for the non-earth centric solar system); for making the bible readable by translating it; for challenging the power system of the Church etc etc.

I guess if you write in myths, write so one can't understand it as here (Latin is no longer in vogue) one can hide behind the facts.

Carpe diem.

The ‘toughness’ of this article is centred, I believe, in Sell’s (para.11) allusion to the (Eastern) Greeks’ coming to Jesus. He puts the words “(Jesus) bids us come and die” as reported speech coming from (Western) Bonhoeffer’s mouth.

These words originally came from (Eastern) Jesus’ mouth, “Truly, truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life, loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life …”.

As ‘anti-supernaturalistic naturalists’, and as ‘Bible-is-myth realists’ we can chew on Jesus’ first sentence about the grain of wheat and what by nature that wheat seed needs to do, if it is to be both free and fruitful.

What Jesus is saying, and I find palatable, is that it is ‘false and bad’ if a wheat grain remains in the bag ‘alone’ after harvest. It is ‘true and good’ if it allows itself to be thrown into the ploughed earth before winter, ‘die to its old life’, germinate and spring up into the new plant, and produce grain, perhaps a hundred-fold.

The enigma of ‘dying to live’ as ‘the source of true self’ does belong to the real world of nature. No myths here!

The really ‘chewy-tough’ bit is accepting Jesus’ challenge in his second sentence, to become like that grain of wheat ourselves, ‘losing our self-bound life so that we might gain his eternal life' both now and beyond the grave.

As anti-supernaturalistic naturalists, Jesus is asking us to act on ‘who he really is’ and ‘what he challenges us to do’.

And as Bible-is-myth realists, Jesus is challenging us to ‘accept his stories from his world below and his world above’ as both being true.

If one of Jesus’ claims is false, then how do we know that both claims are not false?

And if so, then should we not discount his story about the grain of wheat?

So! Do I spit it out? Or do I keep chewing?

Happy Easter.

Peter, a question.

You say the "the existence of Israel in our time....bears witness to the truth of God". Are you talking of the State of Israel?
If so, then the millions of displaced Palestinians and the thuggery of the Israelie politico/military also bear that witness?

A more tongue in cheek question. Are the "life-nuturing cultures" those in the bio-medical laboratories where the new age gods seek their fortune satisfying a selfish age, or is it meant to be our western cultural inheritance of respect for life, hospitality, care for the poor, service to all entrenched in our Christian, western institutions and customs, albeit fraying.?

Sells, you are talking about things beyond your experience when you claim that "The creation of the true and free self cannot come about through our own efforts since those efforts, having their source in the self, cannot transcend the self. Even the most adept attempt at detachment remains attached even if it is attached to the process of detachment."

There are processes which help those seeking detachment, but you can't become detached by being attached to a process, you can only become detached by letting go, by being in the moment, free from process. Many westerners who do Vipassana courses work with striving, which leads to frustration, not detachment; but when the frustration and tension, the trying-too-hard, becomes overwhelming, people tend to let go, to suddenly be in the moment because the ego-driven striving is put to one side. John Coleman coined paradoxical terms such as "relaxed effort" to describe the delicate balance needed to keep the mind focussed in the present moment whle not seeking to achieve anything; just being there, no ego activity. Go and see Goenka in India, sit with him, before you pontificate on what you do not understand.