Re: Which God I Believe In? The SAME God Jesus believed in!
**Rowland Croucher**
> I worship the SAME Exclusive One God Yahweh whom
> Jesus worshipped and whom Jesus told us to worship.
>
> WHY don't you follow JESUS' Greatest Commandments?????
Hi Mark (and any others with nothing better to do than read this :-)
Today (at Queenscliff, Victoria, Australia on 3 November 2009) my
Spiritual Director invited me to consider who God is for me. Here�s what
I scribbled:
At the outset, as I approach this awesome subject, I need to assert
again my deep ignorance, and take the shoes of arrogance from my feet.
First, God is. I have never seriously doubted God�s existence,
encountering God in the lives and commitment of the �saints� in our
childhood church, later in the �works of God�s hands� in nature, and
ultimately/most importantly � until today � in Jesus, Lover and Lord
(the notion of �Christ� may be meaningful for Jews who follow Jesus, but
isn�t so much for me). This God is not far from any one of us: in God we
live and move and have our being.
God is Being, the life in all living things, and infinite (centre
everywhere, circumference nowhere). Our feeble attempts at understanding
describe God as enlivener, enlightener and empowerer of all creatures:
God is Creator, God is Truth, God is with us. Christian �Spirituality�
is about nothing else.
I also believe God is personal � father/mother/friend. I know the
biblical writers used anthropomorphic language in their struggle to
depict who God is, but the clear message throughout is that God desires
a relationship with me, a relationship, astonishingly, with reciprocal
dimensions. This is what�s behind the beautiful Hebrew idea of hesed,
which is almost untranslatable into English, but �covenant love� or,
better, �lovingkindness� will do for now. (And I will use masculine
pronouns for God, if only to remind me that he is for me the �Father� I
never had�)
God chose to reveal his �nature� and �purposes� to/for us via some
ancient sages, poets and prophets, but ultimately in Jesus of Nazareth.
So what is this God like? He is �Grace� (justice-love) and �Truth�.
God calls each of us to a special vocation: to serve others in whatever
unique ways for which we are destined and equipped. First, our calling
is to know him (the main means: prayer) and out of that to communicate
his grace and truth. Both prayer and service to others are best done
with deeds (plus words if necessary). Occasionally (this is a great
mystery for humans) we are equipped to pray and serve better through
suffering: being with Jesus �outside the camp/ the city walls� (ie. our
social group�s sometimes unhelpful or evil distractions and
expectations). It is even good to be thus afflicted, so that we can
better learn God�s decrees (Psalm 119:7).
Again: who is the God to whom we pray and whom we serve? God is grace
(loving us unconditionally before, as, and after we change, and whether
we change or not). And God is holy (beyond any blame, and who gives us
truth/laws to that we might better journey towards blamelessness). Love
and law are complementary, as a train is to the railway tracks: all the
propulsive power is in the train, but the tracks give direction. Without
the tracks our imperfect ideas of �loving� can be selfish or even
chaotic; without a train, tracks are sterile � pointing to a destination
but powerless to help us get there. People who are preoccupied with the
tracks are called legalists or dogmatists: Jesus got very angry with
such people.
Now, what is God calling me � Rowland Croucher � to be and do? First to
get to know God as well as I can, mainly through prayer. And then to
communicate to others what I�ve learned about God (call that
�evangelism� if you like � spreading good news - so long as you don�t
contaminate that idea with its many contemporary � or even ancient �
caricatures). There are three ideas Jesus gave us which are apposite
here, and must be placed together. �See the harvest? It�s ripe.� So get
a sickle? No: �Pray!� See the people as sheep without a shepherd? So
organize them into churches? Not really, or at least not initially:
�have compassion on them�. See the nations of the world? �As you have
seen me live out my Father�s will, so you do the same where you live and
serve.�
As a teenager who�d made a significant and earnest �decision to follow
Jesus� I vowed to get as well-equipped as I could to communicate the
Gospel to as many people as possible. I handed out gospel tracts. I
talked to fellow-students at Bathurst Teachers� College, many of whom
then decided to follow Jesus. I wrote a Gospel slogan on a drain-wall
near Kogarah, Sydney, which thousands in passing trains could read (I
told no one except my wife, but occasionally heard people in various
places talking about it). I phoned radio-commentator Ormsby Wilkins and
talked about Billy Graham (and wondered why others couldn�t or wouldn�t
spend 10 cents on a phone call to communicate with 100,000 people). I
wandered around Australia�s tertiary campuses for three years,
conducting evangelistic meetings and training some of the future leaders
of our nation. At Blackburn Baptist Church we did some things well and
other things poorly, but every week on average during our 8 � years
there people were �converted�. In the last two decades words produced
from my keyboard have gone into a dozen books, and these days on to a
busy website, into Usenet newsgroups, Facebook, onto some Blogs, and to
thousands of emailers�
Now, I confessed to my Spiritual Director, I�m not much good as a
pray-er (I�m often too self-sufficient for my own spiritual good). And I
get too much of a �buzz� thinking about all those numbers (I was seduced
early in life into thinking that more is usually better). I learned too
late that �ministry� is not automatically self-nurturing. And I was
sometimes too preoccupied with serving the Lord �out there� instead of
�ministering� better as a husband and father. Often serving God has been
more enjoyable than �wasting time with God� (as Sheila Cassidy so
beautifully put it in one of her books). Sometimes I�ve sabotaged the
whole operation with ill-chosen � albeit maybe clever - words and ideas
which were too provocative to be useful in a particular context. And
when that happened, I�ve been too negatively sensitive to the
justly-deserved criticism which ensued. (But on the other hand, Lord,
save me from the more secure route where �the bland leads the bland�).
So I think (I said to my Spiritual Director) that it�s probably time to
be put out to pasture in 2010, travel less and write more, engage in no
self- and very little ministry-promotion, and enjoy my 72nd year
listening more attentively to God and sharing the Good News with more
folks on-line. (And, Lord, you know that at this time I�m more than
ready for a sabbatical).
Shalom/Salaam/Pax! Rowland Croucher
Justice for Dawn Rowan - http://dawnrowansaga.blogspot.com/
I
>> I worship the SAME Exclusive One God Yahweh whom
>> Jesus worshipped and whom Jesus told us to worship.
...
> Today (at Queenscliff, Victoria, Australia on 3 November 2009) my
> Spiritual Director invited me to consider who God is for me.
Like Bonhoeffer asking "Who is Christ for us today?"
> This God is not far from any one of us: in God we live and move and have
> our being.
From Acts 17:28 where Paul quotes Aratus' "Hymn to Zeus". The "him" in whom
we "live and move and have our being" was originally Zeus.
> Now, what is God calling me � Rowland Croucher � to be and do? First to
> get to know God as well as I can, mainly through prayer.
John Shelby Spong has found it next to useless and so have I. If we live
and move and have our being in God then God already knows what I think. Too
often prayers said aloud are to impress other people and not to communicate
with God. I have found prayer to be the least effectual way of getting to
know God. Dr Barbara Thiering summarises nicely the problems with
Christianity which still haven't been adequately addresed by churches ...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Barbara Thiering ... considers herself a Christian and feels that the
separation of the historical Jesus from the theological God would be a
positive development for Christianity. ... we can no longer speak of God as
a superhuman male. ... The other big issue of our time is this question of
the separation of Jesus and god. Is Christianity the same thing as the cult
of Jesus? That must be the current theological issue that is taken on. ...
The deification of Jesus has proved to be an effective educational tool for
the Christian church. When talking to children or less sophisticated
people, both the Catholic and Protestant churches have fastened on Jesus
because they've felt than an abstract God is something people can't
understand - Jesus is something they can. ... The question of God has always
been separate from the question of Jesus. ... As a result of all the books
on the historical Jesus which have been written over the past twenty years,
the idea of the supernatural Jesus is really finished. it was a crude idea
appropriate to a less advanced society. ... for some years now, people who
have usually had a church background, have come to the point of saying, 'It
is ridiculous to talk about the Son of God and to worship a human being.' It
was one of the heresies, to worship a human being. We had reverted to that.
... People have been saying, 'Let's stop the cult of Jesus,' ... pp 166-167
The Bible had scarecely been read for fifteen hundred years until the
Protestants went to the book and made it their priest. They understood it
no better than the Catholics but it was a powerful political tool against
the priests and that's been the case for the past five hundred years. So,
Protestants are particuylarly badly affected by this new collapse because
they have a lot invested in the Bible and in history and in Jesus. They've
never really gone for an abstract doctrine of God and, as a result,
Protestants are disappearing. p. 168
I could never cope with the notion that my internal salvation and my
morality depended on Jesus walking on water. p. 168
As soon as you think of God, you need to put brackets around it because
your're only thinking in your own terms and your own language. I'm thinking
in English. My thinking is inadequate for something better expressed in
Hindi. You cannot think about God, you cannot have any knowledge of God
but, at the same time, you have to, in order to cope with your personal
religious needs. In fact, you cannot know God in any way because there is
nothing you can say about God that is true. pp. 176-177
from Samantha Trenoweth "The Future of God: Personal adventures in
spirituality with thirteen of today's eminent thinkers" (Millenniun: 1995)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
**Rowland Croucher**
> "**Rowland Croucher**" wrote:
>
>>> I worship the SAME Exclusive One God Yahweh whom
>>> Jesus worshipped and whom Jesus told us to worship.
> ...
>> Today (at Queenscliff, Victoria, Australia on 3 November 2009) my
>> Spiritual Director invited me to consider who God is for me.
>
> Like Bonhoeffer asking "Who is Christ for us today?"
>> This God is not far from any one of us: in God we live and move and have
>> our being.
>
> From Acts 17:28 where Paul quotes Aratus' "Hymn to Zeus". The "him" in whom
> we "live and move and have our being" was originally Zeus.
>> Now, what is God calling me � Rowland Croucher � to be and do? First to
>> get to know God as well as I can, mainly through prayer.
>
> John Shelby Spong has found it next to useless and so have I. If we live
> and move and have our being in God then God already knows what I think. Too
> often prayers said aloud are to impress other people and not to communicate
> with God.
I'd go along with this - which is why I think I said somewhere that the
best praying is without words. I just prayed for you, Mark, in my
imagination - no words...
I have found prayer to be the least effectual way of getting to
> know God. <>
Shalom/Salaam/Pax! Rowland Croucher
Randy ®
I <me@home000000000000521> wrote:
> "**Rowland Croucher**" wrote:
>
>>> >> I worship the SAME Exclusive One God Yahweh whom
>>> >> Jesus worshipped and whom Jesus told us to worship.
> ...
>> > Today (at Queenscliff, Victoria, Australia on 3 November 2009) my
>> > Spiritual Director invited me to consider who God is for me.
> Like Bonhoeffer asking "Who is Christ for us today?"
>
>
>> > This God is not far from any one of us: in God we live and move and have
>> > our being.
> From Acts 17:28 where Paul quotes Aratus' "Hymn to Zeus". The "him" in whom
> we "live and move and have our being" was originally Zeus.
But if Paul thought they already knew the correct God, why did he
go risking his life to preach the gospel of Christ's death and
resurrection to them?
And why do you quote the Bible as proof of your claims, given you
insist you can't know if any of the Bible is not an error? How
do you expect people to not conclude you are an agnostic
hypocrite, unless you produce some source you claim is actually
the word of God, that gives you a reason to believe in that God?
--
Have you heard Christ died for our sins, and God raised Him
from the dead? Did you know God saves you from hell and
gives you eternal life through faith in this finished work alone,
not your merits (Jn. 3:16; 1 Cor. 15:1-3; Eph. 2:8-10; 2 Thess.
1:8-9)? This is so man cannot boast, and God alone gets the
glory (Eph. 2:8-9).
______________________________________________
www.faithguard.org
www.twitter.com/faithguard
www.facebook.com/faithguard
______________________________________________
Ken Smith
>I wrote:
I did a double take here, Rowland.
It took several seconds before I realised that you were responding to
"I", not using the first person singular pronoun.
>> I worship the SAME Exclusive One God Yahweh whom
>> Jesus worshipped and whom Jesus told us to worship.
>>
>> WHY don't you follow JESUS' Greatest Commandments?????
>Hi Mark (and any others with nothing better to do than read this :-)
>Today (at Queenscliff, Victoria, Australia on 3 November 2009) my
>Spiritual Director invited me to consider who God is for me. Here's what
>I scribbled:
>At the outset, as I approach this awesome subject, I need to assert
>again my deep ignorance, and take the shoes of arrogance from my feet.
>First, God is. I have never seriously doubted God's existence,
>encountering God in the lives and commitment of the `saints' in our
>childhood church, later in the `works of God's hands' in nature, and
>ultimately/most importantly -- until today -- in Jesus, Lover and Lord
>(the notion of `Christ' may be meaningful for Jews who follow Jesus, but
>isn't so much for me). This God is not far from any one of us: in God we
>live and move and have our being.
>God is Being, the life in all living things, and infinite (centre
>everywhere, circumference nowhere). Our feeble attempts at understanding
>describe God as enlivener, enlightener and empowerer of all creatures:
>God is Creator, God is Truth, God is with us. Christian 'Spirituality'
>is about nothing else.
>I also believe God is personal -- father/mother/friend. I know the
>biblical writers used anthropomorphic language in their struggle to
>depict who God is, but the clear message throughout is that God desires
>a relationship with me, a relationship, astonishingly, with reciprocal
>dimensions. This is what's behind the beautiful Hebrew idea of hesed,
>which is almost untranslatable into English, but 'covenant love' or,
>better, 'lovingkindness' will do for now. (And I will use masculine
>pronouns for God, if only to remind me that he is for me the 'Father' I
>never had.)
>God chose to reveal his 'nature' and 'purposes' to/for us via some
>ancient sages, poets and prophets, but ultimately in Jesus of Nazareth.
>So what is this God like? He is 'Grace' (justice-love) and 'Truth'.
>God calls each of us to a special vocation: to serve others in whatever
>unique ways for which we are destined and equipped. First, our calling
>is to know him (the main means: prayer) and out of that to communicate
>his grace and truth. Both prayer and service to others are best done
>with deeds (plus words if necessary). Occasionally (this is a great
>mystery for humans) we are equipped to pray and serve better through
>suffering: being with Jesus 'outside the camp/ the city walls' (ie. our
>social group's sometimes unhelpful or evil distractions and
>expectations). It is even good to be thus afflicted, so that we can
>better learn God's decrees (Psalm 119:7).
>Again: who is the God to whom we pray and whom we serve? God is grace
>(loving us unconditionally before, as, and after we change, and whether
>we change or not). And God is holy (beyond any blame, and who gives us
>truth/laws to that we might better journey towards blamelessness). Love
>and law are complementary, as a train is to the railway tracks: all the
>propulsive power is in the train, but the tracks give direction. Without
>the tracks our imperfect ideas of 'loving' can be selfish or even
>chaotic; without a train, tracks are sterile -- pointing to a destination
>but powerless to help us get there. People who are preoccupied with the
>tracks are called legalists or dogmatists: Jesus got very angry with
>such people.
>Now, what is God calling me -- Rowland Croucher -- to be and do? First to
>get to know God as well as I can, mainly through prayer. And then to
>communicate to others what I've learned about God (call that
>'evangelism' if you like -- spreading good news - so long as you don't
>contaminate that idea with its many contemporary -- or even ancient --
>caricatures). There are three ideas Jesus gave us which are apposite
>here, and must be placed together. 'See the harvest? It's ripe.' So get
>a sickle? No: 'Pray!' See the people as sheep without a shepherd? So
>organize them into churches? Not really, or at least not initially:
>'have compassion on them'. See the nations of the world? 'As you have
>seen me live out my Father's will, so you do the same where you live and
>serve.'
>As a teenager who'd made a significant and earnest 'decision to follow
>Jesus' I vowed to get as well-equipped as I could to communicate the
>Gospel to as many people as possible. I handed out gospel tracts. I
>talked to fellow-students at Bathurst Teachers' College, many of whom
>then decided to follow Jesus. I wrote a Gospel slogan on a drain-wall
>near Kogarah, Sydney, which thousands in passing trains could read (I
>told no one except my wife, but occasionally heard people in various
>places talking about it). I phoned radio-commentator Ormsby Wilkins and
>talked about Billy Graham (and wondered why others couldn't or wouldn't
>spend 10 cents on a phone call to communicate with 100,000 people). I
>wandered around Australia's tertiary campuses for three years,
>conducting evangelistic meetings and training some of the future leaders
>of our nation. At Blackburn Baptist Church we did some things well and
>other things poorly, but every week on average during our 8 + years
>there people were 'converted'. In the last two decades words produced
>from my keyboard have gone into a dozen books, and these days on to a
>busy website, into Usenet newsgroups, Facebook, onto some Blogs, and to
>thousands of emailers...
>Now, I confessed to my Spiritual Director, I'm not much good as a
>pray-er (I'm often too self-sufficient for my own spiritual good). And I
>get too much of a 'buzz' thinking about all those numbers (I was seduced
>early in life into thinking that more is usually better). I learned too
>late that 'ministry' is not automatically self-nurturing. And I was
>sometimes too preoccupied with serving the Lord 'out there' instead of
>'ministering' better as a husband and father. Often serving God has been
>more enjoyable than 'wasting time with God' (as Sheila Cassidy so
>beautifully put it in one of her books). Sometimes I've sabotaged the
>whole operation with ill-chosen - albeit maybe clever - words and ideas
>which were too provocative to be useful in a particular context. And
>when that happened, I've been too negatively sensitive to the
>justly-deserved criticism which ensued. (But on the other hand, Lord,
>save me from the more secure route where 'the bland leads the bland').
>So I think (I said to my Spiritual Director) that it's probably time to
>be put out to pasture in 2010, travel less and write more, engage in no
>self- and very little ministry-promotion, and enjoy my 72nd year
>listening more attentively to God and sharing the Good News with more
>folks on-line. (And, Lord, you know that at this time I'm more than
>ready for a sabbatical).
You're much too young to be "put out to pasture", Rowland.
Helen and I thought that when we moved into the retirement village
we'd be able to have a bit of time just relaxing together.
But we're just as busy as before - except that we have more
opportunities for a bit of a "lie-in" in the mornings, claiming our
age as a reason for not getting up quite so early.
>Shalom/Salaam/Pax! Rowland Croucher
>Justice for Dawn Rowan - http://dawnrowansaga.blogspot.com/
Salaam
Ken Smith
--
Dr Ken Smith - Christian, husband, unpaid mathematician, skeptic, ...
`I think you have to be just a little show-offy to bare your breasts to
all, even if they are partially obscured by someone gnawing at them.'
Jane Frazer, on breast feeding in public
I
> I did a double take here, Rowland.
> It took several seconds before I realised that you were responding to
> "I", not using the first person singular pronoun.
I am Mark T. I have used the "I" persona because of the hate-filled
fundamentalists who wish to malign my name in every second post.
When they respond with their hate it reads "I wrote". ;-)
> You're much too young to be "put out to pasture", Rowland.
With age comes more wisdom. Our youth oriented culture doesn't value those
of many years. It doesn't know what it is missing out on.
I have a few friends employed (and unemployed) in the IT world. Once you
hit 40 as a computer expert no-one wants to hire you. I'm sure that is also
the case in other fields.