Christianity reformed from its roots
by Jairo Mejia

Jesus Unplugged
A Home For Progressive and Liberal Christians on the Web

Christianity is not Religion
by James A. Fowler

Christi-Anarchy
by Dave Andrew Interview with the author by Paul Mitchell

Liberal Religion
Links to liberal religious sites

NOT OF THE LETTER
That the Bible is inspired seems to be evident in its character and insight. Despite the fact that its many books and letters were written over a period of nearly one thousand years, its unity as a whole is impressive. It contains conceptions of the divine that rise above culture and occasion. Its moral and ethical teachings, as well as its invitation to a new and better life in God, continue to inspire and challenge the individual as well as society. And yet, in our praise of the Bible, it is easy to get carried away and make an unrealistic assessment of the character and authority of Scripture. Does the Bible contain absolutely no errors or contradictions? Is it wholly and completely the "Word of God?" Read on and decide for yourself.

Faith and Social Justice Page

The New Faith
What is is - How it Works
by Dr Francis Macnab
(St Michael's Uniting Church, Collins Street, Melbourne)

We are living in a different age. It is not different because of a war that is flooding every television screen; not because of a threat of terrorism, which has been part of many countries for generations. It is different because you and I and a whole range of people are looking for a better humanity.

It is a different age because you and I want more than money - we want meaning in our lives. It is different because you and I want more than our basic health - we want an authentic happiness. It is different because you and I want more than the easy rhetoric of a worn out religion - we want a religion that is relevant to our times of stress and our times of celebration.

It is a different age because you and I and people around the world want more than the glut of life - we want to find real goodness in life.

It is a different age because you and I are trying to find ways to get free of an old faith that has lost its power of enlightenment, enchantment and efficacy and we are wanting a new faith that helps us discover the relevance of the historical Jesus to our anxieties and aspirations.

Ben Okri puts before us the remarkable 16th century painting by Nikolai Poussin of Four Shepherds in front of a tomb in Arcadia. They are straining to study the words of the text on the tomb. They realize it says - "Et in Aracdia Ego:" which means "I too lived in Arcadia." These words seem to say you can continue with your preoccupation with the texts and the tombs - or you can grasp the vital significance that you too live for a time (wherever) in Arcadia. Death is in life, death and potential happiness are coupled. While you live, live! Remember your inscription one day will also be written - let it be: I lived with a "consciousness heightened to life's innumerable beauties, sufferings and marvels…" I, a celebrant of life's mysteries; I, in whom the wonder of all things was richly alive in love and art; I, too, was once like you, happy unhappy, alive, and in love. I too was wild and young and loved… I too lived the happiness of Arcadia." (from Ben Okri, In Arcadia, p.208)

The New Faith is a call to be alive to life. The Old Faith carries a load of conditions and creeds. It speaks of our sins and unacceptance, our guilt and fear and the need for repetitive repentance. The Old Faith is still entrapped in a patriarchal system with its exclusion policies and exclusion zones. The Old Faith holds onto a false cosmology of heaven, and hell and of an interventionist God "up there." The Old Faith insists that God the good Father needed his son to be slaughtered like a sacrificial sheep, so that human beings would be saved from their sins and thus achieve their salvation. The Old Faith held that the Gospels told the whole story when in fact there is a large bulk of fiction. The Old Faith kept reiterating slabs of St Paul's epistles without confessing that large slabs of the epistles were not written by Paul, and large slabs were irrelevant and unacceptable to our culture.

Many people don't want to relinquish the Old Faith even though it would be to their intellectual integrity and spiritual credulity to do so. They are likely to say, "That is what we were always taught." You were taught that heart attacks were God's way of telling us our time was up. We have learned some new facts to override that fiction - heart attacks are largely caused by our life-styles, our diet, our behaviour, our worn out vascular and arterial systems, our anxiety, and our body chemistry. You were once taught that human beings were evil because of what a mythical woman called Eve did in a piece of poetry about a Garden called Eden. We have learned that people learn evil and aggressive behavior and they can be unlearned. A great deal depends on the models we have, the motivation we have, the mind-set we develop.

Many people don't want to revoke the Old Faith even though the New Faith could offer them so much more.

So what is the New Faith, and how does it work?

We can answer this in two ways -
1. We can explore the New Faith and see what it says
2. We can examine what we need to enhance our everyday life.

The Exploration

We need to explore all over again what the real Historical Jesus said. We know that he was not self-opinionated. We know he was not arrogant. We know he was a young Jew who did not give direct answers to everything. We know he was carefully tolerant. He showed a different way of meeting the demands of life.

1. Dr Wynn Schwartz attended his psychoanalytic society meeting. While the very formal part of the meeting was in progress, a huge wasp flew in through an open window. Every eye in the room became focused on that wasp. Everyone knew how painful its sting was reputed to be. After several circles of the room, the wasp descended and landed, right on the lacquered hair of the woman seated to his right. She was extremely frightened but remained still. The presenter of the evening paper stopped. Dr Schwartz licked the top of his right forefinger and leaning forward, placed it a fraction of an inch in front of the wasp. Some moment passed and then the wasp stepped onto his finger. Very slowly, he stood up, and walked outside and released the wasp into the open air. (Psychiatry, 2002, vol.65, p.338)

Not long before I read of this event, I had a similar one. I stepped out of the shower and just as I reached for the towel, I noticed something landed on my left shoulder. A quick glance, I realized it was a huge - I mean huge-huntsman spider. The immediate tendency was to react with an impulsive panic. Instead it was gently coaxed to find another place to spend the morning.

The New Faith that the Historical Jesus unravelled was to help people become more capable of bearing unpleasant events and anxieties without becoming overwhelmed, dysfunctional, impulsive or out of control. He was a model of holding steady in face of many difficult and stressful experiences. A different way!

2. The New Faith is full of surprises. The Old Faith tries to put strong directives into Jesus' mouth. He gave no recipes for action. He was full of surprises. The later writers wanted him to speak of punishment. He gave no such proscriptions. He knew what was happening around him and what people were saying - Teenagers were impolite. People at wedding feasts showed terrible manners. The priests and clergy were not much good. The government was full of liars. Workers expect more money than they deserve. Sons were often ungrateful hooligans. Jesus knew all that and his stories kept saying just those things. And the people nodded and then he gave the surprising twist to the story. His listeners did not expect that everyone would be invited to the party. They did not expect that those hired last would be paid the same as those hired in the morning. And so with such surprises, people were provoked and challenged to listen, to think again. He contradicted the ingrained beliefs. By definition, you hated your enemies. He said, listen to what happens when you love your enemies. The New Faith is full of such surprises.

3. The New Faith said life is meant to draw forth our celebration. He told his listeners that they should look for everyday things to celebrate. Two people were about to get married. Be excessive and celebrate the event and what it means. A woman recovers her lost coin. Celebrate. A shepherd finds his lost sheep. Celebrate it. A father sees his prodigal son returning. Celebrate. Jesus called together the toll collectors and the prostitutes in defiance of the accepted codes. A disabled fellow was lowered through the roof. Jesus told him to celebrate a new life (see R, Funk, Honest to Jesus, p.150ff).

As you explore the New Faith here are just three things that stand out:
1. A steadiness and tolerance to cope with difficult and unexpected events
2. The surprises that bring a different attitude, a liberating view of things
3. A spirit of celebration.

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Enhance our Everyday

We can also look to see what we need to enhance our lives. From a needs based life, what is it we really want: deep down.

1. We want things to make sense. Every now and then, we step back and say, "What does this mean?" or perhaps you look at this phase of your life - does it make sense? How can I give it some depth of meaning? Will I fritter it away with good intentions, or will I fill it with events by doing everything to make it all look good but do little to bring a better sense of a life of meaning to others.

Yes we want to have things make sense to us - but can we bring some meaning to other people.

Psychologist Martin Seligman write -

"A meaningful life adds one more component to the good life." The meaningful life is to use: "your signature strengths and virtues in the service of something much larger than you are." (p.263 Authentic Happiness)

2. I wrestle with something that I know others wrestle with. They are saying - Why waste your time? We are powerless in face of power that is already absolutely corrupt. We are all struggling with some kind of hope, but perhaps we are all of us just hypocrites.

I want to find the psychological strength, the religious faith, the simple unostentatious courage to be alive and energized in spirit despite the depressing odds around me.

Sister Dianne Ortiz tells how she did it. She is a nun. In 1989 she was a teacher in Guatemala, during that country's civil war. Two hundred thousand citizens were killed by the military regime. Sister Dianne was a strict pacifist and had had no association with the guerillas. She was kidnapped and tortured for 24 hours, beaten, burnt with cigarettes over a hundred times, gang raped, impregnated, attacked by dogs and physically compelled to torture another prisoner. One day later an unknown American appeared and ordered her release. He claimed to have connections in the embassy and suggested she forget the whole event as a mistake!

The second part of her story was her pursuit of the unknown American. Who was he? In her pursuit thru the FBI to the Department of Justice, she ran with lies, threats, and cover-up.

The third part of her story was to discover the male domination of the church that wanted to forbid her having an abortion and insisted she forgive her torturers. Throughout her ordeal, she came to say she could not forgive anyone until she knew who her torturers were, and what the cover-up was all about. Let us all "sit down and discuss the question of forgiveness together," she said. Despite the vast pain she was not defeated. "I could still love and I could still fight," she said (The Blindfold's Eyes, My Journey From Torture to Truth). We all want that strength to be alive and energized in spirit despite the depressing odds around us.

3. We all want to find and do some human goodness. In spite of the dreadful, let there be more people on the side of human goodness and a better humanity.

Ben Okri (again) reminds us that we can discover how to be "one of the radiant ones of the earth"… where life could be "a playground of possibilities."

In his story - two of them have a conversation -
"Is it death that secretly troubles you?"
"No" said the other… "it's life that ought to fascinate us."
"And make us hungry for life."
"More joy"
"More fun."
"More love."
"More laughter."
"More freedom."
"More justice."
"More light."
And then they both fell silent.

The New Faith offers a meaning to life, a psychological and spiritual strength, and a sense of human goodness.

And then perhaps it will be time to celebrate -

• More joy
• More fun
• More love and laughter
• More freedom
• More justice
• and light.

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