A Fresh Perspective

I believe that the more inclusive one’s Christian faith becomes (or for that matter any religious tradition) the more transformative and real and spiritually healthy it becomes. The more dualistic a faith is the more its adherents concern themselves with who is “in” and who is “out,” who is “saved” and “unsaved,” and in the more fundamentalist versions of Christianity this means separating those who are going to heaven from those who are going to hell. Dualistic believing Christians employ different methods and criteria in determining who is in and who is out. The criteria may include church membership, baptism, believing certain doctrines, adopting certain formulas like saying the sinner’s prayer, etc. For example, I have a Christian friend who was labeled “unsaved” by some of his more conservative Christian friends because he doesn’t believe in the virgin birth. Certainly I believe that church membership, baptism, Christian doctrine, etc, have their place, but I am convinced th...

The Advent of Jesus marked a gigantic leap forward in the evolution of religious thought. Jesus broke old, unhealthy patterns of relating to the Divine which were rooted in our projections of fear and our tendency to transfer guilt. In ancient religious practice it was commonplace to offer up either a human or animal sacrifice in order to pacify and appease the deity. This was practically a universal pattern of ancient religious cultures—offering up the firstborn, the virgin, the best of the herd or flock to propitiate the deity. Jesus related to and spoke about a God (Abba) of providential care and grace. His acceptance of “sinners and tax collectors,” his compassion towards the diseased, the demonized, and the destitute, his inclusion of those excluded, revealed a God who cares deeply about the oppressed, the marginalized, and the condemned of the world, a God of unconditional love. And yet this was no mere sentimentalism. Jesus confronted and challenged the hypocrisy, rigidity, ...