A Fresh Perspective

Author, storyteller, and pastor Philip Gulley says that for a brief period in his life he was a Cub Scout. He joined under the false impression he would be given a pocketknife. His scoutmaster was the Pastor of the United Methodist church in town. Each week he required them to repeat the law of scouting. So they all said: A scout is trustworthy, loyal, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent. Then he would add, “Just like Jesus.” He explained how Jesus was like a Boy Scout. He camped outside, cooked over a fire, helped people, was kind to the elderly, obeyed his mother (I might add, except for the time when Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem and his parents spent several days looking for him, which, by the way, is the only childhood story we have of Jesus), and went to church. Gulley says that image of Jesus as Scoutmaster stuck with him for several years.  Most people reading this were taught about Jesus from an early age. Many peo...

In the little book of Habakkuk, the prophet faces a crisis of faith. It was a common belief among Habakkuk’s people that plagues and invasions from other nations were indicative of God’s displeasure or judgment. Undoubtedly, Habakkuk shares this belief to some degree. Most of us share the beliefs we are socialized into through family and culture. The Babylonians are coming. They are a ruthless and violent people who worship might and power. They will sweep down and set their hooks and nets into the land and gather the people of Israel in like a fisherman gathers in his catch, to be used and disposed of at will (1:5–17). The prophet cries to God, “We cry for help but you do not listen. We cry out for deliverance but you do not save. The wicked hem in the righteous so that justice is perverted” (1:2–4). It’s a question of justice. How can it be, cries the prophet, that God would use a more wicked people to punish a less wicked people? Israel wasn’t innocent, but they were not as vi...

Abraham Maslow contended that any adequate understanding of religious faith must take into consideration “peak experiences.” By peak experiences Maslow was referring to experiences of existential communion with an Ultimate Reality that transcends the limited self. Mystics who have had such experiences have reported that they felt a deep, expansive sense of belonging to every other person and to all creation, where they could see the beauty and goodness of all things. The mystics of various religious traditions call this Reality different names: God, the Really Real, the Presence, Cosmic Christ, Spirit, Source of Life, Ultimate Reality, Ground of Being, etc. The beliefs we use to describe this experience and Reality will always be inadequate. A living faith is the means by which we connect, commune, and cooperate with the Divine Spirit that is within every human being (we are all made in God’s image). Our beliefs are merely pointers, our human way of trying to grasp and explain it. ...