Why
Must Life Be So Complicated When In Reality
IT'S QUITE SIMPLE?
As a non-believer (I gave up believing
in fairy tales a long time ago) coming across this articleWho's in hell? Pastor's
book sparks eternal debate and video
(below) was an enormous Breath Of Fresh Air.
As I watch and read the latest events
going around upon our globe, I shake my head in disbelief at all
the unnecessary suffering that permeates our world because of
caustic religious beliefs.
Being privy to objectivity while
watching the hateful goings on, makes me want to caterwaul these
words at those who partake in bigotry, fear and hate via
religious doctrine… “WAKE UP people this is not what
religious dogma was meant to do. Don't follow those who advocate
HATE, it's toxic and will not make you ever feel contentment.
Peace cannot ever be obtained through fear and hate.” (DUH!)
It sounds so simple because IT IS
SIMPLE! But it appears people would rather go through their short
lives feeling fear, afraid to die, afraid to live but not afraid
to HATE.
Life is HELL but through common sense
thinking, we all have it in our power to make existence A
SOMEWHAT PLESANT (at least a non-antagonistic) EXPERIENCE.
There I go again... DREAMING!
Please read the
article and watch Bell's enlightening video.
Thinkingblue
The pastor of a rural United Methodist church in North Carolina
wrote a note on his Facebook page supporting a new book by Rob
Bell, a prominent young evangelical pastor and critic of the
traditional view of hell as a place of eternal torment for
billions of damned souls.
Two days later, Holtz was told complaints from church members
prompted his dismissal from Marrow's Chapel in Henderson.
"I think justice comes and judgment will happen, but I don't
think that means an eternity of torment," Holtz said.
"But I can understand why people in my church aren't ready
to leave that behind. It's something I'm still grappling with
myself."
The debate over Bell's new book "Love Wins" has quickly
spread across the evangelical precincts of the Internet, in part
because of an eye-catching promotional video posted on YouTube.
Bell, the pastor of the 10,000-member Mars Hill Bible Church in
Grand Rapids, Mich., lays out the premise of his book while the
video cuts away to an artist's hand mixing oil paints and pastels
and applying them to a blank canvas.
He describes going to a Christian art show where one of the
pieces featured a quote by Mohandas Gandhi. Someone attached a
note saying: "Reality check: He's in hell."
"Gandhi's in hell? He is? And someone knows this for
sure?" Bell asks in the video.
In the book, Bell criticizes the belief that a select number of
Christians will spend eternity in the bliss of heaven while
everyone else is tormented forever in hell.
"This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the
contagious spread of Jesus' message of love, peace, forgiveness
and joy that our world desperately needs to hear," he writes
in the book.
For many traditional Christians, though, Bell's new book sounds a
lot like the old theological position of universalism — a
heresy for many churches, teaching that everyone, regardless of
religious belief, will ultimately be saved by God. And that, they
argue, dangerously misleads people about the reality of the
Christian faith.
"I just felt like on every page he's trying to say 'It's
OK,'" said Southern Baptist Seminary President Albert Mohler
at a forum last week on Bell's book held at the Louisville
institution. "And there's a sense in which we desperately
want to say that. But the question becomes, on what basis can we
say that?"
Bell argues that hell has assumed an outsize importance in
Christian teaching, considering the word itself only appears in
the New Testament about 12 times, by his count.
"For a 1st-century Jewish rabbi, where you go when you die
wasn't the most pressing question," Bell told The Associated
Press. "The question was how can you enter into the shalom
and peace of God right now, this day." MORE HERE
Bell denies he's a universalist, and his exact beliefs on what
happens to people after death are hard to pin down, but he argues
that such speculation distracts people from an urgent point. In
his telling, hell is something freely chosen that already exists
on earth, in everything from war to abusive relationships.
The near-relish with which some Christians stress the torments of
hell, Bell argues, keep many believers needlessly afraid of a
loving God, and repel potential Christians who might otherwise be
curious about the faith's teachings.
"The heart of the Christian story is that God is love,"
he said. "But when you hear the word 'Christian,' you don't
necessarily think 'Oh, sure, those are the people who don't stop
talking about God's love.' Some other things would come to
mind."
About the only thing everyone agrees on is that this is not a new
debate in Christianity. It stretches to antiquity, when
Christianity was a persecuted sect in the Roman Empire, and the
third century theologian Origen developed a theory that
contemporary critics charged would mean that everyone, even the
devil himself, would ultimately be saved. Church leaders
eventually condemned ideas they attributed to Origen, but he has
had a lasting influence across the Roman Catholic, Orthodox and
Protestant traditions.
Those traditions often disagree, even internally, on what awaits
souls after death. The Catholic Church, which has a formal
process for identifying souls in heaven through canonization,
pointedly refrains from saying that anyone is without a doubt in
hell. Protestants reject the concept of purgatory, in which sins
can be atoned for after death, but disagree on other questions.
The lack of consensus is enabled partly by ambiguities in the
Bible.
Evangelical opposition to Bell is exemplified in a succinct tweet
from prominent evangelical pastor John Piper: "Farewell, Rob
Bell."
Page Brooks, a professor at the New Orleans Baptist Theological
Seminary, thinks Bell errs in a conception of a loving God that
leaves out the divine attributes of justice and holiness.
"It's love, but it's a just love," Brooks said.
"God is love, but you have to understand you're a sinner and
the only way to get around that is through Christ's sacrifice on
the cross."
Making his new belief public is both liberating and a little
frightening for Holtz, even though his doubts about traditional
doctrines on damnation began long before he heard about Rob
Bell's book.
A married Navy veteran with five children, Holtz spent years
trying to reconcile his belief that Jesus Christ's death on the
cross redeemed the entire world with the idea that millions of
people — including millions who had never even heard of
Jesus — were suffering forever in hell.
"We do these somersaults to justify the monster god we
believe in," he said. "But confronting my own
sinfulness, that's when things started to topple for me. Am I
really going to be saved just because I believe something, when
all these good people in the world aren't?"
Gray Southern, United Methodist district superintendent for the
part of North Carolina that includes Henderson, declined to
discuss Holtz's departure in detail, but said there was more to
it than the online post about Rob Bell's book.
"That's between the church and him," Southern said.
Church members had also been unhappy with Internet posts about
subjects like gay marriage and the mix of religion and
patriotism, Holtz said, and the hell post was probably the last
straw. Holtz and his family plan to move back to Tennessee, where
he'll start a job and maybe plant a church.
"So long as we believe there's a dividing point in eternity,
we're going to think in terms of us and them," he said.
"But when you believe God has saved everyone, the point is,
you're saved. Live like it."
As
the author of more than 9000 hymns plus 1000 secular poems and
songs, hymnwriter Francis Jane (Fanny) Crosby was one of the most
beloved Christian figures in the late 1800s. While providing many
of the appealing gospel hymns that would replace the formerly
popular more staid and sober songs, she also gained renown as a
preacher, lecturer and home mission worker. And she accomplished
it all - despite being blind since infancy. Still, Fanny never
allowed what could have been a seriously limiting handicap caused
by a careless mistake to keep her from using her God given talent
to create songs that would provide inspiration and encouragement
to many.
Born March 24, 1820, Frances Jane Crosby had normal vision at
birth but at six weeks suffered an eye inflammation. Their usual
doctor was unavailable and so the family sought help from a man
who claimed to be medically qualified but who put a poultice on
her eyes that left the infant's eyes scarred. The
"doctor" hurriedly left town.
Not long after Fanny's father died and her young mother sought
domestic work in nearby town, leaving her blind daughter in the
care of her mother Eunice and other relatives.
Resolved that Fanny would not be completely dependent on others,
as were many blind people at the time, Eunice set about to
educate Fanny about many aspects of the world around her as she
helped her memorize great portions of the Bible and other books.
Though other physicians reluctantly told her family there was
nothing to be done to restore her sight, Grandma Eunice continued
to help develop her memory as she grew and played as nearly as
possible as normal children. Still when she became discouraged
she prayed and asked God to use her, refusing to let her handicap
limit her. Her new resolve was expressed in her first poem:
O what a
happy soul am I!
Although I cannot see,
I am resolved that in this world,
Contented I will be.
How many blessings I enjoy,
That other people don't.
To weep and sigh because I'm blind,
I cannot and I won't!
Please sign this very important
petition "demand question time" (of our political
leaders) HERE..
We really need more dialog from those at the top... The
Republicans have got to be made to realize they can't hide behind
"NO" any longer! thinkingblue
As
the author of more than 9000 hymns plus 1000 secular poems and
songs, hymnwriter Francis Jane (Fanny) Crosby was one of the most
beloved Christian figures in the late 1800s. While providing many
of the appealing gospel hymns that would replace the formerly
popular more staid and sober songs, she also gained renown as a
preacher, lecturer and home mission worker. And she accomplished
it all - despite being blind since infancy. Still, Fanny never
allowed what could have been a seriously limiting handicap caused
by a careless mistake to keep her from using her God given talent
to create songs that would provide inspiration and encouragement
to many.