From: rpitts@emperor.gatech.edu (Richard Pitts)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: You should be a Christian because (30 words max):
Date: 6 Jan 93 16:53:00 GMT
Organization: CERL-EE, Georgia Institue of Technology

In article <1i9h0mINNi06@cascade.ens.tek.com> davidh@cascade.ens.tek.com (David Hatcher) writes:
|In article <78447@hydra.gatech.EDU> rpitts@emperor.gatech.edu (Richard Pitts) writes:
|>In article <1gnifaINNsko@cascade.ens.tek.com> davidh@cascade.ens.tek.com (David Hatcher) writes:
|>>Jen Kilmer writes:
|>>>Christianity is true.
|>>
|>>  And so are many other spiritual traditions.	
|>
|>How do you reconcile Jesus' statement of Himself being the only way to
|>the Father? 
|
|  The way that I reconcile those words is that from what I have seen
|and experienced, I do not believe that the God stuff that Christians see 
|within the personage of Jesus Christ is limited only to the body that 
|Christians know by as that name.

The Apostle Peter (a man who knew Jesus up close and personal) said that
if we didn't belief that THE Christ had come in the flesh, then our
teachings aren't to be followed.  The angel even told us at Jesus'
birth that he was CHRIST the Lord, not a christ.

|>It is written about Jesus that there is no other name given whereby men 
|>must be saved.  
|
|  When I peer around these words and gaise upon the source of Jesus and
|experience that source within in my heart and soul, I know that Jesus
|in not the only way to the Divine. When I experience the Divine through
|the ways of other spiritual traditions, from those places I also can not 
|help but know that the Christian way of coming to God is not the only way. 

Jesus told us that the way to God is NARROW and few find it, but the
way to destruction is WIDE and many find it.  

|When I see the Divine at play within the hearts and souls of those of other 
|spiritual traditions, again, I know that God is wide open to all, regardless 
|of the spiritual traditions that anyone follows.

God's divine nature and eternal power is evident to all.  All have an
awareness of God the Creator and are responsible to that.  However, 
those who have the complete message of God proclaimed to the via the
message of Jesus the Christ are subject to a greater standard.  The
Bible asks how can we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?

|  It appears to me that what is written and what is actually experienced
|are two different things. It also appears to me that truth lies outside
|of written words.

True is outside of written words.  Jesus said this, for he told us that
people search the Scritpures for in them they think they have eternal
life, BUT THEY REFUSE to come to Him, to whom the Scriptures point,
and have eternal life.  All of prophecy is fulfilled in Jesus the Christ.

|  If your at all interested in finding a compromise with others "in God",
|could we try something? NOTE: I'm not suggesting that we try to find a 
|compromise in our beliefs. I'm pointing directly towards as the place
|towards which we can find unity.
|
|  Suppose we, just for a moment, we can agree that others of other spiritual 
|traditions also know and experience and live within the awareness of God
|just as much as any Christian does. This immediately raises a question within
|the mind of many a Christians of "how with out going through Jesus Christ?"
|May I suggest that quite possibility the stuff or essence of what Christians
|know and experience by the name of Jesus Christ is also known and experienced 
|within many other spiritual traditions, but in other forms and names?.

To some what I would agree, but the full revelation is in Jesus the
Christ, who came to reveal the invisible God to us.  Jesus is the only
one that has seen God's face and He came to reveal Him to us.  Jesus
only did what the Father desired and Jesus prayed that we would know
the Father and the Son that the Father sent.

|  So, coming from that experience, if we look within our hearts, I feel that 
|we can look at and share, across spiritual traditions and with each other, of 
|the glory of the experience of God as our hearts and soul are being is filled 
|with the awareness of that experience. In coming from that intimacy with God, 
|I feel we can recognize the same God at work within our lives. 

Yet, without Jesus we don't have access to the Father.

|Do you care to give it a go?

I can state where I agree with you, but I don't want to give it
a go to the degree of ignoring what I know, for as you know we
do not agree very much, when it comes to Jesus THE Christ and this
is the key for me.

|>I guess I'm asking what do you mean by truth - do you see no contradictions
|>between these spiritual traditions among themselves or with Christianity?
|	                 ^^^^^^^^^^
|
|  Coming from the "tradition" perspective, of course I see contradictions. 
|But God is not a tradition. There in lies the rub. I see contradictions
|fadding away when we approach God from the perspective of our experiences
|of being filled with the intimiaticy of the Love of God. 

What about worshipping God in everything, but yet, as Christians know,
that God created everything and does not live in the things.  God
set the times and boundaries of men's actions.  God did this so
that men would reach out for him and find him.  Jesus came to earth,
lived a spotless life, died on the cross, and rose physically from
the grave so that we might know the Father.

    Acts 17:24-27 (NIV)   "The God who made the world and everything 
    in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in 
    temples built by hands. {25} And he is not served by human 
    hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all 
    men life and breath and everything else. {26} From one man he 
    made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole 
    earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact 
    places where they should live. {27} God did this so that men 
    would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, 
    though he is not far from each one of us. 


|	David Hatcher

For Christ and His Kingdom,
Richard Pitts
-- 
rpitts@cerl.gatech.edu      |  Love and Worship God, the Creator of the Earth. 
                          --|--   
Pro-Life!              -|-  |  -|-    Come bow down in worship, let us kneel
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