From: gpalo@digi.lonestar.org (Gerry Palo)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: The meaning of "pagan"
Date: 7 Jan 93 22:18:56 GMT
Organization: DSC Communications Corp, Plano, TX

In article <1993Jan7.011528.7283@hpcvaac.cv.hp.com> billn@hpcvaac.cv.hp.com (bill nelson) writes:
>drake+@cs.cmu.edu (Drake) writes:
>
>... delided ...
>
>: Aguable?  Yes.  Successfully arguable?  Not in your wildest dreams.  Unless,
>: of course, you want to play with semantics and define Christian however it
>: suits you.
>
>Why not. It is just as valid, if not more so, than your insistance that
>everyone interprets what they read the same way that you do. 
>
>... delided ...
>
>: Yes...however, neither you nor he will find justification with the pages of
>: Holy Writ to support your contention.  The Christian Bible proclaims Jesus
>: of Nazareth to be the one and only path to God, and, by extension, Christianity
>: to be the one and only "true" religion.  Can you provide any Scripture - as
>: oppossed to human interpreter's thoughts - to deny this?
>
>Only if you read something into Scripture that is not there. Show me one place
>that says that Christianity is the "only true" religion. Show me one place 
>where it says that Jesus is the one and only path to salvation/enlightenment.
>
>Bill


It is true.  Christ said, "No one comes to the Father but by me."  He did not say, "to
enlightenment" or "to salvation", but "to the Father".   He also did not say,
"but by my teachings" or "but by the religion founded by my followers".  Though this
Way was first embodied in a religious form in Christianity, it does not limit him to 
that form for other human beings at other times an places.  Just _how_ Christ works 
as the way, and how an individual or even a whole religious stream becomes a part of 
that way is another question.  But, as Schelling said (and I've posted before elsewhere), 
"Christ is not so much the teacher of Christianity, he is its content."

One important aspect of this saying of Christ, which begins "I am the way, the truth, and
the life", is that it deals with the individual human being, not groups of human beings.
We are limited in our perception of the nature of the human being if we, whether Christian,
atheist, Jew, or "other", confine our conception of him to a single earthly life.  This
raises no end of problems in making sense of the individual's destiny and the meaning of
God and of life.  The larger view, which I believe fundamentally is not in contradiction
with Christianity or with the Bible, would open perspectives of meaning for questions ranging
from the meaning of individual destiny (including apparently senseless suffering and other
forms of injustice) to the real meaning of the salvation that streams from the deed of Christ
on Golgotha.  It would also allow for a conception of the Way that is Christ that is not
confined to a specific confession or set of beliefs that must be adopted by anyone who
wants to be saved, and it also allows for a growing conception - and ultimately perception -
of the greater magnitude of Christ, beyond the issue of sin and salvation.

Well, that should satisfy everyone, shouldn't it.

Gerry Palo (73237.2006@compuserve.com)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan,talk.religion.misc,alt.atheism,alt.slack