Well Roy, I thought having been so reactive to the BOSA pledge, I should
try to articulate what BOSA would emphasize if it wished to be on the
cutting edge of where I think Christianity is going in the twenty first
century. So here goes.
1. Jesus did not intend that we should work on creating "tribal
Christians". Tribal Christians are folks who think they have the right
belief system and their job is to convert everyone in the world to that
belief system. Nowhere does Jesus even suggest that the goal is to have
the right belief system. Jesus came to show everyone how to be human in
the way God intended regardless of their religion or belief system.
2. Jesus showed us that the universe is built on and functions on the
Paschal Mystery. Everything everywhere is constantly being born,
living, dieing and being born anew. We are to get on board with this
pattern and stop trying to resist it by trying to live forever. We are
meant to learn how to die to self in this life and thereby learn how to
die into eternal life at the end of this life.
3. Jesus said to love one another as he has loved us. More specifically
to care for the poor, the sick, those in prison, and all of the
downtrodden. It is important for us to realize that we don't think our
way into new ways of acting, we act our way into new ways of thinking.
Jesus made no bones about it. He said just do it, because it will not
only help those in need, it will transform us and the way we see the
world.
4. The human brain acts in response to patterns. The patterns we learn
become the actions we take. It is time for us to learn how to create
the patterns that teach us to love from the time we are born. It is time
we address what we are all so afraid of and why .
5. Specifically where youth are concerned... modern youth are not
concerned with belief systems. They are tired of being told what to
believe by people who don't walk the walk anyway. Young people want to
know how to build relationships with peers, with bosses, with lovers,
with relatives, with anyone. They want to understand how to be human
and instead we are giving them a largely intellectual belief system.
6. Scripture is about God's promises (covenants) with his creation. It
is not a literal guide to do's and don'ts. It's time for real and
honest scriptural scholarship.
7. It's time to realize that Sin is not an action, but a state of being
separated from God. All those things we call "sins" are just the ways
we act out our separation from God and look for His love in all the
wrong places.
8. It is time for us to understand that life is full of paradoxes that
we will never figure out or understand with our finite minds. We will
not understand what God is calling us to be until we give up trying to
separate everything into what is good and what is evil. In God's
creation, everything belongs or nothing belongs. In the Garden of Eden,
God said not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
because He knew that trying to figure out and judge what is good and
what is evil is what is killing us. We are called instead to focus on
love. Jesus modeled how to live a life focused on love and not focused
on good and evil.
9. Everyone alive has valuable experience of God whether they realize it
or not. Personal experience has a place in the scheme of things along
with the teachings and traditions of the Church. It is time to value
each person's experience and see what it has to teach all of us.
10. Human beings learn by experience not by being told what to believe.
It's time for us to offer the experiences that teach us how to love and
stop trying to teach people what to believe. It is time for us to stop
worshiping Jesus and start doing what he said to do.
11. Jesus did not come to pay some cosmic price for our sins. A God of
love does not require restitution for our sins, any more than the father
required restitution for the sins of the prodigal son. God simply
wants us to join in the fun of outdoing each other in love.
Peace and Blessings,
Seth
