Category: Theology

The thought of God, the thought of Thee,
Who liest in my heart,
And yet beyond imagined space
Outstretched and present art,

The thought of Thee, above, below,
Around me and within,
Is more to me than health and wealth,
Or love of kith and kin.

The thought of God is like the tree
Beneath whose shade I lie,
And watch the fleets of snowy clouds
Sail o’er the silent sky.

’Tis like that soft invading light,
Which in all darkness shines,
The thread that through life’s sombre web
In golden pattern twines.

It is a thought which ever makes
Life’s sweetest smiles from tears,
And is a daybreak to our hopes,
A sunset to our fears;

One while it bids the tears to flow,
Then wipes them from the eyes,
Most often fills our souls with joy,
And always sanctifies.

Within a thought so great, our souls
Little and modest grow,
And, by its vastness awed, we learn
The art of walking slow.

The wild flower on the messy ground
Scarce bends its pliant form,
When overhead the autumnal wood
Is thundering like a storm.

So is it with our humbled souls
Down in the thought of God,
Scarce conscious in their sober peace
Of the wild storms abroad.

To think of Thee is almost prayer,
And is outspoken praise;
And pain can even passive thoughts
To actual worship raise.

O Lord! I live always in pain,
My life’s sad undersong,
Pain in itself not hard to bear,
But hard to bear so long.

Little sometimes weighs more than much,
When it has no relief;
A joyless life is worse to bear
Than one of active grief.

And yet, O Lord! a suffering life
One grand ascent may dare;
Penance, not self-imposed, can make
The whole of life a prayer.

All murmurs lie inside Thy Will
Which are to Thee addressed;
To suffer for Thee is our work,
To think of Thee our rest.

_____
By Frederick W. Faber (1814-1863)

An atheist is someone who says there is no God. So let me ask you, do you know everything? If you’re honest you would say “no, I don’t know everything.” So what you don’t know might be God. So you can’t say there is no God.

So the truth is you don’t know for sure whether there is or isn’t a God. You may not believe in God, but that is just a belief, not a fact. I believe because I have experienced God. And a man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument.

Which God?

But you probably have good reasons for doubting God’s existence. But then I would ask, which God don’t you believe in? I probably don’t believe in that God either.

I don’t believe God is just another being among other beings, but one that just happens to be Supreme. I believe God is the Ground of Being. God is Wholly Other, completely beyond all we can think or imagine. So whatever picture you have of God, that’s not the God I believe in.

The Universe

That there is a God becomes obvious when you think about it. The universe had a beginning, therefore it had to have a Beginner. The universe has design, so it has to have a Designer. The universe is in motion, all motion must have a Mover. Nothing moves itself. The Universe could not have come from nothing, because you get nothing from nothing.

Because we don’t even understand the nature of our own reality, I don’t think we can even begin to understand God. Our reality is not a thing, but an event. Nothing is permanent, all things change. All things are in flux.

God Does Not Exist

Our reality is a world of becoming, God’s reality is a reality of Being. God does not exist, He is Existence. And I use the pronoun “He” for a lack of a better one. God is not male.

Language is one of the problems, when we begin to talk about God. It’s hard to convey exactly what a Wholly Other would be like. We speak most accurately when we speak about what God isn’t.

Intuition

Because God is not a thing among things, but the very Being out of which things flow. You know that deep within. You have felt it occasionally when you are out in nature, or alone at night. There is Something More, you just don’t know what it is. But you know.

“They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God. Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused” (Romans 1:19-21 NLT).

A Reading from Matthew 2:1-12

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, magi from the east came to Jerusalem, ² asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star in the east and have come to pay him homage.” ³ When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him, ⁴ and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. ⁵ They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it has been written by the prophet:

A Reading from Luke 2:1-20

The Birth of Jesus

2 In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. ² This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. ³ All went to their own towns to be registered. ⁴ Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. ⁵ He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. ⁶ While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. ⁷ And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no place in the guest room.

The Shepherds and the Angels

⁸ Now in that same region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹ Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰ But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: ¹¹ to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. ¹² This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” ¹³ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,

Although there are groups calling themselves progressive Christianity, here, I’m not referring to those. Rather, I’m referring to Christianity that embraces critical scholarship, modern science, and a rational approach to Christianity.

The problem is that fundamentalist Christianity is living in the past. They’re living in past scholarship, past thinking, past ideas. But truth continues to unveil itself.

As scholarship has begun to investigate the origins of Christianity, we have begun to see that the commonly accepted understanding of Christianity is wrong. And that many cannot accept.

But the fact remains. That the Bible is not inerrant or invaluable. It is a human book like every other human book. So we must approach it differently than treating it as a Divine word that descended from the throne of God in pure form.

Yes, God inspired the people to write the Bible. I’m not denying that. What a denying is that the Bible is the direct word of God in pure form. Rather, it is a human attempt to put in human words, a Divine encounter.

So when I speak of progressive Christianity, I’m referring to a Christianity that embraces the facts as they are and tries to embody the love of God in today’s world. That means with the understanding of the world as we know it in the 21st century.

Of course, all that means that progressive Christianity is also inclusive. It is for diversity, inclusion and equity. Because all people, men, women and trans people deserve dignity, honor, and respect. There is no room for discrimination for yheart filled with truth and love for all.