Thursday, November 3, 2011

Milestones

Milestones in my spiritual journey: Not necessarily in chronological order.

The Heretics

Having married the daughter of a Presbyterian minister, I found myself in a "nest" of Presbyterian ministers: friends & family of my father-in-law.  The ministers & their spouses and my wife, Judy, had formed an informal discussion group calling themselves The Heretics.  On occasions & regularly  after my retirement I was privileged to be invited to participate in this group.

Their 'heresy' consisted of  1) discussions of writings by authors who would be considered progressive Christians (Borg, Spong, and other members of the Jesus Seminar); 2) review of their seminary learning that mostly seemed 'too advanced' to be shared with their congregations; and 3) an attitude that Christianity was not the only path to an understanding of the divine of the universe.

In short, participation in the group led me to suspect that I could believe that there are aspects of the universe that I might consider 'divine' and that the teachings of Jesus, when stripped of the mythology, was worth study. IOW: a theology for the 21st century, not in conflict with science or reason.

3 comments:

  1. How interesting, Bill. Do you have a recommended reading list? I'm not familiar with Borg or Spong or the Jesus Seminar.

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  2. Sarah,

    We have a whole bookshelf of recommended reading (available for loan). I'll let Judy decide which one is the best introduction.

    The Jesus Seminar is a organization of ~80 biblical, language, and antiquities scholars that attempts to discover what about Jesus was real -- what he actually might have said & done -- as distinguished from what his 'biographers' attributed to him decades after his death.

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