Club Membership Christianity, to Doctrinal Christianity to My Interfaith UU Quaker Christianity (w/CS), aka Gandhian Christianity

barry charles brebner 2 days ago @Joint Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations (JEMSO) just trust in Jesus and all worries will disappear! GOD has everything under control and everything is going to be alright! Green Peacemst Green Peacemst 2 days ago @barry charles brebner You mean Jesus, as in Joint ElectroStatic Ursine Sandwiches? Oh, sorry, your username is bcb. Well, "trusting in Jesus" put as a club membership is itself an ideology. God created a physical Universe, and Jesus has played a specific role when people seek God through him spiritually. Things will be all right if you seek to follow the Commandments like "Love thy neighbor as thyself," and understand the problems of "the deceit of wealth that chokes the word." Slavery was ended when the social movement was sparked by Quaker Friends inspiring a University graduate´s spiritual revelation. Valuing individuals and women, stopping bowing to aristocrats, and protesting injustice......Jesus taught people to "go and learn" and pray in secret, not just say, "Lord, Lord." Doing the will of the Father/Parent in Heaven" is a little more relevant and empowering than mere numb club membership. barry charles brebner barry charles brebner 2 days ago @Green Peacemst ya i think i know what you mean about "club membership". It seems like many people think that being a Christian means "going to church" and reading the word of God, but actually it is way deeper than that. Being a true Christian, is a transformation, an operation of God, being born-again, washed, cleansed, given a new heart, adopted into the family of God, an act of God, a Spiritual Birth, coming out of darkness and into the glorious Kingdom of Light, the Kingdom of God. I seek the will of God by the grace of God and God empowers me so that He carries out His will through me, by faith! You sound like you have some belief, but you also sound a bit doubtful, it is hard for me to tell at this point. Being a member of the church, is a act of God because the church is the body of Christ, and all those people that are born again, Children of God are members of the Church (the body of Christ). We are the church, Jesus is the head; people do not go to church as people think and talk. But the members of the church (body of Christ) meet together, we don't go to church, we gather as the church, as the members of the body of Christ. The church of God is not a building of men, but a spiritual building, built be God. We are living stones in the Holy Temple of God. Oh and we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth to guide us into all Truth. Not everyone who calls themself a "christian" is actually a Christian. I am not sure where you stand on all this, but you need Jesus if you want to be with God. Not because i say so, but because God has said so. Ask God for yourself, if you have not already. That is my recommendation, but you have been given free will to decide for yourself. You choose your destiny. And that may not make sense, to choose destiny, but the choices that you will make God already knows, God knows your destiny but we play a role in it by the choices that we make. I hope that makes sense to you and speaks to you in a way that will have a beneficial effect. Basically, i hope you hear from God through this and are drawn to God, by the Truth. ❤ Green Peacemst Green Peacemst 2 days ago @barry charles brebner You think I sound "doubtful"? Well, given your manner of orientation, I have a different orientation that relates to what I said. I don´t use conventional church language, since I have found my path and place in God through Jesus in the need to grasp Jesus´ greatest living legacy of loving integrity for Moses et al and God that underlies globalized Western Civilization, which is University-based, UN human rights-sustainability-social movement society for structured pluralism. That´s where it´s not any doubts that I have that you´re perceiving. It´s how I am grounded in empirical theism and innovating the concepts that are needed to express that for modern society. I´d be a new church, interfaith UU Quaker Church of Christ, Gandhian, if I had the indications of support. Without that, I´m a spiritual scholar activist, and support Gandhi as the head prophet. To be clear, he was a secular Indian going for his law degree in London when his vegetarian interests led him into contact with theosophist interfaith members. They reoriented him to his own Hinduism in interfaith practice. At some point, he began reading the Bible for Jesus regularly, more modern high integrity Christians like Thoreau doing his own interfaith exploration, Ruskin, and Tolstoy. That made Gandhi the spiritual activist an interfaith Christian Hindu. No ongoing contacts with any church. Just high integrity living and activism. Now, I was an interfaith spiritual seeker already in high school, breaking from the atheist humanism of my dad. Scholar H Smith´s book World´s Religions introduced me to the Chinese Tao as "a creative continuum that is always accessible." Unitarian Universalist interfaith supported individual spiritual paths. Step by step, I got my college degree profoundly in Biological Anthropology, then in a few steps, got work in social services. In the 12 step programs for relationships CoDA and Al-Anon, I deepened my awareness and integrity at the highest modern levels of emotions, beliefs, and relationship to my Higher Power, God. Then, I began learning that the 12 steps had been inspired by the Christian movement Oxford Group. Then, I engaged with Christian Science through its Reading Rooms at first. Written testimonies. Huge numbers of them. About healing and God´s Divine presence, power, and reality for benevolence. Mary Baker Eddy´s attempts to express her powerful discovery of her spiritual religious healing abilities, intelligently. And it worked amply, and diversified. So, long story short, that´s my underlying modern kind of semantics for the Kingdom of Heaven through Jesus the Son of God and Man, for God the Creator of the Universe and original Source of spiritual-religious phenomena. As far as I can tell, existing doctrinal Bible-based approaches are all inadequate on their own. Interfaith spiritual practice has been set up by Christians (Deists or what the case) in constitutional democracy with Civil Rights and then UN human rights. Any view that neglects how Jesus´ legacy was powerfully developed in University philosophical scholarship for truth as a spiritual practice, and then was taken up by merchants, soldiers, and politicians (monarchs etc) in natural conquest is neglecting thenecessary modern non-judgmental exegesis. Jesus´ legacy has established Jesus´ centrality empirically, except driven by ideological materialists. It now needs modern spiritualization, which requires spiritual movements of individuals being empowered, in the end. The Quaker Friends have been an impressive example of a pioneering trend in classic Christian resurgent integrity. Do I have doubts? My friend in Christ, it is you who are clinging to doctrinal language that needs to be integrated with the practical language of what is nothing less than Jesus´ living legacy in University-based, UN human rights etc society with structured pluralism. Again, Gandhi represents a leading prophetic example, with George Fox´s Quaker Friends, Christian Science, Thomas Aquinas´ et al´s University empirical culture, FD Roosevelt and Eleanor´s UN human rights etc,, Rev MLK and Fannie Lou Hamer, and now all manner of activists recognized by the Right Livelihood Award, Goldman Environmental Prize, Templeton Prize, and not for profits like John Muir´s Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Oxfam, and so on. "Shine your light in front of others with good deeds to honor God" Matt 5. Oh, and the Social Gospel pioneered by W Gladden that undergirded FDR, Jane Addams´ Hull House from the UK Settlement Houses that underlay Eleanor R´s work. For starters. So, let me show you how the spirit of the letter works in spiritual modernization..... barry charles brebner barry charles brebner 1 day ago @Green Peacemst well thank-you for sharing that, and explaining to me your view point and i think that has helped me grasp where you are at (your state, condition). What i gather from what you have shared is, it seems like some sort of modern, new-age spirituality, that diminishes the importance of Christ for some "higher" spiritual insight? I do not know, it just seems to me like you are trying to say that Christianity, and Jesus is just some avenue that people went down, and it needs to be updated for modern times, because it is just some kind of human construct. That is what it seems like you are trying to say. Like any and all roads lead to God. Correct me if i am wrong about your view-point. I do try and speak simply. Jesus said, you are probably aware...I am the way, the truth and the life, no one goes to the Father except through me. But it seems like you think other-wise, and that you do not believe Jesus and the things that Jesus spoke? I relay, this onto you because i believe Jesus, and what He said is the truth and i have experienced being born-again, and i believe that Jesus is the only way to God, and not only believe but i know that this is the case. And all these other "paths" or "ways", do not go to God, but to destruction, unless one diverts off and turns around and gets onboard with Jesus and allows Jesus to get onboard with them, in them, in you! These other "ways or paths" are deceptions and the following of idols. Green Peacemst Green Peacemst 1 day ago @barry charles brebner You interpret my view as a "New Age spirituality that diminishes Jesus"? Because you think your doctrinal talk that mentions Jesus in total disconnect from the real world isn´t a betrayal of Jesus? Jesus said, "shine your light in front of others with good deeds to honor God." Matt 5. Jesus said, "go and learn...." Matt 9. Your own verbal conduct is like Matt 7:21, "'those who say 'Lord, Lord' who don´t get into the Kingdom of Heaven" which is first of all on this Earth, as in the Lord´s Prayer, "They Kingdom come on Earth as it is in Heaven." Thus, you have shown why your doctrinalism is hiding, not honoring Jesus. You are in fact snuggling with the "deceitfulness of wealth that chokes the word." Matt 13. When Jesus said, "I am the way....", what has 2000 years of his legacy shown? You need an education to talk about that knowledgably, and not just from church indoctrination. Western Civilization didn´t rise from randomness, atheists, or humanists, but Christian humanists and then monks, with some bunch of them turning monastic schools into Universities around the time of the pivotal monk Thomas Aquinas. Jesus´ legacy has been so successful that it has been stuffed in the sack of merchants, soldiers, and politicians who have misused it in colonialism until now we have the Social Gospel in FD Roosevelt´s vision of UN human rights. With most Christians like you grasping at the straws of literalism, you can´t see how it is University education that is necessary to unleash the spirit of the letter in modern times. Gandhi got a law degree, went to a vegetarian club and met theosophists who taught him a modern interfaith approach to Hinduism and spirituality. With Gandhi´s law-degreed interfaith Christian Hinduism, he became non-violent, dressed in cloth, and renamed the Untouchable caste the Harijan "children of God." Rev MLK was inspired by him. That is the will of God. That is how Jesus is the way. Merchants, etc have spread his fruits over the world in the ways of the powerhungry world, given the gifts of secular Christianity so the whole world can use them in the secular UN human rights community, and now Christians need to learn from the spiritual practices that most Christians have been deprived of because of materialism. I call the new parable the Gandhi Good Samaritan parable for Jesus, which is just to tell the story of Gandhi´s life and clarify the meaning of Jesus´ Good Samaritan parable. Time for you to learn to modernize and spiritualize your Christianity, dear proselytizer. Jesus led the Apostles in gathering grain on the Sabbath, and sent them out to heal, and all you know how to do is stay stuck in "Lord, Lord" because some church preacher told you so. I have become an interfaith Unitarian Universalist Quaker Christian, with loads of Christian Science, a kind of Gandhian Christian. Look out, because 2000 years of Jesus´ legacy of loving integrity has been misused and its time for the Good Samaritan, and Prodigal Son, reckoning. "These things I do, you too shall do, and greater." John 14. Good luck making sense out of that one. Highlighted reply barry charles brebner barry charles brebner 15 hours ago @Green Peacemst okay well, how about this. Jesus said you must be born again! If you do not mind me asking, and if you do not mind sharing the answer to this question. I'd like to ask you, are You born-again? ❤ Green Peacemst Green Peacemst 36 minutes ago (edited) @barry charles brebner If I weren´t born again, I would say things like, "forget that Jesus guy. He´s irrelevant and a myth." Instead, you see me always putting the modern context of society and us individuals in it in relation to Jesus Christ of Nazareth, for Moses et al and God. I have come to use my interfaith spiritual practice through Christian spiritual practice to assess my formal kind of educational interests. As such, I have identified how ideological materialists in three main forms are the driving form of sinful behavior in modern society, although I usually call it toxic, dysfunctional, unsustainable, and abusive of human rights in the UN community of nations. I was raised an atheist humanist for educational values by an ex-Catholic. I found myself curious about the unknown "religion" and opened the book of scholar Huston Smith (actually an interfaith Christian himself) and liked his description of the Chinese Tao, as "a creative continuum that is always accessible (to an individual)." I also walked into a Unitarian Universalist interfaith congregation and liked their pamphlet that supported individual spiritual paths. The UUs were two Christian denominations that reformed into an interfaith association that seems mostly to practice religious humanism, with reference to "Jewish and Christian teachings about God´s love to love our neighbor as ourselves." That is a major indicator about how they are, however, implicitly modernized Christianity. My being reborn in Christ thus began by involving all those threads in a growth process in the surrounding modernized implicit Christianity of the Freedom of Religion and secularized University education. I had specific existential awakening experiences. relating to various issues that were spiritual in nature, orienting me to interconnectedness in transpersonal psychological senses. Explicit Christianity never caught my interest except at a distance for most of that period. Early glimpses began as I took a trip to Philadelphia to buy a book on Quaker history. That lay around for years. My work in social services with substance abusers and their newborns exposed me to visits to a few Afro-Am neighborhood churches that I dipped into occasionally here or there. And the 12 step programs, along with Louise Hay´s innovative "New Age" loving ministry derived from Religious Science. After a few years, I noted the origins of the 12 steps in the Christian movement Oxford Group. It was, however, at that time that a context happened in which I walked into a Christian Science Reading Room. All my dramatic growth visionary experiences were met by Mary Baker Eddy´s work and legacy in the approach of an effective healing God through Christ, with God as Divine Mind, Love, etc. UUism, however, helped anchor me in the value of God´s love through Jesus´ own love for my interfaith practice. I still hadn´t found the NT verses, but understood based on my educational understanding. I later found the NT, "God will teach. Those who listen and learn will arrive in me (Jesus)" John 6:45, along with "go and learn..." Matt 9:13. My rebirth continued then with God through Jesus Christ a growing interest. Some years later, my masters degree got me to focus on the origins of Universities and social movements. After that, I married and had kids, moving to Brazil to teach where in a few years, my search for more spiritual-religious contact on the internet led me to engage with anti-theists that led me to my current level of rebirth in Christ. The realization to articulate that we live in Jesus´ legacy of loving integrity for Moses et al and God, in University-based, UN human rights-sustainability society with structured pluralism. The major problem is ideological materialism that is either hypocrisy or worse, amplifying sinful temptations into full-blown belief systems that even fund the worse fundamentalist and literalist Christian denominations of the Religious Right. Yet, there are issues in three main forms of materialism, secular, scientific, and economic. So, since I can´t start a church, I am more of a Christian prophet, a Gandhian Christian, you might say, and an interfaith UU Quaker Christian excited about Christian Science and Buddhism, and more. Jesus´ legacy needs help, and I have formulated the philosophical empirical truth of modern society to honor God through Jesus empirically. Along with the need to acknowledge empirical spiritual-religious phenomena. That´s what 2000 years of Jesus´ legacy has lead to. Not Billy Graham. Not the end of Christianity. But globalized Western Civilization with the University-based, UN human rights-sustainability society with structured pluralism that requires individuals transform from church doctrines by spiritualizing their relationship with God through Jesus. Reforming churches seems like the logical step, because right now, conservative and progressive, most churches and people are subordinated to profiteering businesspeople and the forms of ideological materialism. The interfaith angle has also crystallized even more clearly in recent years for me in all of this. I was introduced to scholar Huston Smith´s work in my dad´s library, and Unitarian Universalist interfaith in my hometown in the New York City suburbs. Alan Watts had been a famous interfaith spokesperson by 1970, doing some tai chi Taoism and Zen Buddhism primarily, for another. Joseph Campbell got some popularity, no less, more recently. Ninian Smart and Robert Bellah were more academic scholars in the area. The 1960s and 1970s unleashed other figures like The Beatles and TM, Richard "Ram Dass" Alpert, and more. Going back earlier, Carl Jung and William James did some interesting work, while the 1893 Chicago World Parliament of Religions was organized by a Swedenborgian and dissident Prebyterian, Bonney and Barrows. Even earlier, the study of Hinduism began with Buddhism as the British opened up channels in India and Asia. The Catholic missionaries had done even earlier work making the work of Christian Wolff of note. The whole nature of Christianity lights up in that insightful framework. It´s too bad that Jesus didn´t reveal more of his travels between 12 and 29, but his own appeal to the Roman centurion and non-Jewish woman with "scraps for the dogs" faith, were part of his "clean the cup on the inside" Matt 23 insights as the Jewish Son of God and Man. The inclusion of the more educated Paul, Peter´s vision of Gentile "cleanliness", and the Gospel of John with its Greek logos for Jesus as the word made flesh, are all powerful syncretism. Anti-theist scientific materialists have tried to bash Christianity as historically anti-science, twisting modern fundamentalists with their own narrow knowledge of history of the Catholic church, and the like. My friend in Christ, my educational background in Biological Anthropology and International Relations, and experience, along with some light study of things like Fr Stan Jaki and James Hannam´s historical work on science, all confirms the crucial psychosocial qualities of Jesus´ core Commandments, adjusted for human imperfections. Western Civilization was forged by a human amplification of Christian University-based tools in philosophical scholarship with empiricism, that underlies scientific natural philosophy with technology. Billy Graham may not have got to use a touchscreen cell phone, but it has been George Fox´s Quaker Friends who inspired the abolitionist T Clarkson, who all best represent Jesus for modernity. Einstein, no less, admired Gandhi, who studied the Bible for Jesus regularly. Simply put, I advocate Gandhian Christianity. Gandhi richly deserves prophetic status for his life´s work. For starters. I invite you to recognize Jesus´ legacy of 2000 years, and the need to grasp the spirit of the letter, the "will of the Father in Heaven." Again, "God will teach. Those who listen and learn will arrive in me (Jesus)." John 6:45. No less, "These things I do, you too shall do, and greater." John 14:12 (Jesus). So, "go and learn...." Matt 9:13. Because, worst of all, beware "the deceitfulness of wealth that chokes the word." Matt 13.