Also, Brian McLaren, Paul Coughlin.

Please check out my site http://www.danceswithklingons.wordpress.com

This doesn’t mean that God doesn’t chastise, or purify, or burn away the chaff. This doesn’t mean I don’t disagree with people of other (or even my own) spiritual persuasion(s). But it does mean that idolatry, once relegated to worshiped statues of wood and gold, has come firmly within the realm of interior critique – the graven ideologies we erect as though they were G-D. And faithfulness, once relegated to the degree of adherence to an outward form of dogma, is now measured primarily in love. Precisely because of what Christ has accomplished, grace is now ubiquitous. Every stone sings God’s praises.

1st: one thing that I’ve seen in people who undergo large or sweeping transformations is that they usually have lived very fully into whatever season they are coming out of…in a sense its as though they have pushed the very limits of whatever systems they were in and “broke through to the other side,” as it were. I’m not claiming to have done that–but I do notice it in others. In some ways those types of shifts seem to be the most surprising, but in other ways probably the least surprising, as they are simply moving from deep to the next deep. This may be the nature of movement. The type of change that is most frustrating, I imagine, is the one where some one lives partially in a system of thought–enough to identify with or at least understand its working parts in a functional way–but not enough to have been identified with it in an intimate sense. Then they experience a mediocre dissapointment and leave, thinking that they have “seen it all,” and are all the wiser. This is a pseudo transcendence. And of course they’ll not have learned their lessons and are doomed to repeat them. That is a frustrating form of change or moving on.

My own personal goal is, and always has been, to live fully into whatever position I’m in at that moment. To “be here now.” And I think it’s what I’ve done through out the course.

2nd: Religion, and maybe in this I want to single out Christianity as it is overwhelmingly the school of my experience, has the most peculiar tendency of attacking and killing off its wounded… I would expect more from the Healer’s faith.

3rd: I’m sure your analysis is right. I doubt I would have offered a different one of myself, had an incarnation of me three years viewed this present moment. The tricky thing about deception is that the deceived often don’t have the perspective to know that they are in such a condition. In some ways they must blindly fumble through it–guided gently by those who care about the person, as though it were themselves. Such care is rarely found in idealists. I think of Ghandi, who for all his talk of non-violence was willing to allow millions of English die, should the Germans invade England, in order to prove his point about peaceful resistance. His ideals transcended his care of the people in that moment. He later regretted such statements and made the statement, “Idealism is the bedfellow of inexperience.”

I can’t say I would state it differently to my former self.

Cheers.

If someone was misrepresenting my wife’s identity i’d passionately defend her. Daniel is passionately defending the Truth. Probably because he loves it. Not because he is an angry unenlightened jerk. Even if his “sword” defense is an immature response it does no negate the Truth.

Just because something does not suit our fancy or our “modern” view does not make it false. There is a whole lot of self glorification in the quoted text and a whole lot behind it’s appeal and praise.

Isn’t it interesting to notice the shift from Christ Alone! His centrality and supremacy. His supreme cosmic perfection. To the embrace of anything remotely spiritual. It’s an odd shift. It’s also odd that people under the banner of Christian could ever say “that’s just not where I am” or ” I’ve transcended beyond that to a more inclusive view”. To me it sounds like nothing more than deception.