Which Jesus?

Faith, God, Truth 0

Some Jesuses should be rejected.

Often times when I meet atheists and we talk about the god they don’t believe in, we quickly discover that I don’t believe in that god either.

So when we hear that a certain person has “rejected Christ,” we should first ask, “Which Christ?”

— Rob Bell, Love Wins, p. 9

Unfolding Through Time

Faith, God, Growth, Life 0

“This is going to take a while” is one of the earmarks of growing faith. Faith unfolds through time. We need faith over and over again, not just once in a great while. Faith must be our constant companion. God must be a partner for us, not merely a spiritual pinch hitter to be called in at the bottom of the ninth. By saying “This is going to take a while,” we begin to acknowledge that life is a process and that we are given what we need to undergo that process. “Not I but the Father doeth the works” begins to become our lived experience. We feel the hand of God acting not only on us but also through us. We begin to have confidence that God’s power will flow where it is needed, that we can ask to be tapped into that power and expect that our request for power will be honored.

— Julia Cameron, Faith and Will, p. 116

What’s the Message?

Faith, God, Life, Truth 0

Some Christians believe and often repeat that all that matters is whether or not a person is going to heaven. Is that the message? Is that what life is about? Going somewhere else? If that’s the gospel, the good news — if what Jesus does is get people somewhere else — then the central message of the Christian faith has very little to do with this life other than getting you what you need for the next one. Which of course raises the question: Is that the best God can do?

— Rob Bell, Love Wins, p. 6

The Jesus Story

Faith, Forgiveness, God, Joy, Life, Love, Truth, Universalism 0

This love compels us to question some of the dominant stories that are being told as the Jesus story. A staggering number of people have been taught that a select few Christians will spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called heaven, while the rest of humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in hell with no chance of anything better. It’s been clearly communicated to many that this belief is a central truth of the Christian faith and to reject it is, in essence, to reject Jesus. This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus’s message of love, peace, forgiveness, and joy that our world desperately needs to hear.

— Rob Bell, Love Wins, p. viii

Works in Progress

Faith, God, Growth 0

To have faith is to have faith in process. God is not finished with us. We are works in progress, and as much as we would like to know the end point of all the growth we are asked to undertake, we often do not see an end point — or any point at all. At any given time, we may be able to sense only a fraction of God’s intention for us.

— Julia Cameron, Faith and Will, p. 102-103

God Is Not Stressed.

Faith, God, Trust 0

Care is the operative word — infinite, tender care. This is what we doubt and also what we dream of. It is God’s nature to care for us, and it is perhaps human nature to doubt that care. We know all too well the human failings that come to bear when we promise care. We may, as parents, be too tired or too stressed to give our best care. We tend to project these same attributes onto God. We tend to worry that God is tired and God is stressed and that somehow looking out for us is something that has somehow slipped between the cracks.

But God is not tired. God is not stressed. God is the infinite caregiver. Our well-being is God’s priority. We are urged to trust this, to become “as little children.” We are asked to be wholehearted, to go back to a time before we were cynical and doubtful. God wants us to have faith. “Suffer the little children to come unto me.” We are the little children. How do we become the children that we are?

— Julia Cameron, Faith and Will, p. 97

Believing in God – Or Not

Faith, God, Universalism 0

“Do you think it very bad of a man not to believe in God?”

“That depends on the sort of God he imagines that he either does or does not believe in. Most people have totally wrong conceptions of God. A thousand times would I rather see a man not believe in God at all than believe in an evil god that could cause suffering and misery as if he were a devil. But if a man had the same notion of God that I have — a God who is even now doing his best to take all men and women and beasts out of the misery in which they find themselves — and did not at least desire that there might be such a God, then I confess I would have difficulty in understanding how he could be good. When one looks at the gods that have been offered through the years who are not worth believing in, it might be an act of virtue not to believe in them.”…

“I believe that, no matter how uninteresting he may say the question of a God is to him, the God of patience is taking care of him, and the time must come when something will make him want to know whether there be a God and whether he can get near to him. I should say, ‘He is in God’s school; don’t be troubled about him, as if God might overlook and forget him. He will see to all that concerns him. He has made him, and he loves him, and he is doing and will do his very best for him.”

— George MacDonald, Knowing the Heart of God, p. 23-24

The Way Home

Faith, God, Growth, Guidance 0

Religion is simply the way home to the Father. Because of our unchildlikeness, the true way is difficult enough — uphill, steep, but there is fresh life with every surmounted height, a purer air gained, more life for more climbing. But the path that is not the true one is not therefore an easy one. Uphill work is hard walking, but through a bog is worse.

— George MacDonald, Knowing the Heart of God, p. 22