Tuesday, July 15, 2008

...how best can we facilitate that education?

In an age where space stations and satellites traverse the vast expanses of the universe, an increasing number of Christians are having difficulty accepting the Biblical definition of God as a being ‘up there’ or ‘out there.’ Common knowledge, in the twenty first century, tells the average person, that believe in a sky-god is simply a bankrupt idea of the ancient past.

As a result, more and more Christians are leaving the church and fewer and fewer are being enticed to join. Why should anyone want to sing praises to, or otherwise worship and bow down to a make-believe, imagined father figure who somehow resides above the ‘blue canopy’ of the sky, when common sense tell them that such an idea is nonsensical? Every time a congregation is led to perform such a simple act as reciting the ‘Lords Prayer’… “Our Father, who art in Heaven”, the Church is affirming the intellectual dishonesty of its doctrine and drives another nail in it’s own proverbial coffin.

We need a new definition of what god is and what role such a god can/should play in our life.

Many, if not most, clergy and church hierarchy have known for decades that there is a problem regarding the intellectual honesty (dishonesty) of the church doctrine and dogma, but, to my knowledge, nothing significant has (is) being done about it. A majority of churches ignore or dismiss the need to address the issue all together.

We Christians who believe that an intellectually honest church is needed in our society, are becoming more and more frustrated by the inaction of our church leaders regarding this situation. It seems to be the ‘elephant in the room’ that no one will admit to, or is willing to talk about. I have had some Clergy suggest to me that perhaps we should simply “let the church die a natural death.” That to me is an unpalatable suggestion.

Bishop John Shelby Spong has suggested that change will not come until the laity become educated enough in such matters that they demand change from the church. If that is the case, ...how best can we facilitate that education?

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