"For the first few centuries after Christ the church tended towards believing everyone would be united with God in the end. Then the doctrine of Hell gained prominence.

So, let's see if I read this correctly - closer to Jesus we were more loving and inclusive, once man had time to make his own influence felt things started going to Hell."
David Mclaughlan

I wonder if this switch David is speaking of, had anything to do with the church becoming a political/cultural institution under Constantinople. Certainly force and power and control entered the picture then.
It seems obvious that to force someone to become a Christian completely and effectively bypasses the inner spirituality of a relationship with God.
Hell replacing God's love is pure and simple what happened. Makes you want to cozy right up!!

I am so bold as to think that the fox took over the henhouse a few hundred years ago and corrupted what a relationship with God was meant to be. The same human propensity still affects the church today, using force, control and manipulation through proper thinking and proper action to not enjoy a deep seated inner peace with God but to avoid punishment.

No wonder the church has not affected and deeply transformed the culture. It's not just a perversion to lead people to God through fear and intimidation, it doesn't work well!!

Abstract Vs. Relational

"It is, I grant you, a crass analogy; but crass analogies are the safest. Everybody knows that God is not three old men throwing olives at each other. Not everyone, I'm afraid, is equally clear that God is not a cosmic force or a principle of being or any other dish of celestial blancmange we might choose to call him. Accordingly, I give you the central truth that creation is the result of a trinitarian bash, and leave the details of the analogy to sort themselves out as best they can."

~Robert Farrar Capon

Source: The Romance of the Word: One Man's Love Affair With Theology : Three Books : An Offering of Uncles/the Third Peacock/Hunting the Divine Fox, Pages: 176


"Abstract principles and philosophies are much cleaner and more sterile and manageable than a personal God with personality, will and relational being. When we can reduce our theology to these abstract principles we can create a nice tidy little theology that leaves us feeling safe and in control of things. 

God becomes the giant vending machine in the sky into which we input the right currency, (our prayers, our efforts and our tithes for example) and then we can predictably wait on God to give us what we've paid for according to the divine system and transactional rules we've established.

Living in relationship with a Trinitarian God who embodies love and relationship and moving beyond the systems of what seems to me to be essentially just a form of Christianized Deism, is a very messy thing as opposed to the "safety" and "security" that we would rather find in an impersonal system that leaves us with predictable outcomes and overall control of everything in our lives."

Bart Breen https://www.facebook.com/pages/Trinitarianism/274624109277834?fref=ts

Guess you ran afoul of this, Rob Bell

"lacking god's power to create tangible things, the false self creates by use of ideologies, definitions, social myths and words. The false self give it's own name to life and then like a self-proclaimed demiurge, demands that all of life conform to it's wishes.

What is enacted here is the tragic error of naming the elephant and then trying to ride home on the name given, instead of on the elephant itself.

This whole process frequently occurs in religion as well. We give God a name. We than equate God with the name we have given him, and in doing so we make ourselves, in effect God's God. Instead of acknowledging God as the source of our identity and existence, we make ourselves the self-proclaimed source of God's identity. God then becomes the one made in our image and likeness.

Those engaged in the undertaking of naming god see themselves to be participating in a holy work. They are the God-definer, the definition makers. They give shape to the ultimate perimeters of life.

Of course, one of the procedural principles is that God is everything and we are nothing. But they define what this means. They mark off those who properly grasp it from those who do not. Thus, while maintaining that they are nothing, they turn their nothing into a nothing that defines itself and thereby make that nothingness into a kind of everything to which all who which to know the truth must listen. This is a far cry from the true theological inquiry but it is not a far cry from the stance of the Pharisee who is always with us in the form of a deep-seated universal tendency within ourselves, It is the false self expressing it's futile, odious outcry against the Creative sovereignty of the divine freedom.

Once the false self gives birth to it's own dark gossamer existence as cut off from God, it begins to function as it's own God by passing final decision and judgements upon everything under the sun. A whole system of formulas, laws and ideologies is created to form not only one's relationship to others but to God as well. Both self and God become equated with the definitions given to them. Both God and self become cogs in a smoothly running system of self-creation."

From Merton's Palace of Nowhere, James Finley.

Feelings, nothing more than feelings?

A friend and I had another installment of a long running conversation regarding theology and it's application to humans. This seems important to us because a theology that doesn't somehow reference humans is sterile. It may be true, it may be useful, it may give glory to the divine but if somehow it doesn't touch the human condition it's merely an esoteric discussion without any chance of transformation of people's lives.

I would submit that the subject of my theology, God, is about having relationship with humans.

When I said this in one online forum, I got a terse reply; "state Scripture, chapter and verse."

I choose to ignore him and he still wants an answer. It seemed so obvious that it would be insulting to him and me to respond.

One reason the discussion with my friend is interesting is that we by our personalities and life histories are interested in different aspects of truth. He seems to want to get as clear as possible regarding rational, conceptual, dialectic truth.

I on the other hand want to know "truth" in the sense of how does it express God's personal love for humans. I want to understand the implications of rational, conceptual truth as it would be "felt" by humans.

This will come as no surprise to friends of mine that are clear that "feelings" are a focus of mine. (all together now; Whoooo, feelings, nothing more than... )

Certainly guilty as charged. But for me the connection between "truth" and feelings is compelling because for some reason I didn't have much connection with my feelings for much of my life. And I was strongly taught in "truth." This state of mind became painful and I deconstructed and started to rebuild my life. Recovering the ability to "feel" was an important part of this.

This conversation with this friend is important to me because as much as I value feelings because God said he "so loved the world" and I think he expects that love to be felt, ultimately there is truth that undergirds that love.

Love and truth support each other.

If there is anything to the quote; "The glory of God is man fully alive," than thinking and feeling are partners in that delicate dance.