34;I am beginning to see that I can be a Christian and appreciate other traditions at the same time. You don't have to give up your faith in Christ to appreciate what is positive in other religious traditions." She didn't talk about it much, but I knew she was a Christian and I loved being with her.
They thought of themselves as a group of seekers of spiritual truth, supporting each other along the way.” I think they are important, but they seem more like important obstacles that keep people from following Jesus than important aspects of the faith itself. "
At Home -- Tuesday Noon
He remarked, almost grumpily, "You make it sound like the creeds don't count for much." We forget that Ethiopia has been Christian longer than Western Europe and that Christianity is monophysite. I suppose the Council of Nicaea dealt chiefly with the first, and the Council of Chalcedon with the second.'
Thus Jesus had divine authority and was worthy of our worship as our Lord and Savior." It was only Hitler's "final solution" that clearly went beyond the teachings of the church against the Jews. I like the idea of being open to many teachings, testing them. practically in the continuous life of the church".
When she doesn't feel pressured to use that language, she'll probably speak more positively about Jesus."
Office -- Friday Morning
Last time we talked about your attack on the deity of Jesus I was so upset that I didn't even ask you what you think of Jesus. There are some people and communities in which I struggle to find any trace of the Spirit I serve. I consider the church to be the community in which the Spirit lives with special fullness.
Because of Jesus, we can also be daughters and sons of God, since he was the son of God." believe in it, I can at least recognize it as a traditional way of thinking." Thomas was wondering out loud. 34;Some of the time it sounds like Jesus was really very special to you, but then you deny it."
It seems to me that over the millennia, millions of people have found God in other people as well. Some Koreans are beginning to say that the missionaries did not bring God to Korea. 34;The way you two talk makes me think you don't believe in missions at all,' Thomas exploded.
But this is partly a reaction to being so admired and followed so blindly. For us, serving Christ means feeding the hungry, teaching people to read and helping them fight for justice, as well as baptizing them." Tomaž knew that most of the evangelization in the mission was left to the indigenous leadership.
At Home -- Friday Evening
34;I'm hardly an expert after six weeks of classes, but I'll be happy to share what I can. 34;The problem is that my chaplain supervisor doesn't believe any of the things I believe about Jesus." Thomas knew he was exaggerating, but at the moment that was how it seemed. In other words, I see God in both women and men, and now I tend to minimize the differences between Jesus and these incarnations instead of maximizing them as I used to do.”
In addition, in Donald Baillie I have found a way of thinking about God's incarnation in Jesus, which does not distinguish Jesus so much from others." Baillie enabled me to see that the more completely God is in us - that is what we call grace - the more real people we are.” But that makes Jesus very different from the rest of us, even the holy women you spoke of."
34;dependent origin." An event or an experience is just the coming together of other things. 34;I'm not sure I fully understand that, Tom, but I took a course from him on Hinduism and Buddhism, and it helped, the Buddhist part. Maybe God is in the experiences in the way you say, but that doesn't put God inside me."
I began to think of my 'self' as one aspect of the experience, affecting all the rest, as you say, but also being affected by all the rest." If God is present to people, but not in them, then God's incarnation in Jesus was completely unique. If God is also present in others, God's incarnation in Jesus may not be so different.
A Meeting of the Buddhist Fellowship -- Monday Evening
I wish you would just continue your services and let me sit here with you." 34;I think what would help me the most would be to hear you talk about why you are Buddhist, what it means to you.". I know something is really happening, something that is quite strange for my parents and their friends - and also for the Christians I know."
34;Perhaps even Chaplain Levovsky puts too much stock in it." For the first time in his twenty-four years, Thomas doubted, really doubted. There is so much wisdom there, so much knowledge of how to achieve spiritual goals, so much holiness ." We want to know if there is another way that leads to heaven besides our own belief system."
We must draw facts learned in external history into our internal history to enrich it and check its distortions." 34; But what can it mean to affirm Jesus' divinity if not that Jesus was God incarnate. ". He experienced some kind of struggle between his own self and God who worked in him as 'Christ' or 'Spirit.'' Jesus sometimes struggled with himself as in the garden of Gethsemane.
We may be sure that the faithful found God in him, but I do not see how we can say more than that." But in the same way I prefer to think of Gautama as the Buddhists do — as it stated." My own impression is that our gospel can be of great importance to Buddhists if it can be freed from some of the Western forms we have attached to it."
It's not something that drew me to Christ and ultimately led me to join the Church.” But later I accepted the idea of his divinity - without much thought - because of the power and truth of what he taught.' .
At Home -- Late Friday Night
Even in his ecstasy, he had feared the widening gap between the way she thought and the new ideas he wanted to pursue. I think the biggest problem for me was how to think of Jesus Christ in light of my experiences with those Buddhist students. I just couldn't imagine how I could actually believe in Jesus Christ and then have nothing to say when Buddhists asked me to tell them.
I can really believe in Jesus and still respect and admire what they do - and not try to send them back to the church - not now, anyway." 34;Well, I'm glad you feel better, but I have to admit that I'm afraid you're going to lose your footing. If Jesus is God's saving Word for all people, shouldn't those young people hear that too?".
I don't see why we should learn from Buddhists when we already have God's Word in the Bible. But just a few weeks before, he would have thought that a very correct question indeed. He would have thought that all the elaborations were evasions of the simplest and most unequivocal issue.
I think I understand why his yoke is easy and his burden light, how he really is life and light and the way I must follow. The truth of it will triumph and the chaff, of which there has been so much, will blow away. I don't see how I can ever follow Jesus as literally as he did, but I'm going to try to somehow shape my life the way Jesus taught it.
Discussion Guide
If Chaplain Levovsky thinks of Jesus only as a human being, do you agree with Thomas that she is not a Christian. This chapter is designed to present part of the history through which orthodox Christology was formed. Should we accept the great creeds of the church, even if we do not understand them.
If we thought of the divinity of Jesus in terms of the special presence of the Holy Spirit in him, instead of the Logos, it would make a significant difference. Do you think of salvation as something that the Christian already knows in relation to Christ or as something that is promised and yet to come that the Christian hopes for. Do you think of divinity and humanity as so related that the more divine Jesus is, the less human he is.
Or do you think of them as so related that the more Jesus is divine, the more he is human. Does it make sense to affirm that Jesus Christ is the only savior of the world in conversation with those who find religious meaning in Buddhism. Here, too, only a few of the positions that are now being discussed in theological circles are presented.
Does the distinction between Jesus as God incarnate and Jesus as God incarnate make sense. Colletti's view of Jesus as different from us in kind rather than in degree seems to make sense to you. Do you see the changes in Tomaž as a growth in faith or as a loss of firm moorings?
Suggested Reading
A persistent argument against attributing any uniqueness to Jesus Christ leading to claims of superiority over others. An orthodox Jew vigorously defends the resurrection of Jesus, interpreting this as God's way of ushering in the mission to the Gentiles. Readable reflections on Jesus Christ by a historian using the categories of process thinking.
The English bishop, author of the bestseller Honest to God, develops the implications of his radical theology for how Jesus should be understood by Christians.
