Diane as usual You Hit the " nail on the head". I hope people are reading your book, because like so many of US it Is our journey of faith.I don't know if you know Montreat College I graduated there. It taught the literal interpretation of Bible!
Your voice is a treasure for all who have an open mind and understand we are called to. Love one another! Now our job is to find ways to do this.
For longer than any of us know, the debates over original goodness vs original sin have imo both missed the mark, it has always been about original love that trumps the goodness or the sin!
‘Original health.’ Such a masterful concept, Diana, “health” originating from “whole.” We are born whole, not broken. The fallacy of original brokenness is fractured foolishness, to be sure! Thank you for this inspiring and (further) liberating insight. I so enjoy entering the day with the freshness of sound theology! Peace
I left original sin out of my theology a long time ago. And I thank you for reminding me why even in groups when I was teaching I did away with straight rows and did circles as much as I could. With many of you I am still learning but always when I do come upon a line to remember to make sure is at all possible the last in line doesn't give up.! Thank you Diana and all for y our teaching .
One thing I don’t get about the doctrine of original sin is that while we all inherited the original sin, when grace came, we did not all inherit the grace. To me this makes sin seem stronger than grace, as where sin affects everyone, grace does not. If we are to inherit sin by no fault of our own, then should not grace also be inherited also? The whole bit makes god to seem very reactionary to me. I like what Rohr says about Jesus not being plan B. He was given in freedom and love from the get go.
Amen, Sisters!! I completely agree and I'm so very concerned about the negative message of too many "Christians" that is turning people away from the church.... away from the loving message of Jesus.
I have been fascinated by the second part of this passage, especially that the knowledge and vocabulary in what comes out of a man has existed for millennia. I had spent some time wondering if feeling anger would be a sin. I believe thoughts are just thoughts, often fleeting wisps and whims.
I believe it is acting on thoughts that may lead us into temptation and sin.
The Holy Gospel According to Mark 7:14-23
Jesus summoned the crowd again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand. Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.”
When he got home away from the crowd his disciples questioned him about the parable.
He said to them, “Are even you likewise without understanding?
Do you not realize that everything that goes into a person from outside cannot defile,
since it enters not the heart but the stomach and passes out into the latrine?”
(Thus he declared all foods clean.)
“But what comes out of the man, that is what defiles him.
From within the man, from his heart, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly.
All these evils come from within and they defile.”
Well said and thank you. I too agree we are made in God’s image of love. We will mess up but God loves us and continually welcomes us back in love and sends us out into this world to love one another❤️
“Original Sin, in the actual experience of the Pastor, is quite unoriginal” is a line meant to bring a certain perspective to the discussion, namely that there’s a lot of it and it can be rather tedious in its actual manifestation.
Some key moments have helped me understand more simply what the theological study and conversation inspires.
WhenI joined the church as a teenager, I began by shopping around. With a prayer: “God, show me in some way what is most important to know about faith.” After a couple of years, the answer came: Grace. Posted in several places on my bedroom wall. And the message was clear—you do not and cannot earn God’s love.
The second point requires faith, not as content but a source for action. In the 1970’s a lot of emphasis in my life was catechism and doctrine oriented. It started in high school and ended in seminary. And the meaning of faith required more in the matter of trust. By the latter part of the decade abortion was becoming more prominent as an issue. From my tradition faith was taught as trust, especially in Jesus, but also in myself as Jesus called me to service. But one could say that abortion for one reason, or not choosing abortion for a reason, could both be acts of faith if one believed it was what Jesus was calling them to do. Responding to life’s activities required faith in Jesus...and the understanding that others might believe differently.
Most recently, and I quite at home with an understanding put forth in a verse from an evening prayer hymn:
“You who made the heavens’ splendor, every dancing star of night, let us shine with gentle justice, let us each reflect your light...”
A prayer that we might shine, but it is because the light of Christ shines as a reflection from us.
I believe this with all my heart: "With no exaggeration, your view of human nature is perhaps the most important view you hold. What we believe about the nature of humanity actually lies beneath our spiritual views, our political views, and even our aesthetic views. Our idea of human nature has a tremendous impact on how we participate in our world... What we believe about human nature is always the deepest script from which our expressed thoughts and actions are born." -- Ethan Nichtern
I have always felt uncomfortable with the idea of original sin! Like you Diana I have always believed that babies were born from love and were an expression of the love shared between two people. A man and a woman. As a teenager/uoung woman I was very much involved in our parish. I was a member of the folk group and the YCW as a youth leader. I lived and loved my Christian/Catholic faith and upbringing. But when news broke of the clerical abuse I became disillusioned, angry also sad. How dare they preach about original sin and moral values while all through the years the Vatican knew about and covered up the whole scandal! Worse still they moved the perpetrators on to other parishes only to be free to abuse more innocent children! Oh the hypocrisy of it all! It is the hypocrisy that forced me to leave and my faith?...irredeemable.
Raised with the Morning Prayer words in my mouth “There is no health in us”, I matured enough to reject that phrase as the most heretical of all Episcopal liturgical expressions. Matthew Fox’s “Original Blessing” was seminal in that respect. I’m very grateful to learn of the sermon in DC, which I want to find, and suggest that the furore over it, indicates attitudes of personalities who aren’t living by grace. Plenty of such attitudes exist throughout Hebrew/Christian Scriptures as well, written by humans from their lives and historical experience. “Inspired word of God”? If we have hearts and minds to recognize! Those in our world who act from hate, vengeance, violence have not known the love each of us needs from our births from the people in our lives. I’m no longer a theist, so leave “God” out of this. But, at least some of us have been formed by the love from the humans in our lives, to learn of the very real Goodness and Grace which for me lives, moves in our beings...what we indeed can breathe in with each breath, and then let flow out through our lives of loving whoever and however we can...what I learn in Yoga!
Diane as usual You Hit the " nail on the head". I hope people are reading your book, because like so many of US it Is our journey of faith.I don't know if you know Montreat College I graduated there. It taught the literal interpretation of Bible!
Your voice is a treasure for all who have an open mind and understand we are called to. Love one another! Now our job is to find ways to do this.
One of your best-ever pieces. Much thanks for doing this week-in, week-out.
For longer than any of us know, the debates over original goodness vs original sin have imo both missed the mark, it has always been about original love that trumps the goodness or the sin!
‘Original health.’ Such a masterful concept, Diana, “health” originating from “whole.” We are born whole, not broken. The fallacy of original brokenness is fractured foolishness, to be sure! Thank you for this inspiring and (further) liberating insight. I so enjoy entering the day with the freshness of sound theology! Peace
>IF< I am indeed of a sinful nature, a sinful heart, love would not interest me. GOD would not interest me. Neither would salvation appeal.
>IF< I am of pure heart, I would not NEED salvation.
The human condition contains both the savage animal and the angelic sane loving mind.
As currently passed down to us, Christianity is hopelessly polluted.
I left original sin out of my theology a long time ago. And I thank you for reminding me why even in groups when I was teaching I did away with straight rows and did circles as much as I could. With many of you I am still learning but always when I do come upon a line to remember to make sure is at all possible the last in line doesn't give up.! Thank you Diana and all for y our teaching .
One thing I don’t get about the doctrine of original sin is that while we all inherited the original sin, when grace came, we did not all inherit the grace. To me this makes sin seem stronger than grace, as where sin affects everyone, grace does not. If we are to inherit sin by no fault of our own, then should not grace also be inherited also? The whole bit makes god to seem very reactionary to me. I like what Rohr says about Jesus not being plan B. He was given in freedom and love from the get go.
A word of understanding that I needed today. Thank you.
Amen, Sisters!! I completely agree and I'm so very concerned about the negative message of too many "Christians" that is turning people away from the church.... away from the loving message of Jesus.
I have been fascinated by the second part of this passage, especially that the knowledge and vocabulary in what comes out of a man has existed for millennia. I had spent some time wondering if feeling anger would be a sin. I believe thoughts are just thoughts, often fleeting wisps and whims.
I believe it is acting on thoughts that may lead us into temptation and sin.
The Holy Gospel According to Mark 7:14-23
Jesus summoned the crowd again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand. Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.”
When he got home away from the crowd his disciples questioned him about the parable.
He said to them, “Are even you likewise without understanding?
Do you not realize that everything that goes into a person from outside cannot defile,
since it enters not the heart but the stomach and passes out into the latrine?”
(Thus he declared all foods clean.)
“But what comes out of the man, that is what defiles him.
From within the man, from his heart, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly.
All these evils come from within and they defile.”
Well said and thank you. I too agree we are made in God’s image of love. We will mess up but God loves us and continually welcomes us back in love and sends us out into this world to love one another❤️
“Original Sin, in the actual experience of the Pastor, is quite unoriginal” is a line meant to bring a certain perspective to the discussion, namely that there’s a lot of it and it can be rather tedious in its actual manifestation.
Some key moments have helped me understand more simply what the theological study and conversation inspires.
WhenI joined the church as a teenager, I began by shopping around. With a prayer: “God, show me in some way what is most important to know about faith.” After a couple of years, the answer came: Grace. Posted in several places on my bedroom wall. And the message was clear—you do not and cannot earn God’s love.
The second point requires faith, not as content but a source for action. In the 1970’s a lot of emphasis in my life was catechism and doctrine oriented. It started in high school and ended in seminary. And the meaning of faith required more in the matter of trust. By the latter part of the decade abortion was becoming more prominent as an issue. From my tradition faith was taught as trust, especially in Jesus, but also in myself as Jesus called me to service. But one could say that abortion for one reason, or not choosing abortion for a reason, could both be acts of faith if one believed it was what Jesus was calling them to do. Responding to life’s activities required faith in Jesus...and the understanding that others might believe differently.
Most recently, and I quite at home with an understanding put forth in a verse from an evening prayer hymn:
“You who made the heavens’ splendor, every dancing star of night, let us shine with gentle justice, let us each reflect your light...”
A prayer that we might shine, but it is because the light of Christ shines as a reflection from us.
I believe this with all my heart: "With no exaggeration, your view of human nature is perhaps the most important view you hold. What we believe about the nature of humanity actually lies beneath our spiritual views, our political views, and even our aesthetic views. Our idea of human nature has a tremendous impact on how we participate in our world... What we believe about human nature is always the deepest script from which our expressed thoughts and actions are born." -- Ethan Nichtern
I have always felt uncomfortable with the idea of original sin! Like you Diana I have always believed that babies were born from love and were an expression of the love shared between two people. A man and a woman. As a teenager/uoung woman I was very much involved in our parish. I was a member of the folk group and the YCW as a youth leader. I lived and loved my Christian/Catholic faith and upbringing. But when news broke of the clerical abuse I became disillusioned, angry also sad. How dare they preach about original sin and moral values while all through the years the Vatican knew about and covered up the whole scandal! Worse still they moved the perpetrators on to other parishes only to be free to abuse more innocent children! Oh the hypocrisy of it all! It is the hypocrisy that forced me to leave and my faith?...irredeemable.
Raised with the Morning Prayer words in my mouth “There is no health in us”, I matured enough to reject that phrase as the most heretical of all Episcopal liturgical expressions. Matthew Fox’s “Original Blessing” was seminal in that respect. I’m very grateful to learn of the sermon in DC, which I want to find, and suggest that the furore over it, indicates attitudes of personalities who aren’t living by grace. Plenty of such attitudes exist throughout Hebrew/Christian Scriptures as well, written by humans from their lives and historical experience. “Inspired word of God”? If we have hearts and minds to recognize! Those in our world who act from hate, vengeance, violence have not known the love each of us needs from our births from the people in our lives. I’m no longer a theist, so leave “God” out of this. But, at least some of us have been formed by the love from the humans in our lives, to learn of the very real Goodness and Grace which for me lives, moves in our beings...what we indeed can breathe in with each breath, and then let flow out through our lives of loving whoever and however we can...what I learn in Yoga!
The student asked the master, “What is god?” The master replied, “God is the breath within the breath.”
Rest in that for a moment.