Center for Spiritual Living
I stumbled onto this church through a friend and have been fascinated by it ever since. It is a Religious Science denomination started by a man named Ernest Holmes. It's primary focus is to support the practice of living from Spirit. It takes the best of all religions and helps the individual find their own Spiritual path. There is no "preachiness" and services focus on helping the individual grow through their life challenges. Their actual words are: "Building a spiritual community that supports individual and world transformation." The services have real life substance and intellegent Spiritual guidance and no "you are damned unless you believe like we do."
It is amazing the number of people who attend this church - and it is huge! - who have run away from more traditional churches and religions gagging and shuttering. In this church the members are validated and encouraged to develop their own relationship with the Creator.
It is a bit distant for me to attend so I only occasionally will go to one of their services. However, they have a web link that allows people to watch the sermon each week and I will watch that a couple of times a month.
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Sunne,
I'm wondering how this church deals with the ongoing and very real problem of evil. Do they just ignore it? Think it away? I'm just curious.
Sunne
How do you make sense out of the fact that while the Center for Spiritual Living is huge (as you say) A Church like Mars Hill (which is certainly more fundamentalistic) is huger?
And both are located in the pagan center of the US - Seattle
I used to go to a religious science church that Kathyann was the minister. I point blank asked her what religious science thought of "evil". She said it was "negative thoughts". I then realized I had to leave that church as I had personally experienced real "evil"...spiritual darkness that I didn't have a name for that I can only describe as "demonic". I didn't want to believe it existed just as much as I didn't want to believe that Jesus was real. I couldn't deny either anymore and couldn't attend that church any longer as well.
This is not even a Christian church and technically shouldn't be included in this list.
"It takes the best of all religions and helps the individual find their own Spiritual path."
This is basically the most convenient and uninformed spiritual position someone could have and enjoys a mass appeal because it never requires anyone to make a choice and never requires anyone to actually put their faith in anything other than a convenient god. No wonder it got 5 stars.
John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
Judge not, that ye be not judged (Matthew 7:1). That's one of my favorite quotes from the Bible. Do you agree with that quote, thankgod? If so, how do you reconcile your take on this church ("uninformed" is pretty judge-y) with those words of Jesus?
Curiously and hopefully,
Matt
Be careful not to throw stones thankgod!
We as Christians do have to take the Matt's quote from the sermon on the mount very seriously. That we need to critique things not criticism them. A critique is a "a detailed analysis and assessment of something, esp. a literary, philosophical (or theological), or political theory." Whereas criticism is "a spoken or written opinion or judgment of what is wrong or bad about somebody or something." Critiques build stronger relationships, criticism builds division and strife.
For example, if I simply told you "Toyota sucks," and then went on to list the faults of Toyota. If you love Toyota products and have had a great experience with them. You would most likely brush me off, to the deficient of our friendship. That's criticism. If I told you, I'd do more research into buying Toyota because of the recent accelerator issues and how they don't let their employees create unions in some states. Then I showed you how a company like Mercedes-Benz, who treats their workers well and have an excellent safety rating. You might be more inclined to my position, with our friendship intact.
Have you ever looked into bounded set vs. centered set thinking when discussing evangelism, religious dialogue, or denominationalism?This little clip does a great job explaining the basics. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWqk1o6bDxA&feature=related
It's these kind of statements that make more and more bounded set kinds of thinking. And frankly if I was a member of a religious science community, I would walk away from the comment you wrote angry and mistreated. Why? Because its a straw man, you cannot boil an argument down to John 14:6, lest you quote the question. What does Thomas the great doubter ask, "5 Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" 6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Just telling someone Jesus is the way, would be like when I say to someone in North Carolina, Kansas is to the west. It may be a "true" statement, but I'm not embodying the "Truth" of Christ.
I have attended CSL and one of my favorite quotes by Kathianne Lewis regarding the nonsense of original sin and the requirement of fearful supplication before a Biblical vengeful God is: "We don't need to be saved - we've never been lost!"
Morbi: would you say that in CSL the Bible is considered the word of God...? I am curious as to whether people who think it is would "work well" at CSL.
This is utter feel-good foolishness. The Bible warns all through of people who will cloak what they do in fake trappings to make it resemble truth, and it's clear that's what this is.
I don't judge, because I have no power to condemn. Only the Father has that power. But I do call out evil when I see it, and this is deceitful and evil. If that seems to some to contravene the Bible's teachings about judging, all I have to say is that one of us is right and the other isn't, and God will judge. But God will judge, not just send out wonderful warm fuzzy thoughts and positive energy.
This pretty much sums up my #1 reason for not belonging to any church, especially Christian. Much as it is sugarcoated before people are fully sucked in, the over-riding premise is that the wages of sin is death and hell, and that heaven is only obtainable through the narrow eye of a needle, aka Jesus Christ.
In the end, I cannot accept the obvious contradiction that God is meciful, and omnipotent, and yet petty and vengeful. The God described by Christians seems to me to be an all-powerful child (childish). Throwing tantrums if he doesn't get his way. And I cannot accept that someone as all-knowing as that would stoop to such low levels of emotional blackmail.
Someone sin? Punish them and get over it already. Eternity of hell-fire, really? That's a pretty severe over reaction. If we were made in his own image, then why don't we have the same moral code? If I punished a child of mine "for an eternity" for anything, then I would hope that Child-Protection would be knocking at my door.
Thank-you, but I'll find my salvation elsewhere.
Free will is in this equasion, which is why the wages (or consequences) of sin is death. If you use the parent example, you cannot stop your child from stealing , and there are consequences for that which are put in place as punishment. If it goes on long enough, and the crimes get worse, there are additional and more severe consequences. You still love your child, but you also know they must pay for their crime, which they chose to do. And when you lump everyone together under the "christian" banner, you are not narrowing anything down. Yes, christians make mistakes and are deemed hyprocrites as a general rule, we are still people, and churches are made up of people who do not always choose to do the right thing, and who are not perfect, which is why we need salvatiion in the first place, as well as a body of believers to lift us up and pray and hold us accountable when we start heading down a wrong path or are just at a bad place in our lives.
I'm not saying that Christians are hypocrits, because there is are fair amount of hypocrasy everywhere, and it is hardly unique to Christianity. I believe that my statement is more fundumental than that, and the real indictment of Christianity, which is this: The Chistian definition of "God" is of a hypocrite. Not to be flip, but perhaps that is the true nature of "in Gods image".
I always hear Christians being apologists for their version of God, by bringing up the concept of "Free Will", as if that excuses what in any rational treatment of the subject amounts to blackmail to ensure obedience, and obscenely out of proportion punishment for those that fail to toe the line. And we are not talking about pure unadultrated evil here either. (Although even Hitler should be forgiven after he has suffered a punishment at least equal to the sum of all suffering that he caused). We are talking about people who live generally good and generous lives who according to Christian doctrine, will be cast into eternal flames for simply denying the divinity of Christ (Blasphemy).
Saying that that is somehow Just, just because we have been given Free Will and "could" have made the "right" choice, is to blind yourself to the whole human concept of justice, which should by all rights align with God's, since we are after all, created in his image.
The Christian definition of God is of a childish, petty, narcissistic God. Not a wise and just God, who wants what is best for his children. Someone with a compulsion to be worshipped and adored, and is willing to bully his children, and met out eternal punishment for those that fail to do so.
Connecting with others in a meaningful way is something that makes people feel good... you're not the only person, doylesrader, that has condemned what we're doing--and what we hope churches will do--as "feel good" stuff. What I don't understand is why anyone would be opposed to this kind of feel-good stuff.
Jesus did ask his followers to go into the world and make disciples of others. What do you think is a more effective means of creating disciples? Feel bad or feel good? Put another way, God's judgment or God's love? The latter might be derided as "feel good" but it's more in line with the teachings of Jesus, in this person's opinion anyway.
What do you think?
deleted, and would have deleted the other one had I been capable.
accidental double post...
to thankgod
Hi Sunne,
First off, thank you for returning after all this time. However I'm going to ask you to please bring over some of that virtue from The Center for Spiritual Living into this discussion. As much as you may have been hurt by the comments above, I also found some of your comments you just posted today offensive. It is the policy of our team to promote dialogue not debate. Dialogue creates friendships, debate (at least in our culture today) creates division and hatred. When you throw mud, you get your hands dirty and you lose ground. I also take anti-Catholicism very seriously, that kind of talk is not welcome here. Just as much as anti-semitism, anti-atheist, anti-Islamic talk is not welcome here. I've been trying to dialogue with the help of Matt Casper with the individuals who have been making these "belittling and critical posts." To help them understand how their position is not helping anyone. Without dialogue the mud slinging will never stop.
"A saint was once given the gift of speaking the language of the ants. He approached one, who seemed the scholarly type, and asked, “What is the Almighty like? Is he in anyway similar to the ant?”
Said the Ant scholar, “The Almighty? Certainly not! We ants, you see, have only one sting.
But the Almighty, he has two!”
Suggested post script:
When asked what heaven was like, the ant-scholar solemnly replied, “There we shall be just like Him, having two stings each, only smaller ones.”
A bitter controversy rages among religious schools of thought as to where exactly the second sting will be located in the heavenly body of the ant." -Fr. Anthony De Mello S.J.
It's a debate all to familiar, and something I often get caught up in myself. Please Sunne, work with me not to let this continue. Lets please return to the subject at hand, The Center For Spiritual Living.
Sunne, in your original rating you gave The Center For Spiritual Living 5 stars, but that was three years ago. Would you still give the center that rating today? What kind of work or social justice activities does the center do in your community? Does the center mostly include families, wisdom aged people (older), or young professionals? What are some specific and practical things you thing the center could do to improve?
are you under the impression that we have never seen or heard these bible passages before?
Just wondering, since you seem to think that by spelling them out it will have a greater impact on us?